Beyond the Borders of the Reich
The shadow of Nazism and the ghosts of Antisemitism in the Middle East
Dedicating an exhibition to Nazi-fascist influence in the Middle East for Holocaust Remembrance Day 2025 means casting a glance outside the geographical area of Germany and beyond the figures of Hitler and Mussolini, the leading proponents of what was the Shoah.
It means realizing that Antisemitism was for certain leaders a fascinating proposal and an opportunity to seize, bartering the suffering of Jews and of the other categories of the excluded from the “new order” dreamed by Nazism and by fascisms with the chance to strengthen their own personal power and to affirm their own country of origin.
The Middle East, even though it was an area of extreme interest, is a region far from Europe, in both spatial and cultural sense. These days, it’s marred by a conflict that has remote roots and seems destined never to end, a conflict in which, in addition to weapons, cross-accusations of extermination and genocidal behavior are wasted with offensive intent.
Bringing clarity to those aspects of the past that we can reconstruct, in the years when Nazism and fascism were not metaphors but living, concrete realities, should help us to have a sharper view of what is happening today.
All this without detracting from the load of violence that is taking place, but rather restoring to us the measure of the historical breadth and ideological complexity of today's situations and facts.
Complexity which should finally make us realize that, granted everyone's right to life, happiness and freedom, knowing and coming to terms with the past is the main contribution that culture can make to an understanding of conflict and a genuine appeasement of spirits.
The appeal of authoritarian regimes
Caption
Map of Europe with the indication of the authoritarian regimes established in the 1920’s and 30’s (UNIBO)
In the aftermath of World War I, authoritarianism in the West undermined the weak democratic states that had tried to channel the mass mobilization that had occurred during the conflict into a peaceful form: they were in many cases overtaken by a wave of violence, leading to the establishment of authoritarian regimes, close to fascist and Nazi ideologies. The fascination with charismatic leaders that had swept Europe also found fertile ground in the Middle East.
Palestine between the end of the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate
Caption (top)
Map of Syria. Henry Warren, 1851.
(Wikicommons, public domain).
Caption (bottom)
Poster dedicated to Palestine. Hugo D’Alesi.
(Wikicommons, public domain)
The term Palestine, first introduced by Emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century after he had bloodily quelled the last Jewish military revolt in 135, was exhumed by Europeans in the 19th century to define southern Syria, a region ruled by Damascus under the Ottoman Empire, which then controlled it through administrative units called sanjaks. Palestine, during the first half of the 19th century, which means in the age of European and Mediterranean modernization, was still an almost unknown territory, especially to Europeans. It was sparsely populated, with an Arab majority (except in Jerusalem) and Jewish and Christian communities settled there since ancient times. In that region, land, the only source of wealth, had long been entrusted to landowning Arab families, often residing in Damascus or the region's major urban centres. Therefore, in the sanjak, concrete dependence on the great latifundial powers ended up overlapping with allegiance to the Ottoman central power in Constantinople, modern-day Istanbul. The idea of “land” as a prerequisite of the modern “nation,” and thus of union among equals as “citizens” on the same territory, did not count. If anything, what was fundamental was the adherence to a single loyalty, that which derived from considering oneself part of a nucleus under the control of an exclusive landowning family. Ownership created possession and, therefore, absolute power. Those who controlled material goods also had the right to define the political, civil and social destiny of individuals. Being Arab, as well as Muslim or Christian, implied back then something very different from the way we conceive of ourselves as individuals. There was, however, a need to identify oneself with something that was in the meantime, and amid many hopes as well as many misunderstandings, rising: we refer to the modern idea of “nation,” based on a legal rather than ethnic or feudal belonging. One is in fact a citizen not because they are part of an already formed group, but because of the product of unification between pre-existing identities and collectives. With World War I (1914-1918), the Ottoman Empire disappeared, and its lands came under British control. We speak from this moment of “Mandatory Palestine,” meaning it was subject to the British “mandate” for the establishment of a Jewish national hearth, and we are faced with a radically changed situation, with long-term consequences and sometimes unforeseen outcomes.
Among Arab Nationalism, Pan-Arabism, and Jewish Nationalism (1917-1947)
Caption 1 (top)
Kibbutz Dan. Construction of the mess hall, 1946-1959.
(Wikicommons, public domain.)
Caption 2
Kibbutz Beeri. Beginnings, 1956.
(Wikicommons, public domain.)
Caption 3
Kibbutz Dan. Construction of the pool, 1955.
(Wikicommons, public domain.)
Caption 4
Immigration to Israel, 1947.
(Wikicommons, public domain.)
Two fundamental phenomena meet, and influence each other, in the Palestinian territory during the years of British presence, between 1917 and 1948. The first of them is the progressive change in local society. The original entrenchment of the Arab community, which dominated over the pre-existing Jewish and Christian religious communities that lacked political ambitions, was in fact accompanied by the growth of the Jewish-Zionist settlement that brought to those lands a new idea of nationhood and self-determination that also had repercussions on Arab thought. Between the 1920s and 1947 both the Jewish and Arab populations grew significantly, partly because of better living conditions, and partly because of the immigration of both communities to the big cities. The second phenomenon was the rising and entrenchment of nationalism in both communities. The Jewish one, consisting of a growing number of immigrants, was inspired by Zionism, the Jewish national emancipation movement, which postulated as its goal the establishment of a Jewish state in the memorable land of Israel. In the local Arab society, on the other hand, after enfranchisement from Ottoman rule partly through alliances with the French and British, the goal seemed to be the same as in the wider Arab world, namely the emancipation of the territories from the residual Franco-British colonial presence. Soon, in fact, the idea of embarking on a path of national self-determination also on the lands of British Palestine matured among some Arab elites. A major role was played by the great families of the Arab-Muslim notabilities, starting in Jerusalem: the Nashashibi’s, the Alami’s, the Khalidi’s, the Dajani’s and the Husseini’s, who collectively made up a latifundial aristocracy based on the feudal link between the effendi, at the top, and the fellahin, the rural labourers. It was a bond made up of seemingly immovable ties and subalternities that cracked at the time of Jewish immigration to Palestine for two sets of reasons: initially, because it was precisely the members of the landed aristocracy who sold land to the Jews, making the fellahin's relations with the local aristocracy more tenuous; then, especially as a result of the second aliyah (lett. “ascent") that began from 1904, because the Zionists adopted a community-based form of agricultural organization (the kibbutzim), accentuating the detachment of local Arab labour from the land. This phenomenon of the uprooting of social conventions based on the latifundium and the growth of an Arab proletariat became more pronounced with economic and industrial development and the growing demand for labour generated by Zionist projects, elements that concurred to bring about a strong Arab immigration from surrounding regions such as Syria, Iraq and Egypt. Such a situation constituted the privileged sphere of action of Arab-Islamist militants, playing a non-secondary part in the developmental dynamics of the local nationalist movement. After the end of World War I, the system of relations between effendi and fellahin would also have to deal with the British presence. At the time of decolonization, however, after World War II, the political calculations of other members of the Arab world, who considered Palestinian lands part of a larger Pan-Arab state, would also intervene to further complicate this system of intercommunal relations.
Franco-British colonialism in Mandatary Palestine between the two World Wars (1914-1945)
Caption 1 (top)
The British mandate in the 1920s.
Caption 2
Members of the Supreme Islamic Council: Ragheb Bey Nashashibi, Amin al-Husseini, and Hsein Khaldhi, 1936.
(Wikicommons, public domain).
Caption 3
British policemen posing in front of Tel Aviv’s promenade, 1937.
(Wikicommons, public domain).
World War I put an end to the Ottoman Empire. Peace treaties assigned control of the Palestinian region to the British, which would exercise it until 1948. With the mandate given to London, Palestine took on the contours of a defined territorial entity under the authority of a British High Commissioner. This was an administrative unification that overcame the previous Ottoman fragmentation, which later was also destined to weigh on the political, civil and then social levels. A state was not born, but a territorial entity that was not yet sovereign, as it was under foreign jurisdiction, was given shape. The British, who were interested in controlling the region mainly because of the importance of maritime traffic between Suez and the Dardanelles Strait, applied shifting criteria towards the native societies, seeking to mitigate, mediate or suppress, for their own exclusive benefit, any tensions and possible unrest. However, in such a context, frictions between the local Arab communities and the Jewish-Zionist settlement soon escalated, eventually transcending into a series of violence, which saw the two groups harshly pitted against each other. Of the various uprisings against the Jewish-Zionist presence initiated since 1920, the most important was undoubtedly what came to be known as the “Great Revolt,” which actually lasted between April 1936 and August 1939, with a succession of strikes, street clashes, terror attacks and other brutalities against the Jewish presence, under the leadership of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Arab authorities. From the cities, where tensions were greatest, mobilization soon spread to the countryside. In the meantime – also as a result of the British issuance of the 1939 White Paper, which severely restricted Jewish immigration to Palestine –, a series of terrorist attacks against British targets by some paramilitary groups of radical right-wing Zionism began: these were groups such as the Irgun and the Leḥi (better known as the “Stern Gang”), and their acts were condemned by the Jewish authorities.
The making of a Leader
Caption
Amin al-Husseini, 1929 ca.
(Wikicommons, public domain).
Prominent figures in Mandatory Palestine included Amin al-Husseini (1895/97-1974). Born in Jerusalem, the son of one of the most prominent families of the local Arab notables, he studied in Jerusalem, Cairo and Istanbul. To counterbalance the Balfour Declaration of 1917, by which the British had recognized the legitimacy of Zionist aspirations in Palestine, in 1921 the then British High Commissioner, Sir Herbert Samuel, established the Supreme Islamic Council, appointing Amin al-Husseini to the leadership, with the specially coined position of Grand Mufti: in order to assume the position, Amin al-Husseini was pardoned from a 10-year prison sentence for his involvement in the 1920 anti-Jewish riots in Jerusalem. The intention was to give the Arab component legal-religious but not national representation. Despite his apparent fragility, Amin al-Husseini was an element akin to the political and ideological radicalism that was growing in those lands. In fact, his ideological maturation had occurred as a student of Rashid Rida (1865-1935), the leading intellectual and political exponent of the so-called “Arab renewal,” the forerunner of Islamist fundamentalism based on programmatic aversion against the “West,” the emphasis on jihad as the fundamental precept of Qur'anic faith and the practice of pious and believing man, and the appeal to sharia as the primary and unified source in legislation and society. His membership in the “Muslim Brotherhood”, at the same time as its founding in Egypt, testifies to this basic approach, harking back to an extremist view of Islam that preaches the “purity” of the consecrated land through the subjugation or expulsion of non-believers. With these assumptions he supported the demands of the rural peasants by giving a fully national meaning to the great Arab revolt. These facts, up to the total compromise with the tripartite Axis policy, accompany like a disturbing shadow the physiognomy and political role of Mufti Amin al-Husseini.
The National-Socialist attraction on a part of the Arab World
Caption 1
White Paper for Palestine, 1939.
(Wikicommons, public domain).
Caption 2
Map showing the breakdown of Palestine proposed by the Peel Commission in 1937.
(Wikicommons, public domain).
In 1937 Amin al-Husseini had to flee to Lebanon, abandoning Mandatory Palestine, his homeland, because the British authorities considered him a potential subverter of the entire British colonial order and because of his role in organizing the Great Arab Revolt of 1936. It was precisely because of the attitude of the colonial powers that the various Arab nationalisms approached the Nazi and Fascist regimes. The spread of Nazi-fascist ideologies in the Mediterranean and the effects of World War II involved 150 million Muslims, mostly under Franco-British colonial control, between the African Mediterranean coast and Southeast Asia, and another 20 million Muslims belonging to societies that were, at the time, part of the Soviet Union. This was not, therefore, an occasional phenomenon. Nazism, in fact, like fascisms, presented itself as a complete social model in itself, to which to refer in order to build a World different from the already existing systems: the Liberal-Democratic one, based on freedoms including market freedoms, and the Communist one, based instead on the centrality of the state and public control of the market. The Nazis, with a definite calculation of interest, also considered some Muslim peoples to be of the Aryan race, albeit with many distinctions, and advocated the elimination of the “Jewish problem” from the Middle East too. Amin al-Husseini ended up recognizing himself in such a configuration. It should not be forgotten, however, that while some of the Palestinian Arabs sympathized with the Mufti's positions, others openly dissociated themselves from them. Al-Husseini’s maximalism conditioned the choices of the Arab world, especially where the total and implacable rejection of a state of the Jews also brought with it the rejection of a national and independent solution for the Arab collectivity. Just as Israel was not to be born, so would the existence of a new Palestinian state not be given.
Amin al-Husseini’s role in the years of Nazism
Caption 1 (left)
Greece. Soldier of the “Free Arabia” legion, 09/23/1943.
(Bundesarchiv, Bild 101I-177-1465-04 / Schlickum / CC-BY-SA 3.0).
Caption 2 (top right 1)
Emblem of the “Free Arabia” legion.
(Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 de).
Caption 3 (top right 2)
Emblem of the 13th SS Military Mountain Division “Handschar.”
(Wikicommons, public domain).
Caption 4 (top right 3)
Emblem of the 23th SS Military Division “Kama”.
(Wikicommons, public domain).
Caption 5 (bottom right)
Amin al-Husseini inspects a squad of Bosnian SS volunteer soldiers, November 1943.
(Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1978-070-04A / Mielke / CC-BY-SA 3.0)
Amin al-Husseini was a major player in the Arab nationalism of the 1930s and 1940s, although after the end of World War II many would downplay his actual role. In his vision, the territories of British Palestine were to be joined with those of Mesopotamia. Behind such a geopolitical conception was the design to oppose the Franco-British presence through an alliance with the Axis powers, namely Germany and Italy. The Mufti of Jerusalem believed that the relationship with Nazism could change the balance of power in Mandate Palestine and, more generally, in the vast Arab-speaking and Muslim lands. Upon the rise of Adolf Hitler in the early months of 1933, Amin al-Husseini had thus already the possibility to express his satisfaction with the rise of Nazism. At first the Germans, as well as the Italian fascists, took an interlocutory position toward him. They knew well, in fact, how that portion of the Middle East was an area of British influence. They therefore still considered themselves too weak to intervene. After that, as the war approached, from 1938 things changed, also because the Mufti had made every effort to gain the Axis forces’ consent. Having come from Lebanon to Iraq, in 1937 he was among the protagonists of a failed coup attempt in favor of the Germans in 1941. At the same time, he supported the Nazi-Fascist anti-Semitic campaign, which provided him with the tool to try to supplant the Zionist Jewish presence in the territory where he aspired to create an Arab and Islamic political entity, going so far as to organize the 1941 Baghdad anti-Jewish pogrom (the Farhoud). Forced to flee Iraq, al-Husseini was helped by Fascist Italy, where he met Benito Mussolini and then settled in Nazi Germany. On November 28, 1941, he was received by Adolf Hitler. On that occasion he expressed his admiration for the Third Reich, making a proposal to establish an Arab legion that would fight against “the Bolsheviks, the Jews, and the British.” With the Nazi leader he agreed on the need to “extirpate world Judaism” wherever it manifested itself.
Caption
Amin al-Husseini shakes hands with Nazi hierarch Heinrich Himmler, 1943.
(Bundesarchiv, Bild 101III-Alber-164-18A / Alber, Kurt / CC-BY-SA 3.0).
The Muslim Waffen-SS Divisions Kama and Handschar
Caption 1 (bottom)
Soldiers of the 13th SS Military Mountain Division “Handschar” during training, summer 1943 ca.
(Bundesarchiv, Bild 101III-Mielke-036-23 / Mielke / CC-BY-SA 3.0)
In 1943 Amin al-Husseini had thus worked for the establishment of the Legion Freies Arabien within the Nazi army, and again in 1943 he engaged in recruiting Bosnian Muslims for the establishment of a large Waffen SS (Nazi fighting militia) unit, the 13th “Handschar” division. It was joined by another fighting formation, the 23rd “Kama” Division. Animated by a fierce and relentless spirit, they were both protagonists not only in ruthless fighting against partisan troops, but also, and especially, in the destruction of Jewish communities in the Balkans. In British-controlled Palestine, between 1939 and 1945, the Jewish population collaborated with the Anglo-American war effort. The Arabs, on the other hand, were very lukewarm about it. The Nazis had planned, should their divisions cross the Suez Canal and the Sinai Peninsula, to exterminate the whole Palestinian Jewish settlement. In such a scenario, the Mufti's political and charismatic role would be crucial. It is no coincidence then that he met, on more than one occasion, with one of the most prominent perpetrators of the mass murder of Jews, Adolf Eichmann. The ideological premises that animated Amin al-Husseini are expressed in a speech he gave to Muslim SS men in January 1944, when, putting forward his own personal vision, he claimed to find numerous points of encounter between Muslim and Nazi values on the level of respect for hierarchy and, therefore, command and internal cohesion in function of the fight against “world Jewry.”
Caption 2 (right)
Letter by Amin al-Husseini (in original in the pictures, translated in Italian on the panels, and here in English) to Himmler for the constitution of an Arab legion.
(Original letter: Yad Vashem Archive. Letter translated in Italian: autorization by Lindau Editore)
Berlin, October 3, 1944
To Reichsführer and Reichsminister Heinrich Himmler
Headquarters of the Führer
Let me draw your attention to the renewal of the dangerous demands of the Jews, with the support of the Allies, for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine, as well as to the approval granted by the British government for the creation of a Jewish military unit to fight against Germany and thus earn the right to such a State. In Churchill's last speech in the House of Commons on September 28, 1944, the British government declared its readiness to create this military unit and provide for its training and armament.
The British government's statement triggered the worst possible reaction in all Arab-Islamic countries. Therefore, in response to this act, I propose that the creation of an Arab-Islamic army in Germany composed of Arab and Islamic volunteers, and intended to flow into the existing Arab-Islamic units, be announced. By declaring its readiness to train and arm it, Germany would deal a serious blow to the British plan and increase the number of its own fighters.
I am convinced that the creation of such an army and the announcement of its objective would have very favorable repercussions in the Arab-Islamic countries. Therefore, please consider making the announcement on November 2, 1944, so that it coincides with the anniversary of the infamous Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which the creation of the so-called Jewish national hearth is promised, and with the 1943 promise of the Reich Foreign Ministry to destroy said hearth. Reichsführer, may you accept the expression of my highest esteem.
Yours etc.
The perception of the Shoah in the Yishuv and in the Arab world
Caption 1
Holocaust refugee orphans welcomed at Atlit detention camp (Palestine), 1944.
(Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported).
Caption 2
Manifesto of the Jewish Agency, which encouraged the enrollment in the Jewish Brigade, 1944.
(Wikicommons, public domain).
The universal crime that was consummated with the Shoah, the destruction of European Jewish communities that had fallen under the Nazi heel, did not immediately garner the attention that to this day we devote to it. In 1941- 1942, the possible victory of the German armies in North Africa posed a real danger to the Jews of Mandatory Palestine. The means available to the Jewish leadership on Palestinian soil were extremely scarce, being reduced to illegal immigration (against the British) and contribution to the Allied war effort (in favor of the British themselves). In Mandatory Palestine, news of the massacres taking place in Europe arrived with some continuity, being reported in the Jewish press. However, local public opinion – until the fall of 1942 – remained focused on its own fates. Only the defeat of the Nazi-Fascist army in North Africa allowed them to draw a breath and turn their eyes to other horizons. At that time, in fact, the Jewish community of Palestine began to realize that what was happening on the European continent was not just individual violence but a policy of systematic elimination of Jews. In fact, it manifested its protest as well as it could. The proclamation of a week of collective mourning dates from the end of that year. The fear that, once the war was over, nothing would remain of European Jewry also matured. In this were linked and expressed widespread feelings of helplessness to which was not unrelated the idea that – in regard to refugees, apart from individual cases – there was nothing more to be done. In 1943, it became known that in those Jewish communities in Central and Southern Europe that had not yet been completely decimated, about a million Jews must have survived. It was a matter of doing something to accommodate them in a context where the constraints imposed by the British were compounded by the hostility of the Arab world. The Palestinian Jewish community had no resources of its own at the time to initiate an immigration policy that could at the same time override British restrictions and Germany's murderous madness. For its leadership, the only feasible goal, besides trying to survive, was the accreditation of the Zionist movement as a political interlocutor of the Allies, in anticipation of the postwar balances. For this reason, the Palestinian Zionists collaborated with the British war effort.
Islamic Antisemitism from the 20th century to present day
Amin al-Husseini, destined to die in exile in Beirut in 1974, enclosed multiple figures in one single person. Right away, he revealed himself to be a bitter and harsh exponent of Pan-Arab nationalism and then of Palestinian Nationalism. At the same time, he was an antagonist of the Franco-British colonial system, from whose dissolution he hoped to reap the greatest benefits for his side. He did not believe in democracy at all. He was also a precursor, albeit atypical from a doctrinal point of view, of the Islamic radicalism of our times. Although it’s difficult to trace a line of continuity between his preaching and the official birth of the Hamas movement in 1988, which is nourished by an Islamic radicalism that grew in the shadow of the Iranian revolution of 1979 and the contemporary occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union, it is nevertheless important to note their common ancestry from the "Muslim Brotherhood". In Article 11 of its founding charter, Hamas stated that Palestine constituted "an Islamic waqf, consecrated for future Muslim generations until the day of judgment" and peppered this statement with a series of strongly anti-Semitic rhetoric, from the "money" with which Judaism controls the world's media to the Jews being responsible for the French and Communist Revolutions, in addition to supporting Masonry.
From Amin al-Husseini, Hamas also inherited top-down approach, adopted by radical jihadist movements: the movement: the movement must be based on a forefront that convinces the masses to follow it through violence, harshly repressing any manifestation of dissent. With the clear delegitimization of the State of Israel, implemented by resorting to the vilest anti-Semitic stereotypes, Hamas propaganda has been one of the most important vectors of the spread in the Western world of the overlap between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
Glossary
Aliya Literally “ascent,” journey to Zion, i.e., return of the Jews to the Land of the Fathers. The term denotes Jewish immigration to Ottoman Palestine, Mandatary Palestine and then, since 1948, the State of Israel.
High commissioner for Palestine In the British mandated system, the High Commissioner, flanked by an Executive Council, both accountable to the Secretary to the Colonies of the United Kingdom, effectively constituted the civilian government of Palestine between 1922 and 1948. The native population, along with those who immigrated to the country, did not assume British citizenship, instead retaining the citizenship they originally held.
Tripartite Axis It was the political and military alliance, formally signed in Berlin on Sept. 27, 1940, between Germany, Italy and Japan, and provided for mutual aid in case one of the contracting parties was attacked by a foreign power. It actually served to define their respective areas of influence in Europe and Asia. In 1940 Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia joined the agreement; in 1941 Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, and Croatia joined as well. The de facto agreement crumbled with Italy's surrender to the Anglo-American allies in September 1943.
Effedi ‘Sir,’ ‘master’ i.e., a title indicating the distinction to be accorded to an individual reputed to be of high social, civic and cultural standing, especially for his education and role in society.
Fellahin (sing. fellah) Land workers, mostly laborers, lacking rural property and land tenure. The word is used to refer mainly to agrarian proletarians who lived in the Egyptian and Palestinian countryside.
Muslim Brotherhood (also Muslim Brothers) An international Islamist organization, founded in 1928 in Egypt and developed in the Middle East. Its view of politics is based on principles of theocratic order, believing that societies and states should be governed according to the application of strict religious principles.
Jihad ‘Struggle,’ ‘effort,’ ‘commitment’ undertaken in the ”path to God.” Originally, jihad means the reconciliation of self with the universe of Islamic values. Over time it has also taken on the political meaning of “holy war” of Muslims at war against infidels, apostates, unbelievers.
Kibbutzim (sing. Kibbutz) Rural collectivities, established by Jewish immigrants in historic Palestine, based on strict egalitarianism, a profound work ethic, and the bonification and planting of large agricultural areas. More generally, they are not only productive organizations, but also real villages in which the way of life is based on equality of roles.
Lehi An acronym for Lohamei Herut Israel, “Israel Freedom Fighters,” it was an underground paramilitary organization unaffiliated with the Palestinian Jewish administration that operated against the British and Arabs between1940 and 1948 in Mandatory Palestine. Its radical ideology, akin in some respects to Italian fascism and the Turkish nationalism of Ismail Kemal Ataturk, was also accompanied by the use of terrorist acts.
White Paper of 1939 Part of a series of official documents, produced from 1922 onward, in which British governments expressed, in accomplished, definitive and therefore binding terms, their guidelines with respect to the mandate in Palestine, starting with immigration permits to that land, which were radically restricted precisely to coincide with the Shoah (maximum of 75,000 Jews in five years).
Mandate In the old international law, which then lapsed with the end of World War II, it was a legal instrument to accompany the formation of adequate state institutions and for the protection of populations deemed incapable of self-government. Pending eligibility for national independence, political power was delegated to a third, advanced-developing country that would be responsible for managing the internal affairs of the community.
Mufti “Jurisconsult,” a Doctor of Law, who, in the Ottoman Empire held the position of senior official called upon to interpret the proper application of Islamic law. As such, he constituted an important source of authority over the local community.
Palestine A term used with different meanings, mainly of political nature; it denotes a geographical region between the Mediterranean Sea, the Jordan River, and the Dead Sea continuing to the Red Sea and then to the border with Egypt. The designation was officially adopted in 135 to designate that land as a Roman province (‘Syria Palaestina’), after the bloody suppression of the Bar Kokhba Jewish revolt in what had until then been Judea.
Sanjak ‘District;’ it was a territorial subdivision of an administrative nature, part of larger ‘governorates’ or velayets, through which the Ottoman Empire administered its territories, delegating the power of central authority to local notables.
Sharia Literally the ‘straight path,’ the ‘beaten path’ to Allah. It is the set of rules of life and conduct that, according to Muslim tradition, have been dictated by God to mankind. As such, they constitute an integral discipline of all human existence, both individual and associated. It is based on four “roots”: the Qur'an, the Sunna (the set of norms of conduct derived from the conduct of the Prophet Muhammad), the consensus of the wise (the learned jurists and Muslim authorities) and the use of analogical procedure.
Waffen SS Literally ‘fighting SS’, they were the military arm of the Nazi organization Schutzstaffel-SS. They fought throughout the Second World War, even enlisting non-German personnel. The organization included a total of thirty-eight divisions. The ferocious determination in combat was accompanied by the most absolute, ruthless, gratuitous brutality towards civilian populations.
Yishuv The Hebrew word means ‘settlement’. It is conventionally used to indicate the formation and consolidation of the new Zionist society in Ottoman Palestine and then in Mandatory Palestine (1881-1948). However, there is also the ‘old yishuv’, made up of the families and the Palestinian Jewish community whose roots, never completely interrupted, date back to a thousand-year presence in those lands.
Waqf In Islamic law, they indicate the assets administered by a charitable foundation, which is intended to offer, on a charitable and free basis, services of collective interest to the Muslim community, especially its poorest segment. The Waqf operates as a social institution according to religious criteria, that is, inspired by the precepts of Islam.
Chronology
1881 Assassination of Tzar Alezander II and wave of progroms throughout Russia.
1881-1903 First aliyah.
1895-1897 Birth of Amin Muhammad al-Husseini in Jerusalem.
1904-1914 Second aliyah.
1916 With the secret Sykes-Picot Agreement, France and Great Britain divide the Middle East in two areas of influence.
1917-1918 English troops conquer Palestine.
1917, November 2 The Balfour Declaration is made public.
1919-1923 Third aliyah.
1919 Chaim Weizmann and Emir Feisal sign an agreement for close cooperation between their national movements. The agreement is later repudiated by the Arab nationalists.
1920, February-April Al-Husseini helps organize demonstrations in Jerusalem, calling for Arab independence and unity with Syria. He later flees to Syria. In April, a British court convicts him in absentia of inciting revolt. In the fall, his sentence is pardoned, and he returns to Jerusalem.
1920 The San Remo Peace Conference decides to give Britain the mandate over Palestine.
1921, May 8 High Commissioner Herbert Samuel appoints al-Husseini Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
1922 The Mufti becomes president of the Supreme Islamic Council and administrator of the Waqf (the fund for the maintenance and care of Muslim religious sites and institutions).
1922 The League of Nations confirms the British Mandate for Palestine, citing the Balfour Declaration in the preamble to the Mandatory Document. The Council of the League of Nations and Britain decide that the provisions of a Jewish national home are not applicable to the area east of the Jordan River, that is, the three-quarters of the territory included in the Mandate, which would later become the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The Churchill White Paper is published, which gives a restrictive interpretation of the Balfour Declaration and places severe restrictions on Jewish immigration.
1924-1928 Fourth aliyah.
1929-1939 Fifth aliyah.
1929 The Jewish Agency is established, as stipulated in the British Mandate, to provide representation for the Jewish community in Palestine vis-à-vis British authorities, foreign governments and international organizations. Arab riots occur throughout the country; 70 Jews are massacred in Hebron; attacks in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa are countered by Jewish militias. Al-Husseini uses the incidents to focus general interest in the Arab world regarding events in Mandatory Palestine and to promote his position as the exclusive spiritual leader, in defense of the holy sites of Islam. The violence leaves 133 Jews and 116 Arabs dead, with several hundred wounded.
1936-1939 Four years of unrest and violence known as the “Arab Revolt” against Jewish immigration and land purchases. On September 26, 1937, Arab insurgents kill the British District Commissioner of the Galilee. British authorities strip al-Husseini of his positions as Mufti of Jerusalem, President of the Supreme Islamic Council, and Administrator of the Waqf. Al-Husseini flees to Lebanon in October.
1937 The Peel Commission suggests the partition of Palestine into two states: one Jewish, the other Arab, with one area – that of Jerusalem – and a corridor (leading to the sea) that were instead to remain under British administration.
1938 Beginning of aliyah bet, the illegal immigration of European Jews; through which, up until 1948, more than 100,000 illegal immigrants would arrive.
1939 A New British White Paper is published; it applies restrictions to immigration and the selling of land to Jews.
1939-1945 World War II and Shoah (“catastroph”), that is, the mass extermination of European Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators.
1941, January Al-Husseini asks Hitler to formulate a declaration of recognition: 1) of the independence of the Arab states from British and French colonial rule; 2) of the right of the independent Arab states to form a union among themselves; 3) of the right of the independent Arab authorities in Palestine to proceed with the elimination of the Jewish presence.
1941, April 1 Al-Husseini takes part in a participates in a pro-Axis coup in Iraq, assuming the role of privileged interlocutor with the Nazi-Fascist powers. Germany works to finance an Arab revolt in Mandatory Palestine.
1941, May 9 Al-Husseini calls on Muslims to engage in a “holy war” against Britain.
1941, May 29 While British troops get closer to Baghdad, Al-Husseini flees to Iran.
1941, July The Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, establishes a German-Arab training department at a base near Athens, Greece, to train Arab volunteers as auxiliaries in the German army.
1941, August Great Britain and the Soviet Union occupy Iran.
1941, October Italian diplomates allow al-Husseini to flee to Italy.
1941, October 27 Al-Husseini meets with Benito Mussolini, who agrees to formulate a joint Axis declaration along the lines of the proposal already put forward to Hitler.
1941, November 28 Adolf Hitler receives al-Husseini in Berlin. The Nazi leader refuses to make any public statement or conclude an agreement with the Arab-Muslim exponent.
1942, beginning of the year In collaboration with the Axis powers, al-Husseini begins radio and print propaganda aimed primarily at the Arab and Muslim world.
1942, July Al-Husseini proposes the establishment of a pan-Arab center in newly occupied Egypt, with the aim of producing and disseminating propaganda against the British, carrying out clandestine sabotage operations and inciting rebellions behind British lines, as well as training young people, as they are the nucleus of a future Arab army under the control of the same Muslim exponent. The Germans and Italians refuse.
1942, December 18 At the opening of the Central Islamic Institute in Berlin, al-Husseini denounces the Jews as the bitterest enemies of Islam. He accuses the Jews of provoking nations against one another and of being responsible for starting World War II. He calls on Muslims everywhere to rise up against the Jews. His speech is broadcast from Germany throughout the Middle East five days later.
1943, February 13 Hitler agrees to make the 13th Waffen-SS Mountain Division, later also known as “Handschar”. SS Chief Heinrich Himmler authorizes the recruitment of Bosnian Muslims for the division. In March and April, the SS Main Office actively envoys al-Husseini to assist and support the recruitment efforts.
1943, May 13 German and Italian forces surrender near Tunis, ending the war in North Africa.
1943, May-June Al-Husseini writes to the Bulgarian, German, Italian, Hungarian and Romanian governments asking them not to participate in British efforts to transport Jewish children from Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria to Palestine. He suggests that the children be sent to Poland. The Germans had already taken steps to stop the transports to safety in March and April 1943.
1943, July The SS establish a training school for Imams, placing them as chaplains for the 13th Waffen-SS Mountain Division. Addressing them, al-Husseini extols in a speech the hypothetical alliance between Germany and Muslims.
1944, November 2 At al-Husseini's request, the German Foreign Office announces the formation of an Arab-Muslim army to counter the Jewish Brigade established by the British Army.
1945, May 7 Al-Husseini flees by airplane to Berna, in Switzerland. The Swiss authorities deny him asylum and hand him over to the French authorities.
1945 Creation of the Arab League.
1946, May 29 Al-Husseini, prisoner in Paris, escapes house arrest and flies to Cairo, Egypt.
1947, February Great Britain announces its renunciation of its mandate over Palestine and brings the issue of future territorial arrangements before the United Nations.
1947, November 29 The UN General Assembly adopts the Partition Plan (Resolution 181) which provides for the creation of two separate states: one Jewish, the other Palestinian, and an international regime zone.
1948, May 14 David Ben Gurion proclaims the birth of the State of Israel in Tel Aviv.
1959, August Al-Husseini leaves Egypt to move to Beirut, Lebanon.
1959, November Al-Husseini addresses a confidential memorandum to the leaders of all Arab states to support Arab unity against “Jewish aggression and imperialism” and denouncing the partition of Palestine.
1974, July 4 Al-Husseini dies in Beirut.