Over the past few years, I have had a growing interest in the nation of Israel. That interest has led me to the Israel/Palestine debate. Through blogs, books, articles, and discussions; I have come to support the State of Israel and denounce the Palestinian national movement. In my personal opinion, Palestine has created a political illusion that has been used to suffocate the nation of Israel. Through a series of posts, I will attempt to make that clear. In that process, I will be using many of the concepts/ideas/quotes from David Meir-Levi; author of History Upside Down. Through all of my readings, Levi's research has been tested and enlightening. Hopefully you find the same.
In our world today, Radical Islam is the biggest threat to world peace, democracy, and societal progress. Over the last century, radical groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and al-Qaeda have dominated the political landscape of the Middle East.
Where did this ideology originated? Enter Sheikh Hassan al-Banna; the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood. This group was founded for his desire to restore the Caliphate, ultimately unifying the Muslim world in a global Islamic empire. The West, in the Brotherhood's view, was suffocating Islam and promoting evilness throughout the world. Although the Brotherhood's ideology loathed the West, this "evilness" could be traced back to the Jews; the main culprits of destruction.
Founded in 1928, the Brotherhood had grown to over 500,000 members by the late 1930's with 38 chapters in the British Mandatory Palestine alone. To achieve its goal, the Brotherhood drastically changed the way Islam was taught. It focused on training that included terrorist activity (assassinations, suicide missions, and the acquisition of weapons). As the Nazi's rose to power in Germany, so did the Brotherhood's admiration for its cause. The similarities were already there, but nothing was as prominent as both entities main desire: the extermination of the Jewish people.
It sounds like al-Banna was the strongest Nazi supporter, right? Wrong. Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and one-time president of the Supreme Muslim Council of Palestine, takes the cake. His claim to "fame?" Transplanting genocide from wartime Europe to the Palestinian national movement. He even made the Nazi payroll. He was directly responsible for the anti-Jewish riots of 1919, 1920, and 1929 that destroyed the community of Hebron. He organized the "Great Arab Revolt" of 1936-1939 which was funded by the Nazi movement. Al-Husseini led the pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in 1941 and urged other pro-Nazi governments to transport Jews to death camps. He was also one of the biggest propagandists of the Nazi movement. On November 21, 1941, al-Husseini praised the Nazis because "they know how to get rid of Jews, and that brings us close to the Germans and sets us in their camp." In 1944, the mufti in Palestine said in a broadcast, "Arabs! Rise as one and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. Kill them with your teeth if need be. This please God, history, and religion."
After the war ended, and a brief exile, al-Husseini joined Hassan al-Banna in urging the Arab world to unite in opposition to the partition of Palestine and the creation of Israel. The Muslim world embraced the message of hate and genocide which eventually led to the Israeli invasion of 1948. For decades, al-Husseini was recognized as "the voice of the Palestinian people" and Yassir Arafat declared him a hero of his time.
Even as Nazism was decapitated in Europe, a large portion of the Muslim world continued to carry its torch. This movement only hardened the jihadist mentality and the hatred for the West and Jews. With this movement came a new architect; Sayyid Qutb.
Qutb took the hatred towards the Jews one step further. He devoted his life, until he was executed in 1966, to promoting and feeding the jihadist mentality; mostly through literature that still fuels the radical's fire.
This Arab and Palestianian Nazism continues in today's Middle East. Hassan Nasrallah, leader of Hezbollah, said of the Jews after the Lebanon war of 2006, "If they gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide." Mahmoud Zahar, the Hamas foreign minister, says, "I dream of hanging a huge map of the world on the wall at my Gaza home which does not show Israel on it." Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, former president of Iran looks ahead to the future, "The use of a nuclear bomb in Israel will leave nothing on the ground, whereas it will only damage the world of Islam.
In the next installment, we will look at the chilling communist face of the Palestinian movement.
~References from David Meir-Levi, History Upside Down (pgs. 3-17)
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