Frank Gelli Here is my article for you again, Seta. Welcome to share it. BIBI LOVES ADOLF

Adolf Hitler till 28 November 1941 did not dream of exterminating the Jews. He only wanted to deport them. A nasty Palestinian Arab chap, however, put the idea into the Fuhrer’s head. Hence the holocaust followed.

Lunacy? Not according to Israel’s feisty PM, Bibi Netanyahu. Addressing the august World Jewish Congress in Jerusalem, he has claimed that much. So, implicitly, he exculpated Hitler. You could not make that up.

I can discern Bibi's crude strategy. As violence mounts in Israel between Jews and Muslims, he is out to tar the wretched Palestinians with the same genocide brush. Because the villain of this incredible piece is Mohammed Haj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem during WWII. Learning from the Fuhrer’s own lips in Berlin that he intended to expel Jews from Europe, the Mufti bridled: ‘They will come to Palestine!’ ‘Well, what shall I do with them?’ Hitler implausibly asked. ‘Burn them!’ was the Mufti’s reply. A grisly instigation soon leading to the Nazi cremation ovens. So, a Palestinian did it! Thus far according to Netanyahu.

Martin Bormann recorded Hitler’s personal opinion of al-Husseini in a July 1942 monologue. ‘An old fox…a realist…quite exceptional wisdom’, the Fuhrer thought (Check out ‘Hitler’s Table Talks’). The Mufti’s blond beard and blue eyes impressed him. Perhaps descended from the best Aryan, ‘Roman stock’, despite his ‘mouse-like countenance’. He was certainly ‘a principal actor’ in the Middle East’, Hitler felt. That is all Bormann reported. 

I don’t know what evidence Bibi – the son of a dubious Israeli historian – has for his bizarre contention. Was the Mufti perhaps a very powerful hypnotist with phenomenal powers of suggestions? Not logically impossible. William Gladstone, the great British Prime Minister, believed his rival Benjamin Disraeli (a baptised Jew) had Queen Victoria under his thumb by a similar, ‘evil magician’ method. Alas, a bit too much like a story out of the ‘Thousand and One Nights’. Did the crafty Mufti control a Jinn? Who knows?

The German Fuhrer is credited with absolute cunning because of his desire to dominate Europe, his initial victorious wars and also for the holocaust. Nonetheless Hitler also makes some hugely stupid mistakes. For example, in 1941, after Pearl Harbour, President Roosevelt declared war on Japan. Three days later Germany responded by declaring war on America. Von Ribbentrop, Nazi Foreign Secretary, was not for it. The Tripartite Pact, binding together Italy, Japan and Germany, only obliged in case of self-defence. It did not apply to an aggressive war and Japan certainly was the aggressor. Germany did not have to attack America but it was Hitler’s will. A godsend for Roosevelt. He would have had a much harder job in getting Congress to vote for war on Germany. Hitler crucially aided him.

What if Hitler had invoked Aryan solidarity and joined the US in attacking Japan? A thought-provoking hypothesis raised by historian AJP Taylor. It sure would have made Roosevelt’s plans to enter war against Germany more difficult. But Hitler fatally boobed.

Another disastrous mistake the putatively wily Fuhrer made was his alliance with Fascist Italy. Hitler much admired Mussolini and his grandiloquent stance. In reality, the war saddled Germany with a useless ally. Paradoxically, if Mussolini had thrown his weight on the Allies’ side, he might have helped Germany more. Italy’s military incompetence would have been a serious burden for the Allies. Pity Adolf did not think of that.

Was following the Mufti’s cue another of the Fuhrer's errors? Is that credible?

Al-Husseini is regularly targeted in pro-Zionist, anti-Arab literature as an archetypal bad guy who hated the Jewish migration to Palestine. That the Mufti resented the Zionist project on his land is perhaps understandable. Anyway, he too proved too clever by half. Backed the wrong horse - during the war he blessed Balkan Muslim volunteers in the Waffen-SS. Oops! Moreover, the Islamic religious authority had also met the notorious SS chief Adolf Eichmann during the latter’s trip to Jerusalem. Another sign of his infamy? Odd however how Eichmann and other Nazi envoys visited Palestine at the invitation of Zionist leaders. All well documented in Lenny Brenner’s ‘Zionism in the Age of the Dictators’. The book shows how Zionists ‘were prepared to go to almost any length to achieve the goal of a separate Jewish homeland.’ Let him who is sinless cast the first stone then.

Opposition Israeli figures have lambasted Bibi and so have many Jewish personalities for seemingly whitewashing Nazism. The German Government too is angry. ‘We are responsible for the holocaust’, and not the Palestinians, it has asserted. Droll!

Germans are indeed the wonder of the world. Once a noble nation famous for its scholars, scientists, philosophers and poets, they have now virtually turned into an American cultural colony. Worse, conned by the Austrian adventurer in 1933 into pursuing a mad policy of world conquest, the Krauts appear now hoodwinked by madwoman Merkel into allowing an almost infinite number of migrants into their country. As they ask in EastEnders, what is going on?

‘Verily, those whom the gods wish to destroy they first drive mad.’

Revd Frank