One more thing...
Prior to WWII, some European Jews wanted to move to the Middle East to live in the land where their ancestors lived. They saved their money and bought land in order to follow that dream. Does anyone on this site believe that was wrong and justifies terror and murder?
The Ottoman Empire, which controlled territory that is now Israel and the West Bank - although it had no independent nationhood at the time, sided with Germany in WWI. They lost. The Empire ended after WWI and Great Britain ended up with control of the Middle East. Over the next few decades, Great Britain sometimes sought to help the establishment of a state of Israel and other times retarded it to appease Arab opposition.
What was that opposition based upon? There was no formal state run by Arabs in what is now Israel. Jews had lived for centuries in that part of the world. As more Jews moved to that part of the world over the 19th and 20th centuries, didn't they have a right to create a government that would express their right to self-determination?
Wasn't, in fact, the dominant regional Arab population a racist force unwilling to allow another culture to develop and grow on what they thought was "their" land - even though hundreds of years earlier they had used war to conquer and control that very land?
As a liberal, I am opposed to such racism.
Ahmadinejad Holocaust's Myths
In his speeches, most especially the one at Columbia University, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeats two myths about the Holocaust. The first every reasonable person knows is a total lie: namely that the Holocaust did not occur. The second myth, however, is one that escapes critical attention for the most part, because many people are not aware of its falsity. The myth is that the Palestinian people and their leadership had absolutely nothing to do with the Holocaust. The conclusion that is supposed to follow from this "fact" is that the establishment of Israel in the wake of the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people was unfair to the Palestinians. This is the way Ahmadinejad put it in his Columbia talk:
These statements about the role of the Palestinians are demonstrably false. The truth is that the Palestinian leadership, supported by the Palestinian masses, played a significant role in Hitler's Holocaust. The Palestinian leader at the time was Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, the Grand Mufit of Jerusalem. As Professor Edward Said has acknowledged:
"Hajj Amin al-Husseini represented the Palestinian Arab national consensus, had the backing of the Palestinian political parties that functioned in Palestine, and was recognized in some form by Arab governments as the voice of the Palestinian people."
Husseini was "Palestine's national leader" and it was in that capacity that he made his notorious alliance with Hitler and played an active role in promoting the Holocaust. Here is the true story that Ahmadinejad tried to mythologize.
Shortly after Hitler came to power, the Grand Mufti decided to emulate him. He informed the German consul in Jerusalem that "the Muslims inside and outside Palestine welcome the new regime of Germany and hope for the extension of the fascist anti-democratic, governmental system to other countries." In an effort to bring it to his own country, Husseini organized the "Nazi Scouts," based on the "Hitler Youth." The swastika became a welcome symbol among many Palestinians.
The mid to late 1930's were marked by Arab efforts to curtail immigration and Jewish efforts to rescue as many Jews as possible from Hitler's Europe. These years were also marked by escalating Muslim violence orchestrated by Husseini and other Muslim leaders. In 1936, Arab terrorism took on a new dimension. In the beginning the targets were once again defenseless Jewish civilians in hospitals, movie theatres, homes and stores. This was followed by strikes and shop closures, and then by the bombing of British offices. The Nazi regime in Germany and the Italian fascists supported the violence, sending "millions" to the Mufti. The SS, under the leadership of Heinrich Himmler, provided both financial and logistical support for anti-Semitic pogroms in Palestine. Adolf Eichmann visited Husseini in Palestine and subsequently maintained regular contact with him. The support was mutual, as one Arab commentator put it:
"Feeling the whip of Jewish pressure and influence, the Arabs sympathize[d] with the Nazis and Fascists in their agony and trials at the hands of Jewish intrigues and international financial pressure."
The Palestinians and their Arab allies were anything but neutral about the fate of European Jewry. The official leader of the Palestinians, Haj Amin al-Husseini, spent the war years in Berlin with Hitler, serving as a consultant on the Jewish question. Husseini famously posed with Hitler for a photograph that was proudly displayed in the homes of many Palestinians. He was taken on a tour of Auschwitz by Himmler and expressed support for the mass murder of European Jews. He also sought to "solve the problems of the Jewish element in Palestine and other Arab countries" by employing "the same method" being used "in the Axis countries." He would not be satisfied with the Jewish residents of Palestine - - many of whom were descendants of Sephardic Jews who had lived there for hundreds, even thousands, of years - - remaining as a minority in a Muslim state. Like Hitler, he wanted to be rid of "every last Jew." As Husseini wrote in his memoirs:
"Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us 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. The answer I got was: 'The Jews are yours.'"
The Mufti was apparently planning to return to Palestine in the event of a German victory and to construct a death camp, modeled after Auschwitz, near Nablus. Husseini incited his pro-Nazi followers with the words "Arise, o sons of Arabia. Fight for your sacred rights. Slaughter Jews wherever you find them. Their spilled blood pleases Allah, our history and religion. That will save our honor." In 1944, a German-Arab commando unit, under Husseini's command, parachuted into Palestine and poisoned Tel Aviv's wells.
Husseini also helped to inspire a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq and helped to organize thousands of Muslims in the Balkans into military units known as Handselar divisions which carried out atrocities against Yugoslav Jews, Serbs and Gypsies. After a meeting with Hitler, he recorded the following in his diary:
The Mufti: "The Arabs were Germany's natural friends... They were therefore prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate in a war, not only negatively by the commission of acts of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion. In this struggle, the Arabs were striving for the independence and the unity of Palestine, Syria and Iraq....
Hitler: "Germany was resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well. Hitler. Germany's objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power. The moment that Germany's tank divisions and air squadrons had made their appearance south of the Caucasus, the public appeal requested by the Grand Mufti could go out to the Arab world."
It is fair to conclude that the official leader of the Muslims in Palestine, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was a full fledged Nazi war criminal and he was so declared at Nuremberg and sought by Yugoslavia as a war criminal after the war. He escaped to Egypt where he was given asylum and helped to organize many former Nazis and Nazi sympathizers against Israel.
It is also fair to say that Husseini's pro-Nazi sympathies and support were widespread among his Palestinian followers, who regarded him as a here even after the war and the disclosure of his role in Nazi atrocities. According to his biographer,
Haj Amin's popularity among the Palestinian Arabs and within the Arab states actually increased more than ever during his period with the Nazis... [because] large parts of the Arab world shared this sympathy with Nazi Germany during the Second World War.
Nor was it merely a hatred of Zionism that animated this support for Nazi ideology. The grand mufti's "hatred of Jews...was fathomless, and he gave full vent to it during his period of activity alongside the Nazis (October 1941-May 1945)." His speeches on Berlin Radio were anti-Semitic to the core: "Kill the Jews wherever you find them--this pleases God, history and religion." In 1948, the National Palestinian Council elected Husseini as its president, even though he was still a wanted war criminal living in exile in Egypt. Indeed, Husseini is still revered today among many Palestinians as a national hero. Yasser Arafat, in an interview conducted in 2002 and reprinted in the Palestinian daily Al-Quds on August 2, 2002, the chairman calls Haj Amin al-Husseini "our hero," referring to the Palestinian people. Arafat also boasted of being "one of his troops," even though he knew he was "considered an ally of Nazis." (If a Germany today were to call Hitler "our hero," he would appropriately be labeled a neo-Nazi!)
Therefore it is a myth -- another myth perpetrated by Iran's myth-maker-in-chief -- that the Palestinians played "no role" in the Holocaust. Considering the active support by the Palestinian leadership and masses for the losing side of a genocidal war, it was more than fair for the United Nations to offer them a state of their own on more than half of the arable land of the British mandate. The Sudeten Germans got a lot less!
(For more, see The Case for Israel, at pages 40-44 and 54-62, with notes at 247-248.)
Comments for this post are now closed
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
At one point in time is it fair to start our historic arguments?
For instance, this conversation seems to consider the 1948 establishment of Israel as the reason for hatred by Arabs toward Jews but what of the 1929 Hebron massacre of Jews by Arabs.
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/hebron29.html
As a liberal I cannot accept the murdering people just because they are different from me and moved to "my" town. That is racist to me. Yet, among my fellow liberals I see no acknowledgment of such racist and genocidal actions and the long-term strategy behind them.
Moreover, the idea of that Arabs are justified in murdering Jews - then or now - because they live on "their" lands is offensive to me. It remains no better than when whites lynched blacks for trying to live peaceably in "their" towns in the old South.
Strangely though, I see quite a few posting from "liberals" who seem to feel that because Arabs claim the West Bank as "their" land, terrorizing and murdering men, women and children is fully warranted.
Frankly, to me, those who hold these views are not liberals who can claim a real interest in human rights. They are nothing less than quasi-fascists who believe in the power of a dominant regional culture (the Arabs - 22 nations in the region) to oppress and try to eliminate a minority culture (the Jews - 1 nation the size of New Jersey.)
Mr. Dershowitz shows once again that he is an abuser of history rather than a student of it.
The true perception and views of the Palestinian people during the Second World War was far from black and white. Some such as the Mufti were avid Nazi supporters, while others fought on the allied side in several campaigns. No individuals living in Palestine engaged in combat for the Nazi side while others did for the Allies.
I suggest Rashid Khalidi's the Iron Cage as a historical book that fully studies the complex development of Palestinian nationalsim.
What is clear, is that the Jewish people rightly or wrongly did benefit from the Holocaust in terms of world perception- I would of course say that this was at least mostly justified- Before the attrocities of the holocaust were fully revealed, European perception of the formation of the new state was far more mixed. In the 30's Jewish radicals in Israel engaged in open combat with British not winning them much support. The holocaust and also the refugees that came from it clearly represented an important point in the historical timeline of the development of Israel. To Deny this is foolish
Even after World War 2, the majority of the world was content to "give" Israel its independence but no other support, fully expecting that it would be destroyed in the ensuing war with the surrounding nations. I maintain that the Jewish people didn't benefit from the Holocaust at all--odd that this needs to be said--and I don't understand how you feel that they "wrongly" benefitted.
Now in totally brutal and simple terms for historically challenged and the knee-jerk crowd. terms:
There are two people fighting over same tiny scrap of land.
Some neighbors got also involved but got their asses kicked so they got out of the fight.
Then one won, the other one lost.
Now the neighbors are too chicken to fight themselves ( see above) so they goad the losers to continue fighting the much stronger party.
The losers are a bit dumb and easily excitable so they fell for it. Too bad, the losers would get so much more by honest negotiations.
So, Alan, Hajj Amin al-Husseini was a buddy of Hitler, and that taints Palestinians to this day?
Henry Ford and Hitler were fans of each other. Henry was photographed receiving the Grand Cross of the German Eagle in 1938. Do you refuse to ride in Ford products?
Your reply is nonsensical........
You, like Allan, are a Zionist.
Quod erat demonstrandum.
Yes, I have no doubt that for you that does settle everything. It must be lovely to have one code word carry so much water. I mean, of course the General Assembly did revoke that embarrassing old resolution about Zionism, but "wink wink... nod nod..." we all still know everything we really need to know, right?
What should be evident by this time is that Nazi Germany is the example we do NOT want to follow if we claim to give a damn about the value of human life. It seems as if it should be easy to avoid that extreme of oppression, but look at what's happening in Gaza today! Every day, it becomes more like the Warsaw Ghetto, with the IDF playing the role of the Wermacht, gradually flattening and incinerating everything as they go.
I see my own country - the USA - carrying out blitzkriegs of its own, occupying and demolishing Iraq as it sets its sights on the next victim: Iran!
So there is plenty of fascism all around. Ahmadinejad is a political mouthpiece or poster boy like our own George W. Bush. His denial of the Holacaust angers a sensitive constituency here in the US, but it doesn't seem any more flagrant than GWB's denial of evolution, and insistence on considering creationism as a serious alternate "theory". Denial of facts is stupid, regardless of its context or intent.
All politicians are liars. The crucial difference is in who is actively killing and oppressing people today: Iran - somewhat. The US in Iraq - big time. The IDF in Gaza - ditto. Nazi is as Nazi does.
The false equivalence is a treasured device of demagogues. Ideological reductionism is no substitute for real analysis.
While we're at it, a lot of the West Bank's Israeli colonists look on Mosque Massacre perpetrator Baruch Goldstein as a hero.
Sorry, I forgot that we can't make generalizations about Israelis, only about Palestinians.
"While we're at it, a lot of the West Bank's Israeli colonists look on Mosque Massacre perpetrator Baruch Goldstein as a hero.
Sorry, I forgot that we can't make generalizations about Israelis, only about Palestinians."
Oh, is that how that works? Let me ask you, how many Palestinian suicide bombers can you name? I can't name any, because there have been so many that focusing on any one of them would be pointless. But Baruch Goldstein? Everybody knows his name, because he's the virtually unique exception among Israelis.
And how many Palestinians revere suicide bombers as heroes? Think you'd care to compare the extent of Palestinian adulation for their suicide bombers with Israeli adulation for Baruch Goldstein? No, probably not.
But don't worry. Those inconvenient facts are probably just illusory byproducts of our refusal to generalize about Israelis.
AD's argument is interesting but sort of beside the point. Palestinians are not being punished for the Holocaust--there was a Jewish presence in Israel long before WWII. The history goes back millennia, Zionism began at the end of the 19th century, and British promises for a Jewish homeland were made at the end of the First World War. For a nimrod who isn't even the real head of Iran (that would be Supreme Leader Khamenei), Ahmadinejad has done an impressive job of inserting himself into, and framing, the debate on Israel.
Dear sorenmeetsdylan, the Huffingtonpost is a liberal blog--so, uh, what are you (and Dershowitz)doing here? Is Bill O'reilly's blog down or something.
Yes, Malkintent, the Huffingtonpost is a liberal blog. So, *uh*, since it is a blog, is it o.k. with you to post different opinions here, or, is that *uh* not o.k. with you? And who are you? For censorship are you?
Mr. Dershowitz,
You must remember, the far left prefers Hamas and Hezbollah to the democratic State of Israel and think somehow they are occupying the moral high ground. They are, as Nick Cohen has demonstrated, lost.
I doubt very sincerely that one could consider George Bush the elder a member of the far left.
Yet, he tried to cut off all funding to Israel until they stopped all settlement activity and removed every single illegal settlement.
He did this because he recognized the problems it caused in the middle east, and because he recognized the horrible light that it cast the US in as the result of our financial and diplomatic support of a country engaging actively in colonizing another peoples land. We have bombed other countries for that crime. In fact, we bombed and invaded Iraq after they took kuwait with the intention of "settling" it because they felt it was historically theirs to take.
I would not charactorize the Iraq Study Group as far left, But they more or less advocate the same idea.
Nor would I call Colin Powell a lefty, yet he identifies the genisis of M.E. terror as coming directly from the Israeli/Palestinian Conflict and the treatment of the Palestinians.
Just can't wait for another war so we can kill some more evil Palestinians, can you Alan? Again Huffpost, why do you run such garbage!
Where's the case for pre-emptive war with Iran?
Not in Mr. Dershowitz' article.
Mr. Dershowitz does not make a case for pre-emptive war with Iran. What he does is give his opinion about the utterances of Ahmadi Nejad. And, Malkintent no one wants a war to kill more evil Palestinians. What the world wants is an end to terrorism, no matter who the terrorists are. And, today, Israel made the case for Peace and a separate state for both Palestinians and Israelis, side by side.
Perhaps Mr. Dershowitz could post his home address so that the Native Americans know where to serve the eviction notice?
Your point only makes the treatment of the Palestinians, at the hands of jewish people whose families were persecuted, seem even more morally disgraceful.
If I remember correctly, the Nazis manufactured and collected all sorts of negative information about Jewish People and used it to enrage the German populace and make their treatment of the Jewish people there seem less horrific than it was.
The settlers and those that back them are racists. They seek to remove the Palestinians from their homes and deny the rights that any human being should have.
The entire settlement movement is morally reprehensible and indefensible.
In the end, you simply are trying to equivocate until the humanitarian disaster that is going on in the occupied territories seems forgiviable, when in fact, it bears great resemblance to the attitides and actions that you decry above.
Italy was a great deal more culpable in the holocaust than any tiny faction in palestine that barely represented any real power at all.
Would you confer the fate of Mussolini upon the entire population of Italy for all eternity as well, or, in fact, are you suggesting that you forgive them, but also feel that the Palestinians deserve to have done to them much of what happened to the Jewish people During WWII (ie rights removed, held in camps, killed at the whim of racists who desired their businesses and belongings) simply because of the actions of one bigoted leader there decades before.
Your in an unbelievably morally dark area here sir, and if you wish to help maintain the memory of the holocaust in order to prevent similar things from happening, as it should be, then prehaps you ought not use it as a way of excusing horrific violence and humanitarian crimes being visited on other people.
Indeed, sir, if you really supported Israel, you would demand that the settlements be removed and the IDF taken out of the occupied territories. It would save Israeli lives, American lives, and MANY, many Palestinan lives.
Shame on you, Mr. Dershowitz
"Your point only makes the treatment of the Palestinians, at the hands of jewish people whose families were persecuted, seem even more morally disgraceful."
I happen to agree that Israel has paid a huge moral price for holding onto the occupied territories. But I'm just wondering, do you think the Arab leaders are any less culpable than the Israelis for the condition of the Palestinians? Do you think the Arabs did ANYTHING that might have incited the Israelis to occupy more land? If so, where's the outrage for that? If not, sorry for wasting my time.
The other Arab countries there are not actively colonizing the occupied territories, so no, i do not believe that they are as culpable, or even anywhere close to being as culpable as Israel, and specifically the settlers and their backers.
It is Israel that created the settlements, and they persist and grow, as they have every single day for more than 4 decades. The entire world, with only a few obvious exceptions, officially condemns the settlements and occupation. It is currently the only active colonization in the entire world. The war in 67 was, by the way, preemptive. so, although there is a lot of talk about Israel's hand being forced, that is just bunk. Furthermore, that was FOURTY YEARS AGO!!!!! Israels neighbors are generally just interested in being left alone. There is absolutely no security benefit to maintaining the occupation, and the idea that moving hundreds of thousands of CIVILIANS into a supposed war zone as a security measure is absolute B.S.
It was always a land grab, from day one. a shameful, brutal, counterproductive land grab orchestrated by religious fanatics and ultranationalists who value their vision far more than the lives of other Israelis, Palestinians, and now, after 9/11 and the "war on terror" the lives of Americans.
If Israel ever wants security and respect, they MUST divest themselves of this albatross around their neck.
"The other Arab countries there are not actively colonizing the occupied territories, so no, i do not believe that they are as culpable, or even anywhere close to being as culpable as Israel[...]."
Oh really? And what were Egypt and Jordon doing between 1949 and 1967 when they occupied the West Bank and Gaza? I can tell you what they weren't doing, and it was turning any of that land over to the Palestinians. No, at the same time Israel was obsorbing an equal number of Jewish refugees driven out of their homes in Arab countries, the Arabs kept the Palestinians in refugee camps under even worse conditions than they've endured since then under Israel.
But the Palestinians hardly even objected to this persecution and neglect from their fellow Arabs, because it was mutually understood that sooner or later they'd all cooperate to destroy Israel and drive the Jews into the sea. At that point the Palestinians probably assumed they'd get all of Palestine (including Israel) for themselves, but you wouldn't want to bet too much that the other Arab nations didn't have different ideas.
I'm no fan of the settlements, and I wish now as I did in 1967 that the Arabs were willing to make peace when Israel would have gladly returned the land they occupy. But not only weren't they willing to make peace; not a single one of them would even discuss it until there had been another failed attempt in 1973 to cleanse the Middle East of Jews. And to this day there remain Arab nations that have been in a full time state of war with a nation they still won't recognize since the day it was created.
Still, you insist sanctimoniously that the Arabs are essentially blameless in the current state of affairs? That's a grotesque offense to history and the people who lived it.
Though this was not directed at me, since this an open forum I will answer.
You ask -- Do you think the Arabs did ANYTHING that might have incited the Israelis to occupy more land?
No I do not think so. Demonizing and ferociously punishing an entire people because of the, arguably justified, conduct of a single individual is unconscionable.
Nor do I think that Israelis need to be "incited" to occupy more land, any more than I think that our current leadership needed any "incitement" for its headlong rush to war against a nation that it perceives as weak, not to say inferior.
"You ask -- Do you think the Arabs did ANYTHING that might have incited the Israelis to occupy more land?
No I do not think so."
So starting four wars with the avowed purpose of "driving the Jews into the sea" is nothing?
----------------------------
"Demonizing and ferociously punishing an entire people because of the, arguably justified, conduct of a single individual is unconscionable."
I'm not sure which single individual you have in mind, but I hope it's not the Grand Mufti. Because if you think making a pact with Hitler to cooperate in the extermination of the Jews is "arguably justified," then I'm afraid we've left the realm of civil discourse.
--------------------------------
"Nor do I think that Israelis need to be "incited" to occupy more land[...]."
Then I guess it's just coincidence that every expansion of Israel's occupied territory came during a war started against it by the Arabs. How convenient for Israel that its enemies won't stop trying to destroy it, and in so doing give it the excuse it needs to expand. But oh, I forgot, Israel is the one country in the world you think should return over and over again to its original borders every time it repels an existential attack.
Let's assume just for now and for the sake of argument that your narrative is objective and accurate. Does that make it wrong for Mr. Dershowitz to point out the historical lie in Ahmadinejad's speech, a lie used regularly to demonize Israel, and of which most people are entirely ignorant?
I couldn't agree with you more. Mr. Dershowitz is promoting Zionist agenda once more.This is just another attempt to hide the true nature of Zionism. Mr. Dershowitz should go back to defending murderers like OJ instead of supporting Zionism.
At the end of the day, I couldn't care less what Israel does to the Palestinians. Israel should feel free to spy upon, beat, kidnap, torture, displace, dumb down, starve and kill the poor, voiceless Palestinians. They're going to do it anyway, with or without my say-so.
Israel should not, however, be doing it with my gay, Latino, Wiccan, middle class, American, liberal tax dollars, or the tax dollars of any other non-Jewish American, for that matter.
If my fellow Mexican Americans can find a way to send billion$ of dollars to Mexico without anyone else's help, then surely pro-Israel Jewish Americans can find a way to send the same amount, or more, to Israel.
Here are the top 16 recipients of U.S. foreign aid :
1. Iraq 18.44 Billion
2. Israel 2.62 Billion
3. Egypt 1.87 Billion
4. Afghanistan 1.77 Billion
5. Colombia 0.57 Billion
6. Jordan 0.56 Billion
7. Pakistan 0.39 Billion
8. Liberia 0.21 Billion
9. Peru 0.17 Billion
10. Ethiopia 0.16 Billion
11. Bolivia 0.15 Billion
12. Turkey 0.15 Billion
13. Uganda 0.14 Billion
14. Sudan 0.14 Billion
15. Indonesia 0.13 Billion
16. Kenya 0.13 Billion
Great idea let's stop ALL foreign aid and lets re-invest it to build more bath houses for our hetero-challenged friends.
Perhaps, you should investigate a little further than mere listings.
The first entry in your list 18.44B for Iraq is a simple grant-in-aid to "nation-building" American contractors of various stripes, whose marvelous handiwork is there for the world to wonder at.
The same can be said for the Afghani portion.
Those to Egypt and Jordan are meant to sustain unpopular "Israel supportive" regimes in those countries and are thus best understood as additions to our direct grants to Israel.
If we take the Iraq portion out of the equation, as we ought, and add Egypt and Jordan's share to Israel, we can easily see how lobsided is America's "foreign aid".
I heartly agree with your final conclusion, especially as the majority of "foreign aid" boils down to international arms dealing.
Israel's relationship with Egypt and Jordon is at best a cold peace. So, by "Israel supportive," you can only mean that they don't abrogate their peace treaties and collaborate with the likes of Iran to destroy Israel outright. That such a pathetic excuse for regional harmony is itself only sustained by US financing hardly makes the case for Israel having nothing to fear from its neighbors.
Posted October 1, 2007 | 02:13 PM (EST)