Reply #34: it is simply not correct at all to say "the Arabs aligned with Hitler" that is pure anti-historic [View All]

[Douglas Carpenter]

nonsense.

The fact that the Mufti like many people throughout the British colonial world who were in rebellion against the British had pro-Axis sympathizes (out of a "my enemies enemy") principle did not make the Palestinian national movement an allie of the Nazis. But the Mufti was not the entirety the Palestinian movement. There were thousands of Palestinians who fought on the side of the allies against the Nazis.

And attacks especially by the Irgun and the Stern Gang against British interest certainly kept going on while Britain was in a state of war against Germany. Still it would be an outrageous exaggeration to describe either side as allies of Hitler.

And the personal relationship the Mufti had with Hitler were a few photo ops and propaganda broadcast. It was common throughout the entire colonial system that many anti-Colonial leaders sided with the Axis. And the ones who didn't were frequently Stalinist.

Two former Israeli Prime Ministers; Begin and Shamir were leaders in Irgun and the Stern Gang who carried out attacks against the British while the British were in a state of war with Nazi-Germany. And they did indeed seek Axis support.

But neither side can rationally be called allies of Hitler. Either claim would be pure nonsense.

This article from the Simon Wiesenthal Center -- hardly a "pro-Palestinian" source:


Palestine and Nazi Germany
by Sara Reguer

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395105

snip:"Germany's Palestine policy between 1933 and 1940 was based on a fundamental acceptance of the post-World War I status quo in the Middle East. For different reasons, the Hitler regime continued in the footsteps of the various Weimar governments by identifying German interests with the postwar settlement in Palestine. That settlement embodied a growing Jewish presence and homeland in Palestine, as well as the establishment of British imperial power over Palestine and the Middle East. It also represented a denial of Arab claims to national self-determination and independence in Palestine and throughout the Middle East. Between 1933 and 1940, German policy encouraged and actively promoted Jewish emigration to Palestine, recognized and respected Britain's imperial interests throughout the Middle East and remained largely indifferent to the ideals and aims of Arab nationalism. (p. 201)"

Snip:"The relationship between Nazi Germany and the Palestine Question of the 1930s is widely misunderstood. Except for a few scholars here and there, this subject lends itself to a pervasive kind of misconception: we tend to read the Nazi policies of World War II back into the 1930s. The Nazis' "Final Solution of the Jewish Question," their pro-Arab attitudes, and their battle against Great Britain makes it difficult for most of us to imagine that before the war the Nazis, even the SS, aided the illegal immigration of Jews into Palestine, and that Hitler so feared British displeasure that he absolutely prohibited German support for the Arabs of the Palestine mandate. Yet this is exactly what Francis R. Nicosia has described and proved in his excellent scholarly study.

Nicosia clearly shows in his impressive introductory chapter that Germany's policy on Palestine remained unchanged from the late Empire through the Weimar Republic. German policy makers supported Zionist efforts because they recognized that Zionism could be an effective instrument of German foreign policy. During the 1930s, the Nazis continued this traditional policy because they wanted to use Zionism and please the British.

snip:"Most Arabs never realized that the Nazis viewed them as racially inferior and that Germany was directly responsible for the increase in Jewish immigration during the 1930s. It was the Arabs, especially Palestinian Arab leaders like Haj Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem, who openly made their pro-German feelings known. But Nicosia's analysis of the scholarly biographies of the Mufti shows that these biographies cannot be relied on for an accurate account of Nazi Germany's involvement in Palestine (p. 250, n. 3). Like others, I had relied on these biographies; now I must, however, agree with Nicosia's conclusion that Germany was not involved in the Arab Jewish conflict in Palestine of 1936-1937.

link to full article:

Palestine and Nazi Germany
by Sara Reguer

Francis R. Nicosia. The Third Reich and the Palestine Question. Austin: Texas University Press, 1985. xiv, 319 pages.

link:

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395105


.