Rodney Mazinter to the Saturday Argus

The Editor

Saturday Argus

Dear Sir

Fadiel Adams would have us believe that not a single Palestinian gassed a single Jew in World War II (letter Saturday Argus 20 January).

Recently unearthed documentary evidence shows that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, and Hitler egged each other on in a mutual genocidal frenzy.

A book published last year, Nazis, Islamists and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G. Schwanitz, argues that the mufti’s alliance with Hitler was pivitol to the Holocaust.

On November 28, 1941 Hitler met the mufti in Berlin. “Behind closed doors, Hitler promised al-Husaini that Arab aspirations would be fulfilled. Once ‘we win’ the battle against world Jewry, Hitler said, Germany would eliminate the Jews in the Middle East, too.” Thus was   launched “the final solution of the Jewish question.”

As the book also shows, the mufti was making common cause with Hitler long before 1941. By 1936, he was courting the Nazis for arms and money. In 1940, he sent Hitler a nine-page letter detailing a proposed alliance. The Palestine question, he said, united them in their joint hatred of the British and the Jews. He solicited Hitler’s help to wipe out all Jews in the Middle East.

Evidence that the mufti played a key role in the Holocaust was provided at the Nuremberg Tribunal by Eichmann’s close associate in the extermination programme, Dieter Wisliceny. He said: “The mufti was one of the instigators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and was a partner and adviser to Eichmann and Hitler for carrying out this plan.”

This was corroborated at the tribunal by two witnesses, Andrej Steiner and Rudolf Kasztner.

Adams’ remarks demonstrates historical ignorance and venom toward Israel. There is no lie about Israel too absurd or outrageous for its enemies to regurgitate. These enemies ignore evidence of the grand mufti’s Nazi enthusiasm because this destroys the fiction that the Palestinian cause is noble. This cause is in fact the direct heir to a genocidal project.

Revisionist propaganda has turned truth and lies inside out and brainwashed millions. From Yasser Arafat’s rewriting history to Mahmoud Abbas, whose doctoral thesis denied the Holocaust and who hero-worships Husseini, Palestinian propaganda reproduces vile Nazi tropes of Jew-hatred.

Sydney Kaye to The Business Day

Letter to the Editor Business Day.

Notwithstanding his history lesson, I take issue with the concluding paragraph of Robert Stone’s letter which concludes that “blame” for the existence of Israel should not only rest with Israel but should be shared with Britain, the League of Nations and the major nations that recognized it.
The word “blame” implies an act that was wrongful. Considering Israel’s development as probably the most successful start-up state in history , even in the face of political and armed attacks against it during its whole development into a modern democracy, a more accurate characterization would be to say that those parties shared the “kudos” of being responsible for the establishment of Israel, not the “blame”.

Sydney Kaye, Cape Town.

Rodney Mazinter to the Daily Dispatch

The Editor
Saturday Dispatch

Dear Sir

Nashira Davids’ page 7 article about the arrest of a Palestinian girl after she had physically attacked two Israeli soldiers, who did not retaliate even under severe provocation, (Saturday Dispatch 23 December), bears closer examination.

I have never seen an article by Davids, or anyone else at the Dispatch,  about the plight of Palestinians in other Arab countries. Palestinians living in Iraq say that what they are facing is ‘ethnic cleansing.” Iraqi law deprives these Palestinians of their right to free education, healthcare and to travel documents, and denies them work in state institutions.

Major media outlets around the world barely cover the news of the controversial Iraqi law or the displacement of thousands of Palestinian families in Iraq. Journalists, including Davids and politicians such as Mandla Mandela are too busy chasing a handful of Palestinian stone-throwers near Ramallah. A Palestinian girl who punched an Israeli soldier in the face draws more media interest than Arab apartheid against the Palestinians.

Palestinian leaders, meanwhile care nothing about the plight of their own people in Arab countries. They are much too busy inciting Palestinians against Israel and Trump to pay any heed to such a paltry issue.

Iraq has just joined the long list of Arab countries that shamelessly practice apartheid against Palestinians. The international media — and even the Palestinians — are so preoccupied with US President Donald Trump’s announcement on Jerusalem that the plight of Palestinians in Arab countries attracts no attention. This apathy allows Arab governments to continue with their anti-Palestinian policies because they know that no one in the international community cares.

The number of Arab countries, journalists and politicians that apply discriminatory measures against Palestinians while pretending to support the Palestinian cause is astonishing. The hypocrisy of some UN members is once again on display.