Film screening September 6 in Kingston
Frederick Nagel
Sunday, Sep. 6 from 2:00 - 5:00 PM at the Old Dutch Church, 272 Wall St., Kingston. Screening of Palestine ’36, an Academy Awards selection. This epic drama lays bare the myths behind the founding of the Zionist state, including the brutal colonial grip of the British Empire. With an introduction by Emmy-nominated journalist, producer and actor Ahmed Shihab-Eldin, who has a role in the film. Free admission, refreshments, and community reflection. Cosponsored by: Middle East Crisis Response, African Roots Community Center, Columbia County for Palestine, JVP Hudson Valley, Mid Hudson Valley DSA, New Paltz Quaker Meeting, Peace Education Center, Rally Middletown, Mid-Hudson Valley Veterans For Peace, and Women In Black - New Paltz. Contact: me...@mideastcrisis.org or 845 876-7906
posted by Fred
SF
I have access only to the Midhudson Progressives, but you can forward the message to the rest of the Team Jihad crowd:
AI:
Palestine ’36 by Annemarie Jacir is a historically grounded dramatic film, not a neutral history documentary. I would consider it useful as an introduction to the Palestinian experience of the 1936–39 Arab Revolt, but I would not use it by itself as authoritative historical material.What the film gets right
The central historical setting is real:
-
The 1936–1939 Arab Revolt in Mandatory Palestine was a major uprising against British rule.
-
It began with strikes and demonstrations and developed into a prolonged armed revolt.
-
British forces responded with extensive military repression, arrests, collective punishments, demolitions and other measures.
-
Jewish immigration and Zionist political activity were important parts of the political crisis.
-
The Peel Commission of 1937 proposed partition, which became a major turning point.
-
The revolt had serious internal Palestinian divisions involving peasants, urban elites, political factions and competing leaderships.
These aren't inventions of Jacir. The film is built around genuine historical events. Critics at the Los Angeles Times, BFI's Sight and Sound, and KQED all recognize it as a serious historical drama dealing with a relatively neglected period. (Los Angeles Times)
Where I would be cautious
The framing is distinctly Palestinian, and some historically important perspectives are substantially underrepresented.
The most significant problem is the very limited depiction of the Jewish population. The Los Angeles Times specifically criticized the film for essentially avoiding Jewish characters despite the substantial Jewish population and growing Zionist movement in Palestine at the time. (Los Angeles Times)
A German public-radio review makes the criticism even more directly: it argues that the film largely omits both the motivations of Jewish immigration and the role of Arab landowners who sold land to Jewish organizations, producing an overly one-dimensional "colonialism" interpretation. (Radio Drei)
That doesn't make the Palestinian grievances portrayed in the film false. It means that selection and omission shape the historical narrative.
One particularly important distinction
I would separate three things:
| Question | My assessment |
|---|---|
| Did the 1936–39 revolt really happen? | Yes |
| Was British repression severe? | Yes |
| Did Palestinians have legitimate grievances? | Yes, historically well documented |
| Was Zionism/Jewish immigration an important factor? | Yes |
| Does the film give a balanced account of all sides? | No |
| Are the individual characters and conversations historical evidence? | No — they are dramatized |
| Is it useful for understanding Palestinian perceptions of the period? | Definitely |
| Should it be used alone to teach the history? | No |
The film itself is therefore better described as historically based political drama than as documentary history. Even favorable reviewers emphasize that it compresses a complicated history into a two-hour narrative. (KQED)
My overall credibility rating
I'd give it roughly:
Historical factual foundation: 7/10
Representation of Palestinian experience: 9/10
Representation of the full historical picture: 5/10
Neutrality: 3/10
Value as a starting point for research: 8/10
So I would not dismiss Palestine ’36 as "propaganda" or historically worthless. There is substantial genuine history underneath it. But I also wouldn't cite the film as evidence for contested historical claims without checking the underlying scholarship.
In fact, the film could be quite useful if your objective is to understand how the Palestinian narrative of 1936–39 is constructed, and then compare it against British, Zionist/Jewish and academic historical accounts.
If you want, I can do something more useful: go through Palestine ’36 scene-by-scene and identify what is historically documented, what is dramatized, what is omitted, and what is potentially misleading. That would give you a much better assessment of its credibility.
7. But Germany was initially cautious
This is another point often lost in popular accounts.
The Nazis did not immediately throw their full support behind the Palestinian rebellion.
Germany still had diplomatic and strategic considerations involving Britain.
According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, until the end of 1938 Germany was reluctant to openly support Arab independence or materially support the insurgents. Arab rebels did receive weapons and money from Fascist Italy and other Arab states during the revolt. (Holocaust Encyclopedia)
So the chronology matters:
1933–35: German contacts and exploration
↓
1936: Arab Revolt begins independently
↓
1936–39: increasing German/Italian interest and
propaganda contacts
↓
1939–41: relationship becomes substantially more
important
↓
1941–45: open Axis–al-Husseini collaboration
8. 1941 is the major turning point
The relationship becomes dramatically more concrete during WWII.
Al-Husseini went to Germany and met Hitler on November 28, 1941.
He became an important Nazi propagandist directed toward the Arab and Muslim world.
The Nazis financed Arabic-language broadcasting and used al-Husseini to promote:
-
anti-British revolt;
-
anti-Jewish propaganda;
-
opposition to Zionism;
-
support for the Axis;
-
recruitment of Muslims into Axis military formations.
The Holocaust Museum documents this extensively. (Holocaust Encyclopedia)
This is considerably better documented than the claim that Hitler personally directed the Brotherhood in 1936.
9. And the effect went beyond Palestine
This is where your question about anti-British insurgencies becomes especially important.
The Nazi strategy was not simply:
“Destroy Zionism.”
It was:
Use Arab and Muslim nationalism to weaken the British Empire.
Palestine was one theater.
Others included:
Egypt
Anti-British agitation and Brotherhood activism.
Iraq
The 1941 Rashid Ali coup attempted to throw out British influence
and align Iraq with the Axis.
North Africa
German and Italian propaganda attempted to mobilize Arab/Muslim
populations against the Allies.
Palestine
Al-Husseini continued mobilization against Britain and Zionism.
Balkans
The Nazis eventually recruited substantial numbers of Muslims into
Axis military formations, including the Waffen-SS.
But here again, the Nazi strategy had limited success. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum notes, for example, that despite extensive Axis propaganda, no major general uprising occurred across the Middle East in 1942. (Holocaust Encyclopedia)
10. The really important long-term consequence
I would separate three different historical effects.
Effect #1 — Operational
Nazi Germany helped some Arab and Muslim actors with:
-
propaganda;
-
communications;
-
money;
-
weapons in certain cases;
-
intelligence;
-
political contacts;
-
military recruitment.
Effect #2 — Ideological
Nazi antisemitic themes entered Arab political discourse and interacted with existing Islamic and nationalist concepts.
This helped popularize the idea that:
Jews were not merely a competing national group in Palestine but a worldwide conspiratorial enemy of Islam and the Arabs.
That is a much more consequential ideological development.
Effect #3 — Internationalization
The Palestine issue increasingly became an Arab and Muslim international cause, rather than simply a Palestinian political dispute.
That greatly expanded the potential constituency for resistance to Zionism.
11. But we should NOT draw a straight line from Hitler → Brotherhood → Hamas
This is where historical analysis often becomes sloppy.
A simplistic diagram would be:
Hitler → Muslim Brotherhood → Hamas → modern Islamism
I would not accept that as an adequate historical explanation.
A better model is:
Islamic reformism
↓
Muslim Brotherhood, 1928
↓
anti-colonialism + Islamic revival
↓
Palestine becomes central during 1930s
↘
contact with al-Husseini
↘
Nazi propaganda and wartime collaboration
↓
postwar Islamist and Palestinian movements
↓
Sayyid Qutb and radical Islamist thought
↓
later Islamist movements, including Hamas
The transmission is ideological and organizationally complex, rather than a simple Nazi command structure.
12. And there is an important postwar connection
One particularly revealing episode occurred after the war.
When al-Husseini returned to Egypt in 1946, Hassan al-Banna welcomed him. Scholarship documents the close relationship between the Brotherhood and al-Husseini after WWII. (Hoover Institution)
This is important because it demonstrates that the relationship was not simply a temporary wartime arrangement with Hitler.
The Brotherhood continued to regard al-Husseini as an important symbol of the struggle against Britain and Zionism.
That doesn't mean that the entire Brotherhood became "Nazi."
It does mean that parts of the Nazi-era ideological and propaganda vocabulary survived the defeat of Nazi Germany.
My overall historical assessment
I'd rank the propositions this way:
| Proposition | My assessment |
|---|---|
| Muslim Brotherhood existed independently of Nazism | Certain |
| Brotherhood opposed British rule before Nazi influence | Certain |
| Palestine became important to Brotherhood in 1930s | Certain |
| Brotherhood cooperated with al-Husseini | Strongly documented |
| Nazi Germany cultivated Arab Islamist movements | Strongly documented |
| Nazi Germany cultivated al-Husseini | Strongly documented |
| Nazi money reached Arab/Islamist networks | Documented, scale debated |
| Nazis influenced Brotherhood propaganda | Credible, but magnitude debated |
| Nazis caused the 1936 revolt | Not supported |
| Nazi propaganda amplified anti-Jewish attitudes | Strong evidence |
| Al-Husseini became an important Nazi propagandist | Certain |
| Nazi/Arab collaboration helped anti-British activity | Strong evidence |
| Nazi collaboration was responsible for Palestinian opposition to Zionism | False/overly simplistic |
| Nazi influence contributed to later Islamist antisemitism | Serious scholarly argument, but causation is complex |
| Modern Hamas is simply a continuation of Nazi policy | Historically indefensible as a simple formulation |
The key conclusion
The strongest historical formulation is:
Nazi Germany did not create the Palestinian revolt or the Muslim Brotherhood's opposition to Britain and Zionism. Rather, it recognized pre-existing Arab nationalist and Islamist grievances, cultivated relationships with figures such as Amin al-Husseini, supplied propaganda and, in some cases, material assistance, and sought to transform anti-colonial and anti-Zionist resistance into a broader anti-British and anti-Jewish mobilization. The collaboration became far more substantial during World War II than it was during the initial 1936 revolt.
That distinction is important if you're evaluating Ahmed Shihab-Eldin's Palestine 36. A documentary emphasizing British repression can be factually correct while still leaving out a significant part of the geopolitical story: the simultaneous emergence of an Islamist/Arab nationalist network that was increasingly being courted by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.
If you want to investigate this seriously, I can next build a 1933–1948 timeline of Nazi → al-Husseini → Muslim Brotherhood → Arab Revolt → 1948, showing who financed whom, who met whom, what propaganda was distributed, and which claims are documented versus disputed.
Frederick Nagel
Fred
> This is another point often lost in popular accounts.
> The Nazis did not immediately throw their full support behind the Palestinian rebellion.
> Germany still had diplomatic and strategic considerations involving Britain.
> According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, until the end of 1938 Germany was reluctant to openly support Arab independence or materially support the insurgents. Arab rebels did receive weapons and money from Fascist Italy and other Arab states during the revolt. (Holocaust Encyclopedia)
> So the chronology matters:
> 1933–35: German contacts and exploration
> ↓
> 1936: Arab Revolt begins independently
> ↓
> 1936–39: increasing German/Italian interest and propaganda contacts
> ↓
> 1939–41: relationship becomes substantially more important
> ↓
> 1941–45: open Axis–al-Husseini collaboration
> The relationship becomes dramatically more concrete during WWII.
> Al-Husseini went to Germany and met Hitler on November 28, 1941.
> He became an important Nazi propagandist directed toward the Arab and Muslim world.
> The Nazis financed Arabic-language broadcasting and used al-Husseini to promote:
> • anti-British revolt;
> • anti-Jewish propaganda;
> • opposition to Zionism;
> • support for the Axis;
> • recruitment of Muslims into Axis military formations.
> The Holocaust Museum documents this extensively. (Holocaust Encyclopedia)
> This is considerably better documented than the claim that Hitler personally directed the Brotherhood in 1936.
> This is where your question about anti-British insurgencies becomes especially important.
> The Nazi strategy was not simply:
> “Destroy Zionism.”
> It was:
> Use Arab and Muslim nationalism to weaken the British Empire.
> Palestine was one theater.
> Others included:
> Egypt
> Anti-British agitation and Brotherhood activism.
> Iraq
> The 1941 Rashid Ali coup attempted to throw out British influence and align Iraq with the Axis.
> North Africa
> German and Italian propaganda attempted to mobilize Arab/Muslim populations against the Allies.
> Palestine
> Al-Husseini continued mobilization against Britain and Zionism.
> Balkans
> The Nazis eventually recruited substantial numbers of Muslims into Axis military formations, including the Waffen-SS.
> But here again, the Nazi strategy had limited success. The US Holocaust Memorial Museum notes, for example, that despite extensive Axis propaganda, no major general uprising occurred across the Middle East in 1942. (Holocaust Encyclopedia)
> I would separate three different historical effects.
> Effect #1 — Operational
> Nazi Germany helped some Arab and Muslim actors with:
> • propaganda;
> • communications;
> • money;
> • weapons in certain cases;
> • intelligence;
> • political contacts;
> • military recruitment.
> Effect #2 — Ideological
> Nazi antisemitic themes entered Arab political discourse and interacted with existing Islamic and nationalist concepts.
> This helped popularize the idea that:
> Jews were not merely a competing national group in Palestine but a worldwide conspiratorial enemy of Islam and the Arabs.
> That is a much more consequential ideological development.
> Effect #3 — Internationalization
> The Palestine issue increasingly became an Arab and Muslim international cause, rather than simply a Palestinian political dispute.
> That greatly expanded the potential constituency for resistance to Zionism.
> This is where historical analysis often becomes sloppy.
> A simplistic diagram would be:
> Hitler → Muslim Brotherhood → Hamas → modern Islamism
> I would not accept that as an adequate historical explanation.
> A better model is:
> Islamic reformism
> ↓
> Muslim Brotherhood, 1928
> ↓
> anti-colonialism + Islamic revival
> ↓
> Palestine becomes central during 1930s
> ↘
> contact with al-Husseini
> ↘
> Nazi propaganda and wartime collaboration
> ↓
> postwar Islamist and Palestinian movements
> ↓
> Sayyid Qutb and radical Islamist thought
> ↓
> later Islamist movements, including Hamas
> The transmission is ideological and organizationally complex, rather than a simple Nazi command structure.
> One particularly revealing episode occurred after the war.
> When al-Husseini returned to Egypt in 1946, Hassan al-Banna welcomed him. Scholarship documents the close relationship between the Brotherhood and al-Husseini after WWII. (Hoover Institution)
> This is important because it demonstrates that the relationship was not simply a temporary wartime arrangement with Hitler.
> The Brotherhood continued to regard al-Husseini as an important symbol of the struggle against Britain and Zionism.
> That doesn't mean that the entire Brotherhood became "Nazi."
> It does mean that parts of the Nazi-era ideological and propaganda vocabulary survived the defeat of Nazi Germany.