From Berlin to Jerusalem

The collaboration between National Socialism and Islamism has left a venomous legacy.


Clifford D. May
National Review Online
15 July '10
Posted before Shabbat

Last month, Sheikh Muhammad Hussein, the mufti of Jerusalem, called on Palestinians to defend the Al-Aqsa Mosque, which he said was “threatened by the plans of the enemies of God,” by which he meant Israelis.

It should go without saying that this is a lie. Israel poses no threat to Al-Aqsa, now or ever. On the contrary, Israelis have always recognized and respected Islamic sovereignty over Islamic religious sites within Israel — despite the fact that Jewish holy places have been desecrated by Palestinians, Jordanians, and others. The notion that the Israelis would raze Al-Aqsa to build a temple on its ruins — as the mufti has also claimed — is a ludicrous slander.

What should not go without saying is how serious it is that such an allegation has been leveled by Jerusalem’s senior Islamic religious authority. Under sharia, Islamic law, to be an “enemy of God” is to be the worst sort of criminal. Just a few weeks ago in Iran, five people were declared mohareb (enemies of God) — and then hanged.

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, must know all this. Yet he says nothing about it. Nor do most Western diplomats, politicians, and journalists.

Also overlooked is the historical context. In the 1930s, the mufti of Jerusalem was Haj Amin el-Husseini. He, too, despised Jews — there was not yet a state of Israel to despise. After participating in a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in 1941, Husseini moved to Berlin. There he became Hitler’s ally, the “most important public face and voice of Nazi Germany’s Arabic-language propaganda,” in the words of historian Jeffrey Herf, who adds: “Husseini was a key figure in finding common ideological ground between National Socialism, on the one hand, and the doctrines of Arab nationalism and militant Islam, on the other.”

(Read full article)

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