Ending a Century of Palestinian Rejectionism
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[N.B.: WT title: "A century
of Palestinian hatred of Jews: Repudiating the first mufti's hostility to
decency is the only way forward"]
Palestinians are on the wrong track and will not get off it until the
outside world demands better of them.
News comes every year or two of a campaign of violence spurred by
Palestinian political and religious leaders spreading wild-eyed
conspiracy theories (the favorite: Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem is under
threat). A spasm of unprovoked violence against Israelis then follows:
rocket attacks from Gaza, car-rammings in Israel proper, stone-throwing
in the West Bank, street stabbings in Jerusalem. Eventually the paroxysm
peters out, only to start up again not too much later.
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Amin al-Husseini
remained at the heights of power for decades. He represented
"Palestine" at the Bandung Conference in April 1955, praying (bottom) along with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (top, in head
covering), Gamal Abdul Nasser of Egypt (middle, facing camera), and
Imam Ahmad of Yemen (right, facing camera).
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True, these bouts of violence bring some gains to the Palestinians; in
the United Nations, in faculty lounges, and on the streets of Western
cities they win support against Israel. Each round ends, however, with
the Palestinians in a worse place in terms of dead and wounded, buildings
destroyed and an economy in tatters.
Further, their immoral and barbaric actions harden Israeli opinion,
making the prospect of concessions and compromise that much less likely.
The cheery Israeli hopes of two decades ago for a "partner for
peace" and a "New
Middle East" long ago gave way to a despair of finding
acceptance. As a result, security fences are going up all over, even in
Jerusalem, to protect Israelis who increasingly believe that separation,
not cooperation, is the way forward.
It may be exhilarating for Palestinians to watch UNESCO
condemn Israel for this and that, as it just did, but its actions
serve more as theater than as practical steps toward conflict resolution.
Whence comes this insistence on self-defeating tactics?
It dates back nearly a century, to the seminal years 1920-21. In April
1920, as a gesture to the Zionists, the British government created a
region called "Palestine" designed to be the eventual
"national home for the Jewish people"; then, in May
1921, it appointed Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974) as mufti of Jerusalem,
a dreadful decision whose repercussions still reverberate today.
Husseini harbored a monstrous hostility toward Jews; as Klaus
Gensicke puts it in his important 2007 study, The Mufti of
Jerusalem and the Nazis, Husseini's "hatred of Jews knew no
mercy and he always intervened with particular zeal whenever he feared
that some of the Jews could escape annihilation." Toward this end,
he initiated an uncompromising campaign of rejectionism – the intent to
eliminate every vestige of Jewish presence in Palestine – and used any
and all tactics toward this foul end.
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The Dome of the Rock
pre-mufti, about 1875. Note the general abandonment and disrepair.
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For example, he can be largely held responsibility for the Middle
East's endemic antisemitism, having spread the antisemitic forgery Protocols
of the Elders of Zion, the blood libel, and Holocaust denial
throughout the region. His other legacies include making Jerusalem into
the flashpoint it remains today; spreading many of the anti-Zionist
conspiracy theories that afflict the Middle East; and being one of the
first Islamists to call for jihad.
He encouraged and organized unprovoked violence against the British
and the Jews, including a three-year long intifada in 1936-39. Then he
worked with the Nazis, living in Germany during the war years, 1941-45,
proving so useful that he earned an audience with Hitler. Nor was this a
courtesy visit; as Israel's Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu correctly pointed out on Oct. 20, Husseini had a central role
in formulating the Final Solution that led eventually to the murder of
six million Jews.
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Hajj Amin al-Husseini
inspecting Nazi troops.
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Husseini tutored his then-young relative, the future Yasir Arafat, and
Arafat faithfully carried out the mufti's program for 35 years, after
which his apparatchik Mahmoud Abbas keeps the legacy alive. In other
words, Husseini's rejectionism still dominates the Palestinian Authority.
In addition, he spent the post-war years in Egypt, where he influenced
the Muslim Brotherhood whose its Hamas spin-off also bears his hallmark
rejectionism. Thus do both principal Palestinian movements pursue his
murderous and self-defeating methods.
Only when the Palestinians emerge from the cloud of Husseini's dark
legacy can they begin to work with Israel rather than fight it; build
their own polity, society, economy, and culture rather than try to
destroy Israel's; and become a positive influence rather than the
nihilistic force of today.
And how will that happen? If the outside world, as symbolized by
UNESCO, stops encouraging the Palestinians' execrable behavior and
impeding Israeli defenses against it. Only when Palestinians realize they
will not be rewarded for homicidal conduct will they stop their campaign
of violence and start to come to terms with the Jewish state.
Mr. Pipes (DanielPipes.org, @DanielPipes) is president of the
Middle East Forum. © 2015 by Daniel Pipes. All rights reserved.
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text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an
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