The Collaboration between Arab Nationalism and the Nazis

Arabs adhered to Hitler’s propaganda, and even assisted him, especially the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al-Husseini (p. 345).

 

  • Arabs in general and the Grand Mufti in particular sympathized with Hitler and the Italian leader Mussolini. Haj Amin Al-Husseini fled Jerusalem in 1920 after being sentenced to ten years in prison for inciting violence against Jews. Just five months later, he returned after being granted a special pardon, and was then appointed Mufti of Jerusalem. There was a fond and cooperative relationship between him and the Nazis.

  • Al-Husseini incited and inflamed the masses by employing propaganda and religious fanaticism (p. 346). He did this while cooperating with the Nazis and the Fascists. Clear evidence of this can be found in documents from the Christian-American Committee which note that “hundreds of Arab operatives who received their salary from the Germans…”

 

  • In 1936, after the end the Arab revolt, Al-Husseini once again fled the Land of Israel and took refuge in Transjordan, Syria and Iraq, until 1941, when he was brought to Berlin by the Nazis. He then continued operating from various place in Germany and Italy. Al-Husseini’s cooperation with the Nazis included espionage, propaganda, the establishment of pro-Nazi Muslim units, training Arab agents as well as personal collaboration with the Jew’s biggest enemy Adolf Hitler (p. 348). Collaboration with Hitler included, apart from the friendship between the two, the coordination of the “Final Solution” (the extermination of all Jews). The Mufti Al-Husseini was directly responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews. Among other things, Al-Husseini intervened and persuaded countries such as Hungary to prevent Jewish children from immigrating to Israel, since the Arabs were important in the Nazi efforts (to exterminate and take control) (p. 349)

 

  • Simultaneously, the Mufti worked to persuade countries such as Germany, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania to keep their promise to “destroy…the Jewish national home”. This was done by sending Jews to extermination camps, in order to keep them from fleeing the country and immigrating to Israel (p. 355, 356).

 

After WW2 and the Holocaust, riots and pogroms in the Land of Israel continued, as the Arabs exploited the British government’s fears: “officers…quietly stood by as shops were set on fire and Jews attacked…” (p. 368). The Arabs attempted to cut off and isolate Jewish towns by cutting off water supplies and imposing a siege of the Tel-Aviv-Jerusalem road.

  • From November 1947 to May 1948, the riots took the lives of 6,000 Jews – both combatants and civilians (p. 368).