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Netanyahu, Husseini and the Historians

(Times of Israel) Jeffrey Herf - Haj Amin al-Husseini's importance in Nazi Berlin lay in assisting the Third Reich's Arabic language propaganda toward the Arab world and in mobilizing Muslims in Eastern Europe to support the Nazi regime. Husseini played a central role in Germany's Arabic language radio broadcasts. He became world famous for his incitement on the radio to "kill the Jews" in summer 1942 as Rommel's Afrika Korps threatened to overwhelm the British and capture the Jews of pre-state Palestine. The record of Husseini's ranting and raving on Nazi radio was well documented by American diplomats at the Embassy in wartime Cairo. I used those thousands of pages of translations when I wrote Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World. Husseini absolutely wanted to exterminate the Jews, above all, the Jews of pre-state Palestine, and then the Jews of Israel. He did all that he could to help the Nazis in a failing effort to spread the Holocaust to the Middle East. Far from denouncing Husseini for spreading lies, absurd conspiracy theories and radical anti-Semitism, he has remained a revered figure in Palestinian political memory. The writer is Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at the University of Maryland.
2015-10-26 00:00:00
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