By Yuval Weiss
Last Updated 1 May 2024 at 4:45 PM
Atlanta: Yesterday noted filmmaker/pundit/author/dick Michael Moore stopped the Pro-Israel movement dead in its tracks with one brilliant quip. While discussing the ongoing Campus Illegal Occupation Protests on CNN, Moore told Kaitlan Collins that the Campus Protesters can’t possibly be Anti-Semitic because…. and you may want to sit down for this Verbal Judo Move…. the Palestinians are Semites. Yes that’s right, a term invented by 19th Century German politician Wilhelm Marr to specifically describe his pseudo-scientific hatred of Jews now applies to Palestinians. Because reasons. Advocates for Israel were quick to surrender to Mr. Moore’s highly original thesis.
“I cannot counter this brand new argument that I have never heard until today.” lamented a despondent David Lange. “I was going to try to argue that Bernard Lewis destroyed this concept in the 1970’s. But who are you going to believe, some nobody who taught Islamic History for 50 years at Princeton or the Artistic Genius who directed Sicko?”
“My Life’s work is meaningless.” noted a mournful Brian of London. “So many years of advocacy were destroyed today by this brilliant logical truism that…. and I can’t stress this point enough… was never advanced by anybody until Michael Moore did so today.”
Yet not everyone in the Pro-Israel Community was convinced. “OK that’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard in weeks.” chortled Canadian Metis activist Ryan Bellerose. “I wonder which one of his 9 houses that this Man of the People was staying in when he did the interview.“
In other news, Israel is under intense media scrutiny after published reports accused the IDF of forcing Hamas detainees to watch ‘Bowling for Columbine‘ and then write a short movie review.
First of all, “The Jews are yours” Hitler’s Mufti – al Husseini, (who, like Edward Said said about him as , that [in 1946 after WW2] he had the backing and concensus of all Arab Palestine), urged the Nazis to replace ‘anti-semitic’ with ‘anti jew’… he was only semi successful.
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NOW TO THE FACTS OF MOST ARAB PALESTINE NAZI
* From Historian Haggai Erlich review on major Arab newspapers in Palestine, most were supporting Hitler since 1932/3.
[“Arab Anti-Semitism”, ‘Davar’, (Heb.). May 24, 1933].
[Haggai Erlich, ‘The Middle East Between the World Wars,’ The Open University Press, Tel Aviv, 2002. (Heb.), p.81].
An example: 1933: “Noble (sic) Hitler says Falastin”
[Cited in the ‘Palestine Post’ May 22, 1933].
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* Authors – (on el-Carmel stating in 1932 its fascists’ inspiration and) “All parties were dragged along by the extremists of the Istiqlal, whose newspaper al-Difa’a became a Nazi propaganda pamphlet.”
[Shteigman, Yitzhak. Shelaḥ Daṿid, 1997].
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* Kamel Mrowa ([كامل مروّه] Kaamel Mruwweh, Kamil Muruwa), as the editor of the Beirut paper An-Nida, wrote to Von Ribbentrop the German foreign minister in Berlin: “The whole Arab youth is enthused by Adolf Hitler.” (1933). (In neighboring Levant – a blanket statement about Arabs in the area).
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* The editor of ‘Al-Jami’a al-Islamiyya’ [الجماعة الإسلامية] wrote on May 22, 1933: “When Hitlerism appeared, the Arabs cheered and rejoiced, saying: A blow from heaven in the hands of others…”
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* The Templars’ Die Warte des Tempels wrote March 15, 1935, that many Arabs saw Hitler as the most important man of the 20th century and almost every Arab knew his name. Fascism and National Socialism with its anti-Jewish attitude were accepted positively by many Arabs.
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* Nuremberg effect in rousing Arabs of Palestine: The great momentum of Nazi propaganda in the Middle East occurred in September 1935. When the “Nuremberg Laws” against the Jews were discovered and published, Hitler received greetings from all Arab countries and Islam. The largest number came from Palestine, where Nazi propaganda was strongest.
[Lebl, Ženi. Haj Amin and Berlin / Ḥag’ Amin u-Berlin / G’eni Lebel. 1996, p.31].
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* By 1936-1937, ‘Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” once banned in Palestine is now reported to be a Best seller among the Arabs who have joined with Nazi Germany in antagonism to the Jews.’
[AP, Nov 26, 1936. Nebraska State Journal Archives, Nov 26, 1936, p. 2.], [Books and Authors; FORTHCOMING BOOKS. The New York Times, April 4, 1937]
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* 1936-8: “Nazi flags and pictures of Hitler were prominently displayed in store windows. Booklets explaining Nazi methods of forcing Jews from the Reich were distributed freely…
The shout of ‘Heil Hitler’ became a catchword which rang insolently over all Palestine.”
[Ziff, William Bernard. The Rape of Palestine. New York: Longmans, Green And Co., 1938]
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* NYT May 23 1937: ‘All’ of Palestine celebrated Muhammad’s birthday with flying Nazi swastika and pictures of Hitler.”
Arabs’ newspapers, urging the pupils to disobey Government Education Department issued orders prohibiting Arab pupils to participate in the May 1937 demonstrations.
[JTA, May 23, 1937 ]
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* 1937, Doehle, German consul in Jerusalem: “Palestinian Arabs in all social strata have great sympathies for the new Germany and its Führer…”
[Lyn Julius, “Arab anti-Semitism, and the Nazis”, ‘”Jewish Journal, February 8, 2018].
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* Unveiled documents of Nazi official in Palestine writing to Berlin in 1937:
‘Arabs admire our Fuhrer’ – “The Palestinian Arabs show on all levels a great sympathy for the new Germany and its Fuhrer, a sympathy whose value is particularly high as it is based on a purely ideological foundation,” a Nazi official in Palestine wrote in a letter to Berlin in 1937. He added: “Most important for the sympathies which Arabs now feel towards Germany is their admiration for our Fuhrer, especially during the unrests, I often had an opportunity to see how far these sympathies extend. When faced with a dangerous behaviour of an Arab mass, when one said that one was German, this was already generally a free pass.”
[Yaakov Lappin, “Nazis ‘shipped arms to Palestinians'”, Ynet, May 7, 2006]
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* Awni Abd al-Hadi (leader of the Istiqlal Arab Independence Party and member of the Arab High Committee in Palestine, Ahmad Shukeiri’s employer), Jan 1937 general statement: ‘Arabs Like Nazis.’
[The Sentinel, 25 February 1937 — “Arabs Like Nazis , Says Moslem”].
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* In 1938, Goebbels wrote in his diary: “In Palestine, riots with multiple fatalities again, it will never ease off,” and “The Arabs admire the Führer as though he were holy.”
[Zimmermann, M. (2022). ‘Germans Against Germans: The Fate of the Jews, 1938–1945’. United States: Indiana University Press, p.201]
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* Journalist J. Gunther in 1939: “The greatest contemporary Arab hero is — Adolf Hitler.” (Elaborating on the Palestine link about it).
[Gunther, J. (1939). ‘Inside Asia’. United States: Harper & Brothers, p. 528].
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* Ahmad (Shukairy) Shukeiri’s testimony in his book about 1940, on all – sympathizing with the Nazis.
[Elie Kedourie (Professor of Politics Emeritus), “Arabic Political Memoirs and Other Studies,” (Cass books on the Middle East, Psychology Press, 1964), pp. 189-190]
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* Noted in 1937, “leaders of the Arab youth who seem to be more extreme in their nationalism than the older generation. Educated in schools which are, in spite of government ownership, hotbeds of chauvinism and anti-Jewish propaganda, these youths are also greatly influenced by fascist and anti- Semitic tendencies in present-day Europe. Hitler is for many of them the glorious hero and teacher.”
[The National Jewish Monthly. (Vols. 51-52). (1937). United States: B’nai B’rith, p. 186]
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* Some 88% in Feb. 1941 poll – favoring the Axis: Arab-Palestine.
[Morris, B. (2008). 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. United States: Yale University Press, p. 21; ‘Poll,’ February 194], CZA S25/ 9226; qtd in: Hillel Cohen, “Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948”, (2008) p.175.]
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* We Arabs supported Hitler during WWII because he hated the Jews, recalled in a 2019 interview, former Jordanian health minister Dr. Zaid Hamzeh who was nine years old at the 1941 Rashid Ali coup days.
[“Former Jordanian Health Minister Dr. Zaid Hamzeh: We Arabs Supported Hitler During WWII Because He Hated The Jews”, Memri, Nov 8, 2019].
(A general statement on Arabs, especially by witness in the very area).
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* That the pro-Nazi Mufti represented the consensus of Palestine Arabs and had major backing of parties there. Per (anti-Israel author) Said’s concession.
[Said, Edward, “A Profile…”, 1983, p. 7
“Ahmadinejad Holocaust’s Myths,” HuffPost, Oct 1, 2007; Richard Mather, “Hitler’s war against Jews continues in ‘Palestine'”, The Jerusalem Post, Mar 16, 2015.]
And Time Magazine Jube 24, 1946:
‘The 53-year-old Mufti… is revered as a spiritual leader by Palestine’s Arabs.’
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* Arab activist, in telling the story of his childhood, as a matter of fact, during the war: “most of the Arabs in Israel were in favor of Nazi Germany.”
[Muhammad Abu Srari’s Story.” Tobi Arbel. Israel: Docostrory, 2000. (Heb.). p.19.]
(Referring to Arabs in the land of Israel – Mandatory Palestine).
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* March 16, 1940, in popular magazine ‘Pathfinder’, it was simply put, that “Palestine’s Arabs admire Hitler for his Jew-baiting.”
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* Historian on the Arabs in the land, referring on the WW2 period – atmosphere: “anticipation of the results of the war and wishes of the majority of Arabs that Britain would emerge defeated in it.”
* Author, journalist historian: The Arab street, which had been trained for decades to hate the British and harass the Jews, now found in Hitler, after his first victories, with the beginning of the war, the one who fulfills his wishes… The relationship between Hitler and Haj Amin determines the mood in the Arab street… The land of Israel was indeed a home front country and lived in relative peace, but the Arab street did not hide its admiration for Hitler and the Third Reich. Hitler was portrayed in the minds of the Arabs as the greatest friend of the Arab nation. They admired him for his hatred of the Jews and for the fact that he despised them and decided to exterminate them from the face of the earth. Hitler symbolized bravery and wisdom, leadership ability and certain victory.
[Mikha’el Asaf. “The history of the Arabs in Eretz Yisrael.” (Heb.). Vol.3 Pt.1. Israel: Dvir, 1967. p.153]
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* In June 1942, as the British bastion ‘Tobruk’ fell to the Nazis, Palestinian Arabs (as well as other Arabs), rejoiced.
[Khalil Sakakini, his diary on July 27, 1942. Benny Morris, War on History, Jewish Review of Books, Spring 2020. Morris, Benny. 1948: A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. United States: Yale University Press, 2008. p.21]
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* CIA August 1942 report:
The majority of the Arabs in Palestine Palestinian Arabs are fiercely ‘anti-Jewish’… the radicals, who form a majority, see in the approach of Rommel an ideal opportunity to murder all Jews their seize their property.
[Herf, J. (2009). Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World. United States: Yale University Press, p.139; Michael J Cohen, M.J. (2014). “Britain’s Moment in Palestine: Retrospect and Perspectives, 1917-1948,” Routledge, p.429]
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* Dec 21, 1942 letter, representatives of the Reich and the NSDAP in Palestine described the Arabs’ hope for a great Arab state: “Arabs in Palestine were waiting for Hitler to come to Palestine and expel all the Jews. They hoped for a German intervention to solve their conflict with consideration of their needs. Rommel was their legendary hero. Many Arabs truly believed in the Germans’ victory. Some of them even listened to the short-wave German broadcast, the Kurzwellensender.”
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* Nazis’ planned ‘extermination of the Jews in Palestine,’ (stopped by Desert Rats), relied on help that they awaited from many local Arabs ready to serve as willing accomplices of the Germans in the Middle East.
[Klaus-Michael Mallmann, Martin Cüppers, “Nazi Palestine: The Plans for the Extermination of the Jews in Palestine,” (Enigma Books, 2010), pp. 123-124]
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* An Egyptian, who visited the country in the days after the conquest of Berlin wrote: “The people cry in the morning and sob in the evening. And blow to their cheek between morning and evening.”
[Waschitz, Joseph. The Arab in Erets Israel / Ha-Aravim be-Eretz Yisrael. Israel: hotsa’at ha-ḳibuts ha-artsi ha-Shomer ha-Tsa’ir (Palestinian Arabs), 1947. (Heb.). pp. 329-330]
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* Reaction of most Arabs that heard of the fate of the Jews in Europe, 1942 – ‘open joy.’
[Cohen, M. J. (2014). “Britain’s Moment in Palestine: Retrospect and Perspectives, 1917-1948,” United Kingdom: Routledge. Ch. 17-18.]
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* Author Tom Segev recalls: “My father … knew that most of the Palestine Arab leaders supported the Nazis.”
[Segev, Tom. Jerusalem Ecke Berlin: Erinnerungen. Germany, Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH, 2022, “Anständig Bleiben”. Jerusalem Corner Berlin: Memories. Germany, Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe GmbH, 2022, “Stay Decent”. (Ger)]
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* Naturally, Arab-Palestinian Leader Farouq Qaddoumi stated: We Supported The Nazis In WWII – as a general description.
[“Palestinian Leader Farouq Qaddoumi: We Supported The Nazis In WWII,” Memri, December 18, 2013].
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* Arab “Palestinian” leader, in Jerusalem (then under Jordanian rule), in spring of 1967: “We Arabs supported Hitler to get the British out of Palestine and to keep the Jews from taking it over – and that was our big mistake.
[Saturday Review. (1970). Vol. 53. United States: Saturday Review Associates, p. 4].