I cannot remember the last time a paragraph in a news story so upset my digestive tract as this one (spotted and noted by Seith Leibsohn in The Corner), in today’s Washington Post:
As Obama met with Netanyahu, news leaked in Israel that approval had been given to construct 20 additional housing units in East Jerusalem, in the Palestinian neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. The United States had previously objected to the project, which would be built on the site of the Shepherd Hotel, the former home of the late Haj Amin Husseini, a former mufti, or Islamic law scholar, of Jerusalem…
The author of those lines is a good reporter, Glenn Kessler. I assume the facts are correct. What turns my stomach is the description of the Mufti. For Haj Amin Husseini was hardly an “Islamic law scholar.” He was one of the Nazis’ favorite Arabs, a man who spent much of the war in Berlin working with high officials of the Third Reich (including Hitler and Eichmann), encouraging them to extend the “Final Solution” (that is, the extermination of the Jews, of which Husseini was a great enthusiast) to the Middle East.
No doubt the description of this evil man was given to Glenn Kessler by a government official who was explaining why “the United States had previously objected” to the replacement of the hotel with apartment flats. The explanation shows that “the United States” thought it was entirely improper to tear down the former residence of a Jew hater who did everything possible to kill the Jews of the Middle East. “The United States” evidently believes that such an action would be, shall we say, a desecration of the memory of a noted Islamic scholar.
If I knew who said that to Kessler, I’d ask Hillary Clinton to fire him. Hell, I’ll do it anyway: that person should be identified and removed at once. We don’t want apologists for the Holocaust in our government.
Do we?
Pajamas Media
Faster Please!
Michael Ledeen
23 Comments
Given what I’ve read tonight of Obama’s disgraceful treatment of Netanyahu at the White House, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn the description of Husseini was fed from the White House, itself.
Why not ask Hillary why she/Obama are demanding a terror state on the West Bank/Gaza? (Run by people just like the ones we are fighting in Afghan/Yemen et al)
Why not ask Hillary why the USA takes no action to keep Iran from going nuclear?
Why do we have troops building a Sharia state in Afghan?
It does look like Obama actually was born in the USA, if he was not, I imagine the Mossad would make it public…but they may come up with the goods to make Obama resign another way! As ye sow…
It does look like Obama actually was born in the USA, if he was not, I imagine the Mossad would make it public…but they may come up with the goods to make Obama resign another way! As ye sow…
It’s the usual attempt to white-wash anything ”Islamic” especially if it has anything to do with the Left’s favourite cause, the Palestinians. Hilary did something similar in her AIPAC speech – she purposefully confused the identity of the terrorist that the Palestinians glorified by naming a public square after. She said that this despicable monster responsible for the deaths of 37 Israeli civilians (including children & infants) was from Hamas when in fact this was a terrorist from ”moderate” Fatah.
Fascism & it’s Nazi variation AND the Muslim Brotherhood both had their beginnings in the 1920’s. Both movements, Islamism & Nazism share as a core belief a virulent anti-Semitism & embrace genocide as a ‘’solution” to the Jewish problem. The Mufti of Jerusalem was an ally of Hitler, in other words, the foundation of Palestinian nationalism (with a heavy Islamic componant) is Nazism, Nazi ideology grafted onto the pre-existing Islamic anti-Semitism as expressed in Mohammed’s Qur’an. When some use the term ”Islamo-fascism” they don’t always know just how accurate the term is.
This is the ideology that underlies all Palestinian political factions including the falsely labeled “moderate” Fatah. It is no coincidence that the leader of Fatah, Abbas, wrote his PhD based on Holocaust denial.
But, of course, the truth has little to do with Middle-East policy these days. Any lies will do, any white-wash, any re-write of historical fact is permissible. And just as the West was eager to appease Nazism in the 1930’s so Western elites are eager to appease Islam today. We have learned nothing from history.
The advisor to Hillary Clinton is probably intellectually shallow and incompetent. I also knew nothing about Haj Amin Husseini until a few years ago. The politically correct institutions essentially pretend that he never existed. The Grand Mufti was, after all, a man of color. Dark skin people are normally described only as victims of white oppression. In the back of the minds of the “elites”, the Jews deserved his murderous hatred. The so-called occupiers of Palestine obviously did something to him and his followers to get them so angry.
Very few people presently have any idea concerning the evil perpetuated by the Grand Mufti during WWII. Don’t believe me? The next time you attend a social event just go around and ask the guests. It would not surprise me if even most Ivy League educated Jews were unaware of this evil man. He might make an excellent trivial pursuit question.
Michael, You will not get Mrs Clinton to do anything about it. They are all in a haze, because the year is 1939, August 31st.
We don’t want apologists for the Holocaust in our government.
Do we?
Of course not nor do we want tax cheats running the treasury. or school czars that are lamda supporters. we are in a ‘mell of a hess’ as my gmother used to say
Husseini also formed a Waffen SS brigade of Bosnian Muslims who murdered Serbs and Jews in the Balkans. He was subsidized by the Nazis in the 30s and supported the pro Nazi coup in Iraq and then fled to Germany after the Brits defeated them. He met with Hitler in Nov 1941. He was chosen Mufti by the Brits during the early Mandate period. He was the least qualified for the post from an Islamic law perspective. His forces murdered Jews in 1921 and 1929 (including the expulsion of the Jewish community of Hebron). He was a war criminal representative of the fact that the Palestinian Arab leadership (his forces defeated and murdered a rival clan) supported the Holocaust. His predecessor btw signed the corner stone of Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Shows that in history individuals can make a difference for good or ill. It’s not all historical processes.
yes, you–and the others who have made this point–are right; this is in part the result of politically correct indoctrination (the president himself is a product, it seems to me), and very few people know much about history. true enough. but if I am right to surmise that the Kessler paragraph was more or less dictated by someone in State or the White House, that is not just a matter of ignorance but of either incompetence or wickedness.
“…and very few people know much about history.”
Postmodernist man and woman do not perceive the need to study history. That is “so yesterday.” It deals with ancient ways of looking at the world. Creating a utopian society changes everything. The old rules will no longer apply. Our new human being will inevitably be kind, generous, and embrace the values of the “elites.”
Short answer, Michael: For the same reason as to why the NY Times still doesn’t disciple the legacy of Walter Duranty – They perceive it would be cataclysmic to admit they were wrong. Come to think of it, that assessment looks to be correct.
Haj Amin Husseini, the so-called Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, worked closely in Germany with the Nazis in WW2, calling for more Jews to be exterminated. In 1915 he had joined the Ottoman army and cut his teeth on the Armenian Genocide in Smyrna.
I am appalled and sickened that the US government, my country, would use the name of the evil Haj Amin Husseini against the Jewish descendants of the Holocaust.
Michael, at what point do we go beyond calling it the result of politically correct indoctrination and instead call it the enemy within, the traitor, a liar?
In 1943, while in Berlin as the “Führers” distinguished guest, al-Husseini took it upon himself to personally intervene with a Red Cross plan for an exchange of 5.000 Jewish children against 20.000 German POW.
Upon al-Husseini’s personal intervention, Himmler sent all these Jewish children to death camps.
In 1942, after the Allied victory at al-Allamein, al-Husseini called for a “djihad” and specifically for the extermination of all Jews in the British Mandate of the Palastine (the “well-meaning” idiocy of today is to claim he didn’t mean it, only a cultural matter of speaking, so to say…)
Also, al-Husseini supported Heydrich’s stationing of German SS-troops in Athens. In case the German break-through at the Kaukasus front had been succesfull, these German SS-troops would have moved from Athens to the British Mandate immediately to kill all Jews they could have gotten hold of.
According to Wisliceny, an important witness of the procecution at the Nuremberg Trial, the “Grand-Mufti” was very keen on seeing the gas chambers at Auschwitz and, as a close friend of Eichmann, got to see them on several ocasions; the “Grand-Mufti” apparently considered the German “final solution” a model for something he wanted to put-up in Palestine.
Aparently, it becomes more and more “un-pc” to state theses facts about al-Husseini, the “Grand-Mufti”, and people do get called all sorts of things for mentioning them. Yet they’re still included in at least the German wikipedia. This is to say: They’re not too arcane, but rather common-place and quite knowledgable facts.
There’s much being done though in order to idealize and glorify al-Husseini as simply another Lawrence-style Arab nationalist, though.
Either I should type slower, or not be in such a rush to click “submit”.
Instead of disciple, the word should have been discipline.
Synonymous words, but hardly interchangeable.
Do American Jews understand what the modern Democratic Party actually represents for them?
Surely those posing as cultural elites, the bon ton media married to their government sources, should know their history.
There is AMPLE evidence of the absolute collusion between the Mufti and Hitler, in fact, the Mufti thought that Hitler was not going fast enough, far enough in his program of Jewish extermination!
As a matter of historical record, Arafat, the godfather of Arab suicide terrorism, viewed the Mufti as his Mentor, his Allah of sorts.
Therefore, those who sanitize the Islamofacist Mufti as an Islamic ’scholar’, surely reveal which side they are on-the most anti-semitic forces on earth!
NO doubt about it.
David Thompson – allow me to correct one thing you wrote.
Haj Amin al-Husseini was not a dark skinned person. He was fair skinned and had green eyes. That was part of the reason the Nazi leaders favored him, he was viewed as an Aryan. This was because his ancestry was Albanian – as is the case with a portion of Palestinians. Much is not understood about who the Palestinians are. An Arab several years ago explained to me that if you look at some of their names you can tell where they really came from. For example names sounding like Magrahbi or Magreb indicate they came from North Africa, al Masri from Egypt, Khouri from Iran.
RE:15
“Do American Jews understand what the modern Democratic Party actually represents for them?”
The left has always championed America’s enemies from the earliest days of the pro Stalin unionists to the current love of the Palestinians, the Castros, and Hugo Chavez. Che Guevara is idolized by the left. This is especially true of the Obama administration, as seen by its treatment of Iran and Russia to the detriment of Iraq, Israel, and our East European allies. Liberal American Jews are liberal first and Israeli supporters second, to the degree that they support a Jewish state at all. According to the following link among non-Orthodox Jews under 35, only 54 percent are “comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state.”
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=same_as_it_ever_was_09
“Haj Amin al-Husseini was not a dark skinned person. He was fair skinned and had green eyes.”
Oh my gosh, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. You are being logical—but your typical postmodernist utopian is intellectually confused and inconsistent. Haj Amin al-Husseini was a Muslim who wore Arab style clothing. That’s all that matters to these people. This dude is inherently dark skinned in their way of looking at the world.
Your criticism reminds me of a similar complaint I received a few months ago when I asserted the politically correct establishment perceives Iranians as dark skinned victims of Western oppression. At least one individual pointed out that Iranians are considered by numerous hard scientists as Aryans. What do you want me to say? Once again, it does not make any real difference. In back of the minds of our pseudo-educated elites—all they ultimately care about is the fact that Iranians are not Westerners. Thus, any non-Westerner must be a victim of white imperialism. Are you now completely bewildered? Well, join the crowd.
I should also add that a society obsessed by racial classifications will inevitably go insane. What in heck, for instance, is a Hispanic? Can anybody provide you with an adequate explanation? Of course not. Affirmative action guidelines supposedly provide help to victimized minorities. What if I am 1/2 Mexican, or 1/3—or 1/15th? What if I am a full-blooded Mexican who has the last name of Jones because my mother remarried and stuck me with this surname? What if I am a full-blooded Englishman whose family has lived in Argentina for the last one hundred years? Would I be a Hispanic? I am going to have stop right here and now. My head is starting to hurt.
The So-called Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood has only been “Palestinian” since 1948. It was a Jewish neighborhood for over 700 years, until the Jordanians ethnically cleansed it of its inhabitants, together with the rest of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.
Steve #17 — excellent. I read that not only was Husseini Arafat’s mentor, but he was also his uncle. As for Billary, the pictures of them and Chelsea with Arafat speak louder than words (as if they are standing next to Washington or something as the fat murderer liked to call himself). And what about that false treaty ol’ Billary had Israel sign with a terrorist who wasn’t even a so-called Palestinian, but an Arab! Finally, isn’t it odd that this “grand” mufti’s name is only a one “i” difference from obama’s? Not a coincidence, in the spiritual battle, I believe, which is what this all really boils down to.
This discussion is interesting. Thank you.
