Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam (3 page)

Lloyd George was intentionally offering the appointment to one of England’s most prominent Jews, a man who actively supported the Zionist dream of establishing a Jewish state in Palestine. A member of the Anglo-Jewish elite who was related to the Montagus and other eminent Jewish families,
⁹
Samuel was widely recognized as one of England’s most distinguished diplomats and statesmen. The scion of a wealthy Liverpool banking family that had been active in the Jewish community and in British politics, Herbert Samuel had joined David Lloyd George’s Liberal Party shortly after completing his university studies at Oxford. First elected to Parliament in 1902, and the first British Jew to be appointed to a seat in a prime minister’s cabinet, Samuel served as postmaster general and, subsequently, as home secretary. During his tenure as home secretary, he became a great advocate for women’s rights, including the right of a woman to run for Parliament. In addition, during his tenure he helped to contain the political disturbances in Ireland.
¹⁰
His friend writer George Bernard Shaw predicted that Samuel would one day become prime minister.
¹¹
Samuel had been knighted by King George V in 1920, shortly before receiving his appointment as high commissioner of Palestine. After his appointment, Samuel was hailed as “the first Jew to rule the land of Israel in 2,000 years.”
¹²

Many political observers believed at the time that Lloyd George’s appointment of Herbert Samuel was an act of political genius.
¹³
The appointment generated tremendous enthusiasm among the Jews of England and leaders of the Zionist movement. Hebrew “hymns of redemption” were composed in honor of Samuel, who became a hero to Jews throughout the world. Carpets were woven bearing Samuel’s image. His picture was hung on the walls of many Jewish homes, often next to that of Theodor Herzl,
¹⁴
the founder of political Zionism.

Herbert Samuel’s involvement with Zionism had dated at least from the outbreak of World War I in 1914. When in November of that year the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers, Samuel formally suggested to the British foreign secretary that a Jewish state be established in Palestine. In March 1915, Samuel, then postmaster general in the British Liberal government of Herbert Asquith, wrote a memorandum formally proposing the establishment of a British protectorate over Palestine
¹⁵
that would lead eventually to the establishment of a Jewish state. In proposing that Great Britain establish a mandate over Palestine, Samuel argued persuasively to his parliamentary colleagues that Palestine would form a new and exquisite jewel in the imperial crown of the British Empire.
¹⁶
As the first practicing Jew to sit in a British cabinet, moreover, Samuel said he felt that it was right and proper to support the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine. From the opening shots of World War I, he proposed to his cabinet colleagues British support for creation of a Jewish state in Palestine.
¹⁷
This proposal—the first of its kind ever made by a British government official—was enthusiastically supported by David Lloyd George and became the inspiration for the Balfour Declaration two years later.

At the time, and in the decade that followed, not all British Jews shared Herbert Samuel’s support for Zionism and for the eventual establishment of a Jewish national home in Palestine. Quite the contrary: Many Jewish leaders, especially among the wealthy Anglo-Jewish elite of which Samuel’s family was a part, vocally opposed the Balfour Declaration, asserting that the Zionist aims were “inconsistent with British citizenship.”
¹⁸
Samuel’s cousin Edwin Montagu, the prominent Liberal Party politician and newly appointed secretary of state for India, stated his opposition in intensely personal terms: “If you make a statement about Palestine as the National Home for Jews,” argued Montagu, “every anti-Semitic organization and newspaper will ask what right a Jewish Englishman, with the status at best of a naturalized foreigner, has to take a foremost part in the government of the British Empire.”
¹⁹
Montagu’s objections, shared by other members of Lloyd George’s war cabinet, played a role in delaying the issuance of the government’s pro-Zionist Balfour Declaration for several months.
²⁰
Resistance to the Balfour Declaration within the cabinet was overcome when, on October 31, 1917, an overwhelming majority of Lloyd George’s war cabinet voted to affirm their support for a Jewish national home in Palestine. Three days later, the Balfour Declaration was issued.
²¹

Al-Husseini’s vocal and vicious opposition to the Balfour Declaration had been well known to Samuel even before his appointment as high commissioner. That made even more remarkable the most controversial act of Samuel’s tenure as high commissioner: his appointment of al-Husseini as grand mufti of Jerusalem. Of the many disputes that arose in Jerusalem during the mandate years, Haj Amin al-Husseini’s appointment was one of the most controversial.
²²

The great hopes and expectations that had greeted Samuel’s appointment quickly gave way to Jewish anger and resentment. Many Zionist leaders especially regarded Samuel’s appointment as an act of inexcusable political naïveté, if not veritable treason to the Zionist cause. While the Zionist movement regarded Herbert Samuel with great respect and reverence when he first arrived in Jerusalem, David Ben-Gurion, the future prime minister of Israel, told the World Zionist Congress in 1921, “But what did he give us? Haj Amin al-Husseini as Mufti of Jerusalem.”
²³

At first, to be sure, Samuel had not been well predisposed toward al-Husseini. On July 1, 1920, upon assuming his duties, Samuel felt it was important to demonstrate his fairness and impartiality toward the Arabs of Palestine. As a
Jewish
high commissioner, he felt that this should be one of the first priorities of his new administration. Thus, on July 7 he issued a full amnesty for all Palestinian Arabs who had been sentenced previously by British military courts. Al-Husseini, however, was not granted amnesty immediately. It would take another seven weeks for Sir Herbert, under pressure from the Arabists in the British Foreign Office, to grant a special, individual amnesty to al-Husseini, who then returned to Jerusalem in September and would soon assume a religious and political role in radical Islamic public life with far-reaching consequences.

When the death of al-Husseini’s older brother, Kamal al-Husseini, five months later left vacant the position of mufti of Jerusalem, al-Husseini announced his candidacy to succeed him. However, he was one of four candidates to emerge as leading contenders and far from a shoo-in for the vacancy. Moreover, among the Palestinian Arab community in Jerusalem, the appointment of Haj Amin al-Husseini was not unopposed. In fact, the Nashashibi family, the Husseini family’s chief rival for leadership of the Palestinian Arab community, staunchly opposed al-Husseini’s candidacy. The family rivalries between the Nashashibis and the Husseinis, which dominated Palestinian Arab politics in Jerusalem, went back many years and would persist for several years to come. Their family rivalries and jealousies would extend to the municipality of Jerusalem, formerly headed by a member of the Husseini clan but controlled from 1920 until the mid-1930s by one of the mufti’s leading political rivals, Ragheb Bey al-Nashashibi.
²⁴
Just months earlier, in the aftermath of the April 1920 Jerusalem riots, Ragheb Bey al-Nashashibi had been appointed mayor of Jerusalem to succeed Haj Amin al-Husseini’s cousin Musa Kasim Pasha al-Husseini, who had been abruptly dismissed from his post by the British. The Nashashibis were so opposed to the candidacy of yet another Husseini as mufti that the new mayor of Jerusalem, Ragheb Bey al-Nashashibi, campaigned actively against Haj Amin’s appointment.
²⁵

In the Muslim elections for mufti that followed, on April 12, 1921, al-Husseini came in a distant fourth, which disqualified him. Existing voting regulations stipulated that the new mufti would be selected by the high commissioner from the top three vote getters. The election results infuriated the passionately anti-Semitic Husseini family, who then mounted a protest campaign, sending petitions and telegrams to the high commissioner’s office claiming that the Jews had exerted their sinister influence against Haj Amin al-Husseini’s candidacy.
²⁶
Their effort to pressure British officials into invalidating the electoral results was successful: One of the three top vote getters, who happened to be the candidate of the Nashashibi family, was persuaded to step aside, thus allowing al-Husseini to be among the top three candidates. The two other Muslim contenders were more moderate and considerably less virulent in their hatred of both the British and the Jews; al-Husseini was by far the most radical. With his election, radical Islam would prevail over more moderate Islamic voices within the Palestinian Arab community.

Sir Herbert Samuel promptly appointed al-Husseini as the new mufti of Jerusalem, thus assuring the continuation of the Husseini family in its traditional role. With his formal appointment on May 8, 1921, Haj Amin al-Husseini now assumed the religious leadership of Islam’s third holiest city. In appointing him, the British hoped to appease the anger and concerns of the most radical Palestinian Arab opponents of British rule in Palestine.

What if Sir Herbert had chosen a candidate other than al-Husseini as mufti of Jerusalem? The top vote getter, and candidate of the Nashashibi family, was Sheikh Husain al-Din Jarallah. He had been compelled to step out of the running owing to pressure brought to bear by the Husseini family. There is little doubt that had Sheikh Husain resisted the pressure and then been appointed mufti, he would have been killed by the followers of Haj Amin al-Husseini. Throughout the years of struggle for the leadership of the Arabs of Palestine, the Husseinis targeted and killed those who opposed their claim to leadership. The fact is that whoever Sir Herbert selected for leadership as mufti would have been driven by radical elements led by Haj Amin al-Husseini to oppose both the British and the Jews. Tragically, it was not al-Husseini who imposed the radical path, but the Arabs of Palestine themselves who demanded the course of action that was to lead to generations of bitterness and conflict.

The New Mufti: A Diminutive Demagogue

Although he was a center of controversy throughout his long and contentious public life, Haj Amin al-Husseini seemed to others to be always mild-mannered and soft-spoken. Twenty-six years old at the time of his appointment as mufti, al-Husseini was described by contemporaries as a short and stocky man who dressed simply but elegantly. He always wore the same black patent-leather shoes and the traditional but imposing mufti’s headdress—a large white cloth wrapped, in a turban, around a red tarboosh. He was invariably cloaked in an elegant and precisely tailored long black robe that covered him completely to his ankles. People who met him for the first time were surprised by his gentle, even meek, demeanor.

They were most surprised, perhaps, by his non-Muslim, truly Western appearance: His most notable features were his fair skin and reddish brown beard, blond hair, and expressive pale blue eyes. He had been clean-shaven as a young man and grew a beard only on the eve of his appointment as mufti, when Sir Herbert Samuel encouraged him to do so, suggesting that a beard would give al-Husseini, who looked much younger than his years, the added gravitas appropriate for someone assuming a position of such political power and responsibility.

Unlike other clerics of varying faiths, the mufti never took a vow of poverty and was not uncomfortable with the accoutrements of power. He had a well-known penchant for expensive haircuts and immaculately manicured fingers. He also had a taste for fine food and luxurious living accommodations that he increasingly indulged over the years during his long travels and sojourns outside of Arab Palestine.

Although diminutive in stature, al-Husseini was a larger-than-life figure who dominated whatever political stage he was acting upon. A charismatic and spellbinding orator, he mesmerized both small groups and large crowds whenever he spoke. Supporters and opponents, friends and foes alike, came away from his talks spellbound by his rhetoric and by the passion of his arguments. From his youth, he was a natural politician, with a gift for remembering names and faces, who knew instinctively how to work a crowd.

Al-Husseini’s serene and elegant appearance, together with the courteous manner of one who seemed never to raise his voice in private conversation, gave him more the look of a reserved and otherworldly philosopher or theologian. Yet he was known and feared far and wide for his vicious temper; he was prone to fits of rage that often bordered on the pathological when colleagues or political rivals opposed him. He often ordered the execution of political rivals and opponents within Arab Palestine, including members of the Nashashibi family. As a result, his life was threatened on numerous occasions. Always fearful of assassination, he took extraordinary safety precautions. He never went out without his bulletproof vest, and a loyal contingent of bodyguards accompanied him everywhere.

The Mufti and Ernest Richmond: A Special Relationship That Changed History

Al-Husseini’s appointment as mufti generated both support and opposition. Ernest Richmond, the assistant political secretary of the high commissioner’s office in Jerusalem and the high commissioner’s adviser on Arab affairs,
²⁷
who was a virulent anti-Semite and a declared enemy of Zionism, actively favored his appointment. Richmond’s support for al-Husseini played the decisive role in Samuel’s decision.
²⁸
Shortly after his arrival in Jerusalem to assume his post in the high commissioner’s office, Richmond had befriended al-Husseini, with whom he shared a fanatical hostility to the Balfour Declaration and to the declared policy of the British government in support of the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine.
²⁹
The Zionist movement, and its supporters within the British mandatory government, Richmond wrote, “is dominated and inspired by a spirit that I can only describe as evil,”
³⁰
a sentiment passionately shared by his friend al-Husseini.