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Book Review: Malevolence and the Mufti

[Wall Street Journal ] David Pryce-Jones - Time and again the Arab world throws up absolute rulers who do nothing but harm, working their way into power by exploiting and imprisoning and killing as they see fit. A perfect example of the type is Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem between the world wars. As David G. Dalin and John F. Rothmann's Icon of Evil recounts, the British acquired their Mandate in Palestine as a result of World War I and in 1921 made the crucial mistake of contriving Haj Amin's election to be Mufti. This position - as the country's senior Islamic official - gave Haj Amin unique standing to wield unchecked power over the Palestinians. It also afforded him access to large sums of money. Under the British aegis, Jews began to seek refuge in Palestine from persecution at the hands of Nazis. Still largely tribal and rural and in any case not militant, many - probably most - Palestinians were willing to cooperate with these immigrants. But Haj Amin was not so amenable; instead, he recruited and commanded a national movement of violence with the aim of forbidding all compromise with Jews. Regular and severe anti-Jewish riots and attacks culminated in the great Arab Revolt of 1936, which aimed simultaneously to end British rule and Jewish immigration but cost thousands of lives, mostly Arabs. Haj Amin perpetuated the absolutism of the Muslim world, in which the killing of enemies is the natural end of the political process, and altogether a matter of culture and custom. Palestinians who opposed him were blackened as collaborators and traitors; they were murdered by his agents in larger numbers than Jews.
2008-06-27 01:00:00
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