Two Aspects of the Holocaust to Keep in MInd

Israel commemorates the Holocaust in several days on the 28th of the month of Nisan, the month of Spring, which falls this year on the 28th of April, actually starting on the evening before, the evening of the 27th. This year, interestingly, it falls close in time to the Armenian commemoration of their genocide, which is on 24 April every year. Israel Radio [Qol Yisrael] discussed the Armenian genocide today on several programs. Right now Israel TV [channel 1] is running Claude Lanzmann's film, The Last of the Unjust.

First, an observation about the earlier genocide, the Armenian at the hands of Ottoman Empire, ruled during WW One by the Young Turks, a group of revolutionaries, supposed progressives. In fact, the formal name of the Young Turks' party was the Committee for Unity and Progress. Many Arab nationalists took inspiration from the Young Turks. Anwar Sadat's parents even named him after one of the Young Turks' leaders, Enver Pasha [Enver = the Turkish form of the Arabic name Anwar].

Although progressives, the Young Turks were imbued in their education with the values of Islam, especially the need for Islam and Muslims to dominate non-Muslims. To be sure, one Armenian historian, Raymond Kevorkian, located in France, wants to believe that the motive for the genocide was Turkish or Pan-Turanian nationalism, rather than Islam. This is very short-sighted but this is not the time to go into my reasoning.

Much has been written about the Jewish Holocaust. I now want to just stress two aspects.
1) The Holocaust was not restricted to Jews living in Europe. Thousands of Jews were sent to death camps in Europe from the North African countries of Libya and Tunisia. And the Germans set up labor camps for Jews in those countries. Pro-Nazi pogromists in Baghdad slaughtered local Jews in the Spring of 1941 in an orgy of violence and brutality called the Farhud. The numbers of Jews murdered range from 179 to 600 or more. It is a common mistake that the Holocaust was restricted to European Jews, or Jews living in Europe. However, Leon Poliakov, one of the most important Holocaust historians wrote long ago about the North African Jews caught up in the Holocaust crimes. Yet, the mistake is still made.

2) The Arab nationalist movement in its  majority was pro-Nazi. The Arab intellectuals who set up the Arab Socialist Ba`ath Party and the Syrian National Socialist Party [often called the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in order to hide its Nazi inspiration] were much interested in and great admirers of Nazi ideology, policies, power, and organization.

The chief leader of the Palestinian Arabs in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, Haj Amin el-Husseini, instigated the Farhud in Baghdad, according to an Iraqi investigating committee. After two days of Farhud massacres, British troops occupied Baghdad and finally suppressed the pogrom after waiting outside the city for two days. At this point Husseini fled Baghdad and made his way through Iran and Turkey to the Nazi-fascist domain in Europe. Greece, bordering on Turkey, was already occupied. While still in Baghdad, Husseini and a small group of other Arab nationalist leaders drew up a draft political statement which they wanted Hitler to make in favor of Arab nationalist ambitions. In essence, this was really a petition to Hitler to recognize what these Arab leaders saw as their rights and interests, including the right to solve the Jewish Question in the Arab lands as it was being solved in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany. Bernard Lewis supplies a thorough discussion of the several versions of their petition to Hitler in his book, Semites and Anti-Semites.
While in Baghdad Husseini may not have understood the full meaning of "the Final Solution." However, after speaking with Hitler in Berlin, or before, he knew that it meant genocide of the Jews. On his visit or visits to Auschwitz he was able to observe just how this Final Solution was being carried out. The Germans provided Husseini, the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem [1922], with a headquarters and money to support a large entourage and used him to make pro-Nazi, pro-Arab nationalist, anti-Jewish propaganda over Radio Berlin. [such as: Kill Jews wherever you find them (see Lukasz Hirszowicz, The Third Reich and the Arab East)].

In their discussion at Hitler's headquarters Hitler promised Husseini that "solving"  the Jewish Question in  the Arab lands was part of Nazi Germany's plan. Husseini, the Mufti, was "fully reassured and satisfied by the words which he had heard from the Chief of the German State. . ."  He was pleased with Hitler's promise.

Later in the war, Husseini addressed the Bosnian Muslim SS division [the Handschar, khanjar]. He told them that Nazi ideology, National Socialism, had much in common with Islam (see Joseph Schechtman's biography of Husseini, The Mufti and the Fuehrer).
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24 April 2014 -- Obama continues to evade recognizing the Armenian genocide as genocide. He issued  a statement that danced around a frank statement of the issue [here]. He still wants to protect Erdogan and Turkey and Islam in general.

Arab Rioters Hide behind Ambulance on "Nakba Day "

Rioters in Qalandiya thrown rocks at Israeli troops from behind an ambulance [here].



UPDATE
video of ambulance in motion [here].

Scholar of Arabic, Yehoshu`a Porat: The Arabs Don't Want a "palestinian state."

The weakly argued claim by the White House-State Department crowd that what they call a "palestinian state" will bring peace between Israel and the Arab world, is belied by Professor Yehoshu`a Porat, one of the outstanding Israeli specialists on the Arab world, Arab culture, and Arab politics. Porat discussed this issue with Haggai Segal of Maqor Rishon [14 III 2008].

Porat was a leader of the "leftist" Merets party until he learned about the 1993 Oslo Accord, an agreement made with Norwegian mediation, by the way [I add parenthetically that Norwegian involvement is usually disastrous, as Sri Lanka has also learned]. Porat did not trust the PLO leadership nor did he like the terms of the Oslo Accord. He belonged to Merets because of his arch-secularist views, not because he believed in "peace" with the PLO. Responding to the interviewer's question, he laughed at those Israeli politicians, particularly ministers in the present government, who believe that the PLO and/or Hamas and the palestinian Arabs generally really want a "palestinian state," as George Bush, Condoleezza Rice [riso amaro], Tony Blair & the Washington & London gangs repeatedly claim.

I don't believe that there is a chance --or that there ever was a chance-- that a palestinian state will arise.

The interviewer adds that Porat thinks that the "palestinians" don't want a separate state so much. Porat asserts:

There is no palestinian identity in itself. Their identity is Palestinian-Arab. Above all, they want the country to be Arab. Therefore, they are attached to the Arabic literary language which, like Latin, is not a living language but rather a symbol of the unity of the Arab nation. If you would propose to them that Palestine be a part of Syria, and if they believed that thereby they would get rid of us --they would not refuse. Not one of them would be opposed [to that proposal].

Of course, this is obvious to anyone who has carefully read the PLO Charter. Its first article goes:

Article I: Palestine is the watan [homeland, fatherland] of the Palestinian Arab people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation.

It is obvious from this article and the rest of the PLO charter or covenant that the PLO is a pan-Arabist body. It really does not represent an aspiration to a separate state, as Porat points out. Moreover, PLO and Hamas spokesman have pointed out clearly that they do not aspire to political independence separate from the Arab world as a whole. Zuhayr Muhsayn [Zuheir Muhsein] stated this in 1977 in an interview published in the American weekly Seven Days and the Dutch paper Trouw. Mahmud al-Zahhar, a Hamas leader, stated this quite recently to the Economist, not exactly a pro-Israel publication. So when Bush & Condi & Tony & Javier Solana and any other politicians or diplomats rant on about a "two-state solution" or a "palestinian state," then they are either fooling themselves or --more likely-- fooling those who listen to them.

By the way, when Yehoshu`a Porat compared literary Arabic to Latin he was making a historical-political argument. Latin was spoken in the many parts of the Roman empire in Europe. These places included Dacia [Romania] in the east, the Iberian peninsula [Spain & Portugal] in the southwest, Gaul [France] in the northwest, and Italy in the south. When the empire collapsed, the Latin language developed into what is called Romance and many Romance dialects. Several of these dialects developed into national languages that became identified with nation-states [French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, etc.]. Classical Arabic also broke down into dialects, that is, spoken vernaculars, such as Iraqi, Syro-Palestinian, Egyptian, Mughrabi [North African]. However, most Arab states insist on the primacy of classical, literary Arabic. And that's the form of the language that they teach in their schools, although this teaching of a language that the pupils do not speak retards the pupils' development of command of any written language, leaving many kids semi-literate [as in Algeria]. The refusal of the PLO & Hamas leadership to give up the classical, literary language is an assertion of a desire for political unity, for pan-Arabism, a pan-Arabist single Arab state. Anyhow, the palestinian Arabs are said to speak the same dialect as the Syrians, so developing a form of language separate from the Syrian form/dialect would be artificial. The PLO & Hamas insist on the pan-Arab identity of the palestinian Arabs.

Porat is the author of the definitive history of modern palestinian Arab politics, The Palestinian Arab National Movement [or similar title].
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Coming: English prof who writes for the Nation, lies on Obama's behalf, and looks to the State Dept for authority; more on Jews in Jerusalem & Hebron; archeology in Israel; peace follies; propaganda, etc.