From Mufti to Monster: How the "Palestinian" al-Husseini took part in Hitler's plan to annihilate the Jews

It is an often overlooked fact that the Palestinians took an active part in the Holocaust. Their leader at the time, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, was only too happy to be a part of Hitler's plan to destroy the Jews.

During the 1920s and 1930s, al-Husseini served as the leader of the Arabs who were present in the Land of Israel at the time, during the British Mandate. He led a line that opposed any cooperation or coexistence with the Jews, and beyond that, he constantly incited against them and stood behind brutal murders.

In 1920, al-Husseini led a demonstration for the local Arabs to join the kingdom of Faisal, who was then serving as the king of Syria. During the demonstration, he took advantage of his extraordinary rhetorical abilities and incited many of those present to come out and harm the Jews.

"He was an unusual man, very smart and cunning," shares orientalist Dr. Eddy Cohen, who wrote the book "The Mufti and the Jews," which deals with al-Husseini's collaboration with the Nazis and Hitler during the Holocaust, as well as his activities over the years that led to the murder of Jews in Arab countries. Among the riots he led against the people of the Jewish Yishuv, long before the establishment of the state, one can find the riots of 1929.

Already in the early 1930s, al-Husseini approached elements in the Nazi regime in order to cooperate. He identified the goals of the Nazi regime as an opportunity to create common interests with Adolf Hitler. Weapons that were secretly transferred by Nazi Germany to the Middle East were even used by the terrorist cells led by al-Husseini to carry out many shocking acts of massacre and pogroms in the Jewish community at the time.

"The Nazis financed all the demonstrations, they financed the Great Revolt, everything was financed by them. The Nazis wanted to create anarchy here in the region – and they succeeded," emphasizes Dr. Eddy Cohen.

After fleeing from the British, who worked to bring about his arrest, al-Husseini eventually arrived in Berlin, the capital of Germany, in the midst of the Holocaust and World War II. Cohen recalls: "He was the head of propaganda, he had an office in Germany. Al Husseini promoted their interests in the Middle East. He issued a fatwa for the Bosnian soldiers who would serve in the Nazi army. Whatever they asked of him, he did. He was with them, lived and ate with them. He was an ally of theirs, really part of it. Himmler, the head of the Gestapo, was a friend of his.

In his remarks, Dr. Eddy Cohen refers to the plan that Hitler and al-Husseini aspired to implement: "The Germans were stopped by the British on the Egyptian-Libyan border. In 1942, they tried to enter the Land of Israel. There were unusual bombings, they wanted to conquer Egypt, and from there to enter the Land of Israel as well. At the time, people in the Jewish Yishuv during the Holocaust were quoted as saying, 'If the Germans come here, we will commit suicide.'

One of the most shocking stories about al-Husseini during the Holocaust is how he prevented some 4,000 Jewish children from being saved from death, when they were not even supposed to reach the Land of Israel. Those children were already about to be transferred to South America, as part of a deal that the Nazis intended to sign. However, as soon as he heard about it, al-Husseini implored his fellow leaders of the Nazi regime not to carry out the move. This war crime by al-Husseini apparently eventually led to the death of all the children who were included in the deal, and could have been saved.