Teaching evil

Before there was Arafat, there was Haj Amin al-Husseini—Mufti of Jerusalem, friend of Hitler, and murderer of Jews | Marvin Olasky

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October 4 is the fifth anniversary of a suicide bombing that killed 21 persons in Haifa, Israel. No one knows what 28-year-old Hanani Jaradat was thinking in the moments before she detonated her explosive belt. Thanks to a new book, though, we know what an early Palestinian terrorist leader was thinking: David G. Dalin and John F. Rothmann, in Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam (Random House, 2008), meticulously document the career and views of Haj Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974).

Q: Why did the British make al-Husseini the Mufti of Jerusalem—the head of the Palestinian Arabs—from the 1920s onward?

It was an attempt by the British High Commissioner in Palestine to appease the radical Islamic movement. The British believed that as the mufti, al-Husseini would owe the British and would therefore be compliant with British rule under the Mandate in Palestine. The reality is that appeasement does not work. What the British, in fact, achieved, was the creation of an implacable foe who would ultimately ally himself with Hitler.