60 of 70 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A must read if we are to prevent history from repeating..., June 25, 2008
On Tuesday, June 24th, we met Rabbi David Dalin at the Temple Judea in Coral Gables, Florida, where he was introducing his new book: Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam.
His presentation was excellent, detailing how in 1921, Haj Amin al-Husseini became the mufti of Jerusalem. After some research we learned that the word "mufti" means: (a) a Muslim jurist expert in the religious law, or (b) in the Ottoman Empire, a deputy of the chief Muslim legal adviser to the Sultan.
Mr. Husseini, a most eminent and influential Islamic leader in the Middle East helped foment enmity against Jews in the region and in 1937 joined Nazi Germany because they shared a common enemy, the Jews. Mr. Husseini was seen by Hitler as an honorary Aryan.
While Hitler had written racial inferiority remarks about the Muslims in his book "Mein Kampf," Hitler liked Mr. Husseini's looks, his "blond hair, red beard, and blue eyes, appeared to have been an exception." The cover of the book surfaces a photo that the author explained was hard to obtain, it is of a photograph taken of the mufti with the fuehrer himself, Adolf Hitler.
The book details how Al-Husseini recruits thousands of Muslims in Europe to fight for the Waffen-SS, his protests about allowing Jews to move into Palestine, prevent the escape of Jewish children from Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia, who accompanied by 400 adults were to enter Palestine in exchange for the release of twenty thousand German prisoners of war.
At some point, Al-Husseini "organized the dispatch of five parachuters to Palestine with ten containers of a toxin to poison Tel Aviv's water system. Fortunately, they were caught near Jericho before they could carry out their mission."
One of the most horrific details provided by the author is that al-Husseini was instrumental in the implementation of the "Final-Solution" used by Germans to eliminate millions of Jewish lives. "In a radio broadcast from Berlin on September 21, 1944, al-Husseini spoke of the 11 million Jews" of the world, a fact that he could have only known because of his participation in their elimination. As far as the world knew, the figure was closer to 17 million.
At the end of World War II, he left to live in France and later moved to Egypt, where he received a hero's welcome, developing relationships with the likes of Saddam Hussein's uncle, General Khairallah Talfah, Yasser Arafat, and his writings served to inspire terrorist groups, such as the Hamas, Hezbollah and others, hard at work to destroy the United States and Israel.
A statement that has immense value to us is that we must learn from history if we are to prevent it from repeating in the future. At the end of the session, the audience asked many questions, but in particular I was rather interested on the mention of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion because I had heard of these before, but was not sure of what they meant, so we asked:
1. What are "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?" His answer:
a. A czarist forgery, a fraudulent anti-Semitic write up, widely distributed throughout Palestine that alleges without proof that the Jewish people conspired on a plot to take hold of power, of a desire of world domination.
Well, I got home and read the book, simply excellent. It was a pleasure to meet the author, to have the opportunity to get my book autographed and to learn more about how the seeds planted by Hitler have produced so much evil, for he is also responsible for inspiring the likes of Castro... and many other dictators.
Don't miss this book!
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31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Should have been a classic, September 15, 2008
I agree with D. Hunsicker's review: This is an important book, but a poorly written one. The "what if" chapter imagining what al-Husseini might have done if Hitler won the war is inappropriate in a history book. Given al-Husseini's role in fomenting anti-Jewish hatred among Muslim populations, given his role in making pro-Nazi propaganda broadcasts into the Middle East from Berlin in WWII, and given his role in helping recruit Muslims into the Wehrmacht and SS, there was plenty of real, factual history to work with here. So why all the what-ifs and hyperbole? The attempts to tie al-Husseini to every anti-semitic Arab and Muslim leader on the contemporary scene are ridiculous, while his real-life crimes are glossed over. It would have been much better to have included more transcripts of his radio broadcasts, to have gone into more detail of his work on behalf of the Nazis, of his post-war work in whipping up anti-Jewish bigotry. Instead, too much of the book is superficial. Coming from professors at Stanford and USF, such a poorly organized, poorly written book is a huge disappointment. Hopefully, another book on this topic using the same source material can be written to provide a more rigorous critique of al-Husseini's crimes against humanity.
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