Muftism & the Nazis.
Tilly
The Grand Mufti was Arafats uncle.
http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/mufti4.htm
4. Working for the Nazis
However the Mufti was not satisfied with unofficial or moral help from the
Nazis. What he wanted were official statements. On 21 July 1937, he tried to
establish an even closer relationship with Germany when he paid a visit to
the new German Consul-General, Döhle, in Palestine. He repeated his former
support for Germany and "wanted to know to what extent the Third Reich was
prepared to support the Arab movement against the Jews". Though the Germans
officially refused to change their policy, they gave more attention to
Palestine. In September 1937 two young SS officers, Karl Adolf Eichmann and
Herbert Hagen, were sent to Palestine. They had the clear objective of
getting "acquainted with the country and the life and to establish contact
with people" among others the Mufti. Although he had already escaped arrests
from the British authorities and was not seeking refuge among the Lebanese
Muslims he soon found himself well established as a German agent.
They must have got along fine because in 1938, according to Brenner, the
Mufti was already on the payroll of Abwehr II, the German
counterintelligence and sabotage division. However, Yisraeli dates his
reception of German money from as early as 1936. In 1938 the Abwehr II had
plans to deliver shiploads of arms to the Mufti, by way of Saudi Arabia and
later Iraq. However, they cancelled the cargo because of British protest.
Since the Axis could not extend their claws deeper into Palestine's
political life, Iraq became the victim through the Mufti's massive
organisation. The Iraqis accepted him as an Arab national hero and he soon
established his headquarters in Baghdad. The Iraqi government sponsored his
activities as well as private "charity" organisations, special taxation on
every Iraqi governmental official, vast sums of Palestinian Arab donations.
Added to all this were large contributions from Germany and Italy,
Saudi-Arabia and Egypt. This allowed him to live a life in luxury and
continue his propaganda against the British and Jews. His propaganda
succeeded in establishing a group of pro-Axis officials. Early in 1941 the
Mufti and the "Golden Square" pro-German army officers, led by General
Rashid Ali, forced the Iraqi Prime Minister, the pro-British Nuri Said
Pasha, to resign. In May he declared jihad against Britain. This meant that
the Muslims, at least his supporters, were committed in the fight against
Britain, "the greatest foe of Islam". The pro-Axis coup had proved
successful, but it did not last for long. In a few months British troops had
crushed the rebellion and the Mufti had to vanish again; this time his
destination was Germany, via Iran, Turkey and Mussolini's office in Rome.
The Mufti in Berlin
The Mufti had blamed the Iraqi Jews for the unsuccessful coup d'etat in
Iraq. He called them "the fifth column in Iraq", the very ones whose
ancestors had lived there since the Babylonian captivity. Some Iraqi
soldiers and civilians agreed with the Mufti and attacked the Jews who had
gathered in public to cheer the new government. The results were horrifying:
around 600 Jews, some say 179, were killed, thousands injured in the farhud
and 586 shops and warehouses looted. A committee of inquiry, appointed by
the Iraqi government, discovered that Haj Amin had been one of the main
figures behind the pogrom. Since Haj Amin had adopted the policy of blaming
Jews for everything that went wrong, there was no surprise that he allied
himself with the Nazi government in Berlin.
On 20 November 1941 the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop,
received him in Berlin. Their talks were the basis for the meeting with
Hitler the following day. Details of the Mufti's conversation with hitler
were documented in the Mufti's diary and by the Germans, given in the
appendix. The main themes were:
The Mufti... The Arabs are Germany's natural friends... They are therefore
prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to
participate in a war, not only negatively by the commission of act of
sabotage and the instigation of revolutions, but also positively by the
formation of an Arab Legion... In this struggle, the Arabs were striving for
the independence and the unity of Palestine, Syria and Iraq. ... The
Führer... Germany was resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation
after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time direct a
similar appeal to non European nations as well.
The Führer did not give, however, official support to the Arab cause, mainly
because of "military reasons". He proposed, however, as soon as the German
armies would pass into the Southern Caucasus the Arabs would be liberated
from the British yoke and
Germany's objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish
element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power...
The moment that Germany's tank divisions and air squadrons had made their
appearance south of Caucasus, the public appeal requested by the Grand Mufti
could go out to the Arab world.
The master plan of Hitler and the Mufti was, thus, first to solve the Jewish
problem in Europe and subsequently tackle the problem in the Middle East.
The Mufti raised no objections, he fully and gladly participated in the
destruction of European Jewry. However, he had to wait until the German
armies would enter the Caucasus for the destruction of the Mizrachi Jews who
had been living in the Middle East since time immemorial.
The Mufti's part of the deal was to raise support for Germany among the
Muslims in the Soviet Union, the Balkans and the Middle East. For that
purpose the Germans founded the "Arab Bureau", under his leadership, in
Berlin.
The Mufti's activities in the Third Reich
The Berlin based headquarters of the Mufti controlled almost a world-wide
net of collaborators. Sponsored by German money he extended his claws to the
Middle East, as well as to other areas where Muslims lived. His main
activities were: 1) Radio propaganda; 2) Espionage and fifth column
activities in the Middle East; 3) Organising Muslims into military units in
Axis-occupied countries; and 4) Establishing some German controlled Arab
Legions and the Arab Brigade. He visited the Balkans, had his picture taken
saluting Hitler, met Ante Pavelic, the Croatian "butcher" and dictator, and
was even in touch with Emperor Hirohito of Japan. Also, he was in charge of
supervising Axis propaganda to Muslims all over the world and
himself went on the radio on several occasions and his broadcasts were among
the most violent pro-Axis utterances ever produced. He had at his disposal
no less than six "freedom stations"... urging the Arabs of Palestine and
Moslems all over the world, including those in the United States, to rise
against the Allies, join the fifth column, commit acts of sabotage, and kill
the Jews... In addition, Haj Amin supplied the Middle East with propaganda
papers and pamphlets in Arabic.
His greatest achievement was, however, the recruitment of tens of thousands
of the Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Albania to the Waffen SS. His Arab
Legions later participated in massacring tens of thousands of partisan
Serbs, Jews and Gypsies.
In 1943 there were 20,000 Muslims under arms in "his" division of the Waffen
SS, the Handschar. (See: George Lepre, Himmler's Bosnian Division. The
Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943-1945, Schiffer Military History, Atglen,
PA, 1997). Nevertheless, the Balkan adventure was only his spare-time
activity because his main interest was the fight against World Jewry. In the
annual protest against the Balfour Declaration, which in 1943 was staged in
the large Luftwaffe hall in Berlin, the Mufti attacked the "Anglo-Saxon and
Jewish conspiracy" phrase he so frequently used, and said:
The Treaty of Versailles was a disaster for the Germans as well as for the
Arabs. But the Germans know how to get rid of the Jews. That which brings us
close to the Germans and sets us in their camp is that up to day.
On 1 March 1944 he added in a broadcast from Berlin: "Arabs! Rise as one
and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This
pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor." The Mufti did
not only intend to massacre the Yishuv Jewry, his hatred of the World Jewry
had already driven him to participate in the Nazi Final Solution.
Tilly
--
--
climbaboard@remove_me.hotmail.com
Osric
perhaps its time to really look at what went on in the 1930's and then those
who seek to smear the Palestinians might hink twice before opening this can
of worms, out of which nobody emerges with any credit.
Tilly <climbaboard@remove_me.hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:C9wh9.7000$Y3.14...@news.xtra.co.nz...
>
> The Grand Mufti was Arafats uncle.
>
> http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/mufti4.htm
>
>
> 4. Working for the Nazis
>
> However the Mufti was not satisfied with unofficial or moral help from
the
> Nazis. What he wanted were official statements. On 21 July 1937, he tried
to
> establish an even closer relationship with Germany when he paid a visit to
> the new German Consul-General, Döhle, in Palestine. He repeated his former
> support for Germany and "wanted to know to what extent the Third Reich was
> prepared to support the Arab movement against the Jews". Though the
Germans
> officially refused to change their policy, they gave more attention to
> Palestine. In September 1937 two young SS officers, Karl Adolf Eichmann
and
> Herbert Hagen, were sent to Palestine. They had the clear objective of
> getting "acquainted with the country and the life and to establish contact
> with people" among others the Mufti.
Now this is priceless. The contact that they were seeking was in fact a
gentleman by the name of Theivel Polkes an agent of the Haganah. Why?
Because Polkes had visited Berlin on 26th February 1937 and began
negotiations with the Sicherheitsdienst, or SD, the Security Service of the
SS, and brainchild of Reinhard Heydrich. Guess who was allocated as his
contact? One Adolf Eichmann, regarded by the SS as its leading authority on
Zionism and Jewish affairs. On his arrival what did Eichmann do? He visited
a Kibbutz with Polkes afterwards saying " had I been a Jew I would have been
an ardent Zionist". Eichmann and Hagen were almost immediately expelled to
Egypt where who turned up? The Mufti? No our old friend Polkes who offered
the services of the Haganah in spying for the SS. As a show of good faith
Polkes passed on intelligence regarding the location of an anti-Nazi radio
staion broadcasting into Germany, and information on delegates due to attend
the pan-Islamic conference in Berlin and their links to the Soviet Union.
Hardly any wonder they wanted Eichmann dead is it?
Although he had already escaped arrests
> from the British authorities and was not seeking refuge among the Lebanese
> Muslims he soon found himself well established as a German agent.
> They must have got along fine because in 1938, according to Brenner, the
> Mufti was already on the payroll of Abwehr II, the German
> counterintelligence and sabotage division.
The Abwehr was the military intelligence branch of the Wehrmacht and not
part of the Nazi Party machinery. Brenner concedes, which I note you omit,
the fact that these payments were irregular and soon stopped due to the
Mufti being regarded as a waste of time. Incidentally the Abwehr was
eventually drafted in to the SS as part of the Haganah's pals in the
Sicherheitsdienst due to their political unreliability and the fact that
Hitler suspected, rightly, that the Abwehr had contacts with the Allies. So
it seems the Mufti had at least a better choice of friends than the Haganah
Yes I note that the term "his" is in inverted commas, and so it should be.
The Mufti had nothing to do with running of the Hanjar Division whose
recruitment was facilitated by pre-existing ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia,
nothing to do with Palestine, and was consequently used in anti-partisan
activities, they were Bosnian Muslims, not Arabs. This exploitation of local
populations by the SS was commonplace. In addition to SS-Handjar there was
SS-Nordland and SS-Wiking, recruited from Denmark Holland and Norway. There
was even a Britischer Freikorps formed from sympathetic British POW's
although the number of recruits could be counted on one hand. These
formations were components of the Waffen-SS, military formations and not
police, not the same thing as an Einsatzgruppen or Ordnungspolizei
respopnsible for the most part for carrying out the infamous Commissar
Order.
(See: George Lepre, Himmler's Bosnian Division. The
> Waffen-SS Handschar Division 1943-1945, Schiffer Military History, Atglen,
> PA, 1997). Nevertheless, the Balkan adventure was only his spare-time
> activity because his main interest was the fight against World Jewry. In
the
> annual protest against the Balfour Declaration, which in 1943 was staged
in
> the large Luftwaffe hall in Berlin, the Mufti attacked the "Anglo-Saxon
and
> Jewish conspiracy" phrase he so frequently used, and said:
> The Treaty of Versailles was a disaster for the Germans as well as for the
> Arabs. But the Germans know how to get rid of the Jews. That which brings
us
> close to the Germans and sets us in their camp is that up to day.
> On 1 March 1944 he added in a broadcast from Berlin: "Arabs! Rise as one
> and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them.
This
> pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor." The Mufti did
> not only intend to massacre the Yishuv Jewry, his hatred of the World
Jewry
> had already driven him to participate in the Nazi Final Solution.
Hmm. The Mufti's role in Nazi Germany was as a pawn, and he gained nothing
for his cause. To suggest that the Nazis would trust such an unreliable and
irrelevant ally with the intimate details of their most secret activities is
naive. For Hitler he was a nobody with nothing to offer other than as a
recruitment figurehead.
--
THE BORDERS OF MY COUNTRY
RUN AROUND THE SOLES OF MY FEET
Osric
Tilly
> Here we go again, the old Mufti gag. Getting a bit tired this one. So
> perhaps its time to really look at what went on in the 1930's and
> then those who seek to smear the Palestinians might hink twice before
> opening this can of worms, out of which nobody emerges with any
> credit.
Good. As you explore sites I'm sure you will find numerous photos of the
Mufti (Arafat's uncle) in full SS uniform.
Tilly
--
climbaboard@remove_me.hotmail.com
Osric
Is that the best you can come up with? Have a good look at the SS and you
might find that honorary SS ranks were handed out to all sorts of nutters,
especially if you are lending weight to a recruitment campaign during an
acute manpower shortage. You really think Himmler and Hitler would have
recruited Bosian Muslims unless they were desperate? Himmler turned down
millions of potential recruits amongst Soviet prisoners when the going was
good. The only reason why they bothered was because they were scraping the
barrel to free up some of the 14 (IIRC) Divisions that Tito's Partisans were
keeping from the Eastern Front. They also recruited from amongst the Croats.
You're full of shit Tilly. Your attempts to smear the Palestinians are
amateur and transparent.
Tilly
Take your head out of the sand..............I don't hate Palestinians .I
value truth.
Tilly
Tilly
--
climbaboard@remove_me.hotmail.com
Tilly
Links:
"Himmler: "Muslims responded to the call of Muslim heads and joined our side
because of their hatred of our joint Jewish-English-Bolshevik enemies, and
because of their belief and respect for the one we place above all --
towards Fuhrer."
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/handzar/handzar.htm--
MUFTISM AND NAZISM (note the pic of the Grand Mufti with Herr Hitler.)
http://notendur.centrum.is/~snorrigb/muftism.htm
Islam collaboration with Third Reich links:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/reac_ter7.htm
http://www.flamemag.dircon.co.uk/yugoslavia_collaboration.htm
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/handzar/handzar.htm
http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/hanjar.html
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t031/t03148.html
http://www.eretzyisroel.org/%7Ejkatz/recruited.html#1
http://www.mideasttruth.org/Articles/cnnwatch1.htm
From CNN Watch, January 30, 2001
The Arab League uses a technique of propaganda called "turnspeak", where you
attack someone and then turn it around 180 degrees and claim they attacked
you. Because the truth is the exact opposite of the information being
disseminated it is psychologically difficult to counter and leads to
confusion.
The term was first used by journalists to describe German propaganda after
it invaded Czechoslovakia in March of 1939. To win sympathy for their
invastion, the Germans practiced what has become known as "turnspeak". They
turned the blame back on the Czechs for trying to precipitate an all-out war
in the region. In other words, the Czechs in their attempt to hang onto
their land were ready to plunge all of Europe into war.
How did the rest of Europe respond to this lie? They believed it. World
leaders decided that something had to be done to preserve peace at any cost.
Author William Shirer, who was a reporter in Europe at the time, distilled
the truth simply when he wrote, "Thus the plight of the German minority in
Czechoslovakia was merely a pretext...for cooking up a stew in a land he
[Hitler] coveted, undermining it, confusing and misleading its friends and
concealing his real purpose...to destroy the Czechoslovak state and grab its
territories..."
The Arab claims that Jews are "Nazis" are not without motive. They are
trying to cover up their close connection with the Nazi's. During World War
II leading Muslims including Haji Amin al-Husseini (Arafat's uncle) worked
for the Nazis in Germany, calling for a intifada against Britain. Amin was
the grand mufti of Jerusalem and Arafat's uncle.
The Arabs, especially Iraq, sided with Germany during WWII. In fact, Mufti
Haj Amin al-Husseini issued afatwa-"summons to a holy war against Britain"
in May 1941. The Mufti's widely heralded proclamation against Britain was
declared in Iraq, where he was instrumental in "the pro-Nazi" Iraqi revolt
of 1941.
Yasser Arafat's actual name is Abd al-Rahman abd al-Bauf Arafat al-Qud
al-Husseini. He shortened it to obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi
and ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini.
ISLAM UNDER THE SWASTIKA:
The Grand Mufti and the Nazi Protectorate of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1941-1945
By Carl K. Savich
2001
http://www.rastko.org.yu/rastko-bl/istorija/kcsavic/csavich-islam_e.html
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem: Haj Amin el Husseini
Haj Amin el Husseini arrived in Europe in 1941 following the unsuccessful
pro-Nazi coup which he organized in Iraq. He met German foreign minister
Joachim von Ribbentrop and was officsially received by Adolf Hitler on
November 28, 1941 in Berlin. Nazi Germany established for der Grossmufti von
Jerusalem a Bureau from which he organized the following: 1) radio
propaganda on behalf of Nazi Germany; 2) espionage and fifth column
activities in Muslim regions of Europe and the Middle East; 3) the formation
of Muslim Waffen SS and Wehrmacht units in Bosnia-Hercegovina,
Kosovo-Metohija, Western Macedonia, North Africa, and Nazi-occupied areas of
the Soviet Union; and, 4) the formation of schools and training centers for
Muslim imams and mullahs who would accompany the Muslim SS and Wehrmacht
units. As soon as he arrived in Europe, the Mufti established close contacts
with Bosnian Muslim and Albanian Muslim leaders. He would spend the
remainder of the war organizing and rallying Muslims in support of Nazi
Germany.
Haj Mohammed Effendi Amin el Husseini was born in 1893 in Jerusalem, then
the capital of Palestine, which was then a part of the Turkish Ottoman
Empire. His grandfather Mustapha and his half-brother Kemal had been the
Muftis of Jerusalem in the 1890s. Husseini attended the Al Azhar University
in Cairo, Egypt, where he studied Islamic philosophy, but he never completed
his studies and left after a year. In 1914, he obtained a commission in the
Ottoman Turkish Army as an artillery officer, stationed in Smyrna.
On November 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour declared
that Britain was committed to establishing a Jewish homeland in Palestine,
the so-called Balfour Declaration of 1917. The Balfour Declaration was
initially contained in a letter to Lionel Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron of
Rothschild, of the Jewish banking family, who was the leader of British
Jewry. Chaim Weizmann and Nahum Sokolow, prominent Jewish Zionist leaders in
London and the World Zionist Organization, sought to obtain such a
commitment in exchange for Jewish support of British war aims. The global
Zionist movement had pressured the British government to support a Jewish
homeland at the expense of the indigenous Muslim Arab Palestinians,
dismissed as "Arab inhabitants". The powerful and influential Jewish banking
house Rothschild and Chaim Weizmann demanded a quid pro quo for global
Jewish support of the British war effort against Germany. The modern
platform for the Zionist movement was established at the World Zionist
Congress held in 1897 in Basel, Switzerland by Hungarian Jew Theodor Hertzl.
In 1917 the British occupied Palestine and established the British Mandate
for Palestine.
The Mufti rejected the British policy of settling Palestine with European
Jews. At the time of World War I, there were only approximately 60, 000 Jews
in Palestine compared to approximately 800, 000 Palestinian Muslims.
Husseini saw Jewish immigration and settlement in zero-sum terms. Each
Jewish settler displaced a Palestinian Muslim, diluted the Palestinian
population, and in time, would lead to the genocide of the Palestinian
people. Husseini perceived the issue in these terms. He rejected both the
Balfour Declaration and the British Mandate over Palestine, which was meant
to lead to the implementation of the Balfour Zionist agenda. Husseini
devoted his entire life and career to the preservation of a Palestinian
state and opposed the establishment of a proposed Jewish homeland on
Palestinian land and sought to prevent Jewish immigration into Palestine. .
He formed a Society of Palestinian Youth and wrote articles in Arab
newspapers arguing against the British Mandate occupation and British
immigration policies. On April 4, 1920, he was accused of inciting riots
against Jewish crowds in Jerusalem. He was tried by a military court with
incitement to violence. He subsequently absconded from his bail and was
tried in absentia and sentenced to ten years imprisonment.
On July 1, 1920, Sir Herbert Samuel, himself a British Jew, appointed the
first British High Commissioner for Palestine, assumed control. Samuel
sought to reconcile with the Palestinian population by pardoning Husseini.
Sir Robert Storrs, the then governor of the city, appointed him Mufti of
Jerusalem. He was also the president of the Supreme Muslim Council, and,
later, the Arab Higher Committee. He was thus the religious and political
leader of the Palestinian Muslims. Husseini was one of the most influential
and powerful leaders in the Islamic world because of the fact that Jerusalem
was a holy city and contained many Islamic holy sites, including the Dome of
the Rock mosque in Jerusalem, the third most sacred Islamic site in Islam
after Mecca and Medina.
Husseini detested the decadent modern European materialistic way of life and
modern secular Western civilization. He was then what would today be called
a Muslim fundamentalist and was the precursor of Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah
Hendi Khomeini, Egyptian Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the mastermind behind the
first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, planned with the assistance of
Bosnian Muslims, but initially blamed by the FBI on the so-called Serbian
Liberation Army, Afghani Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, and Saudi
Ossama Bin Laden. Husseini can justly be credited for being a visionary
Islamic firebrand and one of the founders of the Muslim resistance to the
British-French, later US, colonial/imperial/economic occupation and
exploitation of the Muslim Arab world.
Husseini was at the forefront of Islamic militancy and "terrorism" directed
against the British/French/US occupation. Hassan el Banna formed the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928. The Muslim Brotherhood had links to the Grand
Mufti and worked with him in Palestine, sending volunteers in support of the
Palestinian uprisings in 1936, 1939, and during the 1948 war. The Muslim
Brotherhood sought to establish Muslim states based on the Sharia, Islamic
law, and the Caliphate system of political rule, wherein each Islamic state
would be ruled by a Caliph. Islam is "creed and state, book and sword, and a
way of life." In Pakistan, Syed Abdul Ala Maududi founded the Jamaat Islami
movement with the goal of establishing Muslim theocratic states based on
Koranic law. Egyptian Sayed Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood continued the
movement after World War II. The Muslim Brotherhood had offshoots: the
Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. Haj Amin el Husseini, the Muslim
Brotherhood, Jamaat Islami, Islamic Jihad, all form the roots and historical
background for the emergence of the Al Quaeda network, the mujahedeen of
Afghanistan, and Ossama Bin Laden. Ayatollah Khomeini and Bosnian Muslim
leader Alija Izetbegovic would be influenced by the anti-secular,
anti-Western, radical Muslim nationalist movements. In his book The Islamic
Declaration, (Islamska Deklaracija, 1970; republished, 1990), Izetbegovic
rejected the secular conception of an Islamic state espoused by Kemal
Ataturk. Izetbegovic sought to create an Islamic state based in the Sharia,
a state where religion would not be separate from the state, i.e., an
Islamic theocratic state. Izebegovic established close links to Ossama Bin
Laden and al-Qeada and invited mujadedeen forces to join the Bosnian Muslim
Army. Izetbegovic later would give Ossama Bin laden a special Bosnian
passport and the mujahedeen "freedom fighters" would receive Bosnian
citizenship and passports. One of the hijackers of the second attack on the
World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, possessed a Bosnian passport.
Yasser Arafat was introduced to Mufti and the Mufti would subsequently
become the role model and mentor for Arafat. In biographies of Arafat, whose
real name is Mohammed el Husseini, the Mufti is stated to be a "distant
relative" of Arafat, although this claim has been denied as well. For two
years, beginning at the age of 16, Arafat worked for the Mufti and his
covert terrorist network and organization, helping to smuggle and buy
weapons in the war against Jewish settlers of Palestine. Sheik Hassan Abu
Saud, the mufti of al-Shafaria, was worked with the Mufti. The Grand Mufti
was a precursor of both the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and of
the Palestinian national struggle and movement to maintain a Palestinian
state. The terrorism, fanaticism, and ruthlessness of that movement reflect
the enduring legacy and influence of the Grand Mufti.
At the 1921 Cairo Conference, Britain and France divided up the Arab lands
to suit their colonial/imperialist objectives by forming spheres of
influence, in a region formerly ruled by Muslim Turkey. In the Sykes-Picot
Treaty, negotiated by Sir Mark Sykes and Charles Picot, these British-French
colonial spheres were formally established. Since 1875 when Britain gained
the Suez Canal, the Middle East was regarded as a key strategic region in
safeguarding naval routes in the British colonial empire.. The
British/French created Jordan under Emir Abdullah and installed King Faisal
in Iraq. Syria was placed under French control. The Balfour Declaration was
endorsed. The Islamic Arab Middle East was placed under British/French
imperial/colonial occupation/control. The British had occupied Palestine
since 1917. On July 7, 1922, the League of Nations approved the British
Mandate which had the goal of settling Muslim Arab Palestine with European
Jewish settlers.
The Mufti instigated and organized Muslim riots against Palestinian Jews in
1920, 1921, 1929, and 1936. In 1921, the Muft organized the fedayeen, Muslim
suicide squads. Following the 1936 riots, fearing imprisonment, he fled to
Lebanon. In 1939, the Mufti established his headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq,
where he set up a "political department" that maintained ties to Germany and
Italy. Germany sought to create a Berlin-Baghdad Axis and instigated a
pro-Nazi coup. Iraqi General Rashid Ali el Gailani, a militant Muslim
nationalist, and the Golden Square, a group of pro-Nazi Iraqi officers, took
over the Iraqi government. The Mufti sent representatives to Berlin and a
letter to Adolf Hitler. In a reply by German State Secretary Freiherr von
Weizsaecker, the Mufti was told that "the Fuehrer received your letter dated
January 20th.He took great interest in what you wrote him about the national
struggle of the Arabs. Germany . is ready to cooperate with you and to give
you all possible military and financial help. Germany is prepared to deliver
to you immediately military material." Abwehr, German intelligence,
established contacts with the Mufti at this time.
Nazi Germany sent arms and aircraft to the Mufti's forces in Iraq but the
British were able to reoccupy Iraq, forcing the Mufti and el Gailani to flee
to Teheran. The Mufti then flew to either Afghanistan or Turkey "where he is
known to have many friends". From there he arrived in Albania and on October
24 he reached southern Italy. On October 27, 1941, the Mufti arrived in
Rome. The Mufti would subsequently play a major role in organizing Muslim
support for Nazism in Europe.
On May 9, 1941, the Mufti broadcast a fatwa announcing a jihad, an Islamic
holy war, against Britain and he urged every Muslim to join in the struggle
against the "greatest foe of Islam": "I invite all my Muslim brothers
throughout the whole world to join in the holy war for Allah.to preserve
Islam, your independence and your lands from English aggression." The Mufti
envisioned a vast Arab-Muslim union which would unite Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
Syria, Palestine, Trans-Jordan, and Egypt with Germany and Italy creating a
Pan-Muslim/Arab Bloc of countries.
In December, 1931, the Grand Mufti organized an All-Islamic Conference in
Jerusalem. This would be the first time the Mufti would come in contact with
Bosnian Muslim political and religious leaders. Present at the Mufti's All
Islamic Conference were Bosnian Muslim leader Mehmed Spaho, the president of
the Yugoslavian Muslim Organization or JMO, Uzeiraga Hadzihasanovic, and
hadzi-Mujaga Merhemic. The Mufti was elected president of the Conference.
Franz Reichert, the director of the Palestine branch of the Deutsches
Nachrichten Buro (German News Bureau) from 1933 to 1938, established the
first contacts between Nazi Germany and Muslim leaders in the Middle East.
The Mufti approached representatives of the Nazi regime and sought
cooperation on July 21, 1937, when he visited the German Consul in
Jerusalem. He later sent an agent and personal representative to Berlin for
discussions with Nazi leaders.
SS Obergruppenfuehrer Reinhard Heydrich was second in command to Heinrich
Himmler in the SS hierarchy and was the chief of the Reich Security Head
Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA) and was the head of the
Sicherheitsdienst (SD), the SS Security Service. In Septemper, 1937,
Heydrich sent two SS officers, SS Hauptscharfuehrer Adolf Eichmann and SS
Oberscharfuehrer Herbert Hagen on a mission to Palestine, one of the main
objectives being to establish contact with the Grand Mufti. During this
period Husseini received financial and military aid and supplies from Nazi
Germany and fascist Italy.
After meeting Hitler and Ribbentrop in Berlin in 1941, the Mufti was
approached by Gottlob Berger, head of the SS Main Office in control of
recruiting, and by Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, who made him a part of
the SS apparatus. In May, 1943, the Mufti was moved to the SS main office
where he participated in the recruiting of Muslims in the Balkans, the USSR,
the Middle East, and North Africa. The Grand Mufti was instrumental in the
organization and formation of many Muslim units and formations in the Waffen
SS and Wehrmacht. Hundreds of thousands of Muslims fought for Nazi Germany
in the following formations and units: Two Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS
Divisions, an Albanian Waffen SS Division in Kosovo-Metohija and Western
Macedonia, the 21st Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg", a Muslim SS
self-defense regiment in the Rashka (Sandzak) region of Serbia, the Arab
Legion (Arabisches Freiheitskorps), the Arab Brigade, the Ostmusselmanische
SS-Regiment, the Ostturkischen Waffen Verband der SS made up of Turkistanis,
the Waffengruppe der-SS Krim, formations consisting of Chechen Muslims from
Chechnya, and a Tatar Regiment der-SS made up of Crimean Tatars, and other
Muslim formations in the Waffen SS and Wehrmacht, in Bosnia-Hercegovina, the
Balkans, North Africa, Nazi-occupied areas of the Soviet Union, and the
Middle East.
The SS Muslim State: The Nazi Protectorate of Bosnia-Hercegovina
On April 10, 1941, Slavko Kvaternik proclaimed the creation of the
Independent State of Croatia, Nezavisna Drzava Hrvatska, NDH, a Great or
Greater Croatia, Velika Hrvatska, following the German invasion and
occupation of Yugoslavia. Ironically, Croat and Muslim propaganda and policy
sought to create for their respective nationalities what they accused the
Serbs of seeking, Greater Croatia and Greater Muslim Bosnia. The NDH
consisted of the territories of Croatia, Bosnia-Hercegovina, and parts of
Serbia and was a Nazi-fascist puppet state created by Adolf Hitler and
Benito Mussolini, and ruled by the Ustashi ("insurgents"), Croatian Catholic
nationalists and Bosnian Muslims. The Vatican-supported NDH embarked upon a
massive and systematic program of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the
Serbian Orthodox populations, the Jewish populations, and the Gypsy or Roma
populations. The Ustasha regime doctrine was based on the intolerant
fanaticism of Roman Catholicism and the racist precepts of the 19th century
Croatian nationalist Ante Starcevic, regarded as the "father of his
country", he called for the extermination of the Serbs in Croatia and
Bosnia, "a race fit for the slaughterhouse". The President or Poglavnik of
the NDH was Ante Pavelic, born in Bosnia-Hercegovina, and the
Vice-President, from November, 1941 to April, 1945, was Dzafer Kulenovic, a
Bosnian Muslim born in Bihac. From April to November, 1941, the
Vice-President had been his brother, Osman Kulenovic. The Minister of the
Interior was Andrija Artukovic, born in Ljubuski, Bosnia-Hercegovina. The
Minister of Justice was Mirko Puk; Slavko Kvaternik was Minister of the
Army; Mile Budak was Minister of Education and Cults. Artukovic and Budak
personally received the Grand Mufti in Zagreb when Husseini was en route to
Sarajevo to oversee the formation of the Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS Division
in 1943.
Dzafer Kulenovic, the Bosnian Muslim Vice-President of the NDH, had been the
president of the Yugoslavian Muslim Organization (JMO, Jugoslovenska
Muslimanska Organizacija) and was the political leader of the Bosnian
Muslims. Eleven Muslim political leaders of the JMO were invited to be part
of the Ustasha NDH parliament in Zagreb. The Ustasha Commissioner for
Bosnia-Hercegovina was Bosnian Muslim Hakija Hadzic. The NDH was a Croatian
Catholic and Bosnian Muslim state which sought the extermination or genocide
of the Serbian Orthodox, Jewish, and Roma populations. The Serbian Orthodox
population was referred to as grkoistocnjaka in the NDH and were
de-recognized as a nationality group. On April 25, 1941, under Decree Law,
No. XXV-33Z, the Serbian Orthodox Cyrillic alphabet was outlawed and
Orthodox Serbs were forced to wear a blue band with the letter "P" for
Pravoslavac, Orthodox. In Belovar, Serbs were forced to wear a red armband
with the word "Serb". The NDH adopted the Nuremberg racial laws and began
the incarceration of Jews., who were forced to wear a yellow band with the
letter "Z", for Zidov, Jew.
On September 25, 1941, under decree-law, No. 1528-2101-Z-1941, the creation
of "assembly or work camps for undesirable and dangerous persons" was
authorized, which was the basis for the establishment of the Jasenovac
concentration camp in Croatia.
From the beginning of the German invasion of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian Muslims
had sought to convince the Germans that Bosnia-Hercegovina should be a Nazi
Protectorate, that is, have an autonomous political existence, a Greater
Islamic Bosnia, a Greater Muslim State. In 1941, over 100, 000 Bosnian
Muslim conscripts were available to fight in the military formations of the
Third Reich. Roman Catholic Croatian and Bosnian Muslim soldiers were in the
Ustasha death squads, the Domobranci (Home Guards), and the Croatian Army.
Bosnian Muslim soldiers were in the Nazi-Ustasha German-Croatian "Legion"
units, the 369th, 373rd, and 392nd Infantry Divisions. The 369th
German-Croatian Infantry Division, formed in 1942, was known as the Vrazja
Divizija or Devil Division commanded by Generalleutnant Fritz Neidholt. The
373rd German-Croatian Infantry Division was known as the Tigar Divizija or
Tiger Division. The 392nd German-Croatian Infantry Division was known as the
Plava Divizija, or Blue Division. The 369th Reinforced Croat Infantry
Regiment, made up of Croats and Bosnian Muslims, fought at Stalingrad where
it was destroyed. The NDH also sent the Italian-Croat Legion, attached to
the Italian 3rd Mobile Division, to the Russian front where it was destroyed
during the Don retreat. The 369th Reinforced Infantry Regiment, formed at
Varazdin, consisted of three battalions, two from Croatia, one from
Sarajevo. The Regiment left Zagreb on July 15, 1941 for the Doellersheim
Training Camp near Vienna, Austria. From here, the troops were transferred
by railroad to the USSR. The Regiment was deployed on various points on the
Russian Front: Krementchug, Jasy, Kirovograd, Permomaysk, Poltava, the
Dnieper River, Kharkov, Stalino. On May 15, 1942, the Regiment was deployed
on the Voronezh Front. On September 27, the Bosnian Muslim/Croat troops
deployed to Stalingrad where they fought to take the city. By February,
1943, the Regiment was totally annihilated and obliterated by the Russian
Red Army. The German/Axis forces were encircled and surrendered en masse in
Stalingrad.
The Bosnian Muslims formed purely Muslim formations as well, the most
important of which was the Muslim Volunteer Legion, led by Mohammed
Hadzieffendic. Other Muslim formations were the Zeleni Kadar/Kader (Green
Cadres), Nazi formations created by deserters from the Home Guards
(Domobranci), led by Neshad Topcic, the Muslim nationalist group, the Young
Muslims (Mladi Muslimani), Huska Miljkovic's Muslim Army, and the
Gorazde-Foca milicijas (policing units). Alija Izetbegovic was a key member
of the Young Muslims (Mladi Muslimani) group.
The Bosnian Muslim political and religious leaders, known as Muslim
autonomists, continued to argue for the establishment of a autonomous Nazi
Protectorate for Muslim Bosnia. They wrote Adolf Hitler a Memorandum and
interceded with the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in Berlin to support their goal
of creating a Nazi protectorate for Bosnia. The German commanders in
Croatia, the NDH, Foreign Minister Siegfried Kasche and General Edmund
Gleise von Horstenau, however, opposed the creation of a Protectorate for
Bosnia, supporting instead a unitary NDH.
On October 15, 1942, Bosnian Muslim religious and political leaders sent a
delegation from Mostar to a meeting in Rome with the Grand Mufti and Benito
Mussolini, who sought to gain influence in the Muslim countries and who
assumed the title of "Protector of Islam". The Bosnian Muslim delegation
consisted of the grand mufti of Mostar, Omer Dzabic, Ibrahim Fejic,
hadzi-Ahmed Karabeg, and Oman Sehic. The goal of the delegation was to
convince Mussolini to sponsor a Fascist Protectorate for Bosnia-Hercegovina,
an Italian-sponsored Greater Islamic State, like the Greater Albania made up
of Kosovo and Western Macedonia, which Italy did sponsor. A Fascist
Protectorate for Bosnia, however, did not result.
The Bosnian Muslim leadership remained determined to secure political
autonomy for Bosnia-Hercegovina by interceding with the Grand Mufti to use
his influence to create a Protectorate By 1943, the Mufti and the
Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler became convinced that the Bosnian Muslims
could be organized in Nazi formations to advance the objectives of the Third
Reich and of Islam. Himmler became a sponsor of the Muslim autonomists, the
Greater Muslim Bosnia ideology, and their movement to achieve autonomy for
Muslim Bosnia. Bosnian Muslim Reis-el-Ulema Hafiz Mohammed Pandza was a key
recruiter for the division and was himself a prominent Muslim autonomist, a
key proponent of the Great or Greater Muslim State of Bosnia, even though
the Serbian Orthodox were the largest population in Bosnia. Himmler
explained how he decided to form the Handzar Division as follows:
I decided to propose to the Fuehrer that we establish a Muslim Bosnian
Division. Many believed the notion to be so novel that they scoffed at it .
Such is the fate of all new ideas. I was told, "You're ruining the formation
of the Croatian state" and "No one will volunteer".. Germany and the Reich
have been friends of Islam for two centuries, owing not to expediency but to
friendly conviction. We have the same goals.
Himmler wanted to re-establish the continuity with the Austro-Hungarian
Habsburg Empire, which had formed Bosnian Muslim military formations.
Himmler sent the Mufti to Zagreb and to Sarajevo to prepare for the
formation of the Bosnian Muslim units. Himmler's SS representative in the
NDH, Konstantin Kammerhofer, was told to begin recruiting a Bosnian Muslim
Waffen SS Division of 26, 000 men, which if realized, would make it the
largest of all the SS Divisions.
In forming the Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS Division, Himmler overruled the
objections of the Pavelic regime, which considered such formations and
infringement on the sovereignty of the NDH. Himmler, as the second most
powerful leader in the Third Reich after Hitler, was able to create a de
facto Protectorate for Bosnia. He wanted to create an "SS recruiting zone",
an SS State administration in northeastern Bosnia to "restore order". Two
Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS Divisions would be created by 1944 to serve this
purpose.
Genocide in Bosnia-Hercegovina
On July 22, 1941, Mile Budak declared that the goal of the NDH was to create
a Croat Catholic and Bosnian Muslim state by the extermination of "foreign
elements", which were Orthodox Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies (Roma). His
statement is as follows: "The basis for the Ustasha movement is religion.
For minorities such as Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies, we have three million
bullets." He emphasized in a speech on July 6, 1941, that the Bosnian
Muslims were to be an integral part of the NDH: "The Croatian state is
Christian. It is also a Moslem state where our people are of the Mohammedan
religion." Orthodox churches and synagogues were plundered and destroyed and
Serbian Orthodox priests and Jewish rabbis were murdered.
On August 14, 1941, Ante Pavelic, a "Bosnian" by birth, in a speech in
Vukovar, in Srem, announced the official policy of the NDH:
This is now the Ustashi and Independent State of Croatia, it must be
cleansed of Serbs and Jews. There is no room for any of them here. Not a
stone upon a stone will remain of what once belonged to them.
Pavelic's speech and the law passed in Srem were published in the Ustasha
Hrvatski Narod newspaper of August 15 and 16, 1941.
In 1941, Pavelic declared: "The Jews will be liquidated within a very short
time." Following the Wannsee Conference of January 20, 1942, where the
"Final Solution to the Jewish Question" was formulated, the German regime
proposed through SS Sturmbannfuehrer Hans Helm that the Croats transfer
Jewish prisoners to German camps in the East. Eugen Dido Kvaternik, chief of
the NDH security services, agreed that the NDH would arrest the Jews, take
them to railheads, and pay the Germans 30 Reichsmarks per person for the
cost of transport to the extermination camps in the east. The Germans agreed
that the property of the Jews would go to the NDH government..
SS Haupsturmfuehrer Franz Abromeit was sent to supervise the deportations to
Auschwitz-Birkenau (Oswiecim-Brzezina). From August 13-20, 1942, 5, 500 Jews
from the NDH were transported to Auschwitz of five trains from the NDH
concentration camps at Tenje and Loborgrad and from Zagreb and Sarajevo.
Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler was on a state visit to Zagreb in May,
1943 when two trains on May 5 and 10 transported 1, 150 Jews to Auschwitz.
The largest concentration camp in Bosnia was the Kruscica camp near Travnik,
established in April-May, 1941, where many of Bosnia's Jews were killed.
On February 26, 1942, NDH Interior Minister Andrija Artukovic, gave a speech
before the NDH Parliament or Sabor in Zagreb in which he claimed the Jewish
question had been settled in the NDH:
The Croatian people, having re-established their independent state of
Croatia, could not do otherwise but to clean off the poisonous damagers and
insatiable parasites--Jews, Communists, Freemasons. The independent state of
Croatia, as an Ustashi state...settled the so-called Jewish question with a
decisive and healthy grasp.
The Serbian Orthodox population was the largest ethnic group in
Bosnia-Hercegovina. According to the 1931 Yugoslav census, out of a total
population of 2, 487, 652, 40.92% were Serbian Orthodox, 36.64% were Muslim,
and 22.44% were Roman Catholic Croats. The total Jewish population of
Bosnia-Hercegovina was approximately 14, 000 in 1941, 10, 500 of whom lived
in Sarajevo. In the 1931 census, there were 73, 000 Yugoslav Jews; in 1941,
there were 80, 000 Jews, including over 4, 000 Jewish refugees from Germany,
Austria, and other countries. The Jewish population was broken down as
follows: 60% were Ashkenazic and 40% were Sephardic. Due to the Serbian
Orthodox policy of fostering multi-ethnic and religious diversity and
religious and ethnic tolerance, interwar Yugoslavia had a thriving and
vibrant Jewish community. German-occupied Serbia had a population of 16, 000
Jews. The NDH had a total population of 40, 000 Jews, 11, 000 of whom lived
in Zagreb.
On April 16, German forces occupied Sarajevo and with local Bosnian Muslims,
looted and destroyed the Sephardic synagogue.
Entire Serbian Orthodox and Jewish communities in the Sarajevo region were
destroyed and Serbian, Jewish, and Roma, men, women, and children were
massacred by Bosnian Muslims and Croats. Numerous massacres occurred in the
Bosnian towns of Bihac, Brcko, and Doboj. Even the Germans began protesting
the bestiality and brutality of these massacres against Orthodox Serbs,
Jews, and Roma. Serbian Orthodox churches and Jewish synagogues were
plundered and destroyed and Serbian Orthodox priests and rabbis were
tortured and brutally murdered.
A large percentage of the Bosnian Serbian, Jewish, and Roma communities was
deported between September and November, 1941, to Jasenovac, and Djakovo,
and the Loborgrad camp for women from the Kruscica camp, located south of
Zenica and Travnik in central Bosnia. From the Kruscica concentration camp,
which functioned as a collection and transit camp, Orthodox Serbs, Roma, and
Jews, mostly from Sarajevo, were transported to the northern extermination
camps of the NDH, Jasenovac, Loborgrad, Stara Gradiska. Survivors were later
transferred to Auschwitz where they were gassed. Those who remained alive in
the NDH concentration camps were later transferred to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Bosnia-Hercegovina during World War II
In April, 1943, the Grand Mufti came to Sarajevo, where he was greeted by
cheering crowds and where he was photographed on the balcony of the
presidency building with Bosnian Muslim leaders, to organize the formation
of the Muslim SS Division. Husseini met with prominent Bosnian Muslim
leaders Uzeiraga Hadzihasanovic and hadzi-Mujaga Merhemic and spoke in the
Begova Djamija or Beg Mosque, exhorting Muslims to join the Waffen SS.
Bosnian Muslim muftis and imams, such as Mustafa and Halim Malkoc, harangued
Muslims in front of mosques to volunteer to join the proposed Muslim Waffen
SS Division.
The Bosnian Muslims formed two Nazi SS Divisions during World War II, the
13th Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Handzar" (or "Handschar" in German)
from the Turkish hancher, "dagger", from Arabic khangar, "dagger", and the
23rd Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Kama", from Turkish kama, "dagger,
dirk". During the war, Reichsfuehrer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the "architect of
the Holocaust", reviewed the Handzar Division in a German newsreel in 1943
while the division was being formed and trained in Silesia, at the Neuhammer
Waffen SS Training Camp in Germany. The Bosnian Muslims had approximately
20, 000-25, 000 men in the Waffen SS and police, roughly 4% of their total
population, one of the highest ratios of membership in the Nazi ranks as a
percentage of total population during the war.
The Schutzstaffel or SS, meaning "protective rank" or "defensive squadron"
in German, was a branch of the German National Socialist Worker's Party
(National Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei), the NSDAP, or Nazi
party. The SS was originally formed in 1925 as an elite bodyguard to Hitler
and the other Nazi leaders and was a part of the SA or Sturmabteilung
("storm troopers" in German) which was headed by Ernst Roehm. In 1929,
Himmler became the leader of the SS. On June 30, 1934, the "Night of the
Long Knives" ("die Nacht der langen Messer"), Himmler's SS troops executed
Roehm and the top leaders of the SA, destroying the power of the SA while
making the SS the key organization in the Nazi Party. The SS was a complex
evolving organization divided into the Allgemeine (General) Group, and the
Waffen (Armed) Group. The Waffen SS, established in 1940, was the combat
wing of the SS. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, which
tried war criminals after the war, declared the SS a criminal organization
and every individual member of the SS to be a war criminal guilty of
"planning and carrying out crimes against humanity."
Each member of the SS was supposed to represent the paragon of Nazi racial
purity and had to demonstrate a pure Aryan ancestry since 1750. The Race and
Settlement Office (Rasseund Siedlungshauptampt) headed by Richard Darre
investigated prospective members for racial purity. The two Bosnian Muslim
Waffen SS Divisions, Handzar and Kama, were radical departures from the
racial theories heretofore applied by the SS. Before Handzar, SS members had
been either German or Germanic, that is, Aryan or Nordic, the herrenvolk or
herrenmensch (the master race), and were Christians. Thus, inclusion of the
Slavic Muslims represented a radical departure for the SS at that time,
although Bosnian Muslim leaders argued that they were of Gothic, not Slavic,
origins.
The Bosnian Muslim troops in the 13th Waffen SS Gebirgs Division "Handzar"
and the several thousand in the 23rd Waffen SS Gebirgs Division "Kama" wore
a field-green fez, while officers wore a red or maroon fez. On the fez
itself appeared the Totenkopf (Death's Head) insignia of the SS and the
Hoheitszeichen (a white or silver eagle and the Nazi swastika). While
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, Kemal Pasha, had outlawed the fez in 1925 for Turkey
in the Hat Law, the Bosnian Muslims, continued to wear the fez.
The Muslim Handzar and Kama Divisions were organized on the model of the
Bosnian Muslim regiments of the Austro-Hungarian Army. The divisional names
are derived from the Turkish words "hancher" and "kama", which in Turkish
mean "dagger", were symbolic of Islam and Islamic military/political power
and the Islamic state. The Turkish word "hancher" is derived from the Arabic
word "khangar", "dagger". The handzar and kama were usually curved Turkish
daggers which the Muslim Ottoman Turkish Zaptiehs or police customarily
carried as weapons when Bosnia was under Turkish Ottoman rule. Thus, the
names of the divisions were meant to revive the Islamic historical
traditions of the Bosnian Muslims as the rulers and masters (begs or aghas)
of Bosnia-Hercegovina over the non-Muslim rayah or untermenschen or
mistmenschen, the subhumans, Orthodox Serb Christians, Jews, and Roma. This
was the meaning and symbolic significance of the names "handzar" and "kama".
Usually the Waffen SS Divisions were named after heroic local political or
military leaders. The Bosnian Muslims lacked any historical figures in their
history.
While the official, final designation of the Handzar or Handschar Division
was 13th Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS (the 13th Armed Mountain Division of
the SS), the Division was known by other names during its formation stages,
when it was under the control of SS Standartenfuehrer Herbert von Obwurzer:
Croat SS Volunteer Division (Kroatische SS Freiwilligen Division), SS
Division "Bosnien-Herzegowina"(SS Div.BH), Muselmanen Division (Muslim
Division), 13.SS-Bosniaken-Gebirgs-Division, Bosnisch-Herzegowinische SS
Gebirgsdivision "Kroatien".
These two Muslim SS Divisions were conceived as the armed forces of the de
facto Nazi protectorate which the Muslims sought to create for
Bosnia-Hercegovina, a Greater Islamic State, Greater Muslim Bosnia, Juden
frei and Serbien frei. Adolf Hitler ordered the creation of the Handzar
Division of February 10, 1943. The Handzar Division would be commanded by SS
Brigadefuehrer and Generalmajor of the Waffen SS, Karl-Gustav Sauberzweig, a
decorated Prussian World War I veteran who had been a Colonel in the German
Army. At its peak strength by the end of 1943, the division would consist of
21, 065 men, approximately 18, 000 of whom were Muslims, making it the third
largest of the approximately 40 SS Divisions formed during the war.
In June, 1944, Sauberzweig was promoted to Generalleutnant and assumed
command of the IX SS Mountain Corps. SS Brigadefuehrer and Generalmajor of
the Waffen SS Desiderius Hampel replaced him as commander of the Handzar
Division.
The Division had at least nine Bosnian Muslim officers, the highest ranking
of whom was SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Hussein Biscevic-Beg, who had been a
Muslim officer in the Austro-Hungarian Army when Bosnia was under
occupation. Initially, the Handzar Division was formed around the core of
the Muslim Volunteer Legion, led by Mohammed Hadzieffendic, which was close
to divisional strength itself. There were approximately 300 Albanian Muslim
troops in the Handzar division primarily from Kosovo-Metohija in Regiment
28, I/28. These Albanian Muslims would in 1944 be transferred to the 21st
Waffen Gebirgs Division "Skanderbeg" to occupy Kosovo and Western Macedonia.
Albanian Muslim squad leader Nazir Hodic was a prominent member of Handzar.
Albanian Muslim Ajdin Mahmutovic was seventeen when he joined the Handzar SS
Division: "I was only seventeen years old when I joined the SS. I found the
physical training to be quite easy."
Kama Division
Heinrich Himmler sought to create two Bosnian Muslim SS Divisions and two
Albanian Muslim SS Divisions for Kosovo and Western Macedonia. In a May 22.
1944 letter to Artur Phleps, Himmler stated:
My goal is clear: The creation of two territorial corps, one in Bosnia, the
other in Albania. These two corps, with the Division 'Prinz Eugen, ' as an
army of five SS mountain divisions . are the goal for 1944.
Adolf Hitler approved the formation of the second Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS
Division, 23rd Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Kama", on May 28, 1944,
although transfers and recruitments for the cadre personnel had been begun
on June 10.The objective was to recruit a Waffen SS Division of over 19, 000
troops but by September 10, 1944, the number of men in the still forming
division was 126 officers, 374 NCOs, and 3, 293 men, 3, 793 men in all. The
Kama Division was commanded by SS Standartenfuehrer Helmut Raithel, who had
earlier commanded the 28th Regiment of the Handzar Division. The Kama
Division was formed and trained in the Bacska/Bachka region, formerly part
of Yugoslavia, at that time annexed by Hungary. The region for the initial
formation of the division was in the area between the Sava, Bosna, and Speca
rivers. Later, the division was transferred to the Bacska region of the
Vojvodina region of Serbia. The Kama SS Division was made up of Bosnian
Muslim and German troops. Fredo Gensicke, a Reichdeutsche SS sergeant who
was transferred to the Kama Division on July 20, 1944, described the Bosnian
Muslim troops in Kama as follows:
There were forever complications with the Bosnian soldiers. ..On the other
hand, there were those Muslims so fanatical in their religion that one could
get a knife stuck in the back if you would twist your head around, forcing
the tassel on the Fez hat to move around.
The subsequent advance of the Russian Red Army and the retreat of the German
forces in Yugoslavia forced the Germans to disband the Kama Division by
September-October, 1944, after a roughly five month existence. The Kama
Division saw little if any actual combat and came too late in the war to
have a significant impact on the outcome.
Handzar Division
In January, 1944, the Mufti made a second visit to and spent three days with
the Handzar Division, which was departing from Germany for Bosnia by rail.
In a speech to the Division, he made the following declaration of principles
which was to guide not only Bosnian Muslims, but all Muslims throughout the
world:
This division of Bosnian Muslims established with the help of Greater
Germany, is an example to Muslims in all countries. There is no other
deliverance for them from imperialistic oppression than hard fighting to
preserve their homes and faith. Many common interests exist between the
Islamic world and Greater Germany, and those make cooperation a matter of
course. The Reich is fighting against the same enemies who robbed the
Muslims of their countries and suppressed their faith in Asia, Africa, and
Europe.
Germany is the only Great Power which has never attacked any Islamic
country. Further, National- Socialist Germany is fighting against world
Jewry. The Koran says: "You will find that the Jews are the worst enemies of
the Muslims." There are also considerable similarities between Islamic
principles and those of National-Socialism, namely in the affirmation of
struggle and fellowship, in stressing leadership, in the idea of order, in
the high valuation of work. All this brings our ideologies close together
and facilitates cooperation. I am happy to see in this division a visible
and practical expression of both ideologies.
Husseini referred to the Bosnian Muslims as the "cream of Islam" and in a
speech to the imams in the Handzar Division, explained why the Muslim/Arab
world should support the Axis/Nazi Germany:
Friendship and collaboration between two peoples must be built on a firm
foundation. The necessary ingredients here are common spiritual and material
interests as well as the same ideals. The relationship between the Muslims
and the Germans is built on this foundation. Never in its history has
Germany attacked a Muslim nation. Germany battles world Jewry, Islam's
principal enemy. Germany also battles England and its allies, who have
persecuted millions of Muslims, as well as Bolshevism, which subjugates
forty million Muslims and threatens the Islamic faith in other lands. Any
one of these arguments would be enough of a foundation for a friendly
relationship between two peoples.. My enemy's enemy is my friend.
You, my Bosnian Muslims, are the first Islamic division, and serve as an
example of the active collaboration between Germany and the Muslims. I .
wish you much success in your holy mission.
Husejin Dzozo, a key imam in Handzar, wrote a letter to Himmler thanking him
for creating an imam school, for increased bread rations, and for Himmler's
donations to Bosnian Muslim families of the Division's members:
These deeds signify the great benevolence for us Muslims and for Bosnia in
general. I therefore consider it my duty to extend our thanks to the
Reichsfuehrer SS in the names of the division's imams as well as in the
names of the hundreds of thousands of Bosnia's poor in I pledge that we are
prepared to lay down our lives in battle for the great leader Adolf Hitler
and the New Europe.
The imams in Handzar all spoke Arabic and argued that Bosnia belonged
racially to the Germanic world, but spiritually to the Arab world,
maintaining the argument that the Bosnian Muslims were of Gothic, that is
Germanic/Nordic/Aryan origins, even though they spoke a Slavic language,
Serbo-Croatian. Each battalion and regimental staff was assigned an imam.
The imams organized the Jumah, Islamic prayer services, and the celebrations
of the Islamic holidays. Every month on Friday afternoon, each member of
Handzar was allowed to take part in a mass Jumah service. The imams washed
the bodies of Muslims who had died in combat according to Muslim custom.
Himmler stated that the imams were the "ideological teachers in the
battalions."
Imam Dzozo outlined his goals for the Bosnian Muslim SS soldier as follows:
Bosnia's best sons are serving in the SS.After victory is achieved, a new,
important task must be completed--the implementation of the New Order..
Through the Versailles-Diktat, Europe was thrust into a totally senseless
foundation, and under the name of democracy, Jews and Freemasons played key
roles in political and societal life..It will not be easy to liberate Europe
from these enemies, but the SS man . shall build a better future for Europe.
After the Islamic Ramadan holiday, a Bairam celebration was conducted at
which time Imam Abdulah Muhasilovic spoke to the troops:
The world's Muslims are engaged in a terrible life-or-death struggle. Today,
a war of enormous magnitude is being waged; a war as humanity has never
before experienced. The entire world has divided itself into two camps. One
stands under the leadership of the Jews. About whom Allah says in the Koran,
"They are your enemy and Allah's enemy." And that is the English, Americans,
and Bolsheviks, who fight against faith, against Allah, against morality,
and a just order.
On the other side stands National Socialist Germany with its allies, under
the leadership of Adolf Hitler, who fight for Allah, faith, morality, and a
fairer and more righteous order in the world, as well as for a fairer
distribution of all goods that Allah has produced for all people.
The Mufti expressed his support for Japan, sending Emperor Hirohito a
message which praised Japan as a "champion of the liberation of the Asiatic
peoples from the yoke of the British and Jewish capitalist." In a broadcast
of September 20, 1944, he declared:
We desire victory for Germany and Japan ..We can expect nothing from the
Allies who are controlled by world Jewry.
On November 11, 1943, over Radio Bari, the Mufti "my people" to fight the
British and the Jews to the death:
If America and England win the war the Jews will dominate the world.
On March 1. 1944, the Mufti attacked American policy in the Middle East in a
radio broadcast from Berlin:
No one ever thought that 140, 000 Americans would become tools in Jewish
hands.How would the Americans dare to Judaize Palestine?.The wicked American
intentions towards the Arabs are now clear, and there remain no doubts that
they are endeavoring to establish a Jewish empire in the Arab world.
The Donauzeitung (The Danube Times) newspaper of December 31, 1942 reported
that the Mufti had donated over 240, 000 Kuna, the currency of the NDH
regime, to the Muslim charity organization in Sarajevo from German
government sources. Himmler donated 100, 000 Reichsmarks. The SS bought
clothing which was donated to the Merhamed welfage organization, a Muslim
charity.
In the spring of 1944, in a German radio broadcast from Zittau, Germany, the
Mufti issued a call to Bosnian and Yugoslav Muslims to hold Islamic prayer
services for seven days to pray that the German military forces may achieve
success.
The Bosnian Muslim Handzar and Kama Divisions fought mainly against Orthodox
Serbs, who made up the bulk of the guerrilla and resistance movements, and
who were associated with the enemies of the Third Reich, Communism and
England, or as Heinrich Himmler termed it, the " common
Jewish-Anglo-Bolshevik enemy". On March 1, 1944, the Grand Mufti issued from
Berlin the following call to all Muslims: "Kill the Jews wherever you find
them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. Allah
is with you." Moreover, the Mufti called upon Bosnian Muslims to "take
revenge and to punish" Bosnian Serb Orthodox Christians. Numerous eyewitness
accounts testified that the Handzar Division committed the "worst atrocities
against the Serbian population." In a photograph of troops of the Division,
members are seen reading the pamphlet Islam und Judentum (Islam and Jewry),
which explained the Nazi position on the Jewish Question and how it related
to Muslims.These were prepared from the Mufti's schools and training centers
in Germany the Dresden school for Muslims in the Waffen SS, and the
Goettingen school for Muslims in the German Wehrmacht.
Heinrich Himmler was determined to create the two Bosnian Muslim Waffen SS
Divisions, although he met with opposition from the NDH regime and from
sources within the SS itself. In a letter to Konstantin Kammerhofer, his SS
representative in the NDH, he urged that "strong steps" be taken to convince
the NDH regime that is was supposed to be a puppet regime: "I expect to
receive, by August 1, 1943, your report that the division, at a strength of
about 26, 000 men, is completely ready." Himmler ordered Gottlob Berger to
send Kammerhofer two million Reichsmarks to fund the recruiting effort for
the Handzar division. Unlike most SS officials, Himmler was convinced of the
fighting ability of the Bosnian Muslims, partly from his understanding of
the role of the Bosnian Muslims as soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian Imperial
Army before and during World War I and his belief that Islam was an ideal
religion for a soldier. Himmler stated to Joseph Goebbels that he had
"nothing against Islam because it educates the men in this Division for me
and promises them heaven if they fight and are killed in action; a very
practical and attractive religion for soldiers!" Himmler's policy of using
Islam as a bulwark against Orthodox Serbia and Orthodox Russia would later
be the policy of Zbiniew Brzezinski, Madeleine Albright, the Pentagon, and
the CIA. Ossama Bin Laden and the mujahedeen forces in Afghanistan would be
armed, trained, and supplied by the US government. This policy would then be
applied in the Balkans. Like Hitler, Mussolini, and Himmler, the US policy
was to use the Bosnian and Albanian Muslims as a bulwark against the Serbian
Orthodox populations. Like Himmler's policy, the US policy was divide and
conquer, manipulate ethnic and religious groups to attack and kill each
other so that a foreign military power can occupy the region, whether it is
the Waffen SS or NATO. Historically, the dynamics are identical.
The Bosnian Muslim troops in the Waffen SS Divisions were accorded the same
privileges they had enjoyed in the Imperial Austro-Hungarian Army: special
rations and the observance of Islamic religious rites. Each battalion in the
Divisions had an Imam and each regiment a Mullah. Following the 1878
occupation of Bosnia-Hercegovina by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, four
infantry regiments were recruited from the Muslim population: the
Bosnia-Hercegovina Regiment No. 1, recruited around Sarajevo; the Regiment
No. 2, recruited around Banja Luka; the Regiment No.3, recruited around
Tuzla; and, the Regiment No.4, recruited around Mostar. Following the
outbreak of World War I, these Muslim regiments in the Austro-Hungarian
Imperial Army would be thrust against the Serbian Army. The Handzar and Kama
Divisions were modeled on the earlier Austro-Hungarian Muslim regiments. As
Gerald Reitlinger explained in The SS: Alibi of a Nation: "These Moslems
were the traditional enemies of the Christian Serbs, and in 1941 their
religious zeal had urged them to join in the massacres of Serbs...As pillage
was followed by discipline, the energy of the Mujos was canalised into the
Waffen SS. The Mujos were organised on the lines of the Bosnian regiments of
the old Imperial Austrian army, with officers and even N.C.O.s of German
race, but they wore the Turkish fez with their SS runes and ...each
battalion had an Imam."
On June 23, 1943, Himmler prepared a special SS oath for the Bosnian Muslim
troops which read as follows:
I swear to the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, as Supreme Commander of the German
Armed Forces, to be loyal and brave. I swear to the Fuehrer and to the
leaders whom he may designate, obedience unto death.
Himmler included a clause pledging the Muslims to swear to "always be loyal"
to the NDH and to Ante Pavelic, which was meant to prevent any conflict
between Muslims and Croats and the NDH regime, which opposed the formation
of the Division. The Handzar and Kama Divisions were listed as "Kroatische
No.1 and No.2" respectively to appease the Ustasha NDH regime. Himmler
initially envisioned a division made up entirely of Muslims. Sauberzweig
stated that "over 90% of the division's soldiers were Muslims" on November
5, 1943. Himmler had to compromise on this issue and allowed Croat troops to
join the division. The estimate of Roman Catholic Croats in the division
ranged from "300 or so" to 2, 800. After a visit to Zagreb on May 5, 1943,
Himmler stipulated that the ratio of Roman Catholics to Muslims "was not to
exceed 1:10." The divisions were Croat in name only, that is, nominally.
Some German officers even wore the Ustasha checkerboard symbol, but Muslim
leaders and the troops in the division perceived the divisions as Bosnian
Muslim.
Berger ordered the Croatian government to release all the Muslim NCOs and
enlisted troops in the NDH formations for service in the Handzar Division.
The Muslims were to be released from the I Ustasha Brigade and the 9th
Infantry Regiment of the Croatian Army. This information from the Waffen SS
files is significant because it demonstrates that Bosnian Muslims were
integral parts of the Ustaha formations and NDH military forces, formations
and units that were engaged in the mass murder and ethnic cleansing of
Bosnian Orthodox Serbs. Importantly, it disproves the propaganda position
that the Bosnian Muslims were "victims" and did not participate in the
genocide against the Serbian Orthodox populations. The Bosnian Muslims
played an integral and essential role in the extermination of Bosnian Serbs,
Jews, and Roma.
In a 1943 report prepared by the Serbian Eastern Orthodox Diocese for the US
and Canada, the following description of the Bosnian Muslim role in the
massacres appeared:
The behavior of the Muslims was traditionally treacherous. As always, they
were in the camp of those who were momentarily in power. More than 95% of
Muslims joined the Ustashi and participated very actively in the massacre of
the Serbs, as, for instance, in the city of Mostar, where great numbers of
killings were done personally by Huremovich, a Muslim. .The Ustasha terror
began in Mostar. The Ustashi, the majority of them local Mohammedans, are
arresting, looting and shipping off Serbs or killing them and throwing their
bodies in the Neretva River.They are throwing Serbs alive into chasms and
are burning whole families locked in their homes.Outside of Zagreb the
strongest Ustasha hotbed is Sarajevo.The Muslims committed unbelievable
barbarities for they murdered women and children even with scissors.
General Draza Mihailovich described the Muslim massacres as follows:
Entire districts were devastated by the Muslims, The Drina River carried
many bodies from one bank to the other.
The propaganda position that the Bosnian Muslims were innocent "victims" and
had no complicity in the genocide against Bosnian Serbs was developed after
World War II to maintain the Communist policy of "brotherhood and unity" and
to gain patronage with the Muslim/Arab countries The post-war Yugoslav
Communist dictatorship painted an erroneous, inaccurate, and false picture
of Islam to gain favor and economic/political advantages with Muslim/Arab
countries. But all the evidence proves that the Bosnian Muslims participated
actively in the genocide against the Orthodox Serbian population and were
not "victims" at all.
Herbert von Obwurzer recruited Albanian Muslims from Kosovo-Metohija and
Sandzak for the Division. The I/2 battalion consisted of approximately 300
ethnic Albanian Muslims. Gottlob Berger stated that "when the division
returned to Croatia, additional volunteers would be recruited, and the
Albanians would be returned to their homeland, where they would form the
cadre for an Albanian division." The Albanian division would be the 21st
Waffen Gebirgs Division der SS "Skanderbeg", consisting primarily of
Albanian Muslims from Kosovo-Metohija. Himmler planned to form a second
Albanian SS Division but the war ended before this could be done. The Waffen
SS recruiting of Albanian Muslims in the Greater Albanian state, which
included Kosovo and Western Macedonia was objected to by Hermann Neubacher,
who was the German Plenipotentiary in Albania because they violated the
sovereignty of Albania.
When Handzar occupied eastern and northern Bosnia in the spring and summer
of 1944, to "restore order", it assumed control over its own munitions,
without consulting NDH officials, placed civilian authority under Muslim
control, and "liquidated" organs of the NDH Ustasha regime. There was a
direct challenge and conflict to and negation of the sovereignty of the NDH.
On August 6, 1943, Himmler wrote the following letter to his representative
in the NDH, SS Gruppenfuehrer and Generalleutnant der Polizei Konstantin
Kammerhofer and to Artur Phleps, commander of the Vth SS Mountain Corps
outlining guidelines for the enlistment of Muslims in the Waffen SS and
police:
All Moslem members of the Waffen SS and police are to be afforded the
undeniable right of their religious demands never to touch pork, pork
sausages nor to drink alcohol...I hold all commanders...and other SS
officers, responsible for the most scrupulous and loyal respect for this
privilege especially granted to the Muslims. They have answered the call of
the Moslem chiefs and have come to us out of hatred for the common
Jewish-Anglo-Bolshevik enemy and through respect and fidelity for he who
they respect above all, the Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler... There will no longer be
the least discussion about the special rights afforded to the Moslems in
these circles.
Heil Hitler
(signed) H. Himmler
The Handzar and Kama Divisions, stationed in the Bosnian towns of Brcko,
Bijeljina, Tuzla, Gradacac, and Zvornik, engaged in a policy termed by the
Nazis as "pacification" of the population, which consisted of genocide and
ethnic cleansing of Serbs and Jews in eastern and northern Bosnia.
Sauberzweig wrote that the objective of Handzar was as follows: "The
division is to liberate Bosnia. The Muslim population is bound to this
land." The Muslim SS Divisions followed a policy of ethnic cleansing
(ciscenje, in Serbo-Croat), "cleansing the land of bandits and ethnic
enemies" from a directive for the divisions. In the Brcko and Bijeljina
regions of northern and eastern Bosnia, units of the Handzar Division
"butchered everyone not wearing a fez" ("klali su sve sto nije nosilo fes")
based on eyewitness accounts. The Muslim Waffen SS troops, raped, pillaged,
and massacred Orthodox Serbs and Jews without regard for age or sex. The
Divisions were exhorted in their 1944 directives to "exterminate enemies,
exterminate the community, but leave intact the houses, land and effects of
the enemies." Unarmed Serbs and Jews, not murdered in the first great wave
of genocide, were massacred and ethnically cleansed in Rogatica, Vlasenica,
Srebrenica, and Visegrad. Ethnically pure Muslim settlements were created
("cistih narodnih naselja" in Serbo-Croat, from a 1944 report).
The two Muslim SS Divisions were assisted in their "pacification" program by
the Nazi formation, Zeleni Kadar ("Green Cadres" in Serbo-Croat), consisting
of at least 6, 000 Bosnian Muslim deserters from the Ustasha Domobranci. The
Zeleni Kadar was led by Neshad Topcic, a rabidly pro-Nazi Muslim who
advocated the extermination of the Serbian population of Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Topcic advocated the creation of a "united Muslim phalange" or phalanx
organized against Orthodox Serbs, Orthodox Macedonians, Jews, and Roma,
consisting of a union of Bosnia, Albanian, and Rashka (Sandzak) Muslims,
forming a Great or Greater Islamic union, a Greater Pan-Muslim alliance.
A Greater Pan-Islamic State was advocated by the Albanian Bedri Pejani, the
Muslim leader of the Albanian National Committee, who presented a plan to
the Grand Mufti calling for the extermination of the Serbian population of
Kosovo-Metohija and a union of Greater Albania, consisting of
Kosovo-Metohija, Western Macedonia, and southern Montenegro,
Bosnia-Hercegovina, and the Rashka (Sandzak) region of Serbia into a Greater
Islamic State, a Pan-Islamic State in the Balkans. The Grand Mufti approved
the Pejani plan as being in the interest of Islam, but the Germans rejected
the plan.
The Muslim Waffen SS Divisions were known for their atrocities against
civilians and for their bestial acts against anti-Nazi guerillas. Himmler's
liaison officer at Hitler's headquarters, SS Brigadefuehrer Hermann
Fegelein, who had commanded the 8th SS Kavallerie Division "Florian Geyer"
in Russia and Hungary, described to Hitler the fanaticism and bestiality of
the Bosnian Muslim troops, which even appalled the SS leaders, as follows:
The enemy takes off with all its things when they [the Bosnian Muslims] move
in.
They kill them only with their knives. There was one man who was wounded. He
allowed his arm to be bandaged and then went on to finish off 17 more of the
enemy with his left hand. Cases also occur where they [the Bosnian Muslims]
cut the heart out of their enemy.
Hitler was dismayed at this graphic account which interrupted a high-level
military conference. Hitler dismissed Fegelein's account with, "Das ist
Wurst" (German, literally, "that is sausage", meaning, "that is nonsense").
Hermann Schifferdecker, an officer who served on the Handzar division staff,
dismissed these accounts in 1992, stating that Hermann Fegelein "had
obviously read too much Karl May during his youth." This statement is
contradicted by the following: The brutality, bestiality, and Islamic
religious fanaticism of the Muslim troops as shown by Kama Division member
Ferdo Gensicke who stated that the Muslims in Kama would knife you in the
back if the tassel on their fez was moved around and by the massacre of the
entire Serbian Orthodox population of Bela Crkva during Operation Signpost.
Bela Crkva Massacre
Himmler set as the goal of the division to secure northeastern Bosnia, the
area between the Sava, Bosna, Spreca, and Drina rivers which was a vital
agricultural region settled by ethnic Germans in Srem and Orthodox Serbs.
Before Handzar could advance into this sector, the Bosut would have to be
occupied under Operation Signpost. Before the operation began, the Bosnian
Muslim troops in Handzar celebrated the Muslim holiday of Mevlud on March 7,
which celebrated the life of the prophet Mohammed. Under Sauberzweig's
orders, the commanders and the imams in the division distributed Islamic
food rations and conducted Islamic religious rites.
On March 12, 1944, the Handzar Division was advanced into the Bosut region
to cross the Sava River. Spearhead F entered the Serbian Orthodox village of
Bela Crkva (White Church). In his diary entry for that day, Jorg Deh
reported that it found "the enemy gone, having murdered all of the town's
inhabitants." In fact, Spearhead J of Task Force A.A. 13 of the Handzar
Division was ordered to seize the town on March 10. The Bosnian Muslims
troops murdered every Serbian Orthodox resident of the town, man, woman, and
child. German officers reported that all the Serbian inhabitants of Bela
Crkva had been murdered and that nothing alive remained in the town. The
German officers denied responsibility for the war crime and act of genocide,
blaming it on "the enemy". But why would the Yugoslav resistance groups,
composed mostly of Serbian troops themselves, massacre their own? The only
hostile units in the area were units of the Bosnian Muslim Handzar Division.
Karl-Gustav Sauberzweig, in his Operation Signpost ( Unternehmen Wegweiser)
orders, had written that "restraint was only necessary in dealing with the
local ethnic German population" because the Bosut was "not inhabited by
Muslims." During Operation Sava (Unternehmen Save), the Handzar Division
crossed the Sava River in northern Bosnia and occupied northeastern Bosnia.
Muslim Genocide
The number of Bosnian Orthodox Serbs murdered during World War II in
Bosnia-Hercegovina is estimated at over two hundred thousand. Of the 10, 500
Jews of Sarajevo before the war, only about 800 survived the Holocaust. Of
the approximately 14, 000 Jews of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 12, 000 would be
killed.
In conjunction with the extermination of the Orthodox Serbs of Bosnia, as we
have seen, Jews, as well as Gypsies (Roma), were also victims of a planned
and systematic program of genocide. This fact is crucial in analyzing the
Bosnian civil war of 1992-1995.The Holocaust in Bosnia-Hercegovina, from
1941 to 1945 revealed the fragile and precarious ethnic, religious, and
cultural balance and the incompatible and conflicting ethnic, religious,
nationalist, and political agendas of the population of Bosnia.
The Polish jurist Raphael Lemkin, who developed the concept of "genocide"
and was instrumental in post-war efforts to create international legislation
that would prevent and punish genocide, sought to dedicate his efforts so
that mankind would learn from the experiences of history. The Genocide
Convention of 1948 resulted.
The word "genocide" was coined by Raphael Lemkin in Axis Rule in Occupied
Europe (1944) because "mass murders" and "denationalization" did not
encompass the magnitude of the crime. In 1933, Lemkin proposed at the Fifth
International Conference for the Unification of Criminal Law, sponsored by
the League of Nations, that genocide be regarded an international crime. His
proposal was rejected. Lemkin described how he coined the word "genocide" as
follows:
This word is made from the ancient Greek word genos (race, clan) and the
Latin suffix cide (killing)....Genocide is the crime of destroying national,
racial or religious groups.... The conscience of mankind has been shocked by
this type of mass barbarity.
Lemkin argued that genocide must be made an international crime because " a
state would never prosecute a crime instigated or backed by itself."
In August, 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill lamented in
describing the German systematic destruction and mass murders of European
populations as follows: "We are in the presence of a crime without a name."
Today, that crime is called genocide. What occurred during 1941-1945 in
Bosnia-Hercegovina, the systematic and planned mass murders and
extermination of the Bosnian Orthodox Serb and Bosnian Jewish and Roma
populations, would be termed genocide under present international law and
the Genocide Convention.
Bibliography
Bender, Roger James and Hugh Page Taylor. Uniforms, Organization, and
History of the Waffen-SS. 5 vols. San Jose: R. James Bender Publishing,
1969-1982.
Cornwell, John. Hitler's Pope: The Secret History of Pius XII. NY: Viking,
1999.
Kumm, Otto. Prinz Eugen: The History of the 7 SS Mountain Division "Prinz
Eugen". Winnipeg: J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing Inc., 1995.
Lepre, George. Himmler's Bosnian Division: The Waffen-SS Handschar Division
1943-1945.Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing Ltd., 1997.
Munoz, Antonio. Forgotten Legions: Obscure Combat Formations of the Waffen
SS. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1991.
Pearlman, Maurice. Mufti of Jerusalem: The Story of Haj Amin el-Husseini.
London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., 1947.
Redzic, Enver. Muslimansko autonomastvo i 13.SS divizija. Sarajevo:
Svjetlost, 1987. (IN Serb-Croat.)
Stein, George H. The Waffen-SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War 1939-1945.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----
That should keep you going for now.
Tilly
climbaboard@remove_me.hotmail.com
Osric
You wouldn't know truth if it bit you on the ass, and even if you did you
did misquote it. I notice you haven't refuted a word I said in your search
for the truth. The truth is you haven't a clue.
Tilly
All you are doing is making excuses for them.They collaborated.
Face facts.
Tilly
--
climbaboard@remove_me.hotmail.com
Osric
So did the Zionists, face facts
--
THE BORDERS OF MY COUNTRY
RUN AROUND THE SOLES OF MY FEET
Osric
>
> Tilly
>
>
> --
> climbaboard@remove_me.hotmail.com
>
>
Yosarian
The collaboration and goals were far different, but then you knew
that, didn't you? So much for the truth that you are so much enamored
of.
Osric
paste other peoples flawed work. Half of what you posted here I have already
adressed. I am happy to discuss tthe links between both Palestinians and
Zionists with the Nazi regime and the power politicis that made for the
strangest of bed-fellows. These are interesting topics that I have studied
for years.
I suggest that you use better sources than internet propaganda sites for
your information. I have already demonstated the lack of quality of the
sites you cite.
Osric
Yosarian <Yosar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ag0hous4nk7rt5o0c...@4ax.com...
They weren't that different. The Mufti courted the Nazis to protect his
people from Jewish immigration and the catastrophe that resulted for his
people, and the Zionists were trying to do the opposite for exactly the same
reason
I pointed out the fact that in the original post it was suggested that
Eichmann and Hagen's trip to Palestine was to see the Mufti whereas in fact
it was to see a representative of the Haganah.
So much for the truth that you are so much enamored
> of.
What did I say that wasn't truthful?
Ariadne
news:amarju$hg8$1...@venus.btinternet.com...
>
> Yosarian <Yosar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:ag0hous4nk7rt5o0c...@4ax.com...
> > On Wed, 18 Sep 2002 01:51:12 +0000 (UTC), "Osric"
> > that, didn't you?
>
> They weren't that different. The Mufti courted the Nazis to protect his
> people
###
Oh, those Egyptians?
zogsux
Here we go again. For those not in the know, this is called the "there
is no such thing as Palestinians" line. About 95% of the Jews and
Judeophiles in this groups are totally enamored of this nonsensical,
ludicrous, psychotic idiocy, and love to chant this hilarious line all
the time. If you try to disagree and say there were and are such thing
as Palestinians, you get flooded with the typical Jewish "quote flood"
of a bunch of biased, silly, off-topic, irrelevant, asinine material,
all from Zionists and their nutball supporters.
In case you are wondering what this silly guy Ariadne is saying above,
he is implying that 100% of the so-called Palestinians in Palestine from
1935-45 were actually people called "Egyptians". Are these Zionists
looney-toons or what? LOL! Can you believe that insane, delirious,
drooling, crazed fanatics (which make up 80% of the Jewish population)
like Ariadne have completely captured the US media and government on
this issue? Wow, what a joke, man!
Yosarian
<Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote:
Wrong, the Zionists were attempting to get all the Jews out of
Germany, and thereby saving lives. The Mufti was more then willing to
help the Nazi Regime in the murder of Jews, and certainly helped raise
men for the Nazi Army. Certainly that is much different.
>
>I pointed out the fact that in the original post it was suggested that
>Eichmann and Hagen's trip to Palestine was to see the Mufti whereas in fact
>it was to see a representative of the Haganah.
>
>So much for the truth that you are so much enamored
>> of.
>
>What did I say that wasn't truthful?
Yes, like I said, you weren't truthful.
Osric
Yes thats what I said. I said the Palestinians were attempting to stop
immigration which would have saved Palestinian lives, and the Zionists were
trying to encourage immigration to save Jewish lives.
The Mufti was more then willing to
> help the Nazi Regime in the murder of Jews, and certainly helped raise
> men for the Nazi Army. Certainly that is much different.
Yep that much is different. Both sides did not cover themselves in glory vis
a vis the Nazis, but desperate times call for desperate measures, and
neither side achieved very much by the association. I never condemned the
Zionists for this, I merely pointed it out.
>
> >
> >I pointed out the fact that in the original post it was suggested that
> >Eichmann and Hagen's trip to Palestine was to see the Mufti whereas in
fact
> >it was to see a representative of the Haganah.
> >
> >So much for the truth that you are so much enamored
> >> of.
> >
> >What did I say that wasn't truthful?
>
> Yes, like I said, you weren't truthful.
About what?
Kim Bebbington
<Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>Yosarian <Yosar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>news:sscjouohc83rn6mef...@4ax.com...
snip
>> Wrong, the Zionists were attempting to get all the Jews out of
>> Germany, and thereby saving lives.
>
>Yes thats what I said. I said the Palestinians were attempting to stop
>immigration which would have saved Palestinian lives,
WHAT??????
How was Jewish immigration during the war years a threat to
"Palestinian lives"???? Arab lives were not under threat from Jewish
immigration.
You sound like an apologist for Islamic Jihad.
zogsux
>
> On Fri, 20 Sep 2002 01:09:09 +0000 (UTC), "Osric"
> <Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote:
> >
> >Yes thats what I said. I said the Palestinians were attempting to stop
> >immigration which would have saved Palestinian lives,
>
> WHAT??????
> How was Jewish immigration during the war years a threat to
> "Palestinian lives"???? Arab lives were not under threat from Jewish
> immigration.
Well, look how many Palestinians have died since, due to all this mass
Jewish immigration.
>
> You sound like an apologist for Islamic Jihad.
Maybe they are right on a thing or two? I went to the Hamas website the
other day. Awful lot of hard, factual, historical material there.
>
Tilly
>
> Maybe they are right on a thing or two? I went to the Hamas website
> the other day. Awful lot of hard, factual, historical material there.
LOL
ROFL
You are joking of course.
ROFL
Tilly
climbaboard@remove_me.hotmail.com
Kim Bebbington
>Kim Bebbington wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 20 Sep 2002 01:09:09 +0000 (UTC), "Osric"
>> <Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >Yes thats what I said. I said the Palestinians were attempting to stop
>> >immigration which would have saved Palestinian lives,
>>
>> WHAT??????
>> How was Jewish immigration during the war years a threat to
>> "Palestinian lives"???? Arab lives were not under threat from Jewish
>> immigration.
>
>Well, look how many Palestinians have died since, due to all this mass
>Jewish immigration.
"Jewish immigration" kills?????
What is it exactly about the presence of Jews that proves fatal to
Palestinian Arabs?
Like I said, this sounds like an argument from Islamic Jihad or Der
Sturmer...
>>
>> You sound like an apologist for Islamic Jihad.
>
>Maybe they are right on a thing or two?
Hardly. But it seems I was quite right in my assessment of you...
> I went to the Hamas website the
>other day. Awful lot
"Awful" indeed...
Osric
Kim Bebbington <ki...@gol.com> wrote in message
news:kc2loucqq823g454q...@4ax.com...
> On Fri, 20 Sep 2002 01:09:09 +0000 (UTC), "Osric"
> <Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Yosarian <Yosar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> >news:sscjouohc83rn6mef...@4ax.com...
>
> snip
>
> >> Wrong, the Zionists were attempting to get all the Jews out of
> >> Germany, and thereby saving lives.
> >
> >Yes thats what I said. I said the Palestinians were attempting to stop
> >immigration which would have saved Palestinian lives,
>
> WHAT??????
> How was Jewish immigration during the war years a threat to
> "Palestinian lives"???? Arab lives were not under threat from Jewish
> immigration.
Oh come now, whatever the rights and wrongs of the creation of the State of
Israel you cannot possibly suggest that it was anything but an unmitigated
disaster for the Palestinian people and resulted in thousands of Palestinian
deaths that continues to this day. This surely isn't controversial.
>
> You sound like an apologist for Islamic Jihad.
Thats hardly fair. I've never been an apologist for Islamic Jihad and am on
record as having condemned suicide bombing.
--
THE BORDERS OF MY COUNTRY
RUN AROUND THE SOLES OF MY FEET
Osric
>
zogsux
>
> On Thu, 19 Sep 2002 20:57:42 -0700, zogsux <z...@sux.con> wrote:
>
> >Kim Bebbington wrote:
> >>
> >> On Fri, 20 Sep 2002 01:09:09 +0000 (UTC), "Osric"
> >> <Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote:
> >> >
> >> >Yes thats what I said. I said the Palestinians were attempting to stop
> >> >immigration which would have saved Palestinian lives,
> >>
> >> WHAT??????
> >> How was Jewish immigration during the war years a threat to
> >> "Palestinian lives"???? Arab lives were not under threat from Jewish
> >> immigration.
> >
> >Well, look how many Palestinians have died since, due to all this mass
> >Jewish immigration.
>
> "Jewish immigration" kills?????
Well, the Jews came to Palestine with the expressed purpose of kicking
most or all of the Arabs out, in one way or another. That is why the
Arabs got hostile to them, after they figured out the Jewish game.
> What is it exactly about the presence of Jews that proves fatal to
> Palestinian Arabs?
Considering the Jews were intent on kicking out the Arabs to make their
"Jewish state", it was a pretty provocative invasion.
> Like I said, this sounds like an argument from Islamic Jihad or Der
> Sturmer...
It's really not much different from the colonial invasion of the US, in
which European invaders deliberately displaced the native population.
That would be an excellent analogy.>
> >>
> >> You sound like an apologist for Islamic Jihad.
> >
> >Maybe they are right on a thing or two?
>
> Hardly. But it seems I was quite right in my assessment of you...
Actually, I do not support most of these suicide bombings. A few of
them are ok; the one last week that targeted cops was really nice, and
there were a couple of others, one targeting a pool hall filled with
off-duty soldiers that was a way cool attack, another, a bus bombing of
a bus loaded with soldiers and cops, that was awesome, and another,
years ago, a totally beautiful attack, when a suicider blew up 19
Zionazi pigs waiting for a bus. Those attacks bring joy to my heart.
>
> > I went to the Hamas website the
> >other day. Awful lot
>
> "Awful" indeed...
You know, I think Zionazi terrorism is killing probably just as many
people as the suicide bombers and other Palestinian terror attacks. I
can't prove it but I strongly suspect it.
Hillel
#How was Jewish immigration during the war years a threat to
#"Palestinian lives"???? Arab lives were not under threat from Jewish
#immigration.
"Osric" <Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote in message news:<amfl8p$qt4$1...@knossos.btinternet.com>...
> Oh come now, whatever the rights and wrongs of the creation of the
> State of Israel you cannot possibly suggest that it was anything but
> an unmitigated disaster for the Palestinian people
It did not *have* to be a disaster.
I live in California, a state that used to be pretty "white."
Now there are plenty of Mexicans and Asians. Most "whites" don't
view that as a disaster because those immigrants tend to be
pretty productive.
The Palestinians could deal with Jewish immigration is a similar way.
E.g. Mapam suggested the model of one country for two people. Even
after the Partition decisions the Palestinians could prevent the
disaster by signing the dotted line and establishing a state on their
part in May 15, 1948.
The reason for the Palestinians tragedy is making bad choices and
picking a war for no good reason. The choice they have now is either
to realize what they have done wrong, learn something, and don't pick
another war, or go to yet another war with the hope that a victory
will vindicate almost 100 years of mistakes.
Most "pro-Palestinians" Westerners have given them uncritical support.
The UK pushed them into the war in 1948 by promising weapons and even
direct support. Now the EU keeps Arafat fighting by giving him cash
payments to spend on his "army."
The Europeans, like the Palestinians, keep doing the same thing and
expect a different results.
Hillel hil...@viewgraphics.com
"Uncritical support" is a contradiction in terms. -- Joanna Russ
Kim Bebbington
<Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>Kim Bebbington <ki...@gol.com> wrote in message
>news:kc2loucqq823g454q...@4ax.com...
>> On Fri, 20 Sep 2002 01:09:09 +0000 (UTC), "Osric"
>> <Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >Yosarian <Yosar...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
>> >news:sscjouohc83rn6mef...@4ax.com...
>>
>> snip
>>
>> >> Wrong, the Zionists were attempting to get all the Jews out of
>> >> Germany, and thereby saving lives.
>> >
>> >Yes thats what I said. I said the Palestinians were attempting to stop
>> >immigration which would have saved Palestinian lives,
>>
>> WHAT??????
>> How was Jewish immigration during the war years a threat to
>> "Palestinian lives"???? Arab lives were not under threat from Jewish
>> immigration.
>
>Oh come now, whatever the rights and wrongs of the creation of the State of
>Israel you cannot possibly suggest that it was anything but an unmitigated
>disaster for the Palestinian people and resulted in thousands of Palestinian
>deaths that continues to this day. This surely isn't controversial.
The "disaster for the Palestinian" people was a result of the actions
of Arab leaders who rejected every compromise offered.
You have not shown how Jewish immigration put Arab lives under threat.
Your attempt at drawing some moral equivalency between immigration and
systematic mass murder is as morally repulsive as it is bizarre.
Palestinian Arab leaders actively participated in Hitler's "final
solution". You find this justifiable. In fact you argue that fleeing
mass murder is no different from participation in it.
You need to take long look at yourself.
>
>
>>
>> You sound like an apologist for Islamic Jihad.
>
>Thats hardly fair. I've never been an apologist for Islamic Jihad and am on
>record as having condemned suicide bombing.
And now your are on record as justifying Arab participation in the
final solution.
>THE BORDERS OF MY COUNTRY
>RUN AROUND THE SOLES OF MY FEET
Lift them up and take a look - maybe that's where the stench is coming
from...
zogsux
>
> #WHAT??????
> #How was Jewish immigration during the war years a threat to
> #"Palestinian lives"???? Arab lives were not under threat from Jewish
> #immigration.
>
> "Osric" <Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote in message news:<amfl8p$qt4$1...@knossos.btinternet.com>...
> > Oh come now, whatever the rights and wrongs of the creation of the
> > State of Israel you cannot possibly suggest that it was anything but
> > an unmitigated disaster for the Palestinian people
>
> It did not *have* to be a disaster.
>
> I live in California, a state that used to be pretty "white."
> Now there are plenty of Mexicans and Asians. Most "whites" don't
> view that as a disaster because those immigrants tend to be
> pretty productive.
Excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me. The Mexicans and Asians are not immigrating to
California with the intention of taking it over for themselves and
throwing the rest of us out, which is what you Jews did.
>
> The Palestinians could deal with Jewish immigration is a similar way.
Liar.
> E.g. Mapam suggested the model of one country for two people.
Liar. But it was you Jews who rejected that notion also, you liar.
Even
> after the Partition decisions the Palestinians could prevent the
> disaster by signing the dotted line and establishing a state on their
> part in May 15, 1948.
Oh gee, what of all those 100,000's of Arabs in the "Jew state", you
deceitful Zionist?
>
> The reason for the Palestinians tragedy is making bad choices
Liar. Like standing up for their rights.
and
> picking a war for no good reason.
First off, you started the war, you Zionist liar.
The choice they have now is either
> to realize what they have done wrong, learn something, and don't pick
> another war, or go to yet another war with the hope that a victory
> will vindicate almost 100 years of mistakes.
Geez, what a disgusting liar you are. The Occupied have a right to
resist the Fascist Occupation of the Israelis. By the way, how bout you
Zionazi Trash learn from some of your mistakes?
>
> Most "pro-Palestinians" Westerners have given them uncritical support.
Hardly, lying dirtball.
> The UK pushed them into the war in 1948 by promising weapons and even
> direct support.
The war was already started by you, you lying scumbag.
Now the EU keeps Arafat fighting by giving him cash
> payments to spend on his "army."
Well, the Occupied do have the right to resist Fascist Occupied, like
the French in the 40's and the Pals of today.
>
> The Europeans, like the Palestinians, keep doing the same thing and
> expect a different results.
>
What should they do instead, liar?
Hillel
> Hillel wrote:
#I live in California, a state that used to be pretty "white."
#Now there are plenty of Mexicans and Asians. Most "whites" don't
#view that as a disaster because those immigrants tend to be
#pretty productive.
> Excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me. The Mexicans and Asians are not immigrating to
> California with the intention of taking it over for themselves and
> throwing the rest of us out, which is what you Jews did.
*After* the Arabs had started to kill them.
When the Arabs were peaceful the Jews were peaceful too.
When the Arabs started killing, a Jewish force was created *in response*.
#E.g. Mapam suggested the model of one country for two people.
> Liar.
So please tell tell us what was Mapam's suggestion, according
to Politically Correct "history."
# Even
#after the Partition decisions the Palestinians could prevent the
#disaster by signing the dotted line and establishing a state on their
#part in May 15, 1948.
> Oh gee, what of all those 100,000's of Arabs in the "Jew state",
> you deceitful Zionist?
Even after the war started some Arabs who decided to stay in Israel
did so; that's how Israel ended up with a large Arab minority. Without
the war many more Arabs could stay.
That's the weak point in your argument. You can't explain.
Why zero Jews remained in Gaza and the West Bank after the 1948 war,
but Israel had a large Arab minority. Since the facts don't fit
your theory, the facts lose.
zogsux
>
> zogsux <z...@sux.con> wrote in message news:<3D8BE4C9...@sux.con>...
> > Hillel wrote:
>
> #I live in California, a state that used to be pretty "white."
> #Now there are plenty of Mexicans and Asians. Most "whites" don't
> #view that as a disaster because those immigrants tend to be
> #pretty productive.
>
> > Excuuuuuuuuuuuuse me. The Mexicans and Asians are not immigrating to
> > California with the intention of taking it over for themselves and
> > throwing the rest of us out, which is what you Jews did.
>
> *After* the Arabs had started to kill them.
Nope, you Jews came there from the very start intending to displace most
or all of the Arabs living there. That's what started this whole mess.
> When the Arabs were peaceful the Jews were peaceful too.
Well, you were talking the whole time about kicking them out. If any
Arabs were to remain, they were supposed to be in a subservient
position. This was one of the demands the Zionists made of the British
upon signing of the Balfour Declararation.
> When the Arabs started killing, a Jewish force was created *in response*.
Yes but what were your intentions from the very start? You were buying
out their land from absentee
>
> #E.g. Mapam suggested the model of one country for two people.
>
> > Liar.
>
> So please tell tell us what was Mapam's suggestion, according
> to Politically Correct "history.
When I said "Liar", what I meant was you are being disingenuous. There
were only a very few Jews who advocated a one country - two people
solution, and they were totally ridiculed and ostracized as traitors and
idiots by almost all the rest of the Zionists. Further, this is the
position of the PFLP today, a position you Zionists now deviously twist
into meaning, "They demand the destruction of Israel". You are just
being sneaky. On the one hand, you are acting like Mapam's policy above
was noble, then you say the typical Zionist crap about "no such thing as
Palestinians", you defend the Occupation, Territories, Settlements,
etc. It doesn't add up.
>
> # Even
> #after the Partition decisions the Palestinians could prevent the
> #disaster by signing the dotted line and establishing a state on their
> #part in May 15, 1948.
>
> > Oh gee, what of all those 100,000's of Arabs in the "Jew state",
> > you deceitful Zionist?
>
> Even after the war started some Arabs who decided to stay in Israel
> did so;
Wha? You mean the ones who were not ethnically cleansed out of their
homes? Or fled in terror? "Decided to stay"! Nice Orwellian
phrasing.
that's how Israel ended up with a large Arab minority.
I thought they obtained most of that later on, between 1948-1967.
Without
> the war many more Arabs could stay.
Yes but you folks started the war in the first place, or you both
attacked each other.
>
> That's the weak point in your argument. You can't explain.
> Why zero Jews remained in Gaza and the West Bank after the 1948 war,
I know nothing of this.
> but Israel had a large Arab minority. Since the facts don't fit
> your theory, the facts lose.
Your point?
Hillel
%California with the intention of taking it over for themselves and
%throwing the rest of us out, which is what you Jews did.
zogsux <z...@sux.con> wrote in message news:<3D8CCC09...@sux.con>...
> Hillel wrote:
#*After* the Arabs had started to kill them.
> Nope, you Jews came there from the very start intending to
> displace most or all of the Arabs living there.
That's an *assumption* that the Palestinians made. It was based on the
Arab tendency to kill or subject minorities. The Zionists intention was
pretty different because the zionist rebeled against traditional Judaism.
The socialists/marxists believed that class was more important than
nationality or religion and viewed the poor Arabs as natural partners in
the fight against the rich. The rich Arabs response was to convince the
poor majority that their problems had nothing to do with the five rich
families sucking their bloods; it was all the Jews fault. The Palestinians
were stupid enough to believe it then, and they are stupid enough to
support Arafat, who came from one of those rich families today.
> That's what started this whole mess.
The incitment against the Jews, by the rich Arabs, started the mess.
#When the Arabs were peaceful the Jews were peaceful too.
> Well, you were talking the whole time about kicking them out.
And from where did you take that?
Do you have any real quotes?
Have you heard about Zabotinski quote of "Vesham yichyu beyahad ben arav,
be nazrat and bni." ("And there will live together the son of Arab, the
son of Christians and my son.")
Your *willingness* to swallow the land owners lies, so long after,
does not show much ability for critical thinking or much knowledge.
> If any Arabs were to remain, they were supposed to be in a
> subservient position.
The Israeli Arabs were under military rule after the 1948 war, just
like the US South was under military after losing the Civil War.
(Yes, I know that you have never heard about that; so?)
A year before the 6-Days-War the military rule was removed by
Israel because it was not needed anymore. You view that as a proof
for a long-term, anti-Arab, agenda. I view that as a reasonable security
measure against people who fought against the state. It was
temporary and was removed later.
> This was one of the demands the Zionists made of the British
> upon signing of the Balfour Declararation.
Really?
And the source for that is?
And how do you explain the ethnic cleansing of all Jews, from 80% of
the original mandate terriotry, just because a Saudi prince wanted
to be a king and he did not want any Jews in his territory?
#When the Arabs started killing, a Jewish force was created *in response*.
> Yes but what were your intentions from the very start? You were buying
> out their land from absentee
I see.
Buying land from the owner, with no threats or force, is
stealing & ethnic cleansing. Newspeak is such a great language.
##E.g. Mapam suggested the model of one country for two people.
%Liar.
#So please tell tell us what was Mapam's suggestion, according
#to Politically Correct "history.
> When I said "Liar", what I meant was you are being disingenuous. There
> were only a very few Jews who advocated a one country - two people
> solution, and they were totally ridiculed and ostracized as traitors and
> idiots by almost all the rest of the Zionists.
As a true ignorant you forgot that the Palmach was under strong influence
of Mapam. And without the Palmach Ben-Gurion could not do much. What
changed Mapam's position was when Kaukji started to shell Mishmar Ha'emek.
Suddenly they realized that, regardless of what Marx said, nationality
was pretty important. The Palmach went to its first major battle, and
the rest is history.
> Further, this is the position of the PFLP today,
And I played black-jack in Vegas, got 22, so I wanted to give one card
back. And the dealer refused! It was so unfair...
The change in position is too late.
The Palestinians killed enough Jews to convince the rest that they don't
want a state with them. *Today* very few Jews advocate this position.
> On the one hand, you are acting like Mapam's policy above was noble,
Had the Palestinians accepted the position it could be noble.
Today it is way too late to change the Jews' position because the
Palestinians killed too many of them. The Palestinians somehow manage
to paint themselves in the corner, and whine about being painted in the
corner, all at once.
## Even
##after the Partition decisions the Palestinians could prevent the
##disaster by signing the dotted line and establishing a state on their
##part in May 15, 1948.
%Oh gee, what of all those 100,000's of Arabs in the "Jew state",
%you deceitful Zionist?
#Even after the war started some Arabs who decided to stay in Israel
#did so;
> Wha? You mean the ones who were not ethnically cleansed out of their
> homes? Or fled in terror? "Decided to stay"! Nice Orwellian
> phrasing.
Those who were willing to live under Israeli rule stayed, those who
prefered not to live under Jewish rule left. Each group got its
wishes, but one group looks much better.
# that's how Israel ended up with a large Arab minority.
> I thought they obtained most of that later on, between 1948-1967.
Israel proper has a large Arab minority. Their vote in 1996 prevented
Peres from being elected as the prime-minister. Having power, and using
it wisely, are two, very different, things...
# Without the war many more Arabs could stay.
> Yes but you folks started the war in the first place, or you both
> attacked each other.
No.
In November 29, 1947 the Jews danced in the streets, the Arabs prepared
a pogrom for November 30. The Jews were not ready for a situation
were the British police would support the Arabs' killing and looting.
#That's the weak point in your argument. You can't explain.
#Why zero Jews remained in Gaza and the West Bank after the 1948 war,
> I know nothing of this.
So read and learn.
Before you talk so much about "ethnic cleansing" read about a very real
anti-Jewish cleansing in 1948.
#but Israel had a large Arab minority. Since the facts don't fit
#your theory, the facts lose.
> Your point?
My point is that 1948 the Arabs had a choice of staying under Jewish rule.
The Jews had no choice of staying under Arab rule. Even the old, anti-
zionist, Jews from the old city of Jerusalem were taken as POWs.
Hillel hil...@viewgraphics.com
"Sacred cows make the best hamburger." -- Mark Twain
Osric
OK. Lets have another compromise. What say Israel gives up 70 percent of its
territory to the Palestinians, after all they've had a pretty shit time of
it and their Diaspora needs a homeland. Come on Israel sign up or you are
the warmonger. Would Israelis reject this? Would they fight? Would they
stand by and watch the remnants of land settled on by more Palestinians?
Would they calmly sit by whilst Palestinian helicopter gunships assassinated
their leaders? Would they be patient whilst the Knessit was reduced to
rubble?
Never, and who could blame them?
>
> You have not shown how Jewish immigration put Arab lives under threat.
Well if you cannot see how the creation of the State of Israel was a
catastrophe for the Palestinians then nothing I say will change your mind.
> Your attempt at drawing some moral equivalency between immigration and
> systematic mass murder is as morally repulsive as it is bizarre.
I did not draw a moral equivalence. I merely pointed out that both sides did
deals with the devil to try to safeguard their peoples interests, neither of
which worked. I never said the two were morally equivalent. All sorts of
people made unholy alliances with the Nazis as the world descended into
chaos, some had better reasons than others.
> Palestinian Arab leaders actively participated in Hitler's "final
> solution".
Hardly, the Mufti was a sideshow, and the troops that he played a nominal
part in recruiting were not Palestinians, nor was their primary role against
the Jews.
>You find this justifiable.
I didn't say that either, you are putting up straw men here.
In fact you argue that fleeing
> mass murder is no different from participation in it.
Didn't say that either
> You need to take long look at yourself.
Not really. Already done that.
--
THE BORDERS OF MY COUNTRY
RUN AROUND THE SOLES OF MY FEET
Osric
Kim Bebbington
<Os...@nospam.btinternet.com> wrote:
Another? You sound like the Black Night in Monty Python and the Holy
Grail...
> What say Israel gives up 70 percent of its
>territory to the Palestinians, after all they've had a pretty shit time of
>it and their Diaspora needs a homeland.
OK. 70% of Palestine/Eretz Israel as established by the League of
Nations.
The Arabs already have 78%. It's called the Hashemite Kingdom of
Jordan. We're already owed an additional 8% under your "compromise".
>Come on Israel sign up or you are
>the warmonger. Would Israelis reject this?
No way. Sounds excellent.
> Would they fight?
For what? The additional 8% For the other 70% so we can have the
entire Land of Israel? Not bloody likely. It's a deal too sweet to
pass up. We'd be happy with the 30%. In fact, most Israelis would be
happy with the less then 30% we currently control.
>Would they
>stand by and watch the remnants of land settled on by more Palestinians?
>Would they calmly sit by whilst Palestinian helicopter gunships assassinated
>their leaders?
If my "leaders" made the Sicilian mafiosi look like boy scouts, I'd
personally be happy to be rid of such "leaders".
>Would they be patient whilst the Knessit was reduced to
>rubble?
Why would the "Knessit" be reduced to rubble? We've accepted a
compromise wherein 70% of the Land is placed under Arab sovereignty
and 30% is placed under Israeli sovereignty. We're not fighting, we're
not murdering any civilians in massive terrorist attacks. If the
"knessit" was being used to plan such attacks and shelter the
murdering scum who carried out such attacks, I'd set the primers
myself...
>Never, and who could blame them?
Huh?
The Arabs have control of 78% of the Land of Israel/Palestine. They
have been offered even more in return for peace - shit! - peace should
be the normal state of relations between people and here they are
being offered rewards for acting normally - and they can't even manage
that!
They've got 78%. They want 100% And you say "who could blame them?".
What fucking planet are you on??
>
>>
>> You have not shown how Jewish immigration put Arab lives under threat.
>
>Well if you cannot see how the creation of the State of Israel was a
>catastrophe for the Palestinians then nothing I say will change your mind.
>
>> Your attempt at drawing some moral equivalency between immigration and
>> systematic mass murder is as morally repulsive as it is bizarre.
>
>I did not draw a moral equivalence.
*****quote*****
> The collaboration and goals were far different, but then you knew
> that, didn't you?
They weren't that different. The Mufti courted the Nazis to protect
his people from Jewish immigration and the catastrophe that resulted
for his people, and the Zionists were trying to do the opposite for
exactly the same reason
*****unquote******
Message-ID: <amarju$hg8$1...@venus.btinternet.com>
>I merely pointed out that both sides did
>deals with the devil to try to safeguard their peoples interests, neither of
>which worked. I never said the two were morally equivalent. All sorts of
>people made unholy alliances with the Nazis as the world descended into
>chaos, some had better reasons than others.
>
>> Palestinian Arab leaders actively participated in Hitler's "final
>> solution".
>
>Hardly, the Mufti was a sideshow, and the troops that he played a nominal
>part in recruiting were not Palestinians, nor was their primary role against
>the Jews.
>
>>You find this justifiable.
>
>I didn't say that either, you are putting up straw men here.
So, actions "which would have saved Palestinian lives" were not
justifiable????
Sure sounds like an attempt at justification to me.
The straw man is your claim that participation in the mass murder of
Jews would somehow "save Palestinian lives".
>In fact you argue that fleeing
>> mass murder is no different from participation in it.
>
>Didn't say that either
"They weren't that different."
- ibid.
>
>> You need to take long look at yourself.
>
>Not really. Already done that.
Try it with two eyes open...