THE NAZI mufti was revered even while Arafat attempted 1983's ultimate hypocrisy of laying a wreath at the Warsaw Ghetto memorial. The travesty of painting the torchbearers of Nazi henchmen as victims - and the descendants of Jewish survivors as their demonic oppressors - was worthy of Goebbels's "Big Lie," but even that cynical pretense didn't impel Arafat to disown Husseini's legacy.
In 1985 - eight years before Oslo and 11 years after Husseini's death - Arafat asserted that "it's an honor to march in the path Haj-Amin carved." More recently, in August 2002, he told London's Sharq al-Awsat that Husseini is "our hero." Likening himself to his mentor, Arafat stressed: "I was one of his troops."
The successor was then hardly ignorant of his idol's wartime past. The Nuremberg trials, Third Reich documents, Husseini's radio broadcasts, and numerous WW II photos (available to any amateur Googler) unequivocally attest to his sinister role during the Holocaust's bleakest days. Yet Arafat continued to model himself after the predecessor who exhorted "Arabia's sons" to "slaughter all Jews wherever you find them. Their spilled blood pleases Allah." It's no coincidence Arafat claimed blood ties to his spiritual prototype.
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Indeed, Arabs were among the first to latch on to Nazi ideology. Husseini's 1936-39 bloody uprising here was funded by Hitler and actively abetted by locally resident German Templars. Undisguised fascist parties proliferated - from Syria's Nationalist-Socialists headed by Anton Saada to Ahmed Hussein's Young Egypt.
Throughout WW II Arabs hoarded arms and trained to assist Rommel's invading Afrika Korps. They harbored German paratroopers, spied, and greeted each other with "Heil Hitler" and Nazi salutes. Arab newborns were given names like Hitler, Eichmann, or Rommel.
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Fascinating historical review.
Compelling.