Age Old Enemies?

Many times over the last couple of years, when discussing the issues in the Middle East, I have heard it said that the Jews and Arabs have been bitter enemies for centuries and that there is no way to resolve this age old hatred and distrust. Like most people I agreed with that train of thought. That is, until recently.

It is true that there has been an underlying religious disagreement dating back to the Biblical conflict between Abraham’s two sons. Arab belief is that they are descendants of Ishmael and that the Jews are descended from Isaac. They believe that Isaac usurped Ishmael’s birthright, but the so-call religious conflict and subsequent persecution, claimed by both extremes, (Jihadist’s and Zionists), has been exaggerated.

If one looks at the history of the Middle East there is little evidence that supports the constant conflict between Arabs and Jews. It is rarely pointed out that when the Crusades began in 1099 that BOTH Jew and Muslim stood side by side to defend Jerusalem. The Crusaders massacred Muslim and Jew alike. In fact, after the Muslim hero Saladin defeated the Crusaders in 1187, only then did displaced Jews return to the area.

The Jewish community flourished and prospered under Muslim leaders from that point on, and in fact grew even more numerous in the 15th and 16th centuries when the Ottoman Empire welcomed them into the area when they (the Jews) were expelled from Spain, by the Christians. For the next several centuries, under both the Ottoman rule, and later British rule after WWI, Arab, and Jewish communities peacefully coexisted in this area.

So what happened, you might ask. The real start of the Arab-Israeli conflict started around the year 1920. A man named Haj Muhammad Al Husseini, the grand mufti of Jerusalem, the Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque, was a brutal and controlling despot that killed Jews and Arabs he considered to be a threat to his control of Jerusalem’s Arab population.

Similar to his counterpart in the West, Adolph Hitler, he used anti-Jewish propaganda to separate and polarize the Arab and Jewish communities who for centuries had lived peacefully together. In 1920 and again in 1929, Al Husseini incited anti-Jewish riots by claiming the Jews were plotting to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque. The riots resulted in the massacre of hundreds of Jewish civilians and a virtual end to the Jewish presence in Hebron.

In 1936, partially funded by the Nazi’s, Al Husseini began a revolt against the British using Arab militias, which also were used to massacre Jewish citizens. The Brits quelled the uprising by 1939 and Al Husseini fled to Iraq and helped to orchestrate a jihad against the British once again in 1941.

Once more the Brits were able to put down this rebellion and Husseini fled to Nazi Germany. He found that the Nazi anti-Jew ideology fit nicely with his extremist view of Islam. Husseini and Hitler schemed to create a pro-Nazi pan-Arab-style fascist government for the Middle East.

Even after the fall of El Alamein in 1942 Al Husseini called for continued Arabic resistance to Allied forces and was summarily know as the “Arab Fuhrer” or the “Fuhrer’s Mufti”. In one of his radio broadcasts from Berlin in 1944 Al Husseini called for a jihad to “kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases Allah, history, and religion.” Sound familiar?

Time after time Husseini did what ever he could to kill “the Jew”, including the blocking of the Red Cross to help Jewish children. He recruited Bosnian Muslims for the German Waffen SS, known as the Hanjer (Saber) Division, which murdered 90% of the Yugoslavian Jewish population. Heinrich Himmler was so delighted with their “accomplishments” that he established the Mullah Military School in Dresden.

After the fall of Nazi-Germany, Al Husseini fled to Cairo. Throughout the 1940’s and 50’s he helped develop a pro-fascist group in Egypt known as “Young Egypt”. Gamal Abdul Nassar (a member of Young Egypt), along with other pro-fascists among the military, seized control of the Egyptian government in 1952. He was also instrumental in influencing the founding members of the Ba’ath Party - the party of Saddam Hussein and current controlling party of Syria. And finally Al Husseini played a central role in creating the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).

Many in the Arab world today, thirty years after his death in 1974, still revere this despot as a hero. It seems to me that Husseini’s close relationship to Hitler and Nazi ideology may be the reason that Hitler’s Mein Kampf is one of the best selling books in the Arab world.

At this point, you may ask where I am going with this. Simply I was challenged a short time ago when I drew an analogy to this current form of extremist Islam with fascism, calling them Islamofascists.
Husseini’s descendants and followers remain active in Middle Eastern affairs today and I could go on and on with the numerous connections to Al Qaeda and other groups, who consider this man a hero, but suffice it to say this pro-Nazi leader is the cornerstone of today’s radical Islamic Jihadists.

We have been fed a steady diet by the media that this is a centuries old conflict that is un-winnable. I have even heard some of my most learned friends spouting the “Zionist conspiracy” ravings of the fascists, reminiscent of the Nazi propaganda of the last century. I must point out here that in fact the Zionists are the extreme of the other side, but not the international demons they are proposed to be by some.

Let us not forget that there are more of those like Ata and his band of suicide Jihadists who murdered almost 3000 innocent people on September 11, 2001, who are hell bent on our destruction. Until we start recognizing this enemy for who they are, and that they are not just terrorists, which is a misnomer, they are fascists we will not defeat them. We are NOT at war with Islam but a sect of extremist/fascists radicals, which are using religion as their excuse for murder and dictatorial control.

Until we begin to understand this than we will not win this war. And if we allow these fanatics and outright nut jobs to turn this into some sort of religious war, this too will be disastrous. The truth is we are at war once again with fascism. We are embroiled in a war none of us want, but one we must win, or we will lose all we hold dear, our freedom, our independence, our lives, and the lives of our loved ones.