Jerusalem: The Biography (152 page)

The Mufti Amin al-Husseini meets Hitler who admired his fair hair and blue eyes. His cousin, Abd al-Kadir Husseini, was an aristocratic warrior and Arab hero of 1947–8, whose death was a blow to Palestinian hopes. His funeral on the Temple Mount was a chaotic, tense occasion: some mourners were killed by guns fired in the air.

1946–8: as Arabs and Jews massacred each other’s civilians, Menachem Begin’s Irgun bombed the British headquarters in the King David Hotel. British General Bubbles Barker (bottom right on newspaper) already loathed the Jews, encouraged by his charming, exuberant mistress, the leading Palestinian hostess Katy Antonius.

The battle of Jerusalem in 1948,: Arab soldiers escorting a Jewish prisoner during the fight for the Jewish Quarter; a Jewish girl fleeing from the fighting; Arab Legionaries behind sandbag barricades.

The Arab victor of 1948 King Abdullah of Jordan waves to crowds in Jerusalem, but he paid with his life. His assassin lies dead in the Aqsa mosque. Abdullah’s grandson, King Hussein of Jordan prepares for war in 1967: he reluctantly and disastrously placed his forces under Egyptian command.