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Talk:Amin al-Husayni/Archive 1 Talk:Amin al-Husayni/Archive 2 /Archive 3

Has anyone actually read the Mufti's book?

Is there an English or Hebrew translation? I can't read Arabic. --Ravpapa (talk) 16:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Neither can I, but I console myself that most people in here can't read English either. E.g. I've been watching this passage for some months.

'wrote articles for the first new newspaper to be established in Palestine, Suriyya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria)'Nishidani (talk) 18:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

What are you hinting here ? Is this something about the article (i.e. that palestine was never an independent state and considered part of Syria ?) or is it something about the editors of the article ? If it is about the editors - please spare us the details - we would much rather focus on the subject of the article. Zeq (talk) 21:18, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

It's simply about the ability to read English and correct mistakes. Once the obvious mistake is corrected, then the sentence can be rewritten to correct the factual error. One cannot focus on the subject of an article if one is incapable of understanding the simplest elements of prose style and indifferent to facts. Nishidani (talk) 21:23, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

footnotes

I removed the missing footnotes banner, they are present 91.178.80.176 (talk) 16:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if we can focus on the disputes regarding this article

Now that most of the discussion has been archived, this space looks pretty peaceful. I am wondering if we can make a list of the points of dispute. This is what I remember:

1. The lead: should it say "National home blablabla" or "Jewish state"?
2. The first sentence of the section 1929 Palestine riots', specifically the explicit causal connection: "... al-Husayni's propaganda ... led to the 1929 Palestine riots, ..."
3. Evaluations of the Mufti's role in the 1929 riots, and specifically the position and validity of the Shaw commission.

Are there other specific areas of dispute that I have missed?

It is my impression that Nishidani has misgivings about the overall tenor of the article, specifically that it leaves the reader with a sense that the Mufti was and remains the hero of the Palestinian movement, the "Father of Palestinian Nationalism" (I am quoting myself from a previous post); and that this sense is incorrect and tends to taint the entire Palestinian movement with the stigma of Nazism. Nishidani, please confirm or correct.

Issues of overall tenor are hard to address, but if we can resolve all the textual issues, we might be on the way to removing the POV tag from the article. --Ravpapa (talk) 07:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, they are some of the salient points, and we can dispose of them rapidly if common sense and fidelity to standard methods prevail. You can add that a 'new newspaper' is not a particularly intelligent phrase, and that (contentwise) the passage containing it suggests the first Palestinian newspaper was published in 1919, when in fact the first Arabic paper, based in Haifa, came out in 1908. Nishidani (talk) 09:19, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Blanking of dubiously sourced info

The statement "al-Husayni is alleged to have said, 'I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!'" was sourced to Leonard Davis and M. Decter, published by the Near East Report. Near East Report is the publishing organ of AIPAC ("America's Pro-Israel Lobby"). Davis and Decter's book has virtually no documentation and no bibliography. It is a handbook for Israel lobbyists and activists, not a scholarly work. Midge Decter is a journalist, editorialist, and grand dame of America's neo-conservative movement. Leonard Davis (these days, he goes by Lenny Ben-David) was AIPAC's Director of Information until he accepted a post as Israel's Chief of Mission to the United States.

In summary, stop wasting our time with this crap, Armon. <eleland/talkedits> 23:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The information was restored with the addition of two references. The authors are an ultra-right talk-radio host and Internet columnist, and the esteemed author of "The complete idiot's guide to Jewish history and culture". That is closer to a willful insult than an attempt to address the serious lack of credibility attached to these allegations.

A simple question: when and where did al-Husayni say this? Where was it originally published or broadcast? The random "Masada 2000"-type websites which repeat it (often in variant phrasings) seem to agree it was in a Berlin propaganda broadcast, but are divided between 1941, 1942, and 1944. (Some date it to 1947 in Jerusalem, oddly.) The fact that nobody seems to know the details, or agree on the wording, points to an historical fabrication. <eleland/talkedits> 01:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Just because information does not come through the official, elitist, anti-Jewish, "nothing is more evil than colonialism", leftist establishment does not mean it is not true. al-Husayni was a virulent anti-semite and a hatter of Jews. These facts you can not deny.Johnpacklambert (talk) 03:58, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

4 points: 1) The sentence clearly says "alleged". 2) Arguing with the sources like this is WP:OR based on a genetic fallacy 3) WP:V "verifiability not truth" and finally 4) Despite all that, if the quote was in fact "out of character" in any way, I'd be more inclined to agree with you. The guy was a Nazi collaborator and he said the same things in his Berlin radio broadcasts. <<-armon->> 02:15, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

1) The sentence clearly says "alleged", without making it clear that the allegations are made by unreliable partisans. 2a) Evaluation of source reliability and notoriety is a central task of Misplaced Pages editors and does not constitute original research. 2b) Your link to genetic fallacy is confusing at best. Please explain yourself more specifically. 3) Your link to WP:V is confusing, since you are quoting the pithy catch-phrase without explaining how it applies, or acknowledging that:

• All quotations and any challenged material should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.
• Sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking or which rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions should be avoided.
• Surprising or apparently important claims that are not widely known should be supported by multiple reliable sources, especially regarding historical events or politically charged issues.

4) We all know he was an anti-Semitic fascist, but the statement "he said the same things in his Berlin radio broadcasts" is proof by assertion. If credible sources quote him saying the same thing, give us the credible sources and you can shut us up. <eleland/talkedits> 04:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Look eleland, the quote is cited and verifiable in that sense. Your theories about the sources' motivations and/or bias and especially your theory that it a fabrication is irrelevant unless you have evidence to back it up. <<-armon->> (talk) 21:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure that antisemite and fascist are the right terms. Particularly the second one.
Idith Zertal, in Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood considers he would be better painted as a nationalist-religious fanatic.
NB: concerning quotes about the Mufti alleged antisemitism (or extremist views), many have been gathered here : .
Ceedjee 08:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, "anti-Semite" (or "antisemite") seems to be a reasonable conclusion. At the very least, he was willing to exploit anti-Semitic sentiments for his own purposes - both Arab antisemitism and Nazi antisemitism. If there's active debate on the subject we should summarize those opinions, with attribution, rather than trying to settle it ourselves. "Fascist" I'm not qualified to say. Maybe it's a blind spot but "fascist", "national-religious fanatic", etc all seem to blur together for me. Then again I have a hard time distinguishing the policies of some European national-conservative parties from fascism, so what do I know. <eleland/talkedits> 23:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Only on WP could we have an argument that a Nazi might not be an antisemite (rolling eyes) <<-armon->> (talk) 21:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. And we are on wp. That is the problem.

As far as I know, all we could say is that he is pictured as an antisemite but I never found reliable sources (ie historians) who claim he was antisemite while eg Tom Segev in One Palestine, Complete tag several British soldiers as antisemite. Ceedjee (talk) 18:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

But he wasn't a Nazi, at least not in the sense of being an NSDAP member. He was an ally of the Nazis who recruited Bosniak fighters against Communist partisans and attempted to secure German & Italian support for Arab revolution against Britain. That's roughly the same moral calculus that the Western powers made in allying with Stalin. One has to consider the "My enemy's enemy is my friend" factor here before just shouting "He was a Nazi!", which is proof by assertion. Maybe he was a Nazi and maybe he wasn't, but we aren't going to learn the truth by privileging wartime propaganda from the Haganah over scholarly sources.

As far as I can see, nobody has yet addressed the specific issues, namely the apparently serious flaws in the sourcing of the "Murder them all" quote, the "Kill the Jews wherever you find them" quote, and the "poison powder" claim. <eleland/talkedits> 20:00, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

al-Husayni did request to join the Nazi party. He was closer to being a Nazi than any neo-Nazi ever has been.Johnpacklambert (talk) 04:12, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Is "M. Decter" supposed to be the famous Midge Decter? AnonMoos (talk) 14:17, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

More dubious sources

Well, the heading says "dubious", but that's a euphemism. The source is in fact blatantly unreliable. Moshe Pearlman, who "has directed Israel's information services and advised Premier David Ben-Gurion on public affairs" , writing about the Palestinians' leader during the immediate run-up to the Jewish-Arab civil war in Palestine, doesn't get to put words in Husayni's mouth, thank you very much. <eleland/talkedits> 04:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• here is a quote from a latter the Mufti wrote to the Germans asking them to elminate the "Jewish national homeland in Palestine" Zeq 07:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

But that's a completely different quote. It isn't even an anti-Jewish quote. It's anti-Zionism. It's something a mainstream rabbi could have said in 1939! <eleland/talkedits> 07:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Eleland, I think you are confusing "reliable" with "biased". No one argues that Pearlman is a biased source. But, while many dispute the conclusions Pearlman reaches, I don't think anyone has challenged the facts that appear in his analysis. WP:Reliable Sources defines a reliable source as:

• The material has been thoroughly vetted by the scholarly community. This means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals.
• Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are preferred.
• Items that are signed are more reliable than unsigned articles because it tells whether an expert wrote it and took responsibility for it.

Pearlman is all of those things. His books have undergone rigourous review by the scholarly community, and are often quoted in other scholarly works. Indeed, some of his books are considered important source material for any study of some of the subjects he dealt with.

If our article had quoted Pearlman in stating a conclusion about the Mufti - for example, stating that the Mufti was an antisemite - I would certainly agree that the quote would have to be accredited in the text, and not only in the footnote. However, adding the accreditation here suggests that you doubt that the Mufti actually said what he is quoted as saying. Such a challenge of fact seems unwarranted and would have to be supported by some indication that Pearlman fabricated facts that appear in his books - something I would be interested in seeing if you have such evidence.

Here is another example: Edward Said had a clear and openly stated bias about Middle Eastern affairs. But no one questions the quality of his scholarship, and to bracket statements of fact from Said's writings with comments such as you have added would be inappropriate. --Ravpapa 07:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Those are valid arguments, but I will need objective evidence about Pearlman's work before I can accept them. At least in the English language, he seems to be fairly obscure, and his work Mufti of Jerusalem not widely cited since the 1950s. He was a journalist and author but not a trained scholar. Phillip Mattar, Executive Director of the (pro-PLO, but respected) Institute for Palestine Studies, states that "The biographers of the Mufti ... often told us more about themselves than about him. They were written by Jewish nationalists, such as Moshe Pearlman ... who attempted to villify him and discredit his movement ... The accounts were so polemical that the historical al-Husayni and the movement he led were scarcely discernible."

In summary, all we verifiably know about him is that he was a Haganah spokesman and a public relations adviser to Ben Gurion. Please support your assertions. <eleland/talkedits> 07:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Your response suggests that you are unfamiliar with Pearlman's work. He wrote at least 20 books on various subject concerning the Middle East, including one of the most important biographies of Ben Gurion. He served in senior roles in the Israeli government for 40 years, and is therefore not only an important chronicler of events, but also a first-hand source of primary importance. His works are cited frequently in scholarly journals (a quick Google search will find reviews of his work in journals published by Oxford University, University of Chicago, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but there are surely more). His work is cited in two doctoral theses I am now reading on the Mufti.

None of the references I have read have cast aspersions on the validity of his data, though some do disagree with his point of view.

If the quote in question were out of character for the Mufti, if it were the only existing instance of a documented antisemitic statement, I would perhaps agree with your reticence to accept it as fact. But, as you well know, the Mufti himself made no secret of his views, and the quote in question is just one of many well-documented quotes on the subject.

I would like to take this issue a step further. Your edits appear to some extent to be an attempt to excise evidence of the Mufti's radicalism from the article. Nishidani at one point argued that the article (I am paraphrasing, Nishidani, please correct me if I am wrong) appeared to him to be an attempt to blacken the entire Palestinian national movement by presenting the Mufti as (a) a viscious antisemite and Nazi, and (b) the undisputed founder and leader of Palestinian nationalism. The first is true, but the second is not. Throughout his career, the Mufti, while the most visible of the Palestinian leaders, was always the subject of bitter opposition, and never enjoyed unchallenged popular support.

If we wish to avoid the impression that the article is slandering Palestinian nationalism, the way to do this is not by obfuscating the Mufti's positions, but by showing that they were not representative of the Palestinian national movement. The article makes almost no mention of this - for example, of the opposition of the Nashashibis, of Kawkji, of Abdullah. There are many Palestinian nationalists who have rejected the Mufti's pro-Nazi and antisemitic views, even while admiring the Mufti's dedication to his people.

In summary, the way to make the article balanced and informative is not to remove facts which might be offensive, but to add material which puts the life of the Mufti into a wider and more representative context. --Ravpapa 11:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree completely with Ravpapa. <<-armon->> (talk) 22:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I am not familiar with Lieutenant Colonel Pearlman's work, which is why I asked for evidence. I am of course aware that he wrote a large number of books, the best known being his biographical retrospective on Ben Gurion and his book on the trial of Eichmann. I have done the Google searches. I didn't find the information you're referencing. I found plenty of criticisms of Pearlman. He is often classed alongside the notorious fabricator Joseph Schechtman as someone who aimed to discredit al-Husayni. Even more sympathetic profilers agree that he tended toward rhetoric and appeal to emotion and wore his Zionist sympathies on his sleeve. In any case, he is one source, from 60 years ago in the midst of a civil war against Husayni's side. He states that Husayni made this statement in a Berlin Radio propaganda broadcast. Since the British and Americans would have been recording all such broadcasts for intelligence purposes, why is Pearlman the only person who seems to know about it?

One more interesting thing I found in my Google searches: The question of a very similar alleged Mufti quote from Pearlman was discussed in an ArbCom case, where one user identified it as "the core of the dispute". The users who kept trying to insert it were "cautioned to avoid using propagandistic sources". Hmmm... <eleland/talkedits> 12:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Do I understand from this post that you consider the claim that the Mufti was antisemitic and a Nazi to be a fabrication? --Ravpapa 14:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

He was made the equivalent of General in SS. How could he not be a Nazi?:::

I can't speak to what you may or may not understand, but it's not relevant to this discussion, which is about the reliability of a specific source for a specific quotation. <eleland/talkedits> 14:59, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

In Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood , Idith Zertal explain how the Mufti has been exagerately pictured as antisemite. So, the answer to your question (Ravpapa) is indeed that this image has been, at least partly, fabricated. Ceedjee (talk) 18:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I suspect you're right, but the real issue here is whether we can use a Haganah spokesman's propaganda tract from 1947, or an AIPAC's propaganda tract (they literally distribute it by the caseload), to put words in Husayni's mouth. If these quotes are documented and verifiable, there should be better sources available. <eleland/talkedits> 20:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

My mind on this issue is that wp can introduce the controversy around Mufti's antisemitism. In that context and only in that one, could all these quotes be given.

So :

• if we jsut want to state that the Mufti was antisemite : no.
• if we develop the controversy around the image of the Mufti in Israeli historiography : yes.

Ceedjee (talk) 20:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we should stick to discussing the mufti as viewed by sources. If there are sources - academic sources - who show his antisemitism we should have that. He aligned with the Nazis and his whole life worked against the jews - this is enouigh to call someone an antisemite. here are some academic data on the subject: http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/studies/vol35/Mallmann-Cuppers2.pdf

The view that Israel distorts the mufti image is that of a small group - not worthy of an enclopedic mention, most of the are here : http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n4p11_Okeefe.htmlZeq (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

(outdent)

Why are we getting into this kind of a discussion? I raised objections to two specific quotes from two specific sources. I still haven't gotten any halfway convincing or even relevant answers. People are talking now about the broad sweep of al-Husayni's life and views. What about the two quotes and the sources? <eleland/talkedits> 04:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Ceedjee: I am familiar with Idit Zertal's book, and I personally tend to agree with it. The Mufti is portrayed in Pearlman's book as a virulent antisemite. Pearlman, for example, pretty much ignores all the quotes where the Mufti explicitly distinguishes between Zionists, who come to evict him from his country, and all Jews.

But Zertal's book is a challenge to Pearlman's conclusions and premise, not to the quality of his scholarship. Zertal does not contend that Pearlman fabricates quotes, only that he presents only one side of the story.

There are two sides to this story. Both sides have been presented by reliable scholars who disagree. That is legitimate. The contention that Pearlman is not a reliable source according to Misplaced Pages standards for reliability is entirely an ad hominem argument, and not based on serious academic challenges to the quality of his scholarship. Nobody here has even seriously questioned whether the Mufti actually said the things he is quoted as saying - they have deleted the quote only because they do not like the political position or history of the person who wrote the book. The rejection of Pearlman as a reliable source because of his involvement in Israeli politics is like rejecting Churchill's account of World War II because he was prime minister at the time.

The rather bizarre consequence of the excision of quotes by Eliland and others is that this article on the Mufti - who spent his life publishing his views in speech and in writing - contains almost no quotes from the man himself. --Ravpapa (talk) 11:09, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

£Zertal refers to the israeli historiography and even sociology as a whole.

she just points out how the Mufti has been exagerately (and falsely) pictured as antisemite.

Among those who did so is Pearlman (she doen't cite or quote him).

But his collaboration to this process is the reason why Pearlman is not a reliable source to talk about the Mufti, given he collaborated on the building of this false image.

This is not a controversy between Pearlman and Zertal. This is a study of Zertal on Pearlman and his peers. So this is exactly what is needed for wp to prevent the use of Pearlman as a source. A scholar study taht states he is not reliable. To use this, we should find recent scholars who still defend this analysis of the ferously antisemite Mufti. (I wrote scholars).

So we should only use more recent analysis made out of this difficult context of the difficult making of Israel at the beginning of its existence.

Mattar and Elpeleg also talks about Mufti's fanatism and use of political violence that could be assimilated to antisemitism. Ceedjee (talk) 07:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Ceedjee (talk) 07:39, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that you and I are saying pretty much the same thing. We agree that the Mufti's portrayal as an antisemite was exaggerated. We agree that Pearlman's conclusions and premises are one-sided. Pearlman supports this premise by choosing to present certain evidence (quotes of the Mufti saying nasty antisemitic things) and to ignore other evidence (quotes of the Mufti stating policies and positions which clearly distinguish between Jews and Zionists).

What that means to me is that we should not rely solely on Pearlman as an analysis of the Mufti's character. We should look to other sources - for example, Taggar's book (The Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Arab Politics 1930 - 1937) - to balance the picture.

But we are not talking here about presenting Pearlman's conclusions and premises. We are talking about citing a specific quote. No one that I know of has accused Pearlman of falsifying information to make his point. No one has accused him of being unreliable in his presentation of facts.

Moreover, if you accept Zertal's attack, why do you exempt scholars who wrote after her from unreliability? Plenty of current scholars (for example, Mallman and Cuppers) continue to contend that the Mufti was antisemitic. Should we discount their work also?

Controversy is part of life in academia. You don't just axe an entire branch of scholarship just because someone writes a book with a different slant. By Misplaced Pages's standards for a reliable source, which I cited above in this thread, there is no question that Pearlman is a reliable source. --Ravpapa (talk) 13:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Zertal does not attack anybody. Why do you picture her as doing so ? She is not Pappé and if you didn't find people who attacked Pearlman, I never read anything but positive reception concerning Zertal work (in comparison eg with Finkelstein's one on the same matter...)

That is a false symetry.

There is a second false symetry. I agree that controversy is part of life in academia.

But here, we don't have a controversy. We have a worked made in the past that is analysed to be false by current scholar with nobody -as far as I know- criticizing this. I mean : what Zertal writes about Mufti picturing is not controversed. With your parallelism we would have to use Galileo or even Ptolemee thesis in the astronomy articles.

If there is a controversy, it can be with more recent scholars. I don't have anything against this. On the contrary, that is a good solution.

For this subjet, I still think that Pearlman can be quoted but only as an illustration of Zerthal thesis about the way the Mufti is pictured. The article of Cuppers can be used to illustrate that even today, some scholars still go on considering the Mufti was a virulent antisemite or unless we can find a majority of current scholars -aware of Zertal work- stating that the Mufti was an virulent antisemite.

I don't state these doesn't exist but I didn't find them after 2 years being careful to take care to note anything precise on that subject.

Who are the scholar who today in 2008 would state that the Mufti was a virulent antisemite ?

Ceedjee (talk) 15:37, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

allied with hitler

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php here is a picture of him together with adolf hitler —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.250.171.134 (talk) 17:26, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Very dubiously sourced chemical warfare claim

All the details here about chemical attacks on Tel Aviv's water supply seem to track back to Bar-Zohar and Haber's The Quest for the Red Prince. Our citation is to Benyamin Korn at the David Wyman institute, who just tells us that "The details of their mission were first revealed in the 1983 book", then explains what Red Prince says. Wyman himself, as well as Wyman institute director Rafael Medoff seem to repeat the claim wherever they can (such as here in the organ of Israel's extremist religious settler community.) Alan Dershowitz actually claims that the wells were poisoned successfully and that the squad was under Husayni's direct command (maybe he parachuted in?). Yisrael Medad, a settler spokesman from the "Menachem Begin Heritage Center" said in a Jerusalem Post op-ed that Husyani "encouraged Arab agents to parachute into Mandate territories to poison the water." Etc, etc. Usually there's no source cited, but when a source is given, it's always Red Prince or Wyman repeating from Red Prince.

Here's how Korn describes Red Prince's authors:

Michael Bar-Zohar, a biographer of Ben-Gurion and Labor Party Knesset Member, and Eitan Haber, a journalist who became Yitzhak Rabin's closest aide and speechwriter when Rabin became prime minister.

Here's some of what Michael Rubner, a Professor Emeritus, of International Relations at Michigan State University said about Red Prince:

Because the book does not contain footnotes and lacks a bibliography, the reader is left to wonder about the identity and veracity of the sources on which this account is based.

This exceptional claim is supported by sources which are not only not exceptional, but not even reliable. I've noticed that it's also mentioned on (Collaboration during World War II#Arabs, Chemical warfare#World War II, and Violence in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict#WW2 and prior to formation of State of Israel. Is somebody on a campaign here? <eleland/talkedits> 20:44, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. you. Ceedjee (talk) 09:56, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Before continuing with Personal attacks let's focus on what acdemic good sources tell us about him. Melman Kuppers describe him as anti-semite. This is enough for me. They are historians. Zeq (talk) 10:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

A Google search on "Melman Kuppers" provides no results whatsoever. There is a distinct danger of the encyclopedia being contaminated by references that are worthless. And that's even before the well-known smear by which critics of Israel are labelled anti-semitic with no evidence whatsoever. PR 22:07, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

This kind of pithy "non-responsive response" seems to indicate that you have no valid case for keeping the information besides the fact that you don't like al-Husayni. Or Palestinians generally? <eleland/talkedits> 19:48, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Geez, guys, let's try to keep on the subject here! We are talking about this chemical warfare claim. Keep the comments on that, hey?

This story, as repeated here and on David Wyman's website is really pretty unbelievable. Sabotage squads parachuted into Palestine? and landing in Jericho? Carrying a white powder that was later tested in a laboratory? Flitting about in parachutes was not done a lot in the Middle East in those days, as far as I know. Tactically, it wouldn't make a lot of sense - coming in by boat would be a lot simpler. Poisoning of water supplies was not, to the best of my knowledge, a terrorist method used in WWII. In fact, I don't think it has been used successfully anywhere in the world ever (I ignore cases of throwing dead animals into open wells). As far as I know, there were no forensic laboratories in Palestine in 1942, and precious little of any other kind of laboratory either.

The whole story, and the way it is told on Wyman's website, has the ring of fiction about it.

I think we should look for a contemporary or academic source for this story (maybe local newspapers? Davar? Palestine Post?) before using it. --Ravpapa (talk) 06:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

The source is Bar Zohar who doesn't give his own indeed. And ?

It will stay in the article until somebody proves it is false as per wp:rules or until a specialist on the topic warns us it is not true.

You guys who doen't know anything about the topic but only come to direct topics in function of the current palestinian-israeli conflict should be kept far away from wikipedia.

Ceedjee (talk) 09:53, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

NB I just noticed that user:Ian Pitchford just corrected the article and didn't remove this information. That is enough for me. The case is close. Ceedjee (talk) 10:00, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

First, would you mind making an extra effort to write in clear English? I don't understand what your first sentence is meant to say.

Secondly, would you mind making an extra effort not to impugn the motives and insult the intelligence of your fellow editors?

Thirdly, simply rephrasing an obscure claim as an "allegation" or an "according to X, ..." may make it verifiably true, but it doesn't avoid the problem of putting WP:UNDUE weight on a possibly malicious claim from a quite obscure source. There are plenty of conspiracy theories about, say, Arik Sharon, but we don't stuff his biography full of them, either in "Sharon is an alien" form or in "According to Bob Crackpot, Sharon is an alien" form. If it's a significant claim relative to al-Husayni's life as a whole we can include it, even if it's false, but we need information about its significance. There is a lot of below-the-radar-screen chatter on blogs and partisan websites, and it should stay below the radar. <eleland/talkedits> 17:47, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know the details but the basic story is generally held to be true. I understand the British intelligence report on the interrogation of two members of the sabotage team appears in The Arab War Effort: A Documented Account, New York, 1947, pp. 43-46. --Ian Pitchford (talk) 12:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, Korn seems to think that "the details were first revealed" in 1983. Anyways I hope somebody has access to that source so we can see what it says. I still don't think that Red Prince filtered second-hand through Korn is a good enough source for a claim like this, especially when some of the details seem outlandish on first glance. This claim appears to be fairly obscure and not much discussed in the scholarly literature, although I have found it repeated in a number of partisan sources (Dershowitz, Washington Times, etc). It may be notable enough to mention but, at the same time, if historians don't take it seriously, we should not appear to take it seriously either. I'm just asking for verification that the basic story really is generally held to be true - not to mention verification that the Mufti had anything whatsoever to do with it. <eleland/talkedits> 17:38, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

And it has been answered Bar Zohar is a reliable source. Ceedjee (talk) 18:24, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Why do you persist in this? I've already pointed out that Bar Zohar's work was specifically criticized by academics "Because the book does not contain footnotes and lacks a bibliography, the reader is left to wonder about the identity and veracity of the sources on which this account is based," while you're just shouting "NUH-UH". This is not wikiality, we really do use policies and have discussion rather than just playing ostrich. <eleland/talkedits> 18:29, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

A scholar criticized a book of Bar Zohar because he didn't give his sources but he didn't write what Bar Zohar stated was false.

change - the - tone - you - are - writing - to - me.

change your tone ! Ceedjee (talk) 18:33, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Medoff's paper - already cited - can be used as the source for this. --Ian Pitchford (talk) 19:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Medoff's letter to The Journal of Israeli History (published as "communications" rather than a full article) was in 1996; Medoff's colleague at the Wyman Institute states that "The details of their mission were first revealed in the 1983 book 'The Quest for the Red Prince'", and the name "Fayiz Bey Idrissi" given in Red Prince does not appear in any source that I can find except Red Prince, Korn's web posting, and a bunch of Misplaced Pages mirrors. The original source is Red Prince and it's unreliable. <eleland/talkedits> 19:19, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

You're mistaken. Medoff's contribution is a fully referenced paper on pages 317-333 of The Journal of Israeli History. I have it in front of me. Medoff cites the 1947 reprint of the Britsh intelligence report as his source. --Ian Pitchford (talk) 19:48, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

OK. I was going off the table of contents available at the journal's website, which seemed to label it as "communications." Does he say substantially the same thing as what we already have (esp. wrt the Mufti's role)? <eleland/talkedits> 19:58, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

1920

Mufti was sentenced to 10 years emprisonment after Nebi Musa riots. But I cannot find what he did exactly. (There are many references to what Aref al-Aref and Musa Qassem Husseini did) but what did the Mufti ? Ceedjee (talk) 10:00, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

The Palestine Police Force referred to these events as the "Jabotinsky riots"! --Ian Pitchford (talk) 12:55, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure ? Isn't something different that would have taken place 1 year earlier  ? Ceedjee (talk) 13:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Since you have requested the quote, here is one: "While a teacher in the Rashidiya school in Jerusalem, Haj Amin had incited the crowds during the Nabi Musa riots of 1920..." (Howard Sachar A History of Israel..., p. 170). Beit Or 13:31, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Jabotinsky was sentenced to 15 years for his role in organising Zionist demonstrations before Nebi Musa and for organising an armed militia. Both Zionists and Palestinian nationialists were trying to provoke incidents to their own advantage. --Ian Pitchford (talk) 14:04, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Off topic, Ian. Beit Or 14:23, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Ian just gives more information. Nothing more. Ceedjee (talk) 14:29, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Beit Or.
I didn't really asked a quote but more information in fact.
Never mind. Let's keep this that way in the article. Ceedjee (talk) 14:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

According to E. Elat (Haj Amin el Husseini, Ex Mufti of Jerusalem (Tel Aviv 1968)), Hussayni was convicted by a secret military court of violation of paragraphs 32, 57, and 63 of the Ottoman code - all of which have to do with incitement to riot. Proceedings of the hearings - which were held with Hussayni himself in absentia - were never published.

Sir Robert Storrs, then Military Governor of Jerusalem, wrote, "The immediate fomenter of the Arab excesses had been one Haj Amin al Husseini... like most agitators, having incited the man in the street to violence and probable punishment, he fled." (Storrs, Orientations London 1937 p 388, cited in Taggar, The Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Arab Politics 1930 - 1937 (Garland Publishing, 1986)).

Hussayni at the time was active in the Nadi al Arabi, an early nationalist organization, which British officials felt was instrumental in inciting the violence. --Ravpapa (talk) 14:49, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

Thank you very much Ravpapa ! :-)

Ceedjee (talk) 18:21, 9 December 2007 (UTC)

You've neglected to mention that Sir Robert Ronald Storrs was a puppet of the immigrants (who, at this stage, were still only some 10% of the population).

The Palin Report of 1920 (apparently suppressed because of Zionist Commission objections) p.32 tells how the Mayor of Jerusalem, Musa Kazim Pasha al-Husseini, had been present at a demonstration in March 1920. There is no evidence of what he acually did (much like the secret conviction of Husayni, in fact), but "the Zionists strongly resented his action, with the result that a letter was sent to him directly, signed by Mr David Yellin, head of the Zionist Commission in Palestine, practically dismissing him from his post". Subsequently al-Husseini was dismissed "without inquiry by Colonel Storrs, the Military Governor of Jerusalem" which "had a profound effect on his co-religionists, definitely confirming the conviction they had already formed from other evidence that the Civil Administration was the mere puppet of the Zionist Organization." Later, Storrs defended the sacking of the mayor to the new Zionist High Commissioner Herbert Samuel, saying that the Mayoralty of Jerusalem "is a two years office"; Storrs had appointed the ex-mayor in January 1918 and "every consideration had been accorded him but there had never been any question of retaining him over the statutory period". Storrs Papers, Pembroke College, Cambridge, Box no. III/2, Jerusalem 1920-1. (Cited Huneidi, "A Broken Trust", 2001).

Storrs being a puppet was unusual, because most of the rest of the military were profoundly irritated by the Zionists. eg Major General Bols, the last of the three military administrators, wrote (amongst much else) "that the Jewish idea of fair treatment implied treatment which was fair to the Jews, but not necessarily to the other party, and that his own authority and that of every department of his administration 'was impinged upon by the Zionist Commission'". This state of affairs could not continue "without grave danger to the public peace" and without being detrimental to his administration. The Zionists were "bent on committing the temporary Military Administration to a partialist policy before the issue of the Mandate". It was "impossible to please partisans who officially claim nothing more than a National Home but in reality will be satisfied with nothing less than a Jewish State". "It is no use stating to the Moslem and Christian elements of the population that our declaration as to the maintenance of the 'status quo' made on our entry into Jerusalem, has been observed. Facts witness otherwise, the introduction of the Hebrew tongue as an official language, the setting up of a Jewish judicature, the whole fabric of Government of the Zionist Commission of which they are well aware, the special privileges given as regards travelling and movement to members of the Zionist Commission, has firmly and absolutely convinced the non-Jewish elements of our partiality

Some of the above may belong in this article - but given the way it's already been hi-jacked - and in particular, the failure of admins to defend scholarship, I can't see the point of a bad tempered battle. I'm already muzzled and facing an indefinite block for attempting to put good information into the project. PR 12:13, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Isnt it Ronald Storrs instead of Robert Storrs" ?

Tom Segev doesn't picture him the same way as you do.

Ceedjee (talk) 12:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

You're right, it is Roland Storrs, that's my transcription error. Storrs was a second-tier figure compared with the two main targets of the Zionist Commission, Bols and Allenby. As Military Governor of Jerusalem, Storrs was in charge where the trouble broke out. He seems to have taken instructions from Weizmann and to have been a personal friend of the Russian revolutionary Jabotinsky. The latter, unlike Husayni, appears to have been actually guilty of something he knew to be illegal. If we're looking to improve the encyclopedia, you must tell me what Segev says about him. PR 16:00, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Ronald, not Roland !

Segev pictures him as a pro-British man who had sympathy for Zionism but less for Zionists leaving in Palestine and particularly the Zionist Commission (and so Weizmann).

He also says he had some admiration for Jabotinsky but that didn't prevent him from forbiding that he organised an armed militia.

Ceedjee (talk) 19:38, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The Palin report and government papers of the time make it appear that Jabotinsky was embarked on a Bolshevik-style revolutionary process, and Ronald Storrs (sorry) had allowed him to build and train a small army, with guns. Storrs refused his goons official status for the first 2 days of the riots, then gave it to them. This attitude in quite stark contrast to the rest of the British military, which (at least once he'd been convicted) wanted Jabotinsky locked up for a very long time. Did Segev really accuse him of being pro-British? That would be a surprise! You must admit that dismissing the Arab mayor of Jerusalem, apparently at the behest of the immigrants (with no evidence against him that we know of) is quite breathtakingly partisan. PR 00:09, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Why was this sourced section removed ?

The Mufti was in Berlin during the war, but later denied knowing of the Holocaust. Defendants at the Nuremberg trials, including Adolf Eichmann's deputy Dieter Wisliceny, accused him of having actively encouraged the extermination of European Jews. Eichmann himself enjoyed spreading what became known as the Sarona legend, according to which he was on intimate terms with al-Husseini. This testimony was subsequently dismissed as without factual basis by the court examining the issue during Eichmann's trial in Jerusalem. 'The trial revealed only that all rumours about Eichmann's connection with Haj Amin el Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, were unfounded. (He had been introduced to the Mufti during an official reception, along with all other department heads).'. It should be noted that some recent research, however, apparently argues that al-Husayni did work with Eichmann for the despatch of a special corps of Einsatz commandos to exterminate the Jews in Palestina, if Rommel managed to break through the British lines in Egypt. Zeq (talk) 22:29, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

This is indeed a strange destructive removal, apparently camouflaged as a "clean-up". An important source like Hannah Arendt should of course not be removed. What makes it even worse that it has been replaced by an attempt to brand al-Husayni rather than Adolf Hitler as the 'initiator' and 'instigator' of the holocaust on the Jews in Europe. As if Hitler needed Husayni to hate the Jews! Too ridiculous to be discussed seriously. Paul kuiper NL (talk) 17:36, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

This paragraph is awfully written and relies largely on an unreliable source (Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution,) and a non-specialist (Hannah Arendt). By contrast, the cleaned-up version is sourced to Bernard Lewis, one of the leading scholars on the Middle East. The last sentence ("It should be noted that some recent research...") is still there and still needs unweaseling. Beit Or 17:46, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes. I understand also upon 2nd reading the version without it is by far more NPOV. I restored it. Zeq (talk) 10:57, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

It is obvious that this recent edit war is merely destructive. For one thing, it is well-known that Wisliceny`s statement about a connection between the Mufti and Eichmann was completely refuted at the Eichmann trial. The essential quote from Hannah Arendt`s Eichmann in Jerusalem:

"The trial revealed only that all rumours about Eichmann's connection with Haj Amin el Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, were unfounded. (He had been introduced to the Mufti during an official reception, along with all other department heads)."

is, of course, indispensable. And removing it seems to be just an attempt to falsify history for political reasons. Moreover, even if the the Wisliceny statement would heve been correct, to my knowledge it could not be used for claiming that the genocide on Jews in Europe was initiated by the Mufti rather than by Adolf Hitler as we all know it was. Labelling al-Husayni twice as the 'instigator' and the 'initiator' of the holocaust in Europe is really pathetic and an obvious forgery.

If such methods were to be accepted on the part of one-sided anti-Palestinian zealots who are obvously bent on maligning and vilifying al-Hussainy as much as possible, we should also accept the opposite on the part of some who take the opposite view, and could possibly remove the whole page or at least any reference to the Mufti`s collaboration with Germany.

@Beit Or, I am surprised that you are missing obvious chances in your drive to make the Mufti look like the source of all evil in the world. Why don`t you write that A. Hitler never existed, and that really the Mufti was in charge of Nazi-Germany? Of course, you should not make it too explicit, but somewhat concealed. To give you a suggestion, why don`t you insert this paragraph:

"There is not yet decisive consensus among scholars on the likelihood that Adolf Hitler was really a non-existent person, and merely a figment created by al-Husayni. While it seems certain that al-Husayni initiated and led the holocaust on millions of Jews in Europe, it cannot be ruled out that Hitler may also really have existed, and was, in a position subordinate to the Mufti, eagerly carrying out his orders."

Isn`t this a valuable tip-off for your efforts? Of course, responsible editors will continue to remove the nonsense, and aspire to keep the article serious. Paul kuiper NL (talk) 13:52, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

When did Hannah Arendt become the end all and be all of history? Why believe Eichman in 1961 over Wisliceny just after the war? Eichmann was in Israel, and knew that things would go worse for him if he admitted association with al-Husayni.Johnpacklambert (talk) 04:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hannah Arendt is not a historian, citing her opinions on a historical issue is hardly appropriate. However, if you only added her to the scholars of scholars questioning Wisliceny's claims, that would be one thing, but you're restoring a badly written version that relies on unreliable sources. Your claim that the current version presents Wisliceny's testimony as fact does not hold water; I have the impression that you never even read it. Your suggestion to deny Hitler's existemce is basically trolling, a blockable offense. Beit Or 18:43, 16 December 2007 (UTC)

I am tired of arguing the obvious, and I make only one further comment: you use the words "initiator of the final solution" and "instigator of the holocaust" for the Mufti while you fail to mention any serious source for this weird claim that not Hitler but the Mufti did this. At the same time you delete the important fact that the Eichmann trial showed there was no connection at all. Paul kuiper NL (talk) 01:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I am tired of you claiming Arendt is the be all and end of on the matter. The Eichmann trial proves nothing. The most inportant thing it proves is that al-Husayni was in Europe during the war, but to accept Eichmann's testimony as true I am reluctant to do. If a man will murder millions, why will he not lie?Johnpacklambert (talk) 04:09, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hannah Arendt was invited professor in different universities and was specialist in the sociology related with the Holocaust. She wrote a book titled Eichmann in Jerusalem that is used as reference by scholars. Her opinions on historical issues related to the Holocaust or this trial are therefore relevant. Particularly when (or rather given) they are not criticized.

Here is one : in her book « Eichmann in Jerusalem », p.13 she writes : « The Grand Mufti's connections with the Nazis during the war were not secret; he had hoped they would help him in the implementation of some final solution in the Near East »

Ceedjee (talk) 07:51, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Argument accepted. I've restored Hannah Arendt. Beit Or 18:30, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Argument rejected, and I would have sliced it out again if it hadn't been done so already. A fringe theory that someone other than Hitler instigated the Holocaust is not to be taken seriously. Tarc (talk) 05:35, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Tarc, you or I didn't follow the discussion properly :-)

They were discussing this :

Hannah Arendt dismissed any connection between al-Husayni and Eichmann: "The trial revealed only that all rumours about Eichmann's connection with Haj Amin el Husseini, the former Mufti of Jerusalem, were unfounded. (He had been introduced to the Mufti during an official reception, along with all other department heads)."(ref)Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.(1963) Viking Press, New York 1965 p.13(/ref)

Which is what you say.

But this didn't prevent Annan Arendt to also write :

The Grand Mufti's connections with the Nazis during the war were not secret; he had hoped they would help him in the implementation of some final solution in the Near East at the same page of the same book.

The Mufti didn't instigate the Holocaust. This is even less than a fringe theory among scholars.

But the idea that Hitler didn't instigate the Holocaust is a theory that has been widely debated among serious scholars (I don't talk about revisionnists) : see Functionalism versus intentionalism

And just for your information, when Benny Morris writes made by war, not by design about the Palestian exodus, he performs the same analysis as those would say functionalism, not intentionalism... Ceedjee (talk) 07:44, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps you should tell that to Beit Or, Zeq, and others who continuously try to insert a revision that begins with the sentence "During the Nuremberg trials, Adolf Eichmann's deputy Dieter Wisliceny accused al-Husayni of being the initiator of the Final Solution." which goes on to give serious undue weight to these charges. What they keep deleting is a revision that puts the charges in context, and provides serious sources that refute it completely. Tarc (talk) 13:31, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh... I don't mind these polemics any more. :-)Ceedjee (talk) 14:42, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

It is not entirely clear what Tarc calls "undue weight" in this context. The version that begind with "During the Nuremberg trials, Adolf Eichmann's deputy Dieter Wisliceny accused al-Husayni of being the initiator of the Final Solution." describes facts, i.e. Wisliceny's charges, as well as Eichmann and mufti's responses, then proceeds to describes the scholarly opinions on those charges. It seems that Tarc and especially Paul Kuiper are making straw man arguments: they first claim the version in question states as fact that it was al-Husseini who instigated the Holocaust and then proceed to conclude that the version is thus unacceptable. However, this is not what the text says, it doesn't even lend itself to such interpretation. Beit Or 20:41, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It contains the line, "Al-Husayni's role as the instigator of the Holocaust has been the subject of debates among scholars," and the rest is written in a similar vein. Many (most?) credible sources believe that al-Husayni had absolutely no role in instigating the Holocaust and probably did not even know about it, yet the article features trumped-up nonsense from the likes of Schectmann as if it's to be taken seriously. <eleland/talkedits> 22:56, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

It is quite clear to others, beit or, not sure why you're struggling to understand the problem here. You and zeq attempt to give a fringe POV (mufti as instigator) equal footing to the established, mainstream POV that he was not. Tarc (talk) 23:04, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree fully with Eleland and Tarc. For the record: this was the eighth time that Beit Or tried to insert this unsubstantiated nonsense of "Al-Husayni's role as the instigator of the Holocaust", for which not one credible source has been given. This is obviously a gross violation of Misplaced Pages rules. Paul kuiper NL (talk) 01:14, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

I don't know any scholar who would have assumed the Mufti was not aware of what was the fate of the Jews in Europe during WWII. On the contrary, Zvi Elpeleg (1993, p.73), concludes his chapter about the Mufti's « involvment in destruction of the Jews » in stating he was aware and even « delighted » by this. (The excerpt was given in the following section).
NB: Note Elpeleg has written a biography that critics consider to rehabilitate the Mufti as a major political figure in the struggle between Palestinian Nationalism and Zionism.
Eleland, which scholar(s) claim he was not aware of that ? Ceedjee (talk) 09:34, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

Why is this source not in the article

here is a quote from a latter the Mufti wrote to the Germans asking them to elminate the "Jewish national homeland in Palestine"  ?? Zeq (talk) 22:44, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

I think conclusion written by Philip MattarZvi Elpeleg would be better :

(...) In any case, there is no doubt that Haj Amin's hatred was not limited to Zionism, but extended to Jews as such. His frequent, close contacts with leaders of the Nazi regime cannot have left Had Amin with any doubt as to the fate which awaited the Jews whose emigration was prevented by his efforts. His many comments show that he was not only delighted that Jews were prevented from emigrating to Palestine, but was very pleased by the Nazi's Final Solution. (Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem : Al-Hajj Amin Al-Husseini and the Palestinian National MovementZvi Elpeleg, The Grand Mufti: Haj Amin Al-Hussaini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement, Frank Cass Publishers, 1993, ISBN 0-7146-3432-8, p. 73).

Ceedjee (talk) 14:04, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Please try reading 'My Israel Question' Antony Lowenstein. It is an important read.

Extra source for references

Not sure if anybody who edits this article has read this book, The Forgotten Ally - Pierre van Paassen. It´s got some info on Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, I read it about 5-6 years ago so can´t remember all the details. I´m sure it could be useful though.GreyMech (talk) 15:28, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

This web-site supports him - but doesn't conceal the fact that he was highly partisan and his career as a journalist was cut short by allegations of fraud. " short-lived Spanish Republic which in 1936 ... Spain also proved PvP's undoing as a newsman. Based on questionable but widely distributed allegations by Toronto's pro-Franco Catholic Register, of supposedly fraudulent reporting on the part of PvP, the Star's publisher, threatened with a boycott by Catholic subscribers, decided to fire its renowned newsman."

His later writings are ethno-specific in their praise and condemnation of peoples - it's unlikely anyone would consider him a reliable source to be used in articles. PR 10:11, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

NPOV is to "describe the controversy"

This edit: prefer one POV on describing the controversy in an NPOV fashion. Zeq (talk) 20:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

You've been talked down on this point so many times in past talk page sections above, why create another? Is your fringe POV going to suddenly gain consensus? Doubtful. Tarc (talk) 01:31, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

can you discuss the issue not the editor ? Zeq (talk) 10:28, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

In this case, I believe the issue may be the editor. What do you want to discuss that hasn't already been discussed in previous talk page sections? Tarc (talk) 13:43, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Why did you reverted to a version that include a POV instead a version that describe the controversy ? Zeq (talk) 20:01, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

The version that I restored does not violate NPOV; yours does, as well as concerns of giving undue weight to fringe opinions. There's really nothing else new to say that has not already been said before, either by myself, Eleland, or Paul kuiper. If you need a fact refresher, see; Talk:Mohammad Amin al-Husayni#Why was this sourced section removed.3F. Tarc (talk) 20:36, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Tarc, There are sources who disagree with the version that you putinto the article. my suggestion is to describe the controversy. so far you are removing this source: from the article again and again. Do you claim this is not a WP:RS source ?

I'll try again, politly to explain NPOV:

On one hand there is your prefered POV on the other is this one:

Amin el-Husseini: Nazi Collaborator and Radical Jew-

Hater The most important collaborator with the Nazis on the Arab side, and, at the same time, a rabid antisemite, was Haj Amin el-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. In his person, we can see exemplified the decisive role played by hatred for the Jews within the project of German- Arab cooperation. There are countless statements made by him during his lifetime that clearly articulate his antisemitic attitudes. For example, el-Husseini gave a talk on the occasion of the opening of the Islamic Central Institute in Berlin in 1942, which prototypically reflects his recurrent patterns of interpretation. On the one hand, he argued along fundamentalist Islamic lines, emphasizing: “Among the most bitter enemies of the Muslims, who for ages have professed their hostility and everywhere make use of spite and cunning in their encounter with Muslims, are the Jews and their accessories.” On the other hand, the Mufti was not only a religious fanatic. In order to disseminate hatred of the Jews, he also resorted to the central antisemitic stereotypes of Nazi ideology, as another passage from this lecture shows: In England and America, Jewish influence is dominant. It is the same Jewish influence that lurks behind godless communism, which is inimical to all religions and fundamental principles. That Jewish influence is what has incited the peoples, plunging them into this destructive war of attrition, whose tragic fate benefits the Jews and only them. The Jews are the inveterate enemies of the Muslims, along with their allies the British, the Americans and the Bolsheviks.59 Such passages indicate that el-Husseini and his rhetoric should not be characterized solely along one-dimensional lines as an Arab nationalist. Especially when he was concerned with eliminating the Jewish presence in Palestine or elsewhere, the Grand Mufti was a National Socialist and Islamic fundamentalist at one and the same time.

Along with his diverse contacts with the Italians, the German Foreign

Office, and the Wehrmacht, it can be proven that the Mufti also had direct communication with the Judenreferat in the RSHA. A short time after his first meeting with Himmler, el-Husseini paid a visit to the Section Head IV B 4, Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann. On this occasion (the visit must have been the end of 1941, or the beginning of 1942), Eichmann provided his much-impressed guest with an intensive look at the current state of the “Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe” by the Third Reich, and illustrated this with numerous statistics and maps. For his part, the Grand Mufti informed Eichmann that he had already received approval from Himmler that, after the Axis victory, one of the advisors on Jewish affairs from Eichmann’s section would go with him to Jerusalem in order to come to practical grips with the virulent questions still remaining there. Eichmann, who was very impressed by the Mufti, subsequently met with him a number of times.84 However, the basic questions pertaining to the “Jewish Question” in Palestine appeared to have been clarified already during their first meeting. This can be safely assumed, since el-Husseini later turned directly

to Eichmann’s competent associate to discuss practical matters

There is more at this source....

sources for the above:

57 Wiedergabe Bericht V-Mann “Cuno I” v. 6.8.1942, BAMA, RH 2/1764.

58 Notiz Ettel/AA (undated/end of 1942), PAAA, R 27325; on Erwin Ettel, see Hans- Jürgen Döscher, Das Auswärtige Amt im Dritten Reich. Diplomatie im Schatten der “Endlösung” (Berlin: Siedler, 1987), pp. 168ff.; Frank Bajohr: “‘Im übrigen handle ich so, wie mein Gewissen es mir als Nationalsozialist vorschreibt’. Erwin Ettel — vom SS-Brigadeführer zum außenpolitischen Redakteur der ZEIT,” in Matthäus and Mallmann, eds., Deutsche, Juden, Völkermord, pp. 241–255.

59 Rede Mufti zur Eröffnung des Islamischen Zentralinstituts v. 18.12.1942, PAAA, R 27327; see Matthias Küntzel, “Von Zeesen bis Beirut. Nationalsozialismus und Antisemitismus in der arabischen Welt,” in Doron Rabinovici, Ulrich Speck, and Natan Sznaider, eds., Neuer Antisemitismus? Eine globale Debatte (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2004), pp. 271–293.

60 Biographical: Simon Wiesenthal, Großmufti — Großagent der Achse (Salzburg-Wien: Ried, 1947); Joseph B. Schechtman, The Mufti and the Fuehrer. The Rise and Fall of Haj Amin el-Husseini (New York and London: Thomas Yoseloff, 1965); Taysir Jbara, Palestinian Leader Hajj Amin Al-Husayni Mufti of Jerusalem (Princeton: Kingston Press, 1985); Klaus Gensicke, Der Mufti von Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini, und die Nationalsozialisten (Frankfurt/M.: Peter Lang, 1988); Philip Mattar, The Mufti of Jerusalem. Al-Hajj Amin al-Husayni and the Palestinian National Movement (New York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Zvi Elpeleg, The Grand Mufti. Haj Amin al-Hussaini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement (London and Portland: Frank Cass, 1993); playing down the gravity of the figure: Rainer Zimmer-Winkel, ed., Eine umstrittene Figur: Hadj Amin al-Husseini — Mufti von Jerusalem (Trier: Aphorisma, 1999); Gerhard Höpp, ed., Mufti-Papiere. Briefe, Memoranden, Reden und Aufrufe Amin al-Husainis aus dem Exil, 1940–1945 (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 2001).

61 On Arab politics in Palestine, see John Marlowe, Rebellion in Palestine (London: Cresset Press, 1946); idem, The Seat of Pilate. An Account of the Palestine Mandate (London: Cresset Press, 1959); Albert M. Hyamson, Palestine under the Mandate 1920–1948 (London: Methuen, 1950); Yehoshua Porath, The Emergence of the Palestinian- Arab National Movement. Vol. 1: 1918–1929 (London: Frank Cass, 1974); idem, The Palestinian Arab National Movement. Vol. 2: 1929–1939. From Riots to Rebellion (London: Frank Cass, 1977); idem, In Search of Arab Unity 1930–1945 (London: Frank Cass, 1986); Tom Bowden, “The Politics of the Arab Rebellion in Palestine 1936–39,” Middle Eastern Studies, 11(1975), pp. 147–174; Bernard Wasserstein, The British in Palestine. The Mandatory Government and the Arab-Jewish Conflict 1917–1929 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1978); Michael J. Cohen, Palestine: Retreat from the Mandate. The Making of British Policy, 1936–45 (London: Paul Elek, 1978); idem, The Origins and Evolution of the Arab-Zionist Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); idem and Martin Kolinsky, eds., Britain and the Middle East in the 1930s. Security Problems, 1935–1939 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992); Ann Mosely Lesch, Arab Politics in Palestine, 1917–1939. The Frustration of a Nationalist Movement (Ithaca-London: Cornell University Press, 1979); David Th. Schiller, Palästinenser zwischen Terrorismus und Diplomatie. Die paramilitärische palästinensische Nationalbewegung von 1918 bis 1981 (Munich: Bernard & Graefe, 1982); Uri M. Kupferschmidt, The Supreme Muslim Council. Islam under the British Mandate for Palestine (Leiden: Brill, 1987); Issa Khalaf, Politics in Palestine. Arab Factionalism and Social Disintegration 1939–1948 (New York: State University of New York Press, 1991). 62 Gensicke, Der Mufti von Jerusalem, pp. 30–33.

clearly, scholarly sources. Zeq (talk) 06:59, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Not specially from specialists.

Nevertheless, where is it written he was the initiator of the final solution ? Ceedjee (talk) 07:54, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

This is the essence of of the problem that many, many editoes have had with Zeq over the years; he finds a reliable source and shoves it into the article on that basis alone, forgetting that there are other rules and policies around here. Whether it is trying to insert a reliably sourced yet fringe/minority POV here, or to insert WP:BLP-violating material into Inayat Bunglawala awhile back, it is always the same modus operandi...follow one rule, damn the rest. And that blockquote up above is the epitome of NPOV. How any writer/source can fill so much invective into such a small space and expect to be taken seriously is amazing. Tarc (talk) 14:13, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I think we way past discussing "the problem that many, many editoes have had with Zeq over the years" so I will just answer Ceedjee:

The issue is more was he aware and was he in contact with Eichman. WE have two main sources: One is Eichman helper in the Nurnberg trial 1945 and the 2nd one is what Eichman told to his own defense in the 1961 trial. Eichman at that point said he only met the Mufti once. This is the controvesy and this is what need to be described. I am more than open to changing the specific words that claim that "he was the instigator" - we should only use what sources say and not add our own. On the other hand we should clearly describe what Eichman said in the trial vs what his helper said. Zeq (talk) 15:52, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

Concering the fact he was aware of the Holocaust and that what he was doing cost lives to Jews, I think that what Elpeleg writes (see just 2 sections here above) is extremely clear and relevant.

He is one of recent biographer of the Mufti and is a reference on the topic. Ceedjee (talk) 16:09, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

A former Israeli ambassador? Please. if that's the most impartial source we can find, we're not doing our jobs. -- Kendrick7 —Preceding comment was added at 18:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

I agree, we should use as impartial and as scholarly sources as we can find. Zeq (talk) 18:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Kendirck7, why don't you try to find "critics" of Elpeleg's book instead ?

Ceedjee (talk) 11:19, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Ya know, L. Paul Bremer can spend the next 20 or 30 years studying at American University, but I still won't, at the end of the day, trust him to write an impartial biography of Saddam Hussein. Why treat this occupation governor any different? Yes, I know the reviews are laudatory, but, surprise surprise, his ultimate conclusion is just what the country who employed him for much of his life has always wanted people to believe. Oh, gee, Husayni was delighted by the Holocaust. Is there real evidence for this statement, or, at the end of the day, could old Colonel Elpeleg, like the leopard, simply not change his spots? -- Kendrick7 11:54, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

It is not "his conclusion".

It is the conclusion of the 6 pages chapter dedicated to the topic, among many other things stated about the Mufti.

One should be particularly crazy to have written a book, picturing the Mufti as a "out-of-common" man, just to be sure one day wikipedian editors will quote him giving his mind about the Mufti involvment in the Holocaust.

And if you read carefully what he writes : he just says that the Mufti knew what was happening and was pleased with this and I never read anybody else who would state the contrary. Ceedjee (talk) 12:23, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly and this is what we should use. Zeq (talk) 16:55, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

As a usurper of the subject, he's hopelessly tainted, but as long as we make clear who's opinion is being put forth, I don't have a problem with using this. -- Kendrick7 22:05, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I answer a former question on your talk page. Ceedjee (talk) 13:26, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not understanding the issue here. It seems clear that pretty much all reliable sources agree that al-Husayni had relations with the Nazi government, and met with Eichmann. Also, please do not recommend poisoning the well in articles, it's bad writing and violates Misplaced Pages:NPOV#Fairness_of_tone. Jayjg 03:23, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

"records show"

The claim that "records show that "Eichmann provided his much-impressed guest with an intensive look at the current state of the 'Solution of the Jewish Question in Europe..." is sourced to a Yad Vashem-hosted monograph which cites Dieter Wisliceny's testimony. But the older version which Tarc has been reverting back to says that "Wisliceny accused of having actively encouraged the extermination of European Jews. This testimony was subsequently dismissed as without factual basis by the court examining the issue during Eichmann's 1961 trial..." which one would think is relevant. <eleland/talkedits> 18:43, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

The prior version emphasizes that dismissal of the evidence, yes, it brings up the charges and then knocks them down. Tarc (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Ardent version of the trial is not supported by the verdict: - we should simply quote the source (verdict) and not ardent interpretation of it. Mufti met Eichmann more than once - that much is clear and the court did accpted Wisliceny testimony from Nurnburg. Zeq (talk) 20:45, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Using Arednt as a source

having investigated it further, there is no doubt Arednt raise valid philiosofical issues such as : "Was eichmann a monster or just a clark doing his job" (In the final analysis, she agreed that Eichmann deserved to be executed, but she did not see him as a monster). While valid philosophical questions the fact that we now see that her description of the trial is not supported by the verdict leads me to think that we can not use her as an historical source. She is a philosofer not an historian and we should include in this article only the best and most qualified people on the subject of the Mufti - not people who had some philosophical agenda to grind using Eichmann as an example. Zeq (talk) 22:36, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

So a philosopher is more eminently qualified to comment on history than a historian? Intriguing. Tarc (talk) 17:46, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

less so. Zeq (talk) 05:51, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

Arednt claims about the trial do not fit the final judgment of the case. We can not use her as source. She is not an historian. She is a philosopher and had an axe to grind. Zeq (talk) 01:04, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

► Zeq, who is "Ardent"??? You have used this name seven times now on this page and in your edit summaries. If you mean Hannah Arendt, I see that in your latest revert you were at least kind enough to save the quote from her in the refefence, thanks for this. I hope this is finally settled now.

• Not settled. I did not revrted. You are the one reverting. She is not an historian and thus we should not be using her as source. Zeq (talk) 05:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

However, if your comments are indeed about her, they miss the point. The important thing is that she attended the whole Eichmann trial and wrote an important and much revered book about it. And what "axe to grind" had she? Certainly she had no reason to exonerate the Mufti. As Ceejee wrote above, she wrote in the same book:

"The Grand Mufti's connections with the Nazis during the war were not secret; he had hoped they would help him in the implementation of some final solution in the Near East."

What cannot possibly be accepted is your addition: "Records show that Eichmann provided his much-impressed guest.. " etc. As Eleland and Tarc have pointed out above, the 'records' you refer to are only a Yad Vashem text which does not do anything else than citing the Wisliceny statement. And worse: it aggravates the words of this statement (for instance; instead of 'duly impressed' it says 'much impressed'). You are wrong on several other counts:

1. You keep calling Wisliceny "One defendant at the Nuremberg trials", which he was not, he stood trial later on in Czechoslovakia. It is just that in Nurnberg he confirmed (partially, with "reservations") a statement written by a witness Steiner who quoted him.

2. Eichmann denied Wisliceny`s statement and said he was introduced to the Mufti only once at at reception with many others. Your statement "but the Judges did not accept this denial" is simply untrue. The Jeruzalem Court said only that they considered Eichmann`s statement that he had met the Mufti at a reception "a partial admission". The judgement did NOT question the correctness of Eichmann`s statement. Moreover, the opinion of the Israeli judges is, of course, by no means the only thing to go by. You keep repeating that Hannah Arendt is not a historian, nor are indeed the judges of an Israeli court.

• So you prefer to accept the view of an philosopher - because she attended the whole trial but not the Judges ? I wonder if they too attended the whole trial.... Zeq (talk) 05:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

We all agree that the Mufti had developed a hatred of Jews and sympathized with Nazi Germany. To my knowledge, noone has denied this. However, this is not an excuse for revising history. We just should state FACTS as accurately as possible. Paul kuiper NL (talk) 03:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

• Paul: Facts I agree we must go by facts. Aredent description of the trial does not fit the verdict. At all. It is the judges who decide on facts - not a philosopher who had a thesis to defend. We need to take her out of this article. Zeq (talk) 07:35, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

• We have now reached at least one understanding between us - which is that the Mufti had "hatred of Jews and sympathized with Nazi Germany" - I will add this to lead. Zeq (talk) 05:28, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

You both don't have the right to debate about the reliability of Annah Arendt. If you have a relevant or notorious analysis you have to add this in the article at this right place with its due:weight but you have no competence to decide to get rid of her analysis on the basis she would be a philosopher or whatever.

I remind you both that you are not here to defend a pov or to defend a community and you don't represent anybody. I remind you also that Misplaced Pages is not a place of negocation. Compromise is not used in that sense.

Ceedjee (talk) 08:00, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

No I think you mis an important point. IN such article we should strive to use the best sources. This is an historic subject and thus academic sources - historians - are the sources we should use if they are available. If She was the only source about the trial - yes we could use her - but this trial was covered by many and we also have the words of the judges. Zeq (talk) 12:38, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

No. I didn't miss anything.

Arendt is a reliable source and an internationaly recognized expert on the subject.

Respect NPoV and add all the material you have on a subject.

"This is an historic subject and thus academic sources - historians - are the sources we should use if they are available".

Don't forget to use them in all articles and to try to get them. Ceedjee (talk) 08:42, 27 January 2008 (UTC)

Looking for more details

In his biography of the Mufti, Philip Mattar writes (Page 149) : "The four cases of political violence in 1920, 1921, 1929, and 1933 were not revolts, (...) They were localized spontaneous riots that resulted in no sustained (...)"
I get this from google.books but cannot get more. Would someone have his book ? Could you give me more information about what he writes exactly ? I also read that Mattar writes that the Mufti was not accused of any involvment by Palin Commission. This should be in that book. Could someone check ? Thank you Ceedjee (talk) 21:36, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

I can see the whole page, and the next one. Try that link. I dunno how gbooks decides who sees what, or if resetting your cookies would help, or if logging in with a secondary account helps, etc. For now, I'm kinda too typed out to reproduce this by hand. -- Kendrick7 02:41, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank you very much !

That is crazy. I don't even have access to the content of the book even with your link.

I will try to proceed to way you suggest. Gbooks is quite strange !

Ceedjee (talk) 07:14, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Postwar

He still remained basically the single pre-eminent Palestinan public political personality without significant challenge until 1964 (when Ahmad Shuqeiri was pushed forward by Nasser); not sure why the article kind of plays this down... AnonMoos (talk) 14:24, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani

I am not going to argue with you if few news papaers did or did not say that people claim "the wall is ours". You may not know it but the wall is on the outside and below the Haram al-Sharif. In any case the British concluded that he spread false accusations about the jews taking over the whole Haram by force. Please don't try to again change facts which have long been established and don't confuse between the wall and other atreas in Jerusalem.Zeq (talk) 11:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Zqe,

The Zionist commission have tried as soon as 1919 to buy the Wall to the Waqf.

Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete reports (in details) that it was to get the support of the Orthodox Jewish community who was anti-Zionists.

Ceedjee (talk) 11:25, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

We don't arge here about "ownership" he made false accusations about intent to destroy the Haram. Please self-revert your unjustified revert which has nothing to do with the issue you have raised in talk. Zeq (talk) 13:57, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Zqe,

I reverted the word "false". So what. Another pilpul ? Ceedjee (talk) 15:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Is this your answer to my serious request ? Zeq (talk) 16:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

What was your request ? Ceedjee (talk) 16:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

That you self-revert or proof that the Mufti made correct accusations when he claimed the jews "intent to destroy the Haram". Zeq (talk) 20:43, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

How could have he said that Jews intent to destroy the Haram ? He died in the seventies. I don't understand what you mean ??? Ceedjee (talk) 21:39, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Please simply explain why you removed the word - based on which source ? If you think the word was placed there with no source - restore it and add a "fact-tag". You must edit according to policy Zeq (talk) 22:01, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

You are not easy to follow, Zeq. You always ask something different.

So... To answer you (once again) : because, Tom Segev in One Palestine, Complete, pp.303 and 304 explains that the mufti didn't make false accusations but accusations and he explains why all arabs were convinced that the Jews intended to destroy the Mosque. Note that Nishidani already explained this to you. So what do you want Zeq ?Ceedjee (talk) 22:10, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

This is not what Segev writes. Do you have a quote in which Segev says so ? if so please post it. Nishadini refer to another issue (did they say the wall is ours or not is not relevant to the Mufti claim that the Jews will destroy haram). As I indicated to Nishadini even today we have the situation in which the Haram stands and the wall is in Jewish hands - thuse having the wall is mutually exclusive from any danger to the Haram standing. Nishadini tries to confuse the issue and hope you can provide the actual quote that prove your claim that the Mufti did not made false accusation. If you don't have this proof - please self revert. Zeq (talk) 05:32, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

This is what he writes. pp.303-304. And Walter Sachar, in The History of Zionism explain roughly the same. Do you claim I lie ? Please, go to a library and check by yourself. Ceedjee (talk) 10:43, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

.Zeq .This fact is not disputed, as Ceedjee himself can amply document. You removed some months ago, in violation of Wiki rules on RS, my full documentation on the matter. I have read the British reports, and your reference to them is simplistic and one-sided. The distinction you make looks disingenuous, in that under Ottoman law the Waqf had rights over the Wall, rights contested by many Jews. Later historians are unanimous. Don't assume I do not know anything about the geography of the Wall: I have been there.Nishidani (talk) 11:35, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

.Zeq ps.You write:-'You may not know it but the wall is on the outside and below the Haram al-Sharif. In any case the British concluded that he spread false accusations about the jews taking over the whole Haram by force.'

Before the League of Nations Mandatory Committee, referring to the Shaw Report, it is stated:

'Mr. LUKE wished at the outset to explain the nature of the Wailing Wall. The Wall against which the Jews had been accustomed for centuries to go and pray at all times throughout the year was the western exterior wall of the old Temple enclosure, and as such was a part of the Haram esh Sherif, which was one of the holy places referred to in Article 13 of the mandate; it was part of the Haram Waqf. The pavement on which the Jews stood in order to pray against the Wall was a part of another Moslem Waqf, not one of the holy places covered by Article 13 of the mandate, but to a certain extent also Moslem religious property, in that it was a part of the Abu Madian Waqf. In other words, it was Moslem religious property without being a sacred shrine. The initial difficulty therefore existed that for centuries past Jews had carried on the practice of praying at this place which, from the point of view of ownership, belonged to Moslems, not to private Moslem owners but to Moslem ecclesiastical or pious foundations.

This is limpid prose in English. If you have trouble with it, please ask for linguistic clarifications. Regards Nishidani (talk) 11:45, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishadini, has the jews tried to destroy Haram ? that is what he accused tham off and that is a false. AS for "ownership" of the wall - it is good you bring this is up as this was one of the Mufti new ideas. in any case the key-word falsly needs to be restored.Zeq (talk) 13:53, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Zeq I would warmly commend you to remind yourself that Misplaced Pages articles are not written by discussants, who debate their private views (and you are requesting me to enter into a debate about issues not pertinent to the text under consideration). It is about following historical sources of high quality in order to establish the best neutral account of a subject. You must be quite aware that over the several years of the period under review, numerous claims and counter-claims were made by both parties. You cannot arbitrarily select one (which you fail to document), not germane to the passage, and then distort an official report in order to brand everything that al-Husayni said as 'false'. You have no right to use the word 'false' in an NPOV article, since as it stands it is a personal editorial judgement. Some Jewish authorities did protest that they had no intention of claiming the wall, as al-Husayni accused them of doing. Other Jews actively pushed for the assertion of Jewish rights on the Wall (see Walter Laqueur, History of Zionism pp.255ff. Perhaps you should read the Hebrew edition, where he documents that Ze'ev Jabotinsky's Betar movement frequently and publicly asked for exactly what al-Husayni said Zionists wanted, ('The Wall is Ours') and he concludes, regarding such provocative slogans that played a role in exciting partisan passions in the late 1920s:

'‘The weakest part of Jabotinsky’s doctrine was no doubt his assumption that Zionism was bound to remain morally unassailable, whatever the means applied. In their transfer to Palestine Jabotinsky’s views lost much of their sophistication and moderation, and served as the ideological justification for primitive and chauvinistic slogans which helped to poison Arab-Jewish relations.'p.257

This, as well as similar comments by other strongly pro-Zionist historians, admit openly that both sides had groups which made inflammatory statements. Amin al-Husayni didn't talk in a vacuum: in making several accusations, he was speaking with full knowledge of what groups like Betar were doing (much to the disgruntlement of Orthodox, and ultra-Orthodox traditional Jewish communities), i.e. pressing for Jewish rights over what was Moslem property.

As to control of the wall, it was not this particular mufti's 'new idea'. The wall, please reread the quote, was under Ottoman law Muslem property, and recognized as legitimately theirs by the Mandatory authorities.

p.s. you'd better get a better source than Dalin. That will have to go out. He is a specialist in Jewish-Papal affairs, a rabbi with tenure in a third-rate Catholic University, and has done no original research on the area. The paper you cite is from a fringe site, and is chock-a-block full of the most elementary errors, suggesting Dalin just wrote up his remarks mainly by using Internet propaganda sources.Nishidani (talk) 14:28, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishidani, can you relate to the issue at hand - the false accusation ? Zeq (talk) 16:03, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

I have already related it to the issue at hand. Please reread, slowly, what I wrote above. You haven't replied to it. I am not your work-horse. And please don't reinsert 'falsely' until you have a reliable source or two for this. Nishidani (talk) 16:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Zeq The text ran:'Al-Husayni had falsely accused the Jews of planning to take possession of the Western Wall of Jerusalem and tearing down the Al-Aqsa Mosque. The Jewish National Council in Palestine, in an open letter dated November 1928, denied that this was the case.'

A denial by the Jewish National Council does not constitute proof that what al-Husayni alleged was 'false'. It merely means according to that Council, his accusation was false. According to recent historians, his accusation about intentions to take possession of the wall was grounded in real claims publicly made by Betar activists at the time (Laqueur History of Zionism pp.255f. on 'The Wall is Ours') Q.E.D.Nishidani (talk) 16:56, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

This means nothing as the current reality show the wall is indeed in Jewish hands and the haram is not destroyed. So no Q.E.D. for you and please self revert as you have proved nothing about the intentions (nither did the Mufti. His accusations were false.) Zeq (talk) 20:41, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishadini again confuse the wall (the Jewish holy site) and the Haram (the Muslim holi site) - they are not the same place although they are indeed close . The discussion here is not about "ownership" of the wall (is the wall part of the haram or not) but about the claim of the Mufti that the jews going to destroy the Haram. Zeq (talk) 05:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not sure why we have to have the Al-Aqsa mosque mentioned, but there is no question that the immigrants were set on seizing the Western Wall, at a minimum. Other than Jabotinsky, they pretty much all wanted Palestine as Jewish as England was English. PR 21:16, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Zeq. Many times in our discussions, you have shown an inability to understand English. This is an English encyclopedia. Unless you conduct your side of the discussion in comprehensible English that respects your interlocutor's remarks, then one is left with this impression, that either you don't know enough English, or you pretend not to understand because you dislike any evidence which counters what you personally believe is the case.Nishidani (talk) 09:45, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Zqe, I know perfectly where it the Wall, Al-Aqsa and where the 3rd Temple is expected to be built. And in 1929, situation was such that Arabs believe that the

2 educated contributors with good knowledge of the issues explained this to you. You go too far. You are now is full no-respect of WP:AGF. Please, buy books and the topic and read them. Ceedjee (talk) 10:47, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

What I know, and what you think about 1929 has nothing to do with the issue. None have you have so far brought a source which claim that the Mufti accusations about the jews going to destroy the muslim temple were in any way correct. Zeq (talk) 16:00, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Zeq, do you understand the concept behind "verifiability, not truth" ? Whether the accusations are true or not is immaterial; we're talking about his actions and what accusations he made, not passing judgment on them. Tarc (talk) 16:29, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Exactly. I agree with you and this is why everything Nishadani brought here is irelevant. What we need to include is what sources say about te Mufti not (as Nishdani is trying) to prove that the Mufti was right (or wrong). Zeq (talk) 16:33, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

If you agree, then we agree that there is no need to insert the word "falsely" in there. Thank you, and let's move on. Tarc (talk) 17:02, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not, again, proving the Mufti is right. I am documenting that some of his accusations were based on fears that in part arose from remarks and acts by Jewish people (Laqueur, Benvenisti). You apparently believe that a bio of Amin must ignore historical context to be NPOV. You will allow that his inflammatory speeches influenced Arabs to riot. You disallow comments that note that his remarks were influenced by Jewish declarations and acts. In pushing for that distinction as a non-wiki criterio for evaluating what can, and cannot be edited into the article, you show your bias. You want a Zionist caricature, not an comprehensive NPOV narrative. Nishidani (talk) 18:07, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

'The discussion here is not about "ownership" of the wall (is the wall part of the haram or not) but about the claim of the Mufti that the jews going to destroy the Haram.'

If that is your problem,Zeq, I suppose the following citation will resolve your anxieties. Amin had grounds for believing not only that the Wailing Wall (Betar activists, Doar Hayom articles) was considered by Jews as 'theirs', but that, since prestigious rabbis were also on record as claiming the Jews would eventually take over the Temple Mount, the Haram itself was in danger.

Rabbi Kook had preached as early as 1920:'The Temple Mount is Israel’s holy place, and even should it be under the hand of others for long days and periods of time, it will finally come into our hands . .' , and this influenced Amin's belief in a plot by Zionists to wrest the whole of the haram from Muslim control. See Meron Benvenisti ‘’City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem,” University of California 1996 pp.77ff.

I.e., the Mufti read events according to remarks like this, and naturally assumed that if Kook's belief were translated into practice, and the Al-Aqsa mosque taken over, it would be turned back into the Third Temple, i.e. altered from being a Muslim shrine to the earlier Jewish temple. I don't approve of the Mufti, but your attempts to make him out to be a completely irrational fanatic, hallucinating 'false things' is a vulgar distortion of a very complex series of incidents. I hope we can now move on, and edit the text adequately.Nishidani (talk) 11:01, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Nishadani, You keep bringing your own interpreratation into the discussion. What Kook said and how it infulance the mind of Husayni are two facts that you connected together but that connection is simply Original research.

What we need is a source which either say that the Mufti accusations are correct (i.e. the jews by moving around the chairs on the west wall plaza below were planning to destroy the muslim temples on top of the mountain) or that those accusations are simply false (since even today 80 years later the jews have not destroyed the muslim temple.

I hope you understand that I value your scholarship, just please find relevant sources not the one that you make the connection between facts that other scholars did not. Zeq (talk) 15:53, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid again you do not appear to understand the simple distinction between reasoning about a piece of evidence on the talk page, and supplying a reliably source remark on the article page. My interventions on the article conform to strict criteria governing evidence, and have nothing to do with 'my interpretations', which, if I give them, take place in talking here.

You accuse me of making a 'connection' (WP:OR) between Kook's remark (one of many) and the remarks Amin made about Jewish intentions. I'm afraid you are not familiar with the literature. It is Benvenisti who makes this connection:-

'A Palestinian leader, the Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, took Rabbi Kook’s yearning to return to the Mount with the advent of the messiah and turned it into a concrete political plot. He stated in 1925 that “the weeping of the Jews beside the Wall and their kisses (of its stones) do not arise from their love for the Wall itself, but from their concealed aspirations to take control of the Haram a-Sharif (Temple Mount)as everyone knows.' p.78

Perhaps again you do not quite grasp what some English verbs imply or mean. This remark occurs immediately after the passage I quoted earlier. 'To take' here means 'interpret'. I.e. Benvenisti says Kook's yearning to return to the Mount (glossing the earlier it will finally come into our hands) was interpreted by a fellow cleric, as much a leader of Arab religious feeling as Kook was a leader of Ashkenazi Jewish orthodoxy, to signify a plot was underway, that the Jews intended to take the Mount. That is how Benvenisti puts it. I, as reader, humbly accept his point. If you know the inside history of Kook's theology, and the influence of his son on those terrorists who tried to blow up the haram, and terrorize Palestinians to leave their own land (Hebron is a focal point), you will see that Kook was the mirror of Amin, i.e. religious leaders with a fanatical theological cast of mind, confusing theology with nationalism, and cooking up a potent brew that has caused countless deaths on either side Nishidani (talk) 16:59, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Nisaahdani, First let me ask you not to comment on me, my ability as editor, my english etc... Focus on the subject. Second, the quote from Benbensiti is acceptable:

'A Palestinian leader, the Mufti Hajj Amin al-Husseini, took Rabbi Kook’s yearning to return to the Mount with the advent of the messiah and turned it into a concrete political plot. He stated in 1925 that “the weeping of the Jews beside the Wall and their kisses (of its stones) do not arise from their love for the Wall itself, but from their concealed aspirations to take control of the Haram a-Sharif (Temple Mount)as everyone knows.' p.78

Your own interopratation of that quote is OR.

I hope this can settle the discussion. Please stop connecting or interpreting other sources. The sources speak very clearly and are in no need for your additional OR in connecting sevrtal sources. When connection between facts is done -please use only what the sources decide is connected not your own. Zeq (talk) 19:34, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

No I will refer at times to the language problem because I take you in good faith, but find that what you do lends itself to a suspicion of bad faith, since it is often incomprehensible, and therefore I attribute the difficulties to your lack of precise knowledge of English.

So please don't as it does not serve any purpose. If I have limitataions they are in writing not in understanding so rest a sure I understand everything unless I will ask for your help in explaining. Let's stop making it an issue. Zeq (talk) 20:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Point two. You have a habit of saying (a) please revert (b) you are doing OR, etc., and preaching about what I should or should not do re sources, that I'm confusing my ideas with other people's. I find this funny, because I've been writing articles and books for forty years, and no one but people like yourself in wiki seems to find what I write abuses normal rules for assessing evidence and drawing conclusions. By all means keep up the 'humongous' pressure with your nannyish 'please' do this and please do that. It makes a wry smile form on an old man's face. One must be tolerant of the young, and amateurs Nishidani (talk) 19:44, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

OR is indeed a problem. Please edit according to policy and only use what the sources say. You tend to connect few things beyond what the sources say. I have pointed that out to you more than once. Stick to sources not to your OR which takes several sources and connect facts which the sources did not. If you want to do that you should be able to find a publisher, publish your own work made out of compositions that other sources ignored their connections and I am sure we can cite your work as source. Until such time please avoid doing this. Misplaced Pages is not a place for OR. Zeq (talk) 20:16, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

PS I find remarks like this: "By all means keep up the 'humongous' pressure with your nannyish 'please' do this and please do that. It makes a wry smile form on an old man's face. One must be tolerant of the young, and amateurs" condesending and disrespectfull of your fellow editors. You have no idea about my age or other and please avoid making more comments on me. I find this is not creating the colborative atmosphere that each of us as editors deserve. As for the books you wrote over the last 40 years - I am sure we can use them as reference if they are relevant but if they are not mentioning that you wrote books does not add or remove anything from the burden on you to edit here only according to policy - including NPA and OR. Zeq (talk) 20:23, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Zeq To collaborate you must understand what those who collaborate with you are saying. So, let us end this silly altercation. Try to parse precisely the meaning of, for example, what I write, and do refrain from misunderstanding it, and then saying from what you have misunderstood that I must be infringing on some Wiki rule. I mentioned my experience simply because your language of admonition, to native English ears, inadvertently on your part, sounds nannyish, and that cannot help strike an old man as funny, particularly when the remonstration comes from someone without professional training in historical writing, which is not absolutely necessary, but does help. Those who have it don't frig about with the Wiki rule book. They know by instinct how to write articles that are balanced, based on close interpretation of respectable sources. So, in short, drop this jejune refrain about WP:OR. :)Nishidani (talk) 22:42, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm familiar with the evidence that the Muslims had very good reason for thinking that the Western Wall was to be seized. I can see from the evidence above that Husseini had some reason (likely good) for thinking that the whole mosque was to be seized.

Hence, it can only be totally unjustified to imply that Husseini's fears were unjustified and his allegations false. If the denial of these claims needs to be included (which may be necessary, I'm not sure), it must not be made to appear satisfactory or convincing. PR 21:22, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Zeq has tried to edit in a ref. and Eleland rightly struck it out, as it is unreadable in English,('The Mufti took Jewish yearning to the site of the Jewish temple and turned it into a concrete political plot. In 1925 the Mufti stated that: "the weeping of the Jews beside the Wall and their kisses (of its stones) do not arise from their love for the Wall itself, but from their(i.e. the jews) concealed aspirations to take control of the Haram a-Sharif (Temple Mount)". ') and distorts the source, eliminating what Benveniste says about the Kook-AlHussayni connection. I have no particular interest in pushing the point Benveniste makes. I cited the material here simply to show, by one example of many available, how badly partisan the text reads, since it eliminates all circumstantial evidence (much as Jabotinsky's role in, and sentence as a result of, the 1920 is invisible (Zionist agitation) whereas Amin's sentence for his role in the same riots is highlighted. The whole page suffers from this vice. (Amin was nonetheless an inflammatory irresponsible incompetent man, who bears a good deal of responsibility for subsequent tragedies. To say that, and yet contextualize it in the milieu of what Arabs took to be an incipient Zionist appropriation of their land, does in no way diminish his lethal culpability, where that is evidenced by ther record)Nishidani (talk) 22:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

1. Nishadani, I will respond only to the subject matter. Your continued response about my english or your attempts to charterize me - those are personal attacks and must be stopped. We have policies in this encyclopedia and I must ask that you honor them. If yoy can not, maybe since you are clearly a scholar - you should publish your OR else where, (you can even write books on me is this subject is of such interst to you) and I am sure we can use your published work as source.
2. I have found benvenishti book and in it he makes clear what you neglected to quote: That Rabbi Kook actually forbid jews from going into the temple mount itself (the place where the Haram al-sharif is) and only described in his words the prophecy for the future times when the messiah will arrive. On the other hand Benvensthi clearly describe the Mufti as exploited the holi places far more powerfull that nationalistic sloagns. He goes further to describe how the Muslims (under Husseini) used the Haram (a holi place) as a place to hide weapons and wanted people - such as murders fleeing the police.
3. Benvensiti goes further to describe the Mufti as one of those who hid in the Haram during the revolty he lead and describe his nightly escape from the Haram to Beirut - the word he uses is "flee" .
4. I suggest you keep on benveneshti - a good book that explain the Muslims misatkes - not just about the yearning but how the Mufti mistakes had cost the Palestinians dearly in destroying their leadership. Thank you for pointing out this book - indeed a good source. We just need to make sure we stick to what the source say and not try (like you did) to add OR on top of it. Zeq (talk) 06:04, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

PS the mulsim provocation of 1929 are described in page 80 of that book - hopefully, since you have editted the 1929 riots article in the past you can include the complete story as it is described by benvennisti. If not don't worry I can do that. Zeq (talk) 06:07, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

'We have policies in this encyclopedia and I must ask that you honor them.

This is an English encyclopedia, and those who contribute to it should not mar it by so many errors of syntax, grammar and orthography that they require consistent editorial overhauling. Since you do have a problem, whatever you wish to edit in, should be vetted by a competent native speaker before you actually do edit the article. It would save us considerable time.

You insistently say I violate WP:OR. There is no evidence for this claim, the 'evidence' you allude to is not my research but simply my paraphrase, for your benefit, of what scholarly texts you are nunfamiliar with, are saying. I attribute your consistent misapprehensions about WP:OR to your inability to understand English, not to bad faith, since you confuse me with the people I quote, or paraphrase.

To the text.I am quite familiar with the history of rabbinical disputes about whether Jews may or may not set foot on what is the Temple Mount, from Kook down to Shlomo Goren's proposals to blow up the Moslem area in 1967. Benvenisti simply contextualizes Amin's behaviour as an interpretation of what in fact Rabbi Kook said. Kook said one day Jews would possess the Temple Mount, and Amin took this to mean that the various bids to buy the site from the Waqf, or to modify traditional arrangements at the Wall, were signs of a creeping set of measures that would, incrementally, lead to Jewish possession of the Moslem area. It is quite simple. We do not have to justify Kook or Amin, we simply note that Benvenisti explains Amin's behaviour as influenced by Jewish statements that the Temple of the Mount would in the future be Jewish. That fact explains in part why he then interpreted all Jewish attempts to modify the status quo as part of a plan. This is not my OR. This is what Benvenisti writes. I would suggest also that you revert you edit at 1929 Palestinian riots. It is poorly phrased, and wholly POV, since it ignores the chronology.Nishidani (talk) 08:42, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Good. I am glad we are discussing the text. We should indeed stick to the text and avoid giving too much interpretation beyond what the text dows not provide. The text clearly say that the Mufti took the yearning "and turned it into a concrete political plot" - that is what the source say. As for NPOV: The whole point in wikipedia is that there is more than one view - so if you have a source which give a different account - be sure to bring this source so that we have both POVs - this is how NPOV is achived. Zeq (talk) 09:18, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm afraid you misunderstand. Some editors come here to write their POV, selectively using the records, as you have just done with the matter I supplied from Benvenisti, and then arguing with all other editors, as if their edits reflected, ipso facto the opposed POV. Some editors Zeq, do not edit according to their POV. They examine the historical record, and put in everything relevant to the page that is reliably sourced. Thus I have added substantial amounts to the Nazi record of Amin, not because I have a POV about him being a Nazi, but simply because in those years the documents say he joined forces with the Nazis. Likewise, I add material showing Amin was reacting to real Zionist pressures to expropriate a land that was predominantly Arab, and reading their modifications of customary law regarding the Wall and the Temple as signs of a plot to take over Muslim holy places, because that is what reliable historical works, even Zionist ones, register. You however, months ago, erased RS sources on Jewish provocations because they do not fit your POV, and for no other reasons. All editors are obliged to control their POV, and strive to make a text NPOV. Good editors must keep an eye on their own bias, and rein it in. By pushing yours, and censoring everything else that does not fit your schema, you are suppressing precisely the material which allows us to achieve a NPOV article.

I have a POV but do not find it necessary to edit according to that personal POV. I am interested in the complete record, not, as you evidently are, only in the Zionist account, which regards Arab attempts to resist colonization as inspired by nothing more than fanatic antisemitism. Nishidani (talk) 10:50, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Please avoid writing about "some editors" and please do not bring up something that occured "months ago" unless it is relevant and you have the diffs. As for NPOV: The whole point in wikipedia is that there is more than one view - so if you have a source which give a different account - be sure to bring this source so that we have both POVs - this is how NPOV is achived. I am all for using different sources to get to NPOV. Zeq (talk) 10:59, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Benvenisti, Segev, Morris, Laqueur all have POVs, but they give both sides' versions, notwithstanding their POV. To edit well means to take cognisance of everything a reliable source says, not just what you like about it personally. What you have just written in your edit ignores everything written about the circumstances by pro-Zionist historians. I.e. your edits suppress information that does not fit your POV. You reply- Of course, but it is up to others, with a different POV, to add the material I ignore-. This means that you edit expecting others to fill in the lacunae created by your bias. That is irresponsible, sir, and bad editing. It would be far simpler if you simply gave all the information provided by pro-Zionist editors. Tutto qua.Nishidani (talk) 11:30, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I am editing using sources at my disposal. In this specific case you have pointed out a source and I used it. next you reverted my edits. I am not going into more meta-discussions with you on how editing should be done. I suggest you edit to the best of your understanding istead of teaching others how to edit. Zeq (talk) 11:58, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

talk The edit I have just made is from memory, and a mere sketch. It is intended as an NPOV statement, i.e., it shows both sides. As an impromptu sketch it needs work done on it, one could be more specific and cite the 1925, and 1928 incidents in more detail, and then give a detailed chronology (already supplied however by other wiki pages) for the background to the riots of 1929. You may like to add, for example, the exact words of al-Husayni's contemptuous dismissal of Jewish prayer dated to 1925 and mentioned by Benvenisti.I will be busy off line, but ask you to consider this as a mere attempt at a balanced structure for the conflict, which can then be finessed with more detail, as sources allow. Nishidani (talk) 14:36, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

• Thank you for the self revert. No need to appologize as nothing here is personal. I am glad we are going by what the sources say. Zeq (talk) 16:47, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Dalin

The text says Husayni sponsored a new translation of the Protocols in 1921. I know a Lebanese edition came out roughly at that time, not sponsored by Husayni. Checking the wiki page you get this for Arabic translations.

'In the 1920s, the Protocols occasionally appeared in the Arab polemics linking Zionism and Bolshevism. The first Arabic translations were made from the French by Arab Christians. The first translation was published in Raqib Sahyun, a periodical of the Roman Catholic community of Jerusalem, in 1926. Another translation made by an Arab Christian appeared in Cairo in 1927 or 1928, this time as a book. The first translation by an Arab Muslim was also published in Cairo, but only in 1951.

Since Dalin's paper would score a C grade in any undergraduate course, if not indeed failed, you'd better start finding out where he got his idea about Husayni's sponsoring a new translation. May be true, of course. But Dalin is not a reliable source for the statement.Nishidani (talk) 16:17, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi,

Dalin's book was not peer reviewed but is self published. It cannot be used to report facts (even lesse historical facts) but only analysis or minds and under special circumstances. Ceedjee (talk) 16:44, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Banking on Baghdad has documentation

Hope I am not creating more problems, but I just happened on this discussion reading just a few sentences of what seems to be a contentious set of exchanges. I have seen several books on the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem's relationship with the Nazis. Most of them are quite flawed and unsubstantiated. The one that seems to be completely vetted, peer-reviewed, accurate and loaded with documentation from archives, contemporaneous Nazi Arabic and English newspapers, diplomatic papers from both Arabic and English sources and so forth is "Banking on Baghdad," Chapters 16 and 17, which was featured on C-Span. I will not bother adding any text to the actual Wiki entry but anyone interested in the real verifiable facts might consult those two book chapters and the voluminous primary footnotes. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.28.34.95 (talk) 15:49, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

Useful picture of Grand Mufti reviewing Waffen SS troops from a Nazi magazine cover at http://www.bankingonbaghdad.com/illustrations.php. You may have to dig down to the middle of the page to view it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.28.70.107 (talk) 16:43, 10 February 2008 (UTC)

All contributors agree that he had significant connections to the Nazis. It is relatively easy to get the facts on board in this section. What we disagree about is reading Amin's anti-Zionism retrospectively as an incipient form of 'anti-semitism' to be understood in the hindsight of his later desperate attempt to rally Germany assistance against both Britain and Zionism. Serious historians no longer accept this reading of the 20s and early 30s. As he said at that time, were it not for the Balfour agreement, he personally would have welcomed Jewish immigration into Palestine. Thanks for the extra references though. When back online I will read them through.Nishidani (talk) 18:47, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Did I really read this: "Serious historians no longer accept this reading of the 20s and early 30s." I cannot fathom what it might mean or who would be the one deciding who is serious or not serious. But is that you? On the other hand, recruiting Waffen SS for wholesale murder I guess is somewhat more than a political statement.It was genocide and bloodthirst. Ditto for his diplomatic letters to send children to the Polish gas chambers rather than Palestine. But I am sure only those with enormous amounts of time on their hands could navigate through the many arguments, food fights and other diversions I see on this page. So I won't join the mess. I leave it for proper scholarship based on thoroughly vetted primary documentation to settle it. Not sure if that scholarship will ever find its way into this forum which seems riddled with personal agendas and unlimited arguments to disqualify any facts regardless of the source or depth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.28.45.163 (talk) 20:31, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Study the literature, and pontificate less about the toilers in the field. The distinction I made is between early post-war Zionist works, and recent historical work by Israeli scholars more attentive to a less partial(less unilaterally nationalist) reading of Amin, which means also fluency in Arabic sources. By all means, keep clear of the mess. No one is obliged to join the torture-chamber of wiki-editing. Some here are endeavouring to muck out the stable, rather than leave it befouled by scrappy dumps of ill-sorted material. If you have concrete suggestions, drop a note, and someone will chase the hint down to the sources.Nishidani (talk) 21:27, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Just seeing this. Hello Nishidani. Fortunately we have the details of your Talk page and this post about "a torture-chamber" as guide to what is really going on here. Maybe you should take your voluminous knowledge and publish a paper with footnotes to educate us all, then others could cite it. That would be helpful. Let us know when it gets published as many would like to read it. Until then, perhaps some of the recent suggestions above might be of marginal usefulness. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.28.83.217 (talk) 22:24, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

I found the Nishdani talk archive going back to 2006 most illuminating. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.28.86.125 (talk) 22:57, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Indeed, the Nishdani Talk page and the archived sections are quite informative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.28.151.189 (talk) 00:54, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Goodness. I did scan bits of the Nishdani talk archive, and if prior comments have suggested that his pages are filled with argumentative, acrimonious and combative exchanges, I guess that seems correct. I would think people could provide information without someone belittling anyone who disagrees whether they quote an accomplished historian or author, a solid journal piece or newspaper, or anything else. Maybe Nishdani should allow others to step forward. I guess NPOV is in the eyes of the beholder, but somewhere along the way one must step back and say "this is settled fact" or this is "the font of human knowledge" without attacking it. Since Misplaced Pages does not go in for original research, ground-breaking revelations, or revisionism, we must rely on settled fact and consensus by the established experts and do so without permission from one contentious person or another. —Precedunsigned comment added by 63.28.57.14 (talk) 14:56, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Could you give the name of the experts ? Ceedjee (talk) 06:51, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Where is the best place for this info

In his speech at the 1942 opening of the Islamic Central Institute in Berlin al-Husayni accused the Jews of being the unending enemies of Muslims. He also accused them of being behind Communism and the supporters of wars that benefited only them.

I think in the lead. other views are welcome Zeq (talk) 09:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

nowhere.

It is one of his numerous statement where he mixed anti-Zionism and anti-Zemitism. Maybe on wikiquote. Ceedjee (talk) 09:24, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Who is "he" in your original reserach above ? Zeq (talk) 11:27, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Zeq,

Amin al-Husseini (of course !)

It is true that I didn't give any source by where is the WP:OR ? This guy must have tired the entired world with his discourses against Zionism and Jews. Ceedjee (talk) 16:00, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Zionism is zionism and Jews are jews. If the quote is about the jews we sue jews. There are sometimes use today of the word "zionist" to mean "Jews" but here there is no such issue - the quote is about Jews. Maybe we should have a section about his antisemitism. Zeq (talk) 16:06, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi Zeq,

I understand your point but that is unfortunately not correct.

Zionists mixed the names themselves : Jewish agency, Jewish army, Jewish state, etc.

Ceedjee (talk) 20:45, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I think you are confusing something which is who are exactly those "zionists" and why do you think that what you read in english has anything to do with How people who are not native english speakers define themself. I have never heard the expression "Jewish army". the expretion Jewish agency" was invented 100 years ago so what does this has to do with anything.

Bottom, line back to Mufti. He speaks about the jews and where should put his quote ? Zeq (talk) 20:55, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

From my point of view, not in the article but in wikiquote where all that the Mufti said could be gathered and there could be a link from here to wikiquite. Ceedjee (talk) 21:18, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Why ? we have in many article quotes of what people say. Actually in tis article we need more examples from the Mufti himself - especially if they are used as illustration to what the sources say about him. So I ask again - where in the article is the best place for this ? Zeq (talk) 03:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Why ? - Because that way, you will have absolutely all of them and there are many. Ceedjee (talk) 05:46, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I do not undersatnd your answer. In any case I see that you are not trying even to consider answering the question that was asked. The quote is sourced and therefore can be in the article. The question is : where is the best place for it ? Zeq (talk) 05:56, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Zeq,

It is already here. I think it is good there.

What I mean is that it would be a relevant information to gather *all the antisemitc speeches* of the Mufti. But not in this article (because of wp:undue). So the best place is in wikiquote with a link from this article (eg at the beginning of the section given just here above)...

Ceedjee (talk) 10:31, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Defense of the broad view of antisemitism section

This section mainly exists to fight the insidious position that al-Husayni was anti-Zionist, and not anti-Jewish. A study of his actual statements will not support such a view, and so we need to cite his actual statements.

In the citation I give the pages so you can go for yourself and see the fuller quote of what he said. I feel my summary gets at the essence of his statements, but if others feel there may be better ways to word them they are welcome to do so.Johnpacklambert (talk) 01:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I permit myself to move down here your comment that was in the middle of the talk page (while dated 10 april).

I reverted bec. al-Husseini cannot be tagged as antisemite as easily. Different pov's and references should be given. This is a hard topic that requires much work. Ceedjee (talk) 22:38, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Re Mallmann p.22

I have removed the following:-

The Hebron case should be considered since the Jewish community there was centuries old and had peacefully coexisted with their Muslim and Christian Arab neighbors for a long time. Yet the new form of anti-semitism spread by al-Husayni was able to destroy the peace of ages past.

This is what is actually written on the source page from which this comment is added apropos Hebron p.22

In their frenzy, they beat up Jews praying at that holy site. A week later, on August 23, Arab rioting escalated in the city, and that same afternoon a rumor also reached Hebron that Jews were slaughtering Arabs in Jerusalem. Centuries of the small Jewish minority’s peaceful coexistence with the Arabs in Hebron could not halt the subsequent wave of anti-Jewish violence that erupted. On August 24, 1929, an all-out massacre took place in Hebron, and sixtyseven Jews were murdered.63

The bolded passages are editorial elaboration posing as a citation of sources. Secondly, no one has proven that al-Husayni had any connection to that particular massacre, its pertinence in extenso to his page has not been justified (a link to the 1929 Hebron massacre exists) and the technical literature has remarked that at Hebron, the Nashashibi clan was dominant, and they opposed al-Husayni. The sources for Mallmann and Cuppers' quote (a truism) are Tom Segev, One Palestine, Complete. Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate (London: Little, Brown, 2000), pp. 314ff., 321–327; Lesch, Arab Politics in Palestine,pp. 209f. Cite these sources if you like (once you've checked them as linking al-Husayni with the Hebron massacre). Mallmann and Cuppers' paper is useful for the suggestion that al-Husayni may have had contacts with a secret programme to sweep through Palestine, and joing with German forces from the Caucasus to wipe out Jews in Palestine. It is not proper to cite this specific paper for a general point made by numerous sources on the massacre at Hebron, which is not their area of competence. Secondly, in writing a Wiki article, one should not write 'should be considered' , which is an editorial comment, a piece of advice by one editor to the reader.Nishidani (talk) 17:16, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree that the words 'should be considered' should be removed. It would be better to bringa quote tying the Mufti to the massacre. We had such quotes in the past from the minority view to the British commsion which later around 1937 was accepted. Zeq (talk) 18:30, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Zeq. I appreciate that. Moral or even political responsibility is one thing. Whether he directed that massacre or not is another. If he did he'd have to have done it under the noses of the Nashashibi clan, his adversaries. That's the reason why I'm a bit puzzled. Nishidani (talk) 18:39, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

Translation

I have prepared a translation of what at present is footnote 42 (Mallmann and Cuppers), but would it be a violation of authorial rights to insert this?CWO (talk) 19:26, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

No. Just add a note after stating : "free translation of "...". Ceedjee (talk) 19:44, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Mufti's antisemitism

Warning to wikipedia

1)From wikipedia in french (http://fr.wikipedia.org/Eric_Rouleau)Eric Rouleau was ambassador in Tunisia when Arafat was based in Tunis , this men take part of the arab politic of France he was a contact with the colonel Khadafi. => In his article he wrote that Phillip Matar(in his english books the mufti of jerusalem p 73) call im a moderate conservative, in reality Philip Matar i have wrote in his book that the mufti "was pleased by the final solution" http://aval31.free.fr/photosdiverses/73.jpg ! This lie is the object of a whole page in a openly pro-israelian website...what his purpose ? What the purpose of trying qualifing involvement of the big mufti ?

2) What is also the importance of Idith Zertal (also only known in France) when she wrote about a men who was the charismatic leader of the SS handschar that he wasnt antisemite. A men also involved with Himmler himself ? http://aval31.free.fr/photosdiverses/big/himmlerbig.jpg (picture dedicaced of himmler to the big mufti, meeting of the big mufti with Himmler. A men subject of the first book of Simon Wiesenthal (Grossmufti Grosssagent der Achse 1947)?

What's the clue of this writter and other member of wikipedia showing that the big mufti wasnt antisemitic ? Whats the purpose of a so long article dealing about antisemitism ?

Misplaced Pages discovery : the big mufti could be then the first men so deeply involve in the nazi system (only looking the pictures, movies about im, facts) without to be antisemite !

Wikieur

From the beginning of the Misplaced Pages entry: "It is often claimed his opposition to Zionism was grounded in anti-Semitism."

Yeah, and It is often claimed Hitler's actions were grounded in anti-Semitism.

And it is often claimed that the earth is round, and that 'A' is the first letter of English alphabet, and that 2+2=4

This is insanity. You don't need to quote someone to say that Hitler or Hajj Amin were antisemitic. This is too basic. All you need is to know what he did. It speaks for itself.

The statement I quoted is an insult to the intelligence of the Misplaced Pages readers. I will wait for someone to change it, but if it remains unchanged, I'll rewrite the entire opening, making his role in the Holocaust the first item. (76.167.72.139 (talk) 08:07, 11 June 2008 (UTC))

Read more extensively in the academic literature on Husseini, and you will slowly appreciate that historians now make a clear distinction between his early antizionism, and his later alliance with the Nazis. Texts must reflect the scholarly literature, not simplistic thumbnail impressions garnered from a partial reading of secondary and tertiary POV sources. On that most editors are agreed. Don't meddle with the text until you have read thoroughly the whole article, and its sources.Nishidani (talk) 09:00, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

---

I think I have found the quote that was missing to solve this issue once for all.
In his last book, Benny Morris writes, without ambiguity, that al-Husseini was antisemite and he justifies this by some of his speeches.
With a former analysis stating the same from Elpeleg, with the one of Arendth given some months ago, and with the one given by Zeq some times ago from an article, I think we have enough reliable and scholarly sources.
There is also the recent quote that added/removed/added/removed from the article... We can nuance all this by the analysis of Idith Zertal who claims this pictures was exagerated and we will have a npov version.
I will make a suggestion here to add something concerning this polemic issue in the article.
Rgds, Ceedjee (talk) 12:05, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Material

On the building on the antisemitic image of the Mufti

• « The transference of the Holocaust situation on the Middle East reality (...) was done, before and during 's trial, in two disctinctive ways: (...). The second means was systematic references - in the press, on the radio, and in political speeches - to the former Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin El-Husseini, his connections with the Nazi regime in general and with Eichmann and his office in particular. In those references he was depicted as a prominent designer of the Final Solution and a major Nazi criminal. (...)
  As for the building of the case against the Mufti of Jerusalem as a major Nazi criminal, the hammering started during the preparation for the trial. (...) Israeli papers (...) repeatedly stressed his ties with El-Husseini, "a fanatic Jew hater, who belongs among the biggest Nazi war criminals". (...) One Israeli newspaper subliminally suggested that the Nazi order for the mass murder of European Jewry was actually inspired by the Mufti. "Various certificates and documents found in archives in Europe after the Nazi defeat," said the paper, "have proven that El-Husseini, the most extreme leader the Israeli Arabs have ever had, was one of the most important collaborators of Adolf Eichmann.» (Idith Zertal, Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, pp.100-103).

• « ... »

On the antisemitic positions of the Mufti

• « In any case, there is no doubt that Haj Amin's hatred was not limited to Zionism, but extended to Jews as such. His frequent, close contacts with leaders of the Nazi regime cannot have left Haj Amin any doubt as to the fate which awaited Jews whose emigration was prevented by his efforts.His many comments show that he was not only delighted that Jews were prevented from emigrating to Palestine, but was very pleased by Nazi's Final Solution ». (Conclusion of Involvment in the destriction of the Jews, The Grand Mufti, Zvi Elpeleg, p.72).

• « He was deeply anti-Semitic. He later explained the Holocaust as owing to the Jews' sabotage of the German war effort in Wolrd War I and the millennia of Gentile anti-Semitism as due to the Jews' "character" : "One of the most prominent facets of the Jewish character is their exaggerated conceit and selfishness, rooted in their belief that they are the chosen people of God. There is no limit to their covetousness and they prevent others from enjoying the Good... They have no pity and are known for their hatred, rivalry and hardness, as Allah described them in the Qur'an. » (Benny Morris, 1948, pp.21-22).

Ceedjee (talk) 08:52, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

I fail to understand why you concentrate on his antisemitism. Husseini was engaged in a struggle "to the death" with a political movement of armed revolutionaries that was flooding his society. These people attacked the house of the Mufti (Huneidi, FO reference 71/5118 E 3580) and then had Husseini sentenced to a long term of imprisonment in a secret trial on (unknown) charges blaming him for the problems. They demanded and got the sacking of the mayor of Jerusalem. These very troublesome and unwanted arrivals in his society loudly proclaimed they were Jewish - and he hated them. To call the result antisemitic smacks of propaganda and a determination to ignore the real story. We present no evidence that he hated the Jews of Palestine before he was confronted by the immigrants - if we agree that antisemitism is so important to his story then why don't we try and explore its roots?

In fact, there must be a suspicion that any source that makes a big thing out of his antisemitism is itself steeped in racist hatred - and its frequent corrollary, historical fabrication. I'd be astonished if there weren't good sources that make the points I'm making - so why are they totally absent? Where's the case for the defence?

Looking at the current state of our article, the problem of distortion is starkly evident - for instance, in the lead we have "In 1941 al-Husayni met Adolf Hitler in Berlin and asked him to oppose, as part of the Arab struggle for independence, the establishment of a Jewish state". That's almost certainly *not* what he said and it's difficult to understand why we misquote him in order to twist his motives in this way.

I don't much care to edit this article because I don't like racist hatred and in particular I don't want to tangle with people who distort the evidence in order to scream "racist" at people they hate. Those who do edit this article owe the project a lot better than what they're doing. PR 07:56, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

I do not concentrate on his antisemitism. That is something to develop but not in the lead and rather at the end of the article. As I did. I just report WP:RS sources and relevant information as proven in this talk page.

Ceedjee (talk) 07:56, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Proposal

Amin al-Husayni has been pictured by a virulent antisemite by traditional Israeli historiography.

His recent biographies put rather forward his nationalism. Nevertheless, Zvi Elpeleg, whereas rehabilitating him, concludes his chapter concerning the involvment of the Mufit in the extermination of the Jews in writing that "n any case, there is no doubt that Haj Amin's hatred was not limited to Zionism, but extended to Jews as such. His frequent, close contacts with leaders of the Nazi regime cannot have left Haj Amin any doubt as to the fate which awaited Jews whose emigration was prevented by his efforts.His many comments show that he was not only delighted that Jews were prevented from emigrating to Palestine, but was very pleased by Nazi's Final Solution ». According to Benny Morris, " was deeply anti-Semitic". He argues that the Mufti "explained the Holocaust as owing to the Jews' sabotage of the German war effort in World War I and character : (...) their selfishness, rooted in their belief that they are the chosen people of God.

In a study dedicated to the role and the use of the Holocaust in the Israeli nationalist feeling, Idith Zertal takes a new look at the antisemitic picture of the Mufti. She considers that "in more correct proportions, as a fanatic nationalist-religeous Palestinian leader". She also claims that "(...) the demonization of the Mufti serves to magnify the Arafatian threat" and that the " one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry (...) has no (...) historical substantiation (...).

1. Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution, (1953) Sphere Books, London 1973 p.27
2. Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil.(1963) Viking Press, New York 1965 p.13
3. 'Eichmann had, indeed, been sent to Palestine in 1937, but that was on office business at a time when he was not even a commissioned officer. Apparently it concerned the Ha'avara Agreement for Jewish immigration into Palestine from Germany. As for contacting the Arab rebels in Palestine, or their leader the Mufti, Eichmann was turned back by the British authorities at the Egyptian border. It is doubtful whether Eichmann made contact with the Mufti even in 1942, when the latter resided in Berlin. If this fallen idol makes an occasional appearance in Eichmann's office correspondence it is because Eichmann's superiors at the Foreign Office found the Mufti a very useful sacred cow, always to be invoked when the reception of Jewish refugees in Palestine was under discussion. Dieter Wisliceny even believed that Eichmann regarded the Mufti as a colleague in a muuch expanded post-war Final Solution.' G.Reitlinger, The Final Solution,ibid.pp.27-28
4. 'Hätte Erwin Rommel 1942 die Truppen seines Gegners, des britischen Feldmarschalls Montgomery, in Ägypten geschlagen und wäre anschließend bis nach Palästina vorgedrungen, hätte das Einsatzkommando den Auftrag erhalten, die Juden in Palästina zu töten. Das Einsatzkommando sollte nach dem Muster der NS-Einsätze in Osteuropa arbeiten; dabei waren hunderttausende von Juden in der Sowjetunion und anderen Ländern Osteuropas ermordet worden. Die Nationalsozialistischen Machthaber wollten sich die Deutschfreundlichkeit der palästinensischen Araber für ihre Pläne zunutze machen. 'Bedeutendster Kollaborateur der Nationalsozialisten und zugleich ein bedingungsloser Antimsemit auf arabischer Seit war Haj Amin el-Husseini, der Mufti von Jerusalem,' schreiben Mallmann und Cüppers. In seiner Person habe sich exemplarisch gezeigt, 'welch entscheidende Rolle der Judenhass im Projekt der deutsch-arabischen Verständigung einnahm.' El-Husseini habe unter anderem bei mehreren Treffen mit Adolf Eichmann Details der geplanten Morde festgelegt.'http://www.uni-stuttgart.de/aktuelles/presse/2006/36.html
5. Mallmann, Klaus-Michael and Martin Cuppers, "Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine" in Holocaust Studies Vol. 35, p. 19-20
6. Mallmann, Klaus-Michael and Martin Cuppers, "Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine" in Holocaust Studies Vol. 35, p. 22
7. see Moshe Perlman, Mufti of Jerusalem: The Story of Haj Amin el Husseini, 1947; Joseph Schechtman, The Mufti and the Fuehrer : the rise and fall of Haj Amin el-Husseini, 1965.
8. ^ Eric Rouleau, Qui était le mufti de Jérusalem ? (Who was the Mufti of Jerusalem ?), Le Monde diplomatique, august 1994.
9. Zvi Elpeleg, Conclusion of the chapter Involvment in the destruction of the Jews, The Grand Mufti, 1993, p.72
10. Benny Morris, 1948, 2008, pp.21-22.
11. Idith Zertal, Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, 2005, p.102.
12. Idith Zertal, Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood, 2005, p.175.

Are there comments before I put this in the article ? Ceedjee (talk) 20:07, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Dubious

I checked the pages in the former Israeli Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem's book and Benvenisti cites no sources for the quotes attributed to Kook or to al-Husayni. The Kook cite is not quoted in full in the note and, in any case, al-Husayni's alleged interpretation of Kook's alleged statement does not seem unreasonable in the context of the time and place and Jewish attempts to gain control of the Wall, e.g. by Chaim Weizmann in 1919. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 05:48, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I am not sure to understand what you mean. Do you want to remove this quote ?

nb: You took high care in putting the alleged term in your sentence but maybe you forgot the most important : "(...) and alleged Jewish attempts to gain control of the Wall".

What does Benvenisti say exactly ? Ceedjee (talk) 07:40, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

I put the Benvenisti/Kook material in there, so I'm to blame, if someone finds fault, or it is my responsibility. One can dispense with the 'alleged'. My self-ban will be lifted I June and will then explain if needed. But dear Ceedjee the same material, (also with a public declaration of Zionism's intent to take over the site by Ussishkin), can be found in Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, Fayard, Paris, 2002 tome 2 p.166, which confirms the point. Regards to both Nishidani (talk) 13:22, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

??? There must be a misunderstanding... I didn't claim it was not right. DieWeisseRose did (or I assume he did bec. I am not sure to understand either).

nb: I don't have La Question de Palestine of Laurens :-)

Regards, Ceedjee (talk) 15:42, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Sorry for the misunderstanding, over 'alleged'. One source, Benvenisti, says Amin was familiar with Kook's remark. Many sources state that Jewish offers, and pressure to buy the wall were repeated over that decaded. The article in this latter regard simply cites Arab claims and Jewish denials from the relevant British and mandatory reports and investigations in 1930. Documents there were written for political ends, with an eye to the potential reactions of both parties. Later historical research has amply demonstrated that several bids were made to buy the wall, and that these were known to the public, Arabic and otherwise. The problem therefore, is, how to we put this into the text without suffering from boring assaults from editors who might prefer to Peel-Hope Simpson-LNations versions (as a better 'NPOV' balancing act) to what our historical experts now say was the case? The Arab charge was, in short, not unfounded, or based on mere rumour. Nishidani (talk) 17:48, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Ceedjee, I referred to the statements attributed to Kook and al-Husayni as "alleged" because the only source I know of for them is Benvenisti and he does not cite any sources for anything in his book. As for "Jewish attempts to gain control of the Wall," of course, alleged could be used there too but I did not use it because I think it is far better documented in WP than the remarks of Benvenisti based upon quotes attr. to Kook and al-Husayni. You asked what Benvenisti says and my answer is, that on this particular matter, not much other than what already appears in the article text. The phrase "concrete political plot" is a direct quote from Benvenisti and the rest of the sentence in the WP article text is a very close paraphrase of Benvenisti. You ask, "Do you want to remove this quote." I'm not sure but I am more inclined to add something to the effect that Benvenisti cite no sources. Benvenisti offers no evidence beyond his bare assertation that al-Husayni was responding, in particular, to Kook's alleged statement. --DieWeisseRose (talk) 02:09, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Hi DieWeisseRose,

Thank you. I understand what you mean.

I think that if Benevenisti is the only one who makes the link between Kook's (alleged) statement and Husseini's (alleged) andswer, given he is not an historien and whereas he is a wp:rs, we should find a better source or to remove this.

I will try to find something. I think there is something about that in Tom Segev, One Palestine. Complete.

Regards, Ceedjee (talk) 06:50, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality tagged since Dec 07

Are there any outstanding issues to be covered here? This page has quieted down as of late. Tarc (talk) 12:42, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I wouldn't mind it if you took the tag down. --GHcool (talk) 17:05, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Most relevant information is in the article. It still needs quite a lot of work on it, with repetitiveness, and a tradition of POV-battles leaving it in a rather messy state and unbalanced. The basic problem was a confusion caused by one editor who read his later alliance with Nazis retroactively back into his anti-Zionism. The text still shows this. Nishidani (talk) 17:23, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

I share Nishidani's analysis concerning the current state of the article. We would need a lot of work to improve this and it will be a huge work with a high risk of starting a battle...

With the 1948 Palestinian exodus family and all the ones related to (alleged) massacres, there are difficult to deal with...

Would there be another flag to underline the "problematic" of the topic ? Ceedjee (talk) 21:16, 11 June 2008 (UTC)

Mufti's antisemitism

Nishidani, It would be prudent if you could provide sources critical of Wolfgang G. Schwanitz's view of the mufti, but please don't change the article text until you can procure these. 132.66.84.167 (talk) 15:36, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't need to provide sources on Wolfgang Schwanitz. His article is cited, and I made no criticism here of this article. Your revert was wrong because you accused me falsely of removing a source. I retained the sources that were in the text before my edit. Your objection therefore was to my abbreviation, an elimination of irrelevant details about Schwanitz's background, as far as I can see.Nishidani (talk) 19:22, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

This is what Rouleau says.

GHcool. The text has slabs of German in it and you don't protest. You challenge however a citation to an author writing in French, because readers can't control it. This is nincoherent. The French text says exactly what note 74 (which is summarised in lead) says (though bthere is an error in the prose of the text at the relevant point, to be corrected. If editors want to check Rouleau's statement, they can ask me or Ceedjee or any one else who wishes to control its veracity to verify and translate the relevant parts. Here is the French text.

Haj Amin, pour Zvi Elpeleg, fut dans les années 20 et 30 le premier des « anti-impérialistes » de la région puisqu’il combattit sans relâche la Grande-Bretagne, puissance mandataire en Palestine, et prit la tête du soulèvement populaire (1936-1939) dont le principal objectif était de conquérir l’indépendance du peuple palestinien. Tel n’est pas l’avis de Philip Matar, qui brosse du mufti de Jérusalem le portrait d’un conservateur « modéré », dont la « collaboration » était hautement appréciée par les Britanniques avant qu’il ne soit contraint de se ranger (tardivement) dans le camp du mouvement révolutionnaire. CEPENDANT, les convergences ne manquent pas dans les appréciations des deux auteurs. Ils condamnent tout autant l’un que l’autre l’alliance conclue entre Hitler et Haj Amin mais innocentent ce dernier de tout crime de guerre. Signe des temps, Philip Matar rejoint Zvi Elpeleg pour estimer que la politique dite du « tout ou rien » pratiquée par Haj Amin a porté préjudice à la cause qu’il défendait. Aucun des deux ne pense toutefois que les erreurs qu’il a commises ont modifié le cours de l’histoire. L’Etat d’Israël aurait en tout cas vu le jour en raison des puissants soutiens internationaux dont bénéficiaient les sionistes, explique Philip Matar, tandis que Zvi Elpeleg affirme que la création d’un Etat palestinien était exclue, compte tenu de l’opposition de la plupart des pays arabes à une telle entité souveraine. Ce qui l’amène à déclarer à ce propos : « Ma conclusion fondamentale est que les Israéliens et les Palestiniens sont potentiellement des alliés naturels : nos deux Etats pourront coexister côte à côte. » C’est surtout dans l’appréciation globale de l’ancien mufti de Jérusalem et de son action que nos deux historiens s’opposent. Médiocre et velléitaire pour le Palestinien, Haj Amin est, pour l’Israélien, un homme « hors du commun », « comparable à Haïm Weizmann, David Ben Gourion, ou même à Theodor Herzl ». Ancien gouverneur militaire à Gaza et en Cisjordanie, qui passait autrefois pour un « faucon », Zvi Elpeleg témoigne de l’évolution des esprits en Israël, où son livre a reçu le meilleur des accueils dans les médias.

Nishidani (talk) 18:02, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually it was Ceedjee who added the material . Imad marie (talk) 18:28, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Imad if you check the Schwanitz article you will see the precise Arabic passage quoted from al-Husayni's memoirs. I noted down some time ago, in examining Schwanitz's material, a note which read that Husayni told Himmler he wished to send the Jews back to their country of origin, and Himmler said they would not be accepted in Germany, but I can't find this in any of my downloaded pages. Nishidani (talk) 18:47, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Nicosia cite

I read this long ago, and only have a few sparse notes. I restored GHcool's use of it for the citation required at Dar es-Islam but now find I cannot access the article. It needs to be checked and, if it does not support the text, eliminated, since I note GHcool had second thoughts about it after introducing it.Nishidani (talk) 19:18, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

Antisemitism

I think this sentence gives a "fair" summarizes of the material I added in the section concerning Mufti and antisemitism :

"Historians debate to what extent his fierce opposition to Zionism was grounded in nationalism and anti-Semitism."

• Katz and Pearlman consider he was anti-semite
• Elpeleg and Mattar that he was mainly nationalist while the first do not deny he was aware of the Shoah tragedy and the consequences of his own action on this.
• In his last book, Morris also argues he was anti-semite (but do not deny nationalism fight)
• Zertal thinks he was more a fanatic than an antisemite and that this is exagerated for political reasons

This different point of view are summarized by the Frecnh jouranlist Rouleaux but based only on Elpeleg and Mattar's works. I think we have a good list of wp:rs sources to conclude there is a debate to see why he was so virulently anti-Zionist. Regards, Ceedjee (talk) 09:23, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

The only point I would challenge is 'and', since it tends to telescope or conflate into an atemporal unity the distinct phases of his anti-Zionism. He was decidedly and fiercely anti-zionist, as were most men of his class and background, from the late 1910s to 1930s. One of the things that pushed him to the antisemitic paranoid reading of events was the fact that agreements made with local British authorities in Palestine were, after some weeks, overthrown in London, and the newspapers of the day spoke of lobbying by the WZO and other groups with considerable throw-weight in British circles. The formal antisemitic, in the Western sense, elements emerge far more clearly with his decision to throw himself on the side of the Nazis in WW2. and as it stands suggests there was an antisemitic strain in his early antiZionism. This is, as far as I know, not proven. The only way out of this is to write 'and/or'. We must bear in mind that the travailled history of this page owes much to a POV attempt to get at Palestinian resistance to Zionism, wholly natural, as intrinsically 'antisemitic' and not nationalist, in order by using the good evidence for the later Husayni's pro-Nazi connections retroactively to interpret his original, representativelty Palestinian rejection of the Balfour declaration, as antisemitic, and then read his heritage in the Palestinian resistance, via the PLO, as conegnitally antisemitic. All such traces of such a game-plan will have to be elided, as it was a blatant attempt tomisinterpret the facts in order to push a perverted reading of the PLO.Nishidani (talk) 10:20, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree for the and/or. To be honnest. I wanted to suggest to write ... or ... or both but I found this too complex and useless. The nuance will not be understood by the readers.

I would like to nuance something. In the Israeli perception of matter, Mufti's motivation was already antisemitism far before Arafat and PLO (see BG's and Golda Meir discourses in 1947 ; I have also in mind a "cartoon" published in NYT : "Not like Dachau - Is it, Herr Mufti ?".

According to Tom Segev, One Palestine. Complete, Palestinians even educated was antisemite. Like most British, even some pro-Zionists. I understand his analys as claiming "antisemitism was a normal feeling at the time" and that it should not be read by us as we read antisemitism today. Nevertheless, it is obvious that for Jews (and consequently Israelis), such a nuance is not satisfying.

As another exemple, even Ilan Pappé, in his book of 1992, writes that all arab leaders were antisemite, except Abdallah.

My mind is that anti-Zionist soon created a anti-Semitism feeling in the Palestinian Arabs. Both feelings mixed and grew together as soon as the 1920 Jerusalem riots. And Jews/Zionists mainly perceived the antisemite threat, which is quite logical from their point of view (they were Jews AND if they were Zionist it was to escape antisemitism).

Ceedjee (talk) 06:34, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

On the first point we are agree. On the second, the difference is one of nuance. I never said by the way that Mufti was not antisemitic before Arafat. I said that his explicit antisemitism during the war was used in early post 1948 writing to brand the anti-Zionist movement as Nazi-linked, and that the key role played by a figure like Husayni in the earlier resistance to Zionism was used to create links via him to later exponents of the same tradition, such as Arafat and the PLO. Now there is a long tradition is tension and hostility with Jews in the Arab world, just as there was with Christians. But there is nothing like the odium theologicum applied through centuries to lead to the systematic legislated violence we find in Christendom. There is a cosiderable literature also in Jewish writing of contempt and hatred for Christians and Arabs, but not for that reason do we invent a category like Jewish anti-Arabism. Jews qua Zionists, both after 1918 and after 1945/1948 were understandably disposed to think of all opposition to the creation of a Jewish homeland as anti-semitic (just as the Arabs had good reason to think that, over the century, there has been a consistent contempt indeed hatred for them in Western geostrategy). Petliura alone in the late stages of WW1 killed some 60,000 Jews, the Palestinian riots of 1920 against Zionism killed a handful of Jews. The Holocaust killed over 5 million Jews, whereas the 800,000 to 1,000,000 Jews in Arab lands, during WW2 and the aftermath for a decades, were almost untouched by that virulent odium that impelled mass slaughter. That Zionists saw the two (Usshikhin in 1919-1920) and everybody in post 1945 conflated the Eurocentric hatred of Jews with Arab hostility to the lost of Palestine, involving as it did violence and war., is on record. But to brand what was a standard movement by an indigenous people to the loss of their land as 'anti-semitic' in the Western sense is a grievous error. Too many other factors, not present in classic antisemitism, were present. Antisemitism is in Europe a majoritarian sentiment of hate towards a small host community, a deep fantasy unconnected with Jews, a pathology of paranoid dimensions with attendant readiness to smear, spurn, express contempt for anyone who may be Jewish. Many analyses point out that it thrived independent of realities. The Arabs sentiments were not simply a fantasy of a non-existent threat: they were reactions to a real historical tragedy for them. One may note that Zionist perceptions commingle anti-Zionism with anti-semitism. To leave the impression that anti-Zionism was intrinsically anti-Semitic, an embattled objection to dispossession as equivalent to a racial hatred for one's dispossessor is highly misleading.Nishidani (talk) 07:37, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I have the same view on this issue.

Ceedjee (talk) 07:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

To simplify, not only in my experience (which is substantial with antisemites) but in the literature, an antisemite is someone who hates Jews, individually and as a group, even without ever coming into contact with them. I don't know how many times I have had to correct people for saying 'maledetto ebreo' (damned Jew) to refer to some businessman who has tricked them, whether he be Christian, Protestant or Jewish. The hatred precedes the experience. It is to be distinguished from the universal tendency to discriminate against outsiders or those who are different. There is something very peculiar about antisemitism as a psychological and social pathology in Western history, and I bridle at attempts to use the term loosely.Nishidani (talk) 07:48, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

ok. Ceedjee (talk) 07:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

The evidence both for his antisemitism and German/Nazi contacts should be reorganized from the chaotic repetitive blobs (organized by source) to allow a clear event by event, utterance by utterance, account of his war years with the Axis powers. Something like this</(BR>

(1)Testimonies at Nuremberg and arguments he was a key figure in Holocaust programme, down to Arendt and others

Then an ordered list of the main evidence =

(2)Husayni's role in Farhun-Nazi uprising in Iraq

(3) Flight to Italy and Germany

(4)Encounter with Italian fascists and German Nazis, Hitler, Himmler

(5) Chronological list of occasions where he made utterances, or intervened to stop Jews from being sent in swaps to Palestine.

(6(Chronological list of strategies involving plans to enlist Nazi help in attacking Jews in Palestine (3 of them).

(7)Organisation of Bosnian brigades

(8) Postwar attempts to have him put on trial for war crimes
Nishidani (talk) 08:12, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I agree. This structure is excellent. Ceedjee (talk) 07:28, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Good. This will involve a fair bit of editing, so I suggest we create a subsection here and experiment how to do it, before actually posting anything substantial on the article page. No hurry though: it's a big job, and requires care, input and discussion.Nishidani (talk) 07:45, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

For whoever is interested, I opened a thread about including al-Husayni's picture in Antisemitism here. Imad marie (talk) 12:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Hans Döhle

On 21 July 1937, Al-Husayni paid a visit to the new German Consul-General, Hans Döhle, in Palestine. He repeated his former support for Germany and 'wanted to know to what extent the Third Reich was prepared to support the Arab movement against the Jews.

This looks much like one would expect, but it is disturbing that there is no citation provided. I have googled the quotation, and the names, for a half an hour, in Google Books and Google generally, and only come up with three sites, two fanatically anti-Arab, the other citing this page from Yahoo answers. Of course, the whole section is cherrypicked. Al-Husayni met with everyone he could enlist in his anti-Zionist cause. He met with the American consul-general just a month later, and asked him about American opposition to imperialism, i.e. one people taking over a land occupied already by another people, and whether the Jewish lobby would be able to change America's traditional good relations with Arabs. It looks from the page as though all Husayni did was check out Nazis. The Nazis, as Nicosia notes, only gave briefly some minor aid to the Palestinians in mid 1938 when they wanted to send a signal to the English not to interfere with their project in Czechoslovakia, whose invasion was to coincide, on Hitler's orders, with a rise in disorders in Palestine, in order to make life difficult on two fronts for the British, and have them yield in Central Europe. Nishidani (talk) 12:06, 20 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't have information about this BUT that sounds clear to me he must have looked for support in all directions.

I suggest we remove this and try to find wp:rs sources concerning his research of support against the British and the Zionism.

Ceedjee (talk) 07:08, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Well, Ceedjee, I don't know whether we 'have to remove it just because it lacks so far an RS. I've no strong feelings either way. One solution would be to conflate the two passages as they exist, Wolff (well documented), Hans Döhle (not so) and add the bruited Eichman encounter in a long paragraph on his work to enlist German assistance (and note that he canvassed also other governments as well, just to avoid unncessary implications that he was only interested in Nazi backing). At the time, of course, this wasn't as suspicious as it looks, since the Nazi regime's success led to a very large surge in Jewish immigration and the WZO itself negotiated with them in the same period to withhold a boycott and to implement the Haavara agreement. As Wolff acutely marked, some of these people were quite dumb as to what really was going on!

I've real elsewhere about Hans Döhle, the passage looked reasonable to me, it's just, yesterday, in working to remedy many of the lacunae, I found to my surprise I came up against a brick wall on this, which I thought would be the easiest to fix. Generally, the real and substantial case against al-Husayni comes later - and, in my view, there is no need, even for a Zionist (if they are rationally tough-minded) to try to blacken his name too early when he blackened it himself (apart from the hostility his line aroused among many Palestinians: I can add to that with refs to Ted Swedenburg's great book, later). Regards as always Nishidani (talk) 07:25, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

As to your request for further work on his canvassing for support, this is from my files:-

Husayni also met with the American Consul George Wadsworth in the same period (August 1937, a month after the encounter with Döhle) where he affirmed his belief that America was remote from imperialist ambitions and therefore able to understand that Zionism represented a hostile and imperialist aggression directed against an inhabitedc country’. In a further interview on Aug 31 Husayni expressed fear of Jewish influence in the US that might tip it to side with the Zionists. See Lawrence Davidson America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood, University of Florida Press, 2001 p.239

Nishidani (talk) 07:36, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

(2) Strange no secondary source is used to confirm that Husayni testified before the Shaw Commission with a copy of the Protocols in his hand. The ref is.Palestine Commission on the Disturbances of August 1929, Minutes of Evidence (London 1930), Vol 2 page 539 paragraph 13,430, page 527 paragraph 13,107 (interview on 4/12/1929), which looks perfect, but being a primary source, needs to be controlled, since no reader can access it with reasonable ease.Nishidani (talk) 16:58, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

al-Husayni and Fascism

I have asked for citations for the following:

• al-Husayni's belief that Palestinian Muslims were enthusiastic about the new regime and looked forward to the spread of Fascism throughout the region.

I have checked Nicosia's book on this. He is citing from Wolff's telegram, and that is exactly what the telegram says, according to Nicosia's The Third Reich and the Palestine Question p.85 (bottom of page). The whole passage comes from Nicosia, and is properly cited in the original note. Nicosia does suggest that all Palestinian leaders used this kind of euphoric rhetoric. Regards Nishidani (talk) 17:08, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• of an Arab state of a Fascist nature.

al-Husayni is a Muslim leader, Muslim teachings and Fascist teachings don't go along. al-Husayni says in his diaries "I have considered Germany a friendly country because the enemy of your enemy is your friend" and "I sought cooperation with Germany not for the sake of Germany, and not believing in Fascism that I don't believe in its principles, but because I believe that if Germany wins the war, Zionists will not stay in Palestine." Imad marie (talk) 11:54, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I think we should consider adding, eventually, a section on his memoirs in which quotations like the two you have given, are added, in order to present al-Husayni's interpretation of his own life and political choices. There's another, specifically on Jews, rather regretful, which Pappé mentions, which should be added ('amid the great verbiage remaining from that period, an uncharacteristic statement by Amin stands out - that if it were not for the Balfour Declaration, he would have consented to Jewish immigration and settlement'). If you can find it in the Memoirs, all the better (certainly for our companion Ceedjee who has strong grounds for challenging anything sourced from Pappé!) Nishidani (talk) 14:39, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Husayni's maxim sums up much manoeuvering in the 30s. Even Germany and Russia applied it, with the Luftwaffe training illegally in the Ukraine when it was not supposed to exist, since both Stalin and Hitler, though structurally arch-enemies, found it convenient to collaborate against their common enemy, the West/the capitalist West. That there was a general excitement in Arabic countries about the turn to a military-national stateform in Europe in that period is well documented (I footnote the point in the section on Wolff.,). There were a considerable number of Jews who subscribed to fascism, some even after the race laws were passed in 1938. Jabotinsky himself admired the fascist model, until 1938. Haganah had its training camps, (Betar units were trained by fascist military experts in Civitavecchia) the Palestinians built theirs. England was the common enemy, and England's rising enemies were Germany and Italy, both of whom however wanted to negotiate an entente with England, in exchange for which they wouldn't cause problems for that country by backing Arab independence movements. There was a lot of backing in English upperclass circles for Hitler and for Mussolini (admired by Churchill) throughout this decade, so that, in itself, there was nothing 'abnormal' geopolitically in Arab attempts to enlist aid from these countries in order to shake off the English. Ibn Saud himself negotiated for arms from Hitler, as did Jewish agents working to stock the Haganah with better armaments, in terms of the Haavara agreement. Most of the time each side knew what, under the table, the other was doing. Historians must be careful not to write comic book versions painting a manichean good/bad story, but look at the total context, which makes many look rather shabbier than popular narratives admit.

Specifically, I am now checking through my copy of Renzo de Felice's huge 7 volume history of Mussolini and his times, and there's quite a bit on Husayni and Italy. I'll post the relevant information in due course. I'd be careful, Imad, about saying 'Muslim teachings' and 'fascist teachings' don't go together. Anything goes with anything else depending on who rules the roost, and how things can be twisted for political effect. Catholic teachings don't go with Nazism or Fascism necessarily, but there were priests and theologians who tried to work out a compromise, to make them look compatible, and Popes who negotiated with both. I know what you mean of course, and it is understandable given the huge and, to me, obscene efforts made even by certain established intellectuals in the West to draw an ontological equation between Islam and fascism, a thing I find absurdly hypocritical in its 'holier than thou' historical sanctimoniousness since we in Europe spawned the ideological bases and political forms for much of the genocidal violence of modernity, we put mass death on an industrialized installment plan, and should be extremely careful of pointing fingers, especially at civilisations with no such comparable record of extremist violence, civilisations that, in the acme of European and Western global warfare, were often the victims of a terror that exceeds qualitatively anything these countries beyond our frontiers have done in their struggle to emerge with their own values intact. Let's work patiently and with rigorous honesty before these complexities. Nishidani (talk) 13:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

What I meant by "don't go together" is that no Muslim leader would work to establish "an Arab state of a Fascist nature", or "look forward to the spread of Fascism throughout the region". That's nonsense, and a propaganda. Imad marie (talk) 13:44, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

I've no doubt that we have to closely control every statement on this page, and thoroughly justify things like this from highly reliable sources, before we allow such assertions to stand. Many sources used in the composition of the page were unreliable or part of a partisan historiography that was more intent on making wild accusations stick than in analysing the history of the man with equanimity. Perhaps I should explain that when I use the word 'Fascism' I think in very specific terms, of fascism as a fundamentalist doctrine based on a constructed racial and cultural myth of origins used to vector in, or frog-jump, underdeveloped countries with a large non-urban/or/agrarian population into a militarized industrial developmental state. The formulation is that made by Gregor in his 1979 work. It is basically a combination of glorious origin-myths with an authoritarian design for industrialization. In one sense, I can see that the non-racist character of Islamic teaching certainly militates against the kind of fascism classically developed in Europe. But 'fascist' ideologies, like any ideology 'free-marketism' 'capitalism' ,'communism' show what, rather loosely, one calls a meme drift in our global world, so that elements of an ideology are picked up for their rhetorical utility. Saddam is often called a 'fascist', because part of his use of the myths of the nation from high antiquity resembled the national mythmaking of fascism. But he could equally be called a 'communist', because he learnt much from the collected works of Stalin. He certainly, whatever his protestations, did not think in traditional 'Islamic' terms. I and a few other editors here are well aware of the propaganda element, and we all intend to see to it that this article will be polished to fit to the letter wiki policies on NPOV, esp. regards using the best sources. This will not mean giving al-Husayni the image he would want to be remembered through, undoubtedly, but, at the same time, it will give a neutral account of what he thought and did, whatever the consequences for his self-image or for the image some rather doctrinaire pro-Zionist pamphleteers would prefer to be concocted. That's our job, and anything you can come up with to enrichen our understanding, esp.from his memoirs, is most welcome. Modernisation in countries within the Arabic cultural sphere has usually meant destroying the traditional legal authority of islamic scholars. In so far as the state assumed administrative control of a legal system formerly subject to islamic law, and turned it into a secular authority, the margin for an autonomous sphere of authority to caution the leader, and challenge his power, was reduced drastically. In that sense, a strictly 'Islamic' leader could no more be a modernising fascist than a hasid could be a technocratic democrat. Well, these are all simplifications of complex issues. Just a thought. Regards Nishidani (talk) 14:30, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Imad, you remarked earlier:

Muslim teachings and Fascist teachings don't go along. al-Husayni says in his diaries "I have considered Germany a friendly country because the enemy of your enemy is your friend"

I have now found a secondary source that interprets the whole movement of Arab nationalism's relations with Italy and Germany in the period exactly in these terms. Al-Husayni had intimate contacts with Italy at the time, and the foremost Italian historian of the modern age now interprets these relations in precisely these words. He writes that a certain tradition of sympathy for Germany existed since WW1, since Germany was then an ally of the Ottomans and then notes that in recurring to German assistance one should not interpret this as in itself a sign of fascist tendencies

'E questo, sia ben chiaro, non -come pure è stato sostenuto da vari autori - per una presunta affinità della loro ideologia con quelle nazista e fascista, che non esisteva, ma in forza della logica tutta politica che vede nei nemici (in atto o potenziali) dei propri nemici i propri amici, specie se essi hanno già dato prova - e questo era appunto il caso della Germania ed ancor più dell'Italia - di essere interessati, nella stessa logica politica, a sostenere la loro causa' '

'It should be quite clear that this relation (arose) not, as a number of authors have nonetheless argued, because of a presumed affinity of their ideology with that of the Nazis or Fascists, no such thing existed, but by virtue of the wholly political logic (of events) that saw in the enemies (in deed or potentially) of their own enemies their own friends, particularly if the latter have already provided evidence - and this was, precisely, the case with Germany, and all the more so, with Italy -of being interested, in terms of the same political logic, in giving support to their cause'(Renzo de Felice, Mussolini l'alleato. L'Italia in guerra 1940-1943, vol.1., Einaudi, Turin, 1990 pp.212-213.

So independently of whatever suspicions authors might entertain about al-Husayni's real motives, historians of the first rank read his behaviour in the same terms as he later did.Nishidani (talk) 17:19, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Additions

I'm adding quite a bit of extra material, which can be wittled down, along with the rest of the text, in a final recension. The extra material will contextualize the Mufti's actions and the movement in a far more broader context than the simplistic Husayni-Hitler/Jew/English pattern resident on the page. Italy, as the Germans recognized, had a far stronger direct interest in that area than the Nazis, and there is considerable documentation on this (those interested might consult Renzo De Felice,Il fascismo e l’Oriente, pp.245ff.). Hitler dealt with the Jews, provided arms via the Haavara Agreement; the Saudis dealt with Hitler to get arms for Husayni; Hitler supported the English against the Arabs, the Arabs sought support from Mussolini, as did Jabotinsky, Hitler, as did Stern. All of this against an international scenario of geopolitical manooeuvering of considerable complexity. Clearly we cannot cram the page with too much material extraneous to Husayni's life. But having a text that eventually gives us some fair notion of the wider context will allow us to take the scalpal to it later, and trim the whole text down to a more fluently succinct account. The bit about Al-Qassam, for example, looks mighty odd, not only because in Henry Laurens' book, there is no connection between al-Husayni and the Haifa leader (who in any case was allied on the ground with groups hostile to the Husayni clan) until much later. The text cited itself is full of maybe's and 'perhap's'. But rather than excise, I think, at the moment, clarifying with more material is the main task at hand.Nishidani (talk) 12:14, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Shai Lachman

The account here is based on innuendo rather than evidence. As I will edit in tomorrow, al-Husayni according to many accounts helped the British authorities, whose confidence he held, quell things over this period, like the October 1933 riots. One cannot base an account on suggestive innuendos when the reliable source does not in turn ground them in solid archival documentation.Nishidani (talk) 20:52, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

al-Husayni's memoirs

There is some useful information in al-Husayni's memoirs that can be included in this article:

• His view of Nazism (page 164):

(A)

واعتبرت المانيا بلدآ صديقآ لأنها لم تكن دولة مستعمرة ولم يسبق لها أن تعرضت بسوء لأية دولة عربية أو اسلامية, ولأنها كانت تقاتل أعداءنا من مستعمرين و صهيونيين, ولان عدو عدوك صديقك, و كنت موقنآ, أن انتصار المانيا سينقذ بلادنا حتمآ من خطر الصهيونية و الاستعمار

I have considered Germany to be a friendly country, because it was not a colonizing country, and it never harmed any Arab or Islamic country, and because it was fighting our colonialist and Zionist enemies, and because the enemy of your enemy is your friend. And I was certain that Germany's victory would definitely save our countries from the danger of Zionism and colonization.

(B)

وفي المانيا سعيت جاهدآ لتقديم العون المتواضع الذي استطيعه لقضيتنا الفلسطينية و لسائر الأقطار العربية و بعض الأقطار الاسلامية, و لدعوة كافة المخلصين لقضية فلسطين و القضايا العربية, الى التعاون مع المانيا, لا من اجل المانيا و لا ايمانآ بالنازية التي لا اعتنق مبائدها و لم تخطر لي ببال, بل لأني كنت, و لا ازال, على يقين بأن لو انتصرت المانيا و المحور لما بقي للصهيونيين من أثر في فلسطين و البلاد العربية

And in Germany I worked hard to provide my humble assistance to our Palestinian cause and to all Arab countries and some Islamic countries, and to call on all those sincerely committed to our Palestinian and Arab causes to cooperate with Germany, not for the sake of Germany and not believing in Nazism, whose principles I don't subscribe to and never thought of, but rather because I was, and still am, certain that had Germany and the Axis countries won, then Zionists would not have remained in Palestine and the Arab countries.

• Antisemitism

Page 96:

(C)

ولما قلت له: ان مقاومتنا للوطن القومي اليهودي لم تكن بحافز من التعصب الديني بل كانت دفاعآ عن كياننا, و ذودآ عن بلادنا,

Then I told him (Mussolini): our resistance to the "Homeland for the Jewish people" was not motivated by our religious fanaticism, but was rather (a matter of) defending our existence and countries"

Page 147:

(D)

وأن معركتنا مع الصهيونيين ومن يدعمهم و يؤيدهم من المستعمرين هي معركة مفروضة علينا فرضا, وليس لنا فيها خيار, فلا مناص لنا من قبول تحدي الأعداء

Our battle with the Zionists and the colonialists who support them is a battle that was forced upon us, we had no choice in it, and we have no choice but to accept the challenge of the enemies.

• Holocaust

(E)Page 127, al-Husayni's reaction after Himmler tells him that they have killed 3 million Jews:

فاستغربت هذا الرقم و لم أكن أعلم شيئآ عن ذلك من قبل, وقد سألني هملر, لهذه المناسبة, كيف تفكرون في تصفية القضية اليهودية في بلادكم؟ فأجبته: اننا لا نريد منهم الا ان يعودوا الى البلاد التي جاؤوا الينا منها, فقال: لن نسمح لهم بالعودة الى ألمانيا أبدآ.

I was surprised to hear this number, and I knew nothing about it before. Then Himmler asked me: by the way, how do you plan to solve the Jewish case in your country. I answered: we want nothing from them but to return to the countries they came from. Himmler said: we will never allow them to get back to Germany.

• aaa

(F) Page 197, al-Husayni talking about himself sending letters to Nazi leaders and other leaders in the years 1943/1944 asking them to stop the Jewish immigration to Palestine:

فالواقع اني عندما أرسلت تلك المذكرات الى المسؤولين من رجال الرايخ الألماني, والدول المشار اليها, لم أكن ابتغي ابادة اليهود, لكني كنت أسعى جاهدآ لمنع طوفان الهجرة اليهودية العدوانية الرامية الى اغراق فلسطين و اخراج أهلها منها, كما حدث بعد ذلك فعلآ بمساعدة بريطانيا و الولايات المتحدة الأمريكية.

The fact is, when I sent those letters to the Nazi leaders, and to the referred to countries, I did not intend to exterminate the Jews, but I was trying hard to stop the flooding of the offensive Jewish immigration that was aiming to flood Palestine and expel its people. Which did happen later on with the help of Britain and USA.

Imad marie (talk) 13:26, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Passage E.::The whole passage is translated by Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine vol.2 Fayard, Paris 2002 p.469. Laurens regards it as having all the appearance of an authentic memory and sums up.

'En revanche, il est clair qu'il identifie progressivement son combat en Palestine à celui de l'Allemagne contre le judaisme mondial. La lecture de l'ensemble des passages de ses Mémoires consacrés à son séjour en Europe montre une assimilation du contenu de l'antisémitisme européen, avec les deux grandes thématiques de l'identification du judaisme avec le capitalisme financier (les Anglo-Saxons) et du coup de poignard dans le dos (les Juifs sont les responsables des deux conflits mondiaux). En revanche, une visione raciale de l'histoire du monde est totallement absente de sa perspective générale. Il a été reçu avec honneurs dans les milieux dirigeants du nazisme et il en fait un récit nettement complaisant. Il n'exprime aucun regret sur son attitude et sur ses choix, mais rappelle que l'extermination des Juifs d'Europe a été le fait des Allemands et qu'il ne porte aucune responsabilité dans la prise de décision comme dans ses modalités d'exécution. Dans l'ensemble de ses écrits postérieurs à 1945, il n'a pas d'attitudes négationnistes, alors qu'è l'époque du procès Eichmann (1960) des hommes politiques arabes de première importance adopteront ce type de discours.' pp.469-470

Laurens therefore argues that the overall cast of his memoirs shows Husayni did gradually assimilate his antizionist battles in Palestine with Germany's challenge to (the specious threat of (a) world Jewry, in that he associated Judaism with financial capitalism as embodied in the English and (b) with the 'stab in the back' theory in Nazi propaganda that Jews were behind both world wars. But his perspective lacks any touch of a racial vision of world history (fundamental to Nazi and Fascist ideology). In the postwar period, he, unlike many prominent Arab leaders, never denied the Holocaust. He had nothing to do with it, it was something Germany did, and he did not regret the choices he made. No one is under an obligation to accept al-Husayni's views. One is obliged to register them correctly, and then annotate them with whatever judgements historians made (Schwanitz says he 'feigns' to be surprised, Laurens thinks this an authentic expression of Husayni's experience at the time Nishidani (talk) 14:05, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Imad I have made a few stylistic changes to make the English run more smoothly. Please check them to see if I have intuited the meaning correctly, in order to avoid my creating misapprehensions. In the meantime thank you for the great work. One point in (B) we read 'rather because I was, and still am, certain that if Germany and the Axis countries win, then Zionists will not remain in Palestine and Arab countries.' This is in the present and future tense, meaning that the passage was either written during the war, or at, when he wrote this passage long after the war, he still believed the Axis countries would win in the distant future. I think it must be the former, but that is how it reads in English. In any case, we can wait until other editors fluent in Arab check the quotes, endorse or modify them, and then use them for the text. Nishidani (talk) 13:41, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for your changes, you did not change the meaning of the passages. About (B), you are right, al-Husayni spoke of the win as (past) in Arabic, so he wrote the passage after the end of the war, I modified the passage accordingly, thanks for the correction. Imad marie (talk) 14:22, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

I added (F), al-Husayni talking about his efforts to stop the Jewish immigration to Palestine. Imad marie (talk) 10:41, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Thanks again Imad. Getting the pertinent, essential parts of this useful info in will take a little time since there will have to be, if I may take Ceedjee's approval of my proposal as fairly authoritative (no one has challenged it yet), a fairly rigorous reorganization of the material from the war. That structural reorganization, as opposed to editing in more info in relevant sections, will have to be first proposed in draft form on this talk page, where we can discuss it at length. Once we have consensus, we can then paste it in.Nishidani (talk) 10:55, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

ok for me. :-) Ceedjee (talk) 12:07, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Palestinian-redundant?

I've restored 'Palestinian'. There was by then a distinct Palestinian identity. The Permanent Executive Committee, presided over by Musa Kazim, and composed of both Muslims and Christians first began to refer to 'Palestine' and the Palestinians in official documents redacted to put their position before the Mandatory authorities as far back as 26 July 1928, and in those documents the added adjective 'Arab' is dropped. See Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine, Fayard, Paris 2002 vol.2 p.101. To say simply 'Arab' is to blur over the extraordinarily conflictual relationships at the time, with Jordan, Egypt, Syria etc each endeavouring to manipulate the Palestinian situation to their own national advantage, and with distinct Palestinian groups variously at odds with their 'Arab' supporters abroad. Nishidani (talk) 09:10, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Historians debate when the separate Palestinian Arab identity developed, but I don't feel like getting into that discussion now. There are two problems with saying that the "Palestinians and Arabs" were defeated:

1. In 1948, the term "Palestinian" referred to both Palestinian Arabs and the proto-Israeli Jews that lived within the borders of the British Mandate for Palestine. Palestinian Arabs lost the war, but Palestinian Jews won the war.
2. Palestinian (and I'm referring to Palestinian Arabs) are a subset of Arabs. Saying that Palestinians and Arabs lost the war is like saying that humans and mammals nurse their young. Its redundant at best and confusing at worst. --GHcool (talk) 18:27, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

1. Hence before 1948, you are saying with extraordinary naivity, every reference to 'Palestinians' in the history books must necessarily refer to the Jewish population as well, despite the fact, as anyone could easily show, that, despite your political definition of the term, historical narratives then and now habitually refer to the Palestinians and the Jews. The word Palestinian Jew is one thing, the word 'Palestinian' is another. Come now. This is simply not good form, and very poor scholarship. When Khalidi speaks of the formation of Palestinian identity he is not talking about Jewish identity in Palestine. The distinction is absolutely necessary because nations existed around 'Palestine' which laid respective claims to that territory or contested Jewish claims, and those nations, once the war was lost by them, refused to designate the 'Arabs' as Arabs. They put them down on paper as Palestinians. Do we really have to repeat the same futile argument, which has as its object only a Zionist denial that there is such a thing as a separate historical identity to Palestinians. That was supposed to be dead and buried decades ago.
2. Palestinians ethnically are not a subset of 'Arabs'. They are like most populations a mixture of a large number of peoples. There were Circassians, Bosnian, Tinkers, Crusader Christians, Armenians, Russians, Germans, Turks, Kurds etc. The word 'Arab' in the ethnography of the region from 17th-early 20th century constantly makes a sharp distinction between the majority fellahin (regarded usually as the remnant of the oldest population, admixed with whatever African, Egyptian, and Arab elements drifted in) and Bedouin. The 'Bedouin' referred to the Arab population proper. You are confusing genetic, national, social and cultural identities, which is commonplace, but should not be repeated in an encyclopedia. Nishidani (talk) 19:27, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

1. Khalidi refers specifically to Palestinian Arabs when he speaks of "Palestinian identity." Its been a while since I picked up Khalidi's book, but if I remember correctly, he does not leave the term "Palestinians" (referring to the Arab population of the British Mandate for Palestine) ambiguous in the same way that Nishidani's proposal does.
2. In every relevant sense, Palestinian Arabs are a subset of Arabs. No Palestinian from 1948 would argue that he or she is not an Arab. No Palestinian in 2008 would argue that he or she is not an Arab.

The problem with how the way the sentence reads now is that it implies two things: (1) that the Palestinian identity (however one defines it) was as fully formed then as it is in 2008 and (2) that "Palestinians" were the losers of that war. The 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, which lead to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, was between two populations of Mandatory Palestine, i.e. it was a Palestinian vs. Palestinian war. To say that Palestinians lost the war is like saying that Americans lost the American Civil War. --GHcool (talk) 20:21, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh come off it. It implies no such thing. A generic label 'Jew' /'American' does not imply a 'fully formed identity' (identical over time). Israeli identity is still fluid, read Haaretz on Falasha and even Russian resistances to assimilation. Not for that are they denied the label 'Israelis'. Why do you make these absurd suggestions? Boorstin's 3 vol 'The Americans' calls British, Dutch, German populations resident from early times in America, 'Americans'. Why is it that, when 'Palestinian' is used, out come the spectacles, the microscopes, the nano-spectographic lens, to worry the guts out of the word, when in no other ethnic case I am familiar with, is this generic use of a term problematical? (Because the 'narrative' is larghely written with a vested Zionist or Israeli interest in its implications).

Daniel Barenboim says that he is a Palestinian (and an Israeli , a Jew, an Argentinian and a Spaniard), and has a Palestinian passport to prove it. He has never claimed to be an Arab. Look, young man, provide me with several books for these extraordinarily simplistic obiter dicta. There are Armenian, Kurdish (al-Kurd is appended to names), Samaritan Palestinians, Circasian Palestinians, Bosnian Palestinians, Catholic non-Arab Palestinians, to cite but a few examples. Everybody should know this. You read the literature, it's not difficult to substantiate. What is it you want? to bog us down in another futile equivocation for two weeks? These articles are hopelessly simplistic, after several years work, and I, for one, have a lot of work to do helping to bring them to a minal level of intelligibility. The argument you are raising has been raised and debated endlessly, one solution creates ten problems, ad infinitum.

Please don't use analogies with other civil wars. Zionism insisted from the outset, it is in documentation throughout, that its purpose was to have a homeland, to make a Jewish majority, and turn that homeland into a ethnically Jewish state (1917: the word 'state' is used in Weizmann's correspondence). The Jews in Maandatory Palestine were 'Palestinians' in official paperwork, but among themselves 'Jews' heading for a Jewish state, a place called 'Eretz Israel', which did not conceive, except in public rhetoric, that there would be a binational state of fellow citizens called, like them, Palestinians because, though Arab, they would share with the Jews a common identity. There is no analogy to be made with the United States, which was formed and federated by a common fight, existed for several decades with a common identity, until one issue brought on a civil war. I prey you to have some consideration for the woeful lack of substance in so many articles, and for the need to work on that, and not on the fribbly fringes of POV hypernuancing Nishidani (talk) 21:20, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

GHCool has asked civily proper questions and look what he gets in return. Here are the questions:

• Historians debate when the separate Palestinian Arab identity developed.

• There are two problems with saying that the "Palestinians and Arabs" were defeated:
• In 1948, the term "Palestinian" referred to both Palestinian Arabs and the proto-Israeli Jews that lived within the borders of the British Mandate for Palestine. Palestinian Arabs lost the war, but Palestinian Jews won the war.

• Palestinian (and I'm referring to Palestinian Arabs) are a subset of Arabs. Saying that Palestinians and Arabs lost the war is like saying that humans and mammals nurse their young. Its redundant at best and confusing at worst.

• Khalidi refers specifically to Palestinian Arabs when he speaks of "Palestinian identity." … he does not leave the term "Palestinians" (referring to the Arab population of the British Mandate for Palestine) ambiguous in the same way that Nishidani's proposal does.

• In every relevant sense, Palestinian Arabs are a subset of Arabs. No Palestinian from 1948 would argue that he or she is not an Arab. No Palestinian in 2008 would argue that he or she is not an Arab.

• The problem with how the way the sentence reads now is that it implies two things: (1) that the Palestinian identity (however one defines it) was as fully formed then as it is in 2008 and (2) that "Palestinians" were the losers of that war. The 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, which lead to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, was between two populations of Mandatory Palestine, i.e. it was a Palestinian vs. Palestinian war. To say that Palestinians lost the war is like saying that Americans lost the American Civil War.

Nishdani, I would expect you to stay civil and Assume good faith. The following invectives are not acceptable.

• you are saying with extraordinary naivity.
• Come now. This is simply not good form, and very poor scholarship.
• Do we really have to repeat the same futile argument, which has as its object only a Zionist denial.
• You are confusing genetic, national, social and cultural identities, which is commonplace, but should not be repeated in an encyclopedia.
• Oh come off it. It implies no such thing... Why do you make these absurd suggestions?
• Why is it that, when 'Palestinian' is used, out come the spectacles, the microscopes, the nano-spectographic lens, to worry the guts out of the word, when in no other ethnic case I am familiar with, is this generic use of a term problematical? (Because the 'narrative' is largely written with a vested Zionist or Israeli interest in its implications).
• Look, young man, provide me with several books for these extraordinarily simplistic obiter dicta.
• Everybody should know this. You read the literature, it's not difficult to substantiate. What is it you want? to bog us down in another futile equivocation for two weeks? These articles are hopelessly simplistic, after several years work.
• I prey you to have some consideration for the woeful lack of substance in so many articles, and for the need to work on that, and not on the fribbly fringes of POV hypernuancing. Itzse (talk) 21:57, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you, Itzse, for your support, but I wish you had helped by deconstructing Nishidani's faulty arguments rather than scold him for his uncivil tone. Although Nishidani's tone does leave much to be desired, it is his usage of logical fallacies (namely non sequiturs) that make his conclusions unconvincing:

I recommended disambiguating the Palestinian Arabs from the Palestinian Jews. Nishidani's response was "Why is it that, when 'Palestinian' is used, out come the spectacles ..." and his claim that history has been written by Zionists. Both are total non-sequiturs because they don't directly address the point: that the word "Palestinian" in the context of the 1940s is an ambiguous term. The indirect suggestion appears to be to not disambiguate a clearly ambiguous term. This amounts to telling me to shut up. Asking somebody to shut up doesn't make one a winner in an argument (especially when the other person doesn't shut up).

Several books I have read on the period (most recently O Jerusalem by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins) refer to "Palestinian Arabs" and "Palestinian Jews." The term "Palestinian" is not a universally accepted term for the Arabs of Mandatory Palestine during the 1940s just as the term "Israeli" is not a universally accepted term for the Jews of Mandatory Palestine.

That long Zionist history lesson is an red herring because it doesn't address the question of whether the Jews of Mandatory Palestine were also called "Palestinians." I seem to recall reading about Golda Meir speaking in the U.S. and referring to her people as "Palestinian Jews."

The American Civil War and the 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine were, as Nishidani points out, born out of very different circumstances. The point I was making is that both sides were "Americans" just as both sides in the Palestinian civil war were "Palestinians." That's the nature of a civil war. --GHcool (talk) 22:46, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

In particular, said analysis disregards the pan-arab identity developing (and Nasser's rise will attest to that) and the Pan-Syrian identity developing. Just because zionism has a vested interest in antithesis to the Palestinian identity, doesn't make it automatically wrong either. MiS-Saath (talk) 05:32, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Itzse. I don't assume good faith blindly. People enamoured of appeals to WP:AGF at times show small trace of it. Their language is impeccably polite, their thought all POV in its hidebound attachment to a cause, and no compromises are possible (speaking generally, without reference to any specific person). I take arguments in good faith when they have the appearance of being intelligent, and directed at NPOV composition.

Yesterday before being dragged into what I consider an inane argument which wastes invaluable time, I came across a highly reliable source which, though mildly pro-Palestinian, documented a traditional hostility to Jews in Hebron. I've edited that page quite a lot. Like many well-informed Israelis, I regard squatter settlements in that area as violent, racist indeed, to use both David Shulman and Avishai Margalit's words 'barbaric' in the treatment of Palestinians. The 1929 Hebron Massacre page has a note also in it, from a Jewish source, attesting to the amicable relations between Jews and Muslims prior to the 1920s. So what was I to do? Keep quiet, and ignore the evidence? Putting it in would, after all, console pro-Israeli editors with a vested interest in keeping that page tilted to a basically Jewish narrative. Irrespective of what was personally a distasteful consequence, I made two edits, inserting that information, which tells against the 'Palestinian' narrative. That is, without blowing my trumpet, what showing good faith in the purposes of wiki is about. Most editors with whom I argue show absolutely no interest in the encyclopedia as an encyclopedia, they are dead-set on territorial management and conquest of narrative, or in defending a national position and securing a systemic bias in I/P articles. They are no doubt in 'good faith' in their own understanding of the world. I ignore that kind of 'good faith'. I look at my interlocutor's record for scrupulous editing towards the complex needs of historical facts to judge what an edit is about. Far too many edits are, permit me, fatuous hairsplitting for nationalistic-ethnic ends. If I lose my poise at times, well, haul me to the wikicops and have an indictment laid. I'll pay the price. I do not think the present instance represents good faith editing: to the contrary it smacks of nationalistic editing which, faux de mieux, adopts language that blurs an extremely important distinction, about which I have, today, written several pages. I will not post them until, however, my interlocutor explains exactly what he means by two confident assertion, for which I can find no documentation, that:

(A)

’In every relevant sense, Palestinian Arabs are a subset of Arabs‘

That is obvious but meaningless for the purposes of the argument, since I have been arguing that to describe the non-Jewish inhabitants of Mandatory Britain as all Arabs is patently false. GHcool then writes:-

(B)

’Palestinian (and I'm referring to Palestinian Arabs) are a subset of Arabs'

Here (B) shows that the apparent obviousness of (A) disguises a problem. For GHCool lets it be known that Palestinian, when not referring to 'Jewish Palestinians' of the period, for him means 'Arab'. If by Palestinian, GHcool means Arab, then there can be no debate, but only an edit war. For he is denying what even Benny Morris admits. In the 1948 war, debates and policies about which of the many distinct cultural and ethnic groups to expel or drive off were frequent, as one attacked villages with, variously, people of Maronite, Circassian, Bosnian, Egyptian, Salabyin, Kurd, Armenian, Turk, Bedouin, Fellahin, Greek and Latin origins.

So, over to GHcool. When is a Palestinian an Arab and when is he or she not an Arab? Why could Golda Meir, whom he now enlists, say her people were Palestinian Jews, when Palestine was not a state but a Mandatory territory, but deny (elsewhere, notoriously) that there was ever a Palestinian people (non-Jewish), even in Mandatory Palestine, because they have never had a state? A Jew can be a Palestinian without a state (1919-1948) but a Palestinian cannot be a Palestinian without a state. This accounts for my vehemence. The distinction being made under the table, as I will show later, is based on racial modes of classification. But that is to anticipate. Nishidani (talk) 15:25, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

GHCool; I didn't think that you needed my help to deconstruct Nishdani's faulty arguments; they were strong enough, with little to add and there is a lot that I can learn from you in that regard, in the way you argue. I just couldn't take it anymore, that here you are trying to argue in good faith and in return you get invectives instead of arguments (each invective equals one failure to debunk an argument!). I am constantly taken to task by HG and others for failure to AGF in their eyes. My respond is sometimes similar to Nishdani's; but in the exact reverse, but still it doesn't go with them. I Itzse am held to such a high standard that I am required to Assume good faith; not blindly; which everyone is supposed to, as that is the meaning of AGF; but even when editors declare their pro-Arab stance, like Nishdani; and even when it can be proven that an editor is pushing their view; like a, b, c and d; I'm told to AGF anyway. I have no interest and no agenda to tilt WP to a pro-Israel POV. I would be more then happy if we can have a neutral encyclopedia; and that's what I'm here for, and that is my agenda; I have no other agenda on these articles. So Nishdani; can you make a similar statement, as to what is your agenda (GHCool's you believe you know already), so that I can assume good faith blindly in the future? Itzse (talk) 16:56, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Now, for a factual thing again. its not obvious that the task infront of the arab armies was infact in support of the palestinians, and not diving palestine among their respective nations, which they evidently partly did. only years later will the 'palestinian issue' be entrusted back into palestinian hands from jordanian ones. the loss in the war was arab simply because the palestinians were not a 'side' in it, except for perhaps an irregular brigade (Holy war army) better described (courtesy of wikipedia) as the husayni's personal army. this is a complex issue.

Now, don't be disassued by debates. they're a part integral to the wikipedia system. AGF that editors DO want to write an encyclopedia, otherwise we'll go nowhere. i'd be happy to hear your response to the above claims and the ones in my original post as well, maybe (probably) i'll learn something new. MiS-Saath (talk) 17:05, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I think you discuss a difficult matter. Because, there is no good choice. Indeed, if we talk about :

• Palestinans and Jews, we could be accused of defending a pro-Palestinian pov, denying the rights of Israelis on Palestine.
• Arabs and Jews, we could be accused of defending a pro-Israeli pov, denying the (Arab) Palestinian identity.

I think it is clear that when the Palestine Mandate existed, its unhabitants, the Palestinians, were as well Jews (mainly Zionists) and Arabs (mainly Muslims), so there were the Jewish Palestinians and the Arab Palestinians.
Personnaly, when I have to face this difficulty, I try to talk about the Palestinian Arabs and about the Yishuv, trying to avoid the word Jew because of potential picturing as the fight as being a religious one when it is mainly nationalist.
Regards, Ceedjee (talk) 17:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Note: most of the Jews that were in Palestine in 1948 were actually immigrants from various countries. So how can we refer to them as "Palestinians" ?! Imad marie (talk) 18:31, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Because they held citizenship of the british mandate of Palestine, and maybe because other people identified them as such. what looks absurd today, may have been just fine 60 years ago. Couple that with lack of prevalance of palestinian identity as it exists today (denying that palestinian identity developed by leaps in the last few decades is not giving enough credit to their political development), and you get quite a complex picture. MiS-Saath (talk) 19:14, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Ceedjee and Mis-Saath; right on target. Itzse (talk) 19:45, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Thx ;-)

Imad Marie,

I agree with MiS-Saath : they were Palestinians because they (most) were among the legal immigrants who were granted permission to settle in Palestine by the Mandatory Power (with the agreement of the League of Nations).

I also understand your point that it is strange to put at the same level a man who has just arrived in comparison with a sabra. But have in mind that some scholars argue that Palestine has developed due to the Zionism immigration that generated an Arab immigration...

I think we can hardly argue in that direction.

Ceedjee (talk) 20:07, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

A further complication is the traditionally free migratory space of bilad a-sham. up until the dawn of nationalism, clans would migrate in and out rather freely. non-permanent settlements were much more common then today. the current definition of palestinian refugee adopted by UNRWA reflects that, and that's just one example. MiS-Saath (talk) 05:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Let's keep things simple. This is not about 'Jewish Palestinians' (though Moshe Dayan, like many Jewish memorialists of the period, never thought of himself as a 'Palestinian'. From birth he was, he says, raised as a Jew in 'the land of Israel' that others called Palestinian (Story of My Life p.24)to cite but one of many instances). The fact that Jews had Palestinian citizenship under the Mandate is being used instrumentally to deny to the non-Jewish remnant after the nakba the right to identify themselves as 'Palestinians'. Overnight 'Palestinian Jews' became Israelis (all agree). Overnight non Jewish Palestinians, by whose fiat no one will explain, became 'Arabs', though no Arab country accepted them as anothing other than of Palestinian nationality. The move is obvious and cynical. This is about the proper language, not the politics of language, to describe the non-Jewish Palestinians of the Mandate who lost out, a small but significant component of which was not 'Arab', but ethnically other (Circasians were Caucasian Sunnis), Maronites were Christians. Ben-Gurion in a famous note, when several years earlier annotating the sorts of peoples (several) up for listing in the category of those to be driven out, listed the Circasians as 'Arabs', ignorantly, but because they were, confessionally Sunnis. Elsewhere, 'Arabs' refers to an ethnic group. etc,.etc, etc. In 1948 several of these ethnic groups were driven out with the 'Arab' (understood confusedly as an 'ethnic' and a 'confessional' blanket term) population (Morris). To insist on 'Arab' is to blur a distinction on the level of facts. To add a (non-Jewish) Palestinian qualifier covers all cases. Not to accept this fidelity to the complexities of history is to conveniently wipe off the record the fact that non-Arab non-Jewish groups were also driven out or fled. It was an exodus for many of them. What's the problem. No one denies the facts. Then, lossen up, be less fixated on ideological advantages, use your imaginations and find a verbal solution that is adequate to the factual complexities.Nishidani (talk) 09:24, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

My point is different than the point brought up by GHcool. the main argument is that the palestinians were no longer a party to the war anymore (having been defeated prior to the war), therefore the loss in that particular war was an arab loss. the 'palestinian matter' was entrusted to the hands of the king of jordan, and no palestinan force (except said Holy War Army, which was the husseini irregular private army, and was a very minor one). it's further claimed that the arab armies represented their own aspirations and not necessarily palestinian ones, in particular when you judge the actions post-war (annexation of the west bank and the uselessness of the "All Palestine Government", widely described as a farce even among the pages of this encyclopedia). The claims made by Shlaim are also telling about this, and i don't think you can blame him for any love of zionism. to sum it up, the palestinians were not a side by themselves and even their interests were represented only as a pretense. MiS-Saath (talk) 10:01, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

A Problem

The Temple Mount is the whole area, called by Muslims the Haram ash-Sharif. As a result of some odd process over the years, every attempt to direct to the Haram ash-Sharif qua Temple Mount yields only 'The Dome of the Rock, Al-Aqsa Mosque the Noble Sanctuary, which unless I'm mistaken, refers specifically to the Mosque and its immediate area on the site. If this is so, the redirects are creating systemic bias, in that the Wiki article links on the area prioritize, no, exclude every other description save, that of Temple Mount-Jewish page, and only signal the Moslem mosque on it, as though the site were Jewish, and the Mosque a Moslem enclave. I've had to adjust the relevant passage here to achieve NPOV standards.If a certain fatigue (drafting some of this page has required 550 pages of reading alone) has made me miss something, I'd appreciate a nudgeNishidani (talk) 13:18, 27 June 2008 (UTC).

Interim report

I have just about completed the Wall Episode to give a relatively thick (withholding many ancillary details of course, which can be added when the relevant 1929 P Riots page is reviewed) full contextualisation of the period. I still have to do the secondary sources on the two subsequent reports (Shaw and Mandatory). The page is long, and I would pray that readers and editors bear with me and the page. Clearly, much detailed material can be transferred eventually to the relevant 1929 Palestinian Riots page. What I have tried so far to do is get chronology in order, an NPOV series of balancing details from both perspectives. All we had before was a tendentiously selective use of sources (the sources themselves are mostly selective).

There remains the need to fill out the internal circumstances in which al-Husayni worked, and what he did in the 30s, and of course the war (the aftermath of his life needs little further work, I think).

For the war period, I have suggested a rearrangement of the material, retaining everything we have accumulated so far, but making it more cohesive in chronological, thematic and narrative terms. I've sketched above my views. Since this means structural adjustment, rather than simply filling out with relevant details established sections, I think it proper to do the relevant work on this page, while leaving the text as we have it now on the article page.

In the meantime, any suggestions, further material and edits are of course welcome. Apologies for my slowness. Nishidani (talk) 17:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

An afterthought. Rather than blur this page with a copy of the article, for work in progress, could you, Ceedjee, do me the courtesy of creating a subpage to that end, with a link here (as you did, alas for my laziness) for the 1920 Palestine Riots. If I had such a page, I could work it (with anybody else of course) and then refer the result to the analysis of all for consensus. I recall that duplicating swathes of a page in the talk page is, I believe, frowned on, and this measure would perhaps be cleaner? Thanks Nishidani (talk) 17:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

As a 1x visitor with some scholarship in this area, I can only comment that I have seen so much dribble, pseudo-history, and politicized history that the mountain of malarkey would be just too monumental to set right. I agree with those who see complete silliness in this endless parsing and factual distortion. Nishidani's remarks are often just totally unacceptable from the academic view and in many cases reflect a profound emotion that itself supplants the very notion of NPOV. I have just one observation and then I shall go and please do not expect a response as I am not a member of this community... I saw the following remark: "Overnight 'Palestinian Jews' became Israelis (all agree). Overnight non Jewish Palestinians, by whose fiat no one will explain, became 'Arabs', though no Arab country accepted them as anything other than of Palestinian nationality. Really? While it is true that for a few decades "Palestinian" was the term denoting Jews in Palestine (Jewish Agency for Palestine, news accounts, diplomatic dispatches etc), the Arab residents always self-identified as "Arabs" and were known as Arabs (Arab Higher Committee, Feisel's chair at the 1919 Peace Conference, Arab Nation, Arab nationalism, international headlines etc.) Words change as a result of evolving usage. With Israel's War of Independence, they proclaimed the State of Israel. The State of Palestine was never formed out of rejection. Terminology evolved as we know it today. Anyway, some of us have other duties other than to devote endless hours over endless weeks to an entry that most people will find completely unreliable if no other reason than the people debating have left an indelible record of the shakiest of factual grounds. Read the best books for the facts. The good ones are based on actual research. California 9:10 AM

visitor with some scholarship in this area

'Nishidani's remarks are often just totally unacceptable from the academic view'

'the Arab residents always self-identified as "Arabs" and were known as Arabs (Arab Higher Committee)'

'Read the best books for the facts. The good ones are based on actual research'

(1930)'L'appel destiné à célébrer le quarantième jour après la mort des martyrs s'adresse, à plusieurs reprises, aux "Palestiniens", et non aux "Arabes palestiniens". De même, la délégation envoyée à Londres s'était appelé la délégation palestinienne et non la délégation arabe palestinienne, comme en 1921-1922. L'affirmation de l'identité propre des Palestiniens est ainsi contemporaine et complémentaire de la reprise du discourse national arabe (on s'adresse régulièrement aux mondes arabe et musulman). Le clivage semble s'opérer entre un usage exclusif du terme "palestinien" dans un cadre purement interne et une référence "arabe" quand on s'adresse aux autres Arabes'. Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine vol.2, Fayard, paris 2002 p.208 etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.etc.(oh, and 'Have a nice day')Nishidani (talk) 17:18, 2 August 2008 (UTC)

(I have just deleted personal attacks from an IP).

Most scholars (eg Morris, Laqueur, Laurens) consider that Palestinian nationalism, ie the feeling of Arab inhabitants of Palestine not to just to be Arab but Palestinians birthed during the year 1920.

They are even some (Mashala, Mattar) who considered this birthed before, between 1860 and 1890 in the Ottoman Empire but it was a greater nationalism militating for a "Kingdom of Great Syria" with Syrie, Palestine and Lebanon.

Ceedjee (talk) 07:15, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Category removal

As explained on the category page of Category:Islam and antisemitism: "This category contains articles that make references to the religion of Islam and to the topic of antisemitism. It does not imply that the subjects of the articles are antisemitic." I believe there is substantial evidence that that al-Husayni was significantly involved in antisemitic activities (the 1929 riots, for one) and may have actually qualified for the now defunct "Anti-Semitic people" category, so his article is undoubtedly within the class of "Antisemitism." Being that he was a very important Islamic clerical figure, and moreso, used his religious position to lobby, further, and perhaps mastermind, antisemitic activities and propoganda makes the category very relevant, Ceedjee. Please remember that not applying the category where it reliably applies is just as big an NPOV violation as improperly applying it where it does not apply. Thank you. -- Avi (talk) 15:18, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi Avi,

I think it is very important I make you aware that I am the editor who wrote the section about al-Husayni and antisemitism

Please, read this carefully.

I agree that what you write refers to the category:antimetism. And I think the category is relevant.

But I don't think at all relevant to have among 3 see also article, two about his antisemitism.

If so, please, provide the sources that would underline that antisemitism is that much important in Haj Amin al-Husseini... because as far as I know, he is maybe not a good example and there are far more relevant things about him.

In other words : Amin al-Husseini is an exemple of antisemitism but antisemitism is not the core of Amin al-Husseini.

Ceedjee (talk) 17:10, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I see you removed : Palestinian nationalism. Could you explain why ? Ceedjee (talk) 17:32, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

You are absolutely correct, I mistook the removal as a category removal, not a see also removal. I have reverted myself, and my apologies for my mistake. -- Avi (talk) 17:33, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

That is not a problem. I thank you for your good:faith. And, in fact, I owe you much because you take care of Shevashalosh, which is maybe not easy.

See you soon. Ceedjee (talk) 17:35, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Judea

Under early life....landowners in district of Judea.

• There was not district of Judea...Bethlehem, Beersheba and Hebron but no Judea....Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 10:54, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I saw an official British report talking about "Samaria". At the time, did British talk about Judea and Samaria or was that only the Palestinian Jews ? What about the Palestinian Arabs ? Ceedjee (talk) 11:15, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Region of, not district of, Samaria was used for the northern region and Beersheba for the southern, I've never seen a reference to Judea being used....Ashley kennedy3 (talk) 00:09, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

I didn't either. So I suggest we correct this. Ceedjee (talk) 07:47, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Palestinian Arabs recruited to fight against Ottoman Turks

This has been erased, but the sources note that both Jews and Arab Palestinians were recruited on the ground by Allenby. Clayton actually carried out a strong campaign to persuade the Arab middle class to join the Sheriffian revolt, one effect of which was to gather in 500 recruits. (if source required Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine vol.1 p.409). If the objection is over 'Palestinian' (god forbid they be mentioned) then qualify with Arab (Arab Palestinians). There is no need to go about excising texts. Please check with sources, or modify or put 'citation required', in the future.Nishidani (talk) 08:49, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Huneidi "A Broken Trust, Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians". 2001 p.35 "As late as 1918, active recruiting was carried out in Palestine for the Sherifian army, 'the recruits being given to understand that they were fighting in a national cause and to liberate their country from the Turks'. There was no question but that this was encouraged by the War Office during the war 'with every kind of propaganda available', and that pamphlets were dropped from aeroplanes, promising peace and prosperity under British rule. The recruits actively took part in the offensive against the Turks, and the report noted that Captain C. D. Brunton, who recruited them, acted in cooperation with a 'Sherifian officer named Hagg Ameen el Husseini, who was described at the time as being very pro-English'. It also noted that, at the time of writing, Hajj Amin was a fugitive from British justice, accused of complicity in the Easter riots."

p.36 has more from the Palin Report (p.184 thereof) "In 1919, Amin al-Husseini had commented on British policy with 'surprise and anger'. The thought that, had the Arabs left the Turks alone, they would never have done to them what the British had done was often repeated. Rightly or wrongly, the report stated, the Arabs 'fear the Jew as a ruler, regarding his race as one of the most intolerant known to history'. The Arabs did not fear the native Orthodox Jew who was regarded as inoffensive, dependent for existence on foreign charity. But they noticed that the latest immigrants from Eastern Europe were men of a very different type, 'imbued with all shades of political opinions which have plunged Russia into a welter of anarchy, terrorism and misery during the past few years'. Nevertheless, it was the Jew as an economic competitor which really inspired 'the profoundest alarm' in the minds of the native, who was now able to note that 'where the Jew became a landed proprietor, the Arab and Christian fellah peasant proprietor was reduced to the position of a wage labourer'." PR 19:03, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

So the edit at the relevant section on Palestinian recruitment and participation in the war against the Turks should be (a) Sahar Huneidi, A Broken Trust: Herbert Samuel, Zionism and the Palestinians, Library of Modern Middle East Studies, v.15 I.B.Tauris, 2001 p.35 (b) Henry Laurens, La Question de Palestine vol.1 p.409. Palestinian Jews were of course recruited to the same end, with Jabotinsky fighting somewhere within the range of al Husayni in pursuit of the common enemy, the retreating Ottomans, not the last irony of that period. Perhaps a ref. to this could be considered, for balance.Nishidani (talk) 10:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The Holocaust in American Life reference

Peter Novick's The Holocaust in American Life:

The claims of Palestinian complicity in the murder of the European Jews were to some extent a defensive strategy, a preemptive response to the Palestinian complaint that if Israel was recompensed for the Holocaust, it was unjust that Palestinian Muslims should pick up the bill for the crimes of European Christians. The assertion that Palestinians were complicit in the Holocaust was mostly based on the case of the Mufti of Jerusalem, a pre-World War II Palestinian nationalist leader who, to escape imprisonment by the British, sought refuge during the war in Germany. The Mufti was in many ways a disreputable character, but post-war claims that he played any significant part in the Holocaust have never been sustained. This did not prevent the editors of the four-volume Encyclopedia of the Holocaust from giving him a starring role. The article on the Mufti is more than twice as long as the articles on Goebbels and Goering, longer than the articles on Himmler and Heydrich combined, longer than the article on Eichmann--of all the biographical articles, it is exceeded in length, but only slightly, by the entry for Hitler.

pg.157-8

Google Books

--Kitrus (talk) 10:02, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Kitrus Novick's book is a very good one on so many points like this, and the passage backgrounds why re-editing this page has been so difficult after the extensive POV damage done to it by editors using those early, ostensibly reliable sources, which however were thoroughly grounded in the tendentious, politically grounded thesis Novick adumbrates. Perhaps it should be kept in mind for a small section on the historiography regarding Al-Husayni. I think Ceedjee was the first to highlight this problem in the sources, and suggest some note to clarify it?

If this is agreed on, then we can note for the record: Peter Novick, ‘’The Holocaust in American Life’’ (1999) Mariner Books, New York 2000 pp.157-8

Zertal also refers to this in her book. I agree it is relevant.

I have just moved this 2 paragraphs down in the articles.

Ceedjee (talk) 12:48, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

That's fine by me, Ceedjee. There'll eventually have to be quite a bit of shuffling of material around, and my edit was merely provisory in any case.Nishidani (talk) 13:46, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

I checked the Encylopedia of the Holocaust and could find no article on al-Husayni. So I checked Novick's book (which can be seen in google books), the quote is accurate (I didn't check it word for word) but that statement is unsourced, that is he provides no reference. I suggest the statement is removed.

Interesting. Did you check both the Hebrew and English versions? You can't actually remove a RS because you challenge that source's statements by Original research. I know the problem, because I find many reliable sources get facts wrong, and I can't correct the wiki page citing them, unless I find another reliable source which challenges the said author's views on the matter. In any case, the point should be checked.Nishidani (talk) 14:53, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

I had a second look at this and think I may have been referencing the wrong encylopedia: there are several out there. I assume he's referring to the Guttman version but I couldn't find any evidence to confirm that. Telaviv1 (talk) 14:38, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

As I wrote here above, Idith Zertal confirms the "paradox" in her last book. Ceedjee (talk) 18:06, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages article on Goebbels is 84,000 bytes. This article is 104,000. So perhaps he is more interesting...

Telaviv1 (talk) 10:27, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Do I detect a niggling tone, sniping from the margins? If you consult the thread, I myself noted that it exceeded the proper limits of an ideal wiki article, (Ceedjee concurred) and would, once thoroughly revised according to the best modern sources, would have to be pared down to the standard length of about 70,000 words. The technical problem was (1) There was a huge output of material from the 1950s that vilified al-Husayni as the Dr.Moriarty of Palestinian antisemitism, responsible for all the troubles Zionists had in establishing their state on Palestinian territory. The most extraordinary assertions, that he inspired the Holocaust itself, were made even by serious scholars. None of this stood up to the test of modern scholarship, and was dismounted piece by piece, to survive in much of its original version only in the wiki article as it was some years ago. For example, the treatment of the Wailing Wall episode seethed with an undertone of moral outrage at al-Husayni's 'antisemitic' lies about Jewish intentions of taking over the Wall, citations were made that the Zionists had no such intent, but merely wanted to establish rights to pray there. Such protestations were often made, after flyers circulating with Theodore Herzl's figure on top of the Dome of the Rock gave rise to Muslim outrage (I haven't even troubled to put this in, but it is thoroughly documented). Much of this stereotyping in Wiki reflected 1950s-1970s propaganda linking al-Husayni to the PLO's leader Arafat, and was designed to get at the PLO (as intrinsically 'antisemitic') via al-Husayni: i.e., it was politically motivated smearing.

Just to begin to clean up the extreme, structural POV mess this kind of irresponsible and tendentious editing caused, one had to give a thorough analysis of otherwise extraneous things like the Wailing Wall and 1929 Palestine riots episode, which have been poorly framed in the relevant articles in Wiki. I did that here, and the result was considerable expansion.

There remains the crucial part dealing with his collaboration with Nazis, and the post-war aftermath. He did collaborate with the Nazis, he probably became intensely antisemitic by the late thirties, when his resistance projects collapsed. But this second part is still vitiated by poorly organized material, much of it scraping the barrel to bring up tenuously grounded innuendoes (like his support of the Black Hand in the early 1930s, no evidence in Lachmann: or the plan to bomb Jerusalem, or the pilot project to commit genocide in Palestine).

Once the evidence is thoroughly reexamined, and sourced reliably, in thematic and chronological order, the whole text can then by whittled down to the usual length required of Wiki articles. The page is not protected. Anyone can edit. But given its history, a certain courtesy of talkpage negotiation is much appreciated for any significant edits. Thank you.Nishidani (talk) 11:29, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Dubious reference.

It must be questionable whether the book "Eliezer Tauber, The Formation of Modern Iraq and Syria, Routledge, London 1994 pp.105-109" is an adequate reference for the suprising statement "From his election as Mufti until 1923, al-Husayni exercised total control over the secret society, Al-Fida’iyya (The Self-Sacrificers), which, together with al-Ikha’ wal-‘Afaf (Brotherhood and Purity), played an important role in clandestine anti-British and anti-Zionist activities, and, via members in the gendarmerie, had engaged in riotous activities as early as April 1920."

Google scholar gives it just 5 cites (Not terrible, but certainly not good). The two Amazon reviews of the book are diametrically opposed in their judgement - but reading between the lines, it becomes increasingly difficult to take it seriously. Daniel Pipes is the one to rate it highly - but then approvingly quotes it as saying: " deems Arabs, not Westerners, responsible for the dissipation of Arab unity in favor of Lebanese, Syrian, and Iraqi independence" - which would astonish most people (think Gertrude Bell, Faisal etc). If you're not familiar with Daniel Pipes, pay a visit to his blog - there, on the front page, he proudly informs us that "I have written a series of articles on Obama's Muslim childhood". (Three are at the notorious "FrontPageMag.com" and one is at the Jerusalem Post).

I propose the statement be deleted, it adds nothing to the article, and seems to bear no reference to anything that comes earlier or later. PR 17:42, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

No. I found it, and the information was interesting. The publisher is Routledge. I personally, on finding it, wondered about the accuracy of the information. I inserted it into the text so that others could see it, and perhaps shed further light on the assertion. I vote that it stays. Editing in information that is sourced in a quality publisher, notwithstanding your suspicions, is what keeps us all honest.

As for Pipes. His father was an extraordinary penetrating scholar. Apart from Martin Amis, the rule is there are rarely quality second acts in descent from distinguished parents. He is profoundly mediocre (violation of WP:BLP!!, which may in part explain his popularity in certain propaganda circles.Nishidani (talk) 19:00, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

When you say that you "found it" do you mean have access to that book and edited in the sentence? I'm thoroughly underwhelmed by what I can see of the book. What clandestine anti-British and anti-Zionist activities was Husayni up to? (Is it true that there is no record of his trial and sentence to 15 years?) The riotous activities look very much like Jabotinsky's gangs attacking natives, and then conspiring with medical facilities to claim that large numbers of immigrants had been hurt - that's what the Christian-Muslim Associations think happened. The Zionists were wasting no time while the Balfour Declaration was hot off the press. PR 19:45, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Yes. I collect information on Husayni. I well understand your personal exasperation with the way these things have been written for far too many decades. I know there were huge one-sided outpourings of hysteria to create an incident way out of proportion to the actual events of 1920. I know that the outrage by locals that the land of their fathers was to be given over, under imperial and Lof Nations authority, to an immigrant population on the basis of a title that was religious, was natural. I know there are very few reliable studies of the Palin Report, etc.etc.etc. My job in here is to edit according to what RS sources say, which is not what I think, or what many of my private researches lead me to conclude. The latter are not pertinent to wiki, the former are. You confuse the two. If you, to cite one example, have an RS for the assertion about Christian-Muslim Associations, plunk it in. But you are doing your own interests no service in expostulating. History is about what happened, it is amoral. We derive the moral insight from a knowledge of the documentary record, we should not, here, construct the documentary record singularly from the filter of our moral outrage. To repeat. You know and read widely in many sources, and have much to contribute. Instead of contributing concretely, you fall prey to expostulation on talk pages, and subvert the credibility of whatever you would like to propose because you don't show your cards. The cards here are RS sources. All the rest is a waste of time. Please don't make a thread of this. Nishidani (talk) 20:12, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Things are bad indeed when exploring the RS-ness of a source is considered reason to weigh into an entirely satisfactory and collegiate discussion by other editors and break AGF to comment on another editor! I wonder how long I'd survive if I did this!

Some unbelievably bad sources have been edit-warred into articles - my favorite example is the violent extremist (to put it mildly) propagandist and historical forger Joseph Schechtman who argues in his book "The Arab Refugee Problem" that Palestinians suffered a mental disease ("Fear Psychosis") in 1948 - unbelievably, we actually quote him in an article saying: "Until the Arab armies invaded Israel on the very day of its birth, May 15, 1948, no quarter whatsoever had ever been given to a Jew who fell into Arab hands". This has been repeatedly re-inserted (1 editor over-riding about 4 others?). Even when Schectman's "work" is taken at face value and properly re-presented by one of the few remaining scholars we have in the I-P topic, it will be reverted as "vandalism". PR 08:09, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

The source is an academic book, published by an academic press, by a notable professional historian. Your impressions of it are of no interest to anyone - kindly take them, and your conspiracy theories, to a more suitable forum such as usenet or a blog, and stop soapboxing. NoCal100 (talk) 19:58, 9 October 2008 (UTC)

Islamofascism

There mere existence of such personality proves beyond reasonable doubt that at the root of anti-Zionism is always anti-Semitism. Muslims regard al-Husayni as a key figure in opposition to Zionism. But he said it himself: his goal was not to prevent the emergence of a Jewish state in Palesine, he wanted to eradicate all Jews in Palestine and the entire "Arab world". Furthermore, a careful examination of al-Husayni and his antics shows that the notion of Islamofascism is more then just an ideological cliche. This person was a high-ranking Muslim cleric AND he was an ardent supporter of Hitler and the Holocaust.Keverich1 (talk) 15:42, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

What else can one say, but...rubbish. This article was subject to that sort of revisionism for quite awhile in the Zeq era, but thankfully ebbed upon his banishment. anti-Zionism is not the same as antisemitism. Not then, and most certainly not now. Tarc (talk) 17:08, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Oh, yes it is. Otherwise, why this al-Husayni guy would want to remove all Jews from the "Arab world"?Keverich1 (talk) 15:01, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Regarding the "revisionism", I don't see how citing al-Husayni's own memoirs constitutes revisionism. The guy said it himself:"to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews". His efforts to recruit Muslims in SS troops is also a proven fact. Trying to hide this fact IS revisionism.Keverich1 (talk) 15:10, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

No one is hiding anything. The lead is to serve as a simple introduction to the subject matter, not a launchpad for each and every sundry deed the man has ever committed. Even the lead for Adolph Hitler's article s a fairly mild introduction to the subject matter; the meat of the genocide and Holocaust events are left for the body of the article. Again, this is what we have gone through here before; this belief that if the article lead does not contain specific accusations and criticism, then it is "hiding something". That is a ridiculously false and and intellectually dishonest argument to make. Tarc (talk) 15:24, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

Currently, the introduction states that "he played a key role in resistance to Zionism." That's a short and essentially accurate statement, altough I reject the word "resistance" because it serves to present Zionism in a negative light and sort of justify anti-Zionist movement. But I believe we need another statement would highlight al-Husayni collaboration with the Nazis, since it was important episode in his life. This statement doesn't need to be extensive, but it must be long enough to indicate that al-Husayni contributed to the Nazi war effort.Keverich1 (talk) 17:06, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

al-Husayni and Arafat; not good enough

Even if the source is to be accepted, which is still quite dubious, we're dealing with "Arafat's mother was the daughter of the mufti's first cousin" ? That is getting to be about as distant and tenuous a connection as Barack Obama's relations to Dick Cheney. Per WP:FRINGE and WP:UNDUE, this is once again being snipped. Tarc (talk) 01:09, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

The source states that Arafat met the Mufti at a family gathering, after which the Mufti became Arafat's mentor. In a society that stresses extended family relations, being the daughter of someone's cousin is a big deal. It is very relevant to point out that the two were related and that Arafat's well-documented adulation for the Mufti is possibly a family matter. You are engaged in reductio ad absurdum here: Obama is in now way shape or form related to Cheney but Arafat and al-Husayni, according to sources that only you claim are dubious, were blood relatives. — A lizard (talk) 04:31, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Lizard,

We all know that the equation : Palestinians => Arafat => Mufti => antisemite requires the link between Arafat and the Mufti. (you wrote : The Mufti's lineage in the modern Pal. movement matters).

Instead of fighting for such a childish pov, as Dalin who fights for the clashes of civilisation, you should take care to the fact wp is a project to develop a free encyclopaedia.

No equation is being made. A scholarly source (regardless of what you think of the scholar, his book was published by a major publisher with high editorial standards and peer-reviewed by other historians; it is a work of scholarship) states that Arafat is a distant relative of the Mufti and that the Mufti was Arafat's mentor after meeting him at a family gathering. Readers can, and may, make such an equation in their minds if they want to but merely stating a documented scholarly fact is in no way, shape, or form damaging to Misplaced Pages as an online encyclopedia, in fact it's exactly what a Misplaced Pages article is supposed to have in it.

I do agree that if Tarc or anyone else who wants to cover up the Mufti's and Arafat's Nazi lineage has access to a definitive source of academic, peer-reviewed scholarship by a non-fringe publisher (i.e., one that would be recognized as legitimate outside the Middle East) that says that through exhaustive research, it has been determined that the Mufti and Arafat were in no way shape or form related to one-another, then it should be cited. A subsection should be in turn added to the article with a header such as Allegations of Relations to Arafat, explicitly detailing this research and its source. Until then, the information should remain in the article.

Merely stating relevant information in an article does not impugn the article as a whole. Relevant information should never be removed from an article. Information about the biography of a dead person attesting to his lineage is always relevant. If the article about Jimmy Carter can mention his semi-famous, buffoonish brother, then an article about the Mufti can mention his distantly-related militant nephew. — A lizard (talk) 21:06, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Tarc,

There is no other solution to get out this issue than to find wp:rs sources of higher values that would correct this "mistake" of Dalin (cough, cough). I am sure it is done in Philip Mattar or Zvi Elpeleg biographies of the Mufti but I don't have access to these sources. They will of course be of higher values than Dalin's work given he defends the thesis of the "class of civilisation" (and this fact would defend his pov) and due to the fact he is not a specialist of Mufti's life, as both others are.

Idith Zertal, is already quoted in the article and explain the mecanism I refered here above, with the mecanism of Mufti demonization and development of Arafat threat and links to Nazis... I will bring the information.

Ceedjee (talk) 08:45, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

I think from memory the phrase 'a poor and distant cousin' occurs in one of Rubin's works. As Ceedjee notes, this 'fixing Arafat'-by-pointing-up-blood ties-with-the-pro-Nazi-mufti' is a commonplace in the earlier literature. Dalin by the way was eliminated as a poor quality source, since texts cited from him were, when examined, shown to be in themselves very poorly sourced. He's a minor historian in a not particularly notable University. His mentor was not the mufti but a pious uncle in Egypt. This is about the Mufti. There's nothing wrong with briefly noting Arafat was a 'poor and distant relative'. But that's about it.Nishidani (talk) 09:00, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

Homosexual

I see another attempt is being made to reduce politics to the arse, by insinuating the old rumours about Richmond's relations with al Husayni being homosexual. Do we need a list here, to detail all the rumours that swirled around the epoch and place, of Richmond and al Husayni, of Richmond and Sir Ronald Storrs, of Sir Ronald Storrs and T.E.Lawrence, of Israel de Haan, to name but a few off the top of one's head, to conjure up the impression anti-Zionism was sodomitical? Sounds like a version avant la lettre of the 'homintern' conspiracy. In any case, Dalin gets almost everything wrong in his books, and is not, as often argued in these pages, a reliable source.Nishidani (talk) 09:28, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• The arse in politics can be relevant, alas. No one denies that the rumor was there at the time and as such it should be reported in the article as something which occurred at the time of and related to al-Husayni's appointment, not least because the appointment was both controversial and unlikely in view of the other candidates' strengths.Tanbycroft (talk) 21:42, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The source is unreliable. That the unreliable source is merely regurgitating a rumor as a rumor and not even as fact, that makes it doubly wrong to insert such a thing into the article. Tarc (talk) 21:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• I do not consider that Dalin and Rothmann, two senior academics from reputable universities, are unreliable or that their work, Icon of Evil, published by a reputable house can accurately be said to contain gibberish. This rumor was a feature of al-Husayni's appointment and needs to be reported as such not least because it explains the suspicion at the time that Samuel had been nobbled. Whether the rumor was accurate or not, is not the point, but that the rumor existed shows what an extremely controversial man al-Husayni was even within his own community in Jerusalem. I would also like to see something about al-Husayni's family life in the article: he seems to have been married and had issue and a reference to his family life may give a rounder picture.Tanbycroft (talk) 23:07, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

The Misplaced Pages is not the venue for rumor-mongering, especially when they are poorly sourced. The Conservopedia is thataway... Tarc (talk) 23:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

• The issue is how do you propose to explain the perception at the time, shared by rivals in al-Husayni's own Jerusalem community, that Samuel had been nobbled: this needs to be addressed constructively.Tanbycroft (talk) 00:27, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Tom Segev’s review of Dalin’s trash

An ardent Palestinian nationalist, Husseini fought both the Zionists and the British, instigating some of the violent incidents that broke out in Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s. In accordance with the principle of my enemy’s enemy is my ally, the mufti sought support from Nazi Germany and in return backed Hitler’s war, including the extermination of the Jews. In addition to meeting with Hitler, he sat down with Adolf Eichmann and sabotaged a plan to transfer Jewish children from Eastern Europe to Palestine. All this was wrong and shameful, but in contrast to the authors’ contention, one can question whether Husseini “played an important role” in the Holocaust. For as Bernard Lewis wrote in “Semites and Anti-Semites”: “It seems unlikely that the Nazis needed any such additional encouragement from outside.” It is equally implausible that Husseini was given a guided tour of the Auschwitz gas chambers in operation, as Dalin and Rothmann maintain, quoting as their source a single statement from one of Eichmann’s associates. The lack of solid evidence is the main problem throughout the book. While the authors do cite prominent scholars like Martin Gilbert, Bernard Wasserstein and Rashid Khalidi, some of the most outrageous quotations come from quite arguable sources. Hitler’s alleged and highly unlikely pledge to Husseini (“The Jews are yours”) is based on a passage in the mufti’s own memoirs. But there is an official German record of his meeting with Hitler that contains no such statement. In fact the mufti did not achieve his major goal: Hitler refused to sign a public statement of support for him. Neither does it inspire confidence that at one point the authors indulge in an admittedly fictitious description of Palestine after an imagined German victory: “The first death camps in Tel Aviv, modeled after Auschwitz and Birkenau, began operating shortly after Eichmann’s arrival. . . . All 450,000 Jews in Palestine had been exterminated. . . . The following month, Hitler personally flew to Jerusalem.” The mufti’s support for Nazi Germany definitely demonstrated the evils of extremist nationalism. However, the Arabs were not the only chauvinists in Palestine looking to make a deal with the Nazis. At the end of 1940 and again at the end of 1941, a small Zionist terrorist organization known as the Stern Gang made contact with Nazi representatives in Beirut, seeking support for its struggle against the British. One of the Sternists, in a British jail at the time, was Yitzhak Shamir, a future Israeli prime minister. The authors fail to mention this episode. Throughout the book, Dalin and Rothmann tend to blur the terms radical Islam, anti-Semitism and Nazism, and numerous Arab and Muslim leaders are grouped together as disciples of the mufti. Anwar Sadat and Yasir Arafat are among the villains, though one is left to guess in what way the mufti’s spell led them to strike historic deals with Israel. In spite of all this, the book is worth noticing, as it belongs to a genre of popular Arab-bashing that is often believed to be “good for Israel.” It is not. The suggestion that Israel’s enemies are ¬Nazis, or the Nazis’ heirs, is apt to discourage any fair compromise with the Palestinians, and that is bad for Israel.'

In short it's a popular Arab+bashing tract using poor sources, as anyone familiar with Dalin 's pathetic scholarship would know. Not a Reliable Source, in the view of Tom Segev, one of Israel's best historians. Nishidani (talk) 10:44, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

In short Segev does not like the book, goody for him. That's not enough reason to delete well sourced and relevant material. NoCal100 (talk) 05:37, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Except for the fact that it is neither. We aren't here to print the rumours (and they admit that it is just that) of others. Tarc (talk) 05:57, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

In short NoCal100 likes the controversial snippet from Dalin's book, goody for him. That's not enough reason to include poorly sourced and irrelevant material. Segev is one of Israel's foremost historians, you and I are nobodies. If he says Dalin's work is unreliable, that judgement holds weight in Wiki, against our own provincial and amateurish biases. No major source of that period I am familiar with deigns to repeat the rumour, and treats Samuel's appointment as one of a delicate balancing act, not as a trivial matter of 'nobbling' by morbid frecklepuncherly gamesmanship.Nishidani (talk) 11:04, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

It has nothing to do with what I like or don't like, but with the way Misplaced Pages works. The material is relevant (describes an event in the subject's life), and sourced to a reliable source - a book by two academics published by a mainstream press. You can't just remove it. You can add Segev's dissenting opinion to the article. NoCal100 (talk) 15:15, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

A rumour is not 'an event in a subject's life'. Nishidani (talk) 18:54, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

A controversial nomination to an important post is 'an event in a subject's life'. Please stop removing well sourced material. NoCal100 (talk) 22:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

I restored the information about the Mufti's close relationship with Richmond, but took out the part that it was a homosexual relationship. --GHcool (talk) 19:53, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Bad call, GHcool. I can usually trust you to be scrupulous with quality of evidence, and am surprised by this edit. I appreciate the gesture of euphemism, even though it says the same thing. I contest the relevance of the passage to an article that is already twice the limit of wiki articles, and which will have to be pared down. Let's examine the passage:-

Amin al-Husayni and Samuel's assistant political secretary, Ernest Richmond, were formed an intimate friendship based on mutual hostility toward the Balfour Declaration and other British policies they perceived as pro-Jewish. As a result of his relationship with Amin al-Husayni, Richmond persuaded Samuel to appoint Amin al-Husayni as mufti. Richmond also his lover, Sir Ronald Storrs, to lobby Samuel on Amin al-Husayni's behalf."Samuel naively followed Richmond and Storr's recommendation, which resulted in the decision to name al-Husseini as grand mufti."

(a)Evidently, the three editors who keep inserting this aren't looking at the text. >Had they done so, they would have corrrected 'were formed an intimate friendship' to 'had formed'. To edit, and especially revert, without reading what you are restoring, is not a sign of good faith.

(b)The text all three insist on is also ungrammatical. 'Richmond also his lover, Sir Ronald Storrs, to lobby Samuel on Amin al-Husayni's behalf'. Proof again, all three are editing without taking care to read the text they are reintroducing.

(c)Dalin and Rothman are paraphrased as saying Richmond, and Sir Ronald Storr, and al-Husayni were all homosexual, had a homosexual triangle, and this common interest in buggery is what, uh, lies behind the appointment by Samuel of Amin al-Husayni to the post of mufti. This is not only gossip, a campy a posteriori reading of history, it contradicts what the lead just wrote above, i.e., as per all major sources, Samuel appointed Husayni to that post out of delicate political considerations that calibrated conflicting interests.

(d) If Philip Mattar, Martin Sicker,Daniel Monk, Howard Sachar, Henry Laurens, Walter Laqueur, Gudrun Krämer, Uri Kupferschmidt, Taysir Jbara, Zvi Elpeleg and others, the foremost experts on his life and times, do not mention this 'rumour' , it means indeed that this camp theory current in ultra-Zionist propaganda of the time conflicts with the consensual reconstruction by area specialists and historians of the politics behind Samuel's decision. It is then WP:FRINGE.

(e) The passage again describes in a narrative voice that assumes what is being told is 'factual' what turns out to be 'rumour'. It is only Dalin and Rothmann's recycling of an old Zionist rumour, recycled as fact.

(f)Dalin earlier was excluded by editors over a year ago, the banned Zeq was the only one pushing his stuff, because it was agreed he was not a specialist in this area (indeed in one instance his work was cited from an antiSemitic site in Adelaide), and this article's bibliography is replete with specialist literature as wiki prescribes. He is a rabbi, interested in American history primarily. His work is 'fresh' only in so far as it revives most of the cant, gossip, and ideological rumour-mongering characteristic of books on Husayni decades ago, most of which has been systematically discredited.

(g)Dalin's recent book has been hit with a thumb's down for the poor quality of its scholarship by a major Israeli historian, Tom Segev. Until some ranking Israeli or Middle Eastern historian gives it a strongly positive review, it remains what it looks like, a sorry job of slapdash recycling of unproven or disproven theories.

(h) None of the three supporting this material's insertion has read the article, something which is absolutely indispensable if one is to edit in a way that the narrative context remains coherent. For the contested passage is immediately preceded by:-

Samuel was anxious to keep a balance between the al-Husaynis and their rival clan the Nashashibis. A year earlier the British had replaced Musa al-Husayni as Mayor of Jerusalem with Ragheb al-Nashashibi. They then moved to secure for the Husayni clan a compensatory function of prestige by appointing one of them to the position of mufti, prevailing upon the Nashashibi front-runner, Sheikh Hussam ad-Din Jarallah, to withdraw. This automatically promoted Amin al-Husayni to third position, which, under Ottoman law, allowed him to qualify, and Samuel then chose him as Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the title being invented by Samuel

The result of this sloppy game is that we are given two versions, one mainstream, as above, and the other fringe, one following the other, which clash and contradict each other. All three editors have plopped this in without controlling the context, noting the contradiction the edit creates, and, if noted, correcting the dissonance. The result is that a coherent narrative is a pastiche, a mish-mash of conflicted views, without any attempt to bridge them.

No one restoring the material has a record of consistent interest in this period, or in this article. All three have, over the last few days, dropped in and persisted in plunking down and defending a patch of camp theory by amateurish historians (of this specific period) as though it were the truth, (that is the narrative voice adopted). None of you has troubled to authenticate with further crosschecking this fringe theory, or addressed the objections raised, except by expressing personal opinions.

For all of these reasons (and several more), this persistence in edit-warring on what is, so far, a piece of fringe trash does not indicate a respect for wiki objectives. This article has one, a dedication to the best sources. I am therefore, for the third time, going to revert, and will be curious to see if this irrational insistence turns out to be a tagteaming operation, especially since one of the three does wikitrail me to articles he otherwise has never shown an interest in. Nishidani (talk) 20:31, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

Segev is an Israeli historian, one of many, He is not more authoritative or prominent than most. Regardless, we do not remove reliable sources from Misplaced Pages based one the POV of a critic. As as a simple thought experiment, think of your reaction were I to excise from Misplaced Pages every reference to works by Pappe, base on the fact that they received 'a thumb's down for the poor quality of its scholarship' by a major Israeli historian, Karsh. Enough said. NoCal100 (talk) 22:44, 25 January 2009 (UTC)

1. Dalin & Rothmann, Icon of Evil, Random House, New York, 2008, p. 21
2. ibid.
3. ibid.
4. ibid., p. 22

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