Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
8 May
BRITISH APPOINT AL-HUSAYNI TO TOP RELIGIOUS LEGAL POSITION
On this day in 1921, the British authorities appointed Haj Amin al-Husayni to the position of Mufti of Jerusalem, even though he came last of the four candidates in number of votes cast in the election for the position. Until 1936 he allied with the British authorities, receiving various subsidies as a result. The Arab Revolt of 1936-39 detached him from the British and he fled to Lebanon before ending up in Nazi Germany where he collaborated with the Germans during WWII.
السلطات البريطانية تعيّن الحسيني في منصب قانوني ديني رفيع
8 مايو
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1921 ، عينت السلطات البريطانية الحاج أمين الحسيني في منصب مفتي القدس ، على الرغم من أنه جاء آخر المرشحين الأربعة في عدد الأصوات التي تم الإدلاء بها في الانتخابات لهذا المنصب. تحالف مع السلطات البريطانية حتى عام 1936، وتلقى إعانات مختلفة نتيجة لذلك. فصلته الثورة العربية 1936-1939 عن البريطانيين وهرب إلى لبنان قبل أن ينتهي به المطاف في ألمانيا النازية حيث تعاون مع الألمان خلال الحرب العالمية الثانية.
The last, said the British, shall be first...
When in 1921 votes were cast for the new Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini came in last among the four candidates. But votes in Palestine mattered as little then as they do now, and the British, Palestine’s novice replacement occupiers for the Ottomans, handed the post to al-Husseini. At first, he proved to be an asset to the British. But as the years passed, his opposition to Zionism, support for Palestinian nationalism, and ultimately his involvement in the 1936 Palestinian uprising, led to calls for his arrest.
Al-Husseini’s motivation for embracing the Axis was the same as that of Lehi (the ‘Stern Gang’) in its own attempted collaboration with the fascists: Britain was the obstacle both to Palestinian liberation, and to unbridled Zionism, and for both the Mufti and Lehi, defeating that obstacle meant embracing its enemies. Even the ‘mainstream’ David Ben-Gurion had no moral qualms about taking advantage of Britain’s struggle against the Nazis — a struggle for which his Jewish Agency was already conspicuously unhelpful — by exploiting Britain’s post-war vulnerabilities.
Posterity has treated Lehi’s and the Mufti’s flirtations with the fascists quite differently. Lehi, the most fanatical of the major Zionist terror organizations, was transformed into freedom fighters, and ex-Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir was twice elected as Israeli Prime Minister. In contrast, Zionist leaders quickly seized on al-Husseini’s past to smear not just him, but the Palestinians as a people, as Nazis.
The use of al-Husseini’s unsavory history to ‘justify’ anti-Palestinian racism continues to the present day. Most bizarrely, in 2015 Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed that Hitler had not intended to exterminate the Jews — that is, not until al-Husseini planted the words in his ear — which translates as “got the idea from the Palestinians”. A private citizen would likely have been arrested under German law for this attempt to rewrite the Holocaust.
Zionists until the present have allied with extreme rightists, including anti-semites.
The Polish Government recently