If you look here you’ll find an interesting letter in today’s Guardian. It’s from Professor Shindler of the School of Oreiental and African Studies of the University of London and succintly deals with certain aspects of the relationship between some Palestinian nationalists and Nazi Germany.
The “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” policy adopted by these nationalists resembles that adopted at the same time by some elements of Irish, Indonesian and Indian nationalism during the Second World War. It doesn’t place all of Palestinian nationalism today beyond the pale but, as Professor Shindler points out, the broader antisemitic agenda of Hamas and Hizbollah must not be ignored.
From the Guardian letter:
“The fear of annihilation was undoubtedly a factor in the mindset of many Israelis during the war of 1948. There was also little sympathy for the cause of the Palestinian Arabs within the British left at that time, with Aneurin Bevan and Tony Benn both embracing Zionism. Arafat’s Fatah therefore always distanced itself from the Mufti and made a distinction between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. This is not the case with the Islamists of Hamas and Hizbullah, whose disdain for Jews extends beyond the borders of Israel-Palestine.” Professor Colin Shindler
I don’t know about the views of Bevan and Benn but the views of the British Prime Minister at the time Ernest Bevin were decidedly pro Arab anti-Jewish.
I am also not sure about Arafat’s distancing himself from antisemitism since he tended to deny the historical presence of Jews in ancient Israel.
Then there is this story from the International Herald tribune:
“Outrage Over Arafat’s Taped Insults”
By Barry James
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1992
“PARIS: French and Israeli politicians reacted with repugnance Wednesday to anti-Semitic remarks and insults to France attributed to Yasser Arafat, chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Mr. Arafat reportedly insulted the Jews in foul language and became furious over France’s handling of the affair of Georges Habash, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who went to Paris for emergency medical treatment last month.
CNN said the remarks were made in a tapped telephone call between Mr. Arafat and the PLO representative in Paris, Ibrahim Souss.
CNN said it got a recording of the conversation from an unnamed Western law enforcement agency.
Mr. Arafat allegedly called Jewish people “dogs” and “dirt,” and accused the French of having an “arrogant” and “dirty” civilization….”
http://www.iht.com/articles/1992/02/13/haba_2.php
The idea that Arafat was not an antisemite is a bit rich.
He was politically astute and tended not to make open antisemitic comments in public as he routinely did in private and in Arabic.
“the British Prime Minister at the time Ernest Bevin ” ???!!!!???
Sorry, Bevin was Foreign Secretary.
His views on British Mandate policy are clear, though.
“Bevin failed to secure British objectives in the British Mandated Territory of Palestine. Personally, Bevin was opposed to the plans of the Zionist movement to create a Jewish state, and supported the creation of a unitary and exclusively Arab-ruled state in western Palestine.”
This is from the wikipedia article.
In any case, Professor Colin Shindler
is wrong to write that “There was also little sympathy for the cause of the Palestinian Arabs within the British left at that time, with Aneurin Bevan and Tony Benn both embracing Zionism.”
Ernest Bevin was a Labor Foreign Secretary and his views were not at all sympathetic to the Zionist cause.
It also seems to me that the letters published in the Guardian are not an adequate refutation of the article on Kristallnacht by Paul Oestreicher.
What the Guardian needs to do is to publish the rebuttal in the form of an article.
Letters don’t carry the weight articles do.
The apology of Arab antisemitism is not surprising. When it is connected to the Holocaust or to “Kristallnacht”, or as we call it here correctly the November pogrom, one should not forget that at the time when Jews in Germany and Austria needed a country to give them asylum most of the countries of the world closed their doors. Especially infamous was the British White Paper published in May 1939 restricting severely the emigration to Palestine. Many Jews lost their life in the Holocaust simply because they were abandoned. And one should also remember the German ship full with Jewish refugees sent back from the USA. Most of those Jews perished in the Holocaust.
Especially perverse is the apology of Hadj Amin el Husseini. He did his level best to prevent the emigration of Jewish children to Palestine. He wrote letters to the Hungarian, Romanian and Bulgarian governments and asked them not to allow Jewish children to transit to Palestine. And he influenced his German friends – for instance Heinrich Himmler – to prevent Jewish children’s emigration to Palestine. On July 27, 1944 the Grand Mufti wrote to Himmler to urge him “to do what was necessary to prevent the wandering Jews to Palestine”. He urged the German Foreign Ministry, as well as Adolf Eichmann, not to allow Jews from Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary to escape to Pelestine, but to send them instead to Poland. He worked with Himmler to establish an SS division of Muslims from Bosnia, appealed to the Germans to
Bomb Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.
Husseini translated the Nazi propaganda into the idioms of the Arab World. Today the Hamas and HizbAllah use the same line of propaganda.
Husseini said in November 1942 in a speech directed to North Africa: “The American intervention in North Africa strengthens the power of the Jews, increases their influence, and doubles their misdeeds, America is the greatest agent of the Jews, and the Jews are the rulers in America.”
And he used the same arguments as those heard so frequently today. On November 11 1942 in his speech about Martyrdom he said: “We Arabs should clearly join the Axis powers and their allies in common struggle against the common enemy. Doing so for us means the continuation of the fight we have fought alone for the past twenty years. Today the powerful e n e m i e s o f o u r e n e m i e s stand on our side.”
We find the same ideas of a paranoid conspiracy theories in the documents of fundamentalist Islam.
And the apologists of Arab antisemitism - some of them Jewish - use the same argument of the powerful e n e m i e s o f o u r e n e m i e s. And justify by this the action of this collaborator of the Nazis.
Thanks, Eamonn, I missed this interesting letter. Some great posts from shriber and Karl here in response.
Can anyone help me? I am trying to collect all the anti-semitic remarks attributed to the post-war British foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin. Did he really say regarding the thousands of stateless Jews who, in 1945 he was stopping from getting into Palestine, “It’s a pity we didn’t let Hitler finish the job before we won the war? I need his remarks for a paper I am preparing proving that the British Foreign office was always - and still is - anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.
David lee