Archbishop Tutu Pretends Arabs Did Not Traditionally Oppress Jews, Had No Hand in Holocaust; Akiva Eldar of HaArets [haaretz] Facilitates Tutu's Lies

The repugnant Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu popped into town with his coconspirators, jimmuh carter and Mary Robinson, as part of a know-nothing gang of so-called Elders. Interviewed by Akiva Eldar of HaArets, Tutu came up with an old staple of pro-Arab propaganda, the Arabs [now called "palestinians"] are paying for Nazi Germany's crimes against Jews. This lie was a staple of anti-Israel propaganda among the British and American Establishments going back to the years after the Holocaust. However, it did become known in those days that Haj Amin el-Husseini [al-Husayni], the chief leader of the palestinian Arabs and British-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, played a direct role in the Holocaust. This was known to the editors of the weekly Nation magazine, among others, although today's editors at the Nation seem not to know it or to not understand its moral implications. Likewise, Tutu seems unaware of the age-old oppression of Jews in lands ruled by Arabs which goes on even now in Yemen, for instance. So Tutu is either a liar or an ignoramus, or maybe something of both.

The photo below shows the British-appointed Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin el-Husseini [Husayni] together with Heinrich Himmler, commander of the Nazi SS.


The photo is inscribed by Himmler:
"To his eminence the Grand Mufti, 4 VII 1943, in remembrance H Himmler"
Seiner Eminenz dem Grossmufti 4 VII 1943 zur erinnerung H Himmler

What is equally dangerous is the HaArets journalist, Akiva Eldar, who feeds Tutu soft questions, and does not challenge his obviously false answers. Eldar plays a funny role, by the way. I used to read his articles in HaArets fairly often. He always seemed to know what the Washington administration was thinking, whether the president was Reagan or Bush I or Clinton or Bush II. So it seems that he was serving as a channel for US govt viewpoints in the Israeli press, and as an advocate for US viewpoints, claims, policies, etc. He deserved to be paid for those services, and if the US embassy in Tel Aviv did not reward for his services, then he was grossly underpaid. Of course, I have no proof that he was ever rewarded by the USG for services rendered. But his regular journalistic conduct is suggestive.

Now, there was a great deal of Arab-Nazi collaboration, and indeed of mutual influence. Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, spent most of the war years in Nazi-fascist territory in Europe and collaborated directly in the Holocaust. Readers may note on our blog roll, Bibliotheque Proche Orientale. This site holds a great many documents and photographs in both English and French mainly on Arab-Nazi collaboration. A new book by Matthias Kunzel has a good deal of information on the Nazi-Arab relationship and influences. There are several other books too that I will look up and add to this post. Meanwhile, here are some of Tutu's foolish remarks. Perhaps he is used as a British spokesman to say things that a white Britisher could not get away with saying.

TheNobel Prize laureate spoke to Haaretz in Jerusalem as the organization The Elders concluded its tour of Israel and the West Bank. He said the West was consumed with guilt and regret toward Israel because of the the Holocaust, "as it should be." "But who pays the penance? The penance is being paid by the Arabs, by the Palestinians." [HaArets, 8-29-2009]

Note that Tutu tries to be disarming and appear as not a Judeophobe. He said the West was consumed with guilt and regret toward Israel because of theHolocaust as it should be. [Eldar's paraphrase of Tutu]. So the West should feel guilty about the Holocaust. I believe that many Western govts do not feel guilty about it, although they should. Perhaps part of the reason for the lack of a sense of guilt is the kind of propaganda that Tutu speaks which is intended to subtly undermine any sense that the Jews are moral, that Jews have rights, that Jews can be decent human beings if they adopt the UK anti-Israel policy. It is also meant to totally distort real history. Real history also includes more than a thousand years of Arab-Muslim oppression, exploitation, humiliation, persecution of Jews.

However, there is a great deal that has been published on Arab-Nazi collaboration as well as on traditional Arab-Muslim oppression of Jews. If Tutu does not know about this then he is an ignoramus whose opinion on Arab-Israeli matters is worthless. If Tutu knows but pretends not to know and utters his falsehoods anyway, then he is a liar. Either way, he does not deserve to be taken seriously. This also should apply to jimmy carter and mary robinson. By the way, how do they explain the photo of the Mufti with Himmler above, personally inscribed to Husseini by Himmler?? They are all loathesome.

Here are some sources of info. The list will be expanded.
Bibliotheque Proche-Orientale [in both English & French; ici]. This site includes many photos and several videos in English.
On Harry's Place by Raziq, "Hasan el-Banna: Brotherhood, Jihad and Nazism " [here]
On the Think Israel site [here]
On the Point of No Return site [here & here & here]
Matthias Kuentzel on "Jew Hatred and Jihad" [here]; another article by Kuentzel [here]
Mitchell, Richard Paul: The Society of the Muslim Brothers, Princeton 1959, London 1969.

Public Opinion Polls as Propaganda at HaArets

Israel's HaArets daily newspaper fancies itself the Israeli counterpart of The New York Times. I and others would not see such a resemblance as a source of pride. Yet there is something to it, although the NYT commits many more crimes against the trees than the thinner HaArets does. But both pretentiously high-brow rags distort and even falsify the news. HaArets does it through public opinion polls, among other ways. Political scientists and sociologists are well aware that one can usually obtain the answer that best serves one's interests and policy preferences by framing the questions in a suitable manner --or even by eliminating possible choices. That's a good reason to always be wary of public opinion polls. You have to ask, What questions did the poll ask, What alternative choices were supplied, etc. Here's an example from the Israel correspondent of the Economist, not exactly a friend of Israel or of truth.

The correspondent, one Gideon Lichfield, wondered at the apparently contradictory results of two public opinion polls taken in Israel. A poll published in HaArets asserted that most Israelis wanted negotiations with Hamas. A poll by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University showed that a solid majority of Israelis preferred to deal with Hamas by military means. This percentage [circa 64%] is even higher if we look only at the answers of the Israeli Jews.

The pollster for HaArets, one Camil Fuchs, frankly admitted his dishonest, unscientific polling method to Lichfield. His poll presented only two options, Should Israel negotiate with Hamas, Yes or No, plus a Don't Know option. On the other hand, The Steinmetz Center poll contained several operational options, plus Other & Don't Know. Lichfield asked:

So which poll is “right”? What does the Israeli public actually think about talks with Hamas? I [Lichfield] asked Fuchs.
“When you include other options, you’re cognitively giving legitimacy to them,” he [Fuchs] says. “What you’re doing is hinting to the person that there are other people who prefer these options.”

So what Fuchs does is to foreclose certain options from his poll in order to obtain the answers that he wants. Lichfield points out: "When there’s only one option on the table, on the other hand, you’re asking them to choose between doing that and doing nothing." Lichfield concludes:

In short, what the two polls taken together say is that if the people could run the government, and had a range of options for dealing with Gaza, more of them would go with a military option. However, if the government says it’s going to talk to Hamas, 64% of the public would support it (though Fuchs thinks the number now would be a little lower than three weeks ago)

The trick that Fuchs used to skew his poll is common and widespread throughout the world. Before accepting the results of any public opinion poll as genuine or meaningful, you have to know what questions were asked or what options were supplied. If you know the questions asked and the options supplied, then you also know what questions were not asked and what options not supplied. What do you do if you are queried by a poll which supplies several options but not any option that you agree with?? What do you do if you disagree with the premises of a poll's question?? This has often happened to me. It is especially annoying if no Other or Don't Know option is supplied. For an example of disagreeing with the very premises of a question, suppose you are asked, as an Israeli, Should Israel negotiate with "the palestinians"?? I and many others reject the very notion of a "palestinian people" [as do many Arabs]. But the poll does not allow us to assert that disagreement. Furthermore, suppose someone agrees that there is a "palestinian people." Then the issue arises, staying with the same poll question, Which "palestinians" do you think fit or unfit to negotiate with? The answer could be "the palestinians" [Arabs] living in the "West Bank" [Judea-Samaria] and their elected representatives [this answer could have been relevant before the Oslo accords and the subsequent establishment of the "palestinian authority"]. Today, one might choose between Fatah or Hamas or both or "palestinians who are not part of any terrorist group such as Fatah or Hamas." By not allowing disagreement with the premises of a question, the pollster is obtaining agreement to those premises from those who answer the question, even if in fact the questioned person does not accept the premises.

As to Hamas, there are good reasons for not negotiating with it but rather destroying it as an organization. This is because the Hamas charter is genocidally anti-Jewish in character [consider Article 7 in particular, which advocates killing off the Jews as such, albeit not until Judgement Day, which in practice encourages killing Jews at any time and place]. What is there to negotiate with such an organization?? It is ridiculous to claim, as many hypocritical Western politicians do, such as Tony Blair, that negotiating with Hamas would "moderate" its actions and its goals. Neville Chamberlain claimed, after pressuring Czechoslovakia to concede territory to the Nazi Germans, to Hitler, that he had brought to Britain, "peace in our time. . . peace with honor." In fact, he brought neither peace nor honor. Tony seems cut from the same cloth.

Negotiating with a genocidal outfit like Hamas gives it undesirable acceptance and prestige in world public opinion. Indeed, such negotiation gives genocide in principle a certain acceptance and legitimacy.
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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.