Talk:Amin al-Husseini/Archive 14

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POV tag - controversy and propaganda have created an unbalanced article

I have added a pov tag on to this page to try to encourage editors to bring in more balance to this highly controversial subject. Since this subject is well known to be a focus of modern propaganda (see e.g. here, here and here), this article will always require extra care to keep out POV. Currently, the article uses WP:WEASEL words and WP:SYNTH to "paint a picture", and to present every accusation which has been made against the subject as if they were uncontroversial facts. Balancing viewpoints are not provided for any of these most controversial statements, despite the fact that such balancing viewpoints are available - for example in the biographies authored by Philip Mattar and Taysir Jbara. Oncenawhile (talk) 17:30, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

What specific issues do you think need fixing? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 17:39, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The following sections:

• Lead
• 6 Ties with the Axis Powers during World War II
• 7 Activities after World War II
• 8 Aftermath: Amin al-Husayni and antisemitism

... are simply not encyclopaedic quality, as they do not give adequate balance to different viewpoints. Readers should be warned until the balance is improved. Oncenawhile (talk) 17:47, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

The POV tag is not to warn readers you think the article is unbalanced. It's for attracting editors with different viewpoints to the article, so specific problems can be fixed. "The lead is unbalanced" is not specific enough for anyone to work with. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:58, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Fully agree with you, attracting more diverse editors is exactly what this article needs. I was referring to the third paragraph of the lead. Oncenawhile (talk) 23:38, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Source Issues:

Ref 2 - Israel to use Hitler shot for PR BBC News, 22 July 2009 -- is about Israeli public relations. Better source needed.

Refs 3 & 4 - A search for antisemite anti semite anti-semite antisemitism anti semitism anti-semitism in Pearlman (1947), p. 51 and Sachar (1961), p. 231 show nothing relating to al-Husayni.

Ref 6 - Richard Breitman and Norman J. W. Goda Hitler's Shadow, Chapter 2, page 19 describes how al-Husayni received a monthly stipend from Nazi Germany. The reference is not a CIA file or from any Government archives or files. It was neither secret or de-classified. It's from a book by Dieter Pohl Nationalsozialistische Judenverfolgung in Ostgalizien, 1941–1944: Organisation und Durchführung eines staatlichen Massenverbrechens Published in 1997 before Congress passed the Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act in 1998. "Professors Richard Breitman and Norman J. W. Goda note in Hitler’s Shadow that these CIA & Army records produced new “evidence of war crimes and about wartime activities of war criminals; postwar documents on the search for war criminals; documents about the escape of war criminals; documents about the Allied protection or use of war criminals; and documents about the postwar activities of war criminals”." Seems they have erred.

Ref 6 - Richard Breitman and Norman J. W. Goda Hitler's Shadow A search for 'collaborated' = No results relating to al-Husayni. A search for 'collaboration' = No results relating to al-Husayni. A search for 'collaborating' = No results relating to al-Husayni.

Ref 8 - Israel to use Hitler shot for PR BBC News, 22 July 2009 -- is about Israeli public relations. Better source needed talknic (talk) 08:43, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

BTW the Lead doesn't tell how, why or who appointed him. He was never elected to any position by the majority of Palestinians. [1] A point that should be given due weight. talknic (talk) 19:48, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

in short - you would like to rewrite history according to you POV. what about Mr. Hitler's article you wouldn't like to revise it too?.|Jonathango| 17:56, 2 May 2011 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by JonathanGo (talk • contribs)

In short. Nothing there is my POV talknic (talk) 16:32, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I would kindly ask the Wikiproject Palestine members to stop aggressive editing and seek consensus on the talk page. It will not help battling over each edit, specific issues should be brought for discussion as this is not a stub article but a quite mature one (though certainly non perfect). Cheers.Greyshark09 (talk) 21:25, 2 May 2011 (UTC)

Greyshark09 - This IS the talk page. BTW If that was addressed to me, I'm not a member of Wikiproject Palestine or in fact any organization. talknic (talk)

It might be worth mentioning that most of the documentation was only recently declassified. For whatever reason the US wanted to keep Gruppenfuehrer Husseine's file a secret. Many people were and are shocked by the revelation and this itself causes an understandable sort of controversy. 108.65.0.169 (talk) 07:28, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Lord Haw-Haw

I added this, on reading it in Medoff, in two minds. It is inexact. William Joyce aka Lord Haw-haw was betraying his country, as was Rita Zucca, and the various women coming across as Tokyo Rose. Winchell's phrase is catchy in making an analogy, but ignores the fact that Husseini wasn't betraying his own country by talking to the 'enemy' of his own country. He was broadcasting, as an Arab, to Arabs. Still, since much of his wartime activity in Italy and Germany concentrates on broadcasts, I thought it worth considering for inclusion.Nishidani (talk) 12:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Al huseini in Auschwitz (2)

Several relevant sources, which are also including the same comment by al-Huseini as earlier erased by Zero and later Nableezy on grounds of "non-existent within source" and later "unreliable":

• Chuck Morse, The Nazi connection to Islamic terrorism: Adolf Hitler and Hajj Amin al-Husseini [2]
• David G.Dalin, The myth of Hitler's Pope: how Pope Pius XII rescued Jews from the Nazis [3]
• D. Patterson, A Genealogy of Evil: Anti-Semitism from Nazism to Islamic Jihad [4]

Also related (but different) quotation in Paul Azus, In the Plains of the Wilderness [5]. Your response please.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:11, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for demonstrating the problem with using google and not looking at the results in detail. The first source does not contain the material as a factual statement, it says that Dieter Wisliceny says that al-Husseini visited Auschwitz incognito and made a similar comment as reported. And that first source is also published by iUniverse, which, again, is a self-publishing company and thus not a reliable source. The second source also attributes this Wisliceny. This book is published by Regnery, a publisher that has, at best, mixed views as to whether or not it is an acceptable source. The third source is the only real solid one you brought, and this says that according the Simon Weisenthal that Husseini visited Auschwitz. It does not contain the quote you reverted to include. But, more to the point, please see the section immediately before this one. nableezy - 18:18, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Of these Chuck whoever is a rightwing nutter. Dalin's book several times has failed recourse to the RS noticeboard: it is notoriously, embarassingly slipshod. David Patterson's book qualifies. His source for the idea is Schechtman's early Zionist reading of Husseini, and Schechtman there is quoting Simon Wiesenthal. Nothing Schechtman said of this is accepted by historians writing on Husseini after him, to my knowledge. Patterson uses Dalin, which a book from the Cambridge UP shouldn't do. It would in the circumstances, be better to use Klaus Gensicke's The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis: The Berlin Years, 2011, perhaps for Patterson uses the 1988 German edition, but I don't know whether that qualifies as RS, since Gensicke is a political scientist and doesn't have a good publisher. In any case, what I said earlier must apply. We need to keep the bar higher than Paterson, whose book, strangely for someone of his learning, is singularly obtuse in evaluating the quality of his sources. Nishidani (talk) 18:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Put it this way. We have a very difficult article given the huge volume of execrable secondary reportage of clichéd memes. But we have a very imposing literature by specialists in the required field, who do archival research as specialists on the Nazi era, Arab relations, Husseini, and publish monographs, books and articles on Husseini. By definition, therefore, even if you have a secondary source like Patterson that passes RS in terms of scholarly background, and publishing venue, the fact remains that this is not his field, and he egregiously cites exactly those sources which the technical scholarship on Husseini has dismissed or surpassed. So, if editors are sensible, and wish the article to be written, and written to quality standards of NPOV, they would do well to underwrite the condition I mentioned above. Use Husseini-, and German-Arab-relations-under-Nazism specialists with high standing in their communities, and a record of quality archival research. A large number of these sources are underused, or ignored, and would yield more than these ragged secondhand sources by outsiders to the field. Patterson should not be included on that ground, though others works by him deserve high respect. Nishidani (talk) 19:06, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

Well the quote about Dieter Wisliceny which says that al-Husseini visited Auschwitz incognito and made a similar comment as reported; with the fact of the visit supported by Wisenthal book: first of all, it proves that the visit indeed has sources to have occured (unlike said by Zero). Second of all, we can argue on the content of the paragraph, but is not the tagging of "verify credibility" is meant for this exactly, rather than removing it entirely (it was cited accurately , the problem might only be credibility and interpretation by the secondary)? I understand your concern for misquoting and blaming al-Husseini for alleged (not certain) involvement in the Holocaust, but there is a case to present to the wikireader, even though it might say "alleged" or "according to source".Greyshark09 (talk) 19:42, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

For all I know, the smoking gun for Husseini's visit to Auschwitz may exist, or have turned up over the last decade. If it's there from a respectable source, I'll race anyone to put it in here first.

Look, this article has a long history of tendentious editing, mainly because people with a bee in their bonnet want to overegg the pudd, and lay every bit of googled info on like a trowel to link Palestinians to the Holocaust. Perhaps you are unaware of this, but it meant the article did not get written according to standards. In citing Dalin and Chuckforgothisothername, you are signalling that you are unfamiliar with both RS and the past debates on RS here and on other forums, not to speak of WP:NPOV. Goodness sake, the Hitler article, and most of the articles on the key actors in the Holocaust, are more rigorously written than this dumping ground for variegated innuendoes by slapdash writers. The facts, man, speak for themselves, one doesn't have to find someone to invent them to make the picture more grim by the hour. Read Fisk on Husseini,'The Great War for Civilization' to get perspective on the general overview.

As someone who was very impressed by Fisk's book on Lebanon, it was disappointing to see him claiming that some things Husseini said were to be found in the BBC transcripts but when I checked they were not there. (One is an image above, you can compare.) Zero^talk 11:41, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. In fact, the point throws into close relief the central problem of sourcing this article. It is not simply that Fisk is a journalist (his works are generally very good for verifiable details). It is that there is an entire tradition of early Zionist-inspired historical writing (Schechtman, Katz etc) whose 'research' then provides the source-base even for serious scholars who take their work at face value. Take David Patterson's book, which we cite here for the view Husseini 'orchestrated' the Iraqi coup as a proxy for the Nazis. Patterson had impeccable credentials, his profile perfectly fits WP:RS, yet, if you check his sources for queer or improbable statements like that, you find the old school of al-Husseini = the Nazi mastermind of Arab antisemitic nationalism =PLO rubbish that afflicts so much early, recent and contemporary journalism and works on the subject. This is going to be tough-going. I hope all on board can exercise a lynx-eyed vigilance, of the kind your work here exemplifies, to ensure that we get the best reliably sourced data secure in this article. Thanks Nishidani (talk) 12:19, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

In citing Wisliceny you are flagging to us all the fact that you are not fmiliar with the historical verdicts on his testimony since the Eichmann trial onwards. His evidence was not regarded as reliable in courts of law, and is not accepted face value by historians. When you say that since Wisliceny said this 60 years ago, and Wiesenthal repeated it 50 years ago (actually Schechtman, who is no longer regarded as a reliable source)and call this a 'proof' you are waving a huge banner on which is written: 'I don't know much about the subject', and underneath ìI don't understand what proof means in law or in historical research'. Please sit back a while, go to the local library, get out several books written on the topic over the last four decades by specialists in Husseini, and then get back to us. One does well to ground oneself in the subject before editing it.Nishidani (talk) 20:00, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

You cited Finkelstein, whom you have mistaken for historian, flagging yourself as being unfamiliar with the fact that some academics who write essays outside of the field of expertise are examples of politization and propaganda. I can add to this unrespectable list Prof. Noam Chomsky, Dr. (or Prof.?) Arnaiz Vilenna and to some degree Ilan Pappe, who as well tried to rewrite history under "professor" title (without bothering themselves of being professors of linguistics, genetics and again politic sciences in case of Pappe). And i guess you have not even read the edit summaries, we are speaking about in the article, while pushing completely unjustified accusations, being rude and filling the talk page with unneeded monologs.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:40, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Finkelstein is far more qualified in this field than many sources we use on the page. But rather than challenge his bona fides, one should simply seek a source which says he is mistaken in his assertion. They don't exist, because what he states happens to true. We do well to attend to what is being asserted, -does it stand up to the test of time in the best scholarship- rather than, though that is also important, who asserted it.Nishidani (talk) 07:11, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

As I noted before, none of the serious biographies of Husseini, like Elpeleg's, consider this claim credible. As mentioned, the only evidence for it is a comment attributed to a leading Nazi, Wisliceny, copied and enhanced by a few biased authors. It is this Nazi that some people here want to consider a reliable source. Actually it is isn't even Wisliceny himself who we have the evidence from. The actual sequence is that Rudolf Kasztner, in a deposition he made for the Nuremberg trials in support of another Nazi, said that Wisliceny had told him "I heard say that, accompanied by Eichmann, he has visited incognito the gas chamber in Auschwitz".(Rafael Medoff, The Mufti's Nazi years re-examined, The Journal of Israeli History, 17 (1996) 317–333.) So Kasztner claimed that Wisliceny claimed that he had heard something. It is absurd to consider the visit as a fact, and to imagine we even have words uttered by Husseini at this supposed visit is a joke. Wiesenthal is famous for making things up. Zero^talk 01:30, 13 September 2011 (UTC) To expand a bit on the history of this, the story seems to have first appeared in the very propagandistic book of Moshe Pearlman, and since then every source I've seen copies his translation word for word. The text in Pearlman includes another alleged Wisliceny claim "[Hussseni] was one of Eichman's best friends", which is ridiculous. The book of Schechtman cites the same thing to Pearlman but evidently didn't read carefully since he says it appeared in a deposition of "Engineer Endre Steiner of Bratislava", who Pearlman had cited on something else. Zero^talk 11:38, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I concurr with the comments of Nishidani, Nableezy and Zero0000 here above.

There are wp:rs sources that state that this testimony regarding a visit in Auschwitz is dubious. Other states that it cannot be true.

Several sources, but not of academic standards, report this claim.

There are also a few academic sources that report that Husseini is at the center of a propaganda battle and other that states that historiography from both Israeli and Palestinian sides followed political agendas.

My mind is that we should develop a section named -propaganda- reporting all this alleged claims and clearly denying them when they are not supported per wp:rs sources.

The only issue that I see comes from the recent publication from German academic that give much credit to these "propagandists" and even attack Matter. They are obviously, from my point of view, biaised but they are academics...

91.180.172.56 (talk) 06:16, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

I made an effort to present both sides of a controversy, as I believe an encyclopedia article should, and it was immediately deleted by Nishidani. As stated above, it is true that Husseini is at the center of a propaganda battle, but that by itself does not mean that the propaganda is pro or con. If a very negative set of statements about Husseini are made, and they are true, then the propaganda would be the contrary pro statements. "Negative" and "propaganda" are not synonymous. Neither is a positive take on Husseini, a priori, "less biased" than a negative one. It has been stated above by Zero that Moshe (or Maurice) Pearlman's book on Husseini is "very propagandistic." Has he looked at it? The book is very carefully referenced, and contains verbatim reproductions of much documentation.

Andrej Steiner's and Rudolf Kastner's testimonies on Wisliceny's statements concerning Husseini's involvement in the Holocaust and his role in convincing the Nazis to opt for a policy of extermination are independent, for Steiner and Kastner interacted with Wisliceny in different countries (Checoslovakia and Hungary). Wisliceny then confirmed the testimony at Nuremberg. This can all be seen in the transcript of Eichmann's trial, where all the evidence was reproduced, and which is available on line thanks to the Nizkor Project (see especially Session 50). That Wisliceny should confirm independent testimonies made by others about what he said during the war is the very meaning of "corroborated testimony." And it wasn't corroborated by just anybody: Wisliceny was an eyewitness from up close: he was deputy to Adolf Eichmann. If some historians, such as Rafael Medoff (quoted in the article), then call this "uncorroborated" (violating the evidence and the meaning of the word) it is these historians who appear biased. But in any case, historians who disagree should be given their due, and the encyclopedia reader should be free to decide who is more reasonable. The encyclopedia reader should also be allowed to read the testimonies (which I attempted to introduce).

The practice of deeming a historian "very propagandistic" with no argument other than that the Wikipedia editor disagrees is itself a biased procedure. The article should present both sides. Why is Hannah Arendt (a philosopher, not a historian) not "very propagandistic"? Her entire basis for dismissing Wisliceny's testimony is Eichmann's denial! Since she comments throughout her book ("Eichmann in Jerusalem") on Eichmann's erratic and strange answers, which led her to call him a "clown," she should have given us an argument as to why Eichamnn's word should be preferred over Wisliceny's on the question of Husseini, especially considering that Wisliceny was a very careful witness, and corrected numerous inaccuracies in the material presented to him by his interrogators (as Pearlman pointed out). But no. Arendt dismisses the alleged "rumours" of Husseini's responsibility for the Holocaust entirely in passing. Nobody to date (and certainly not Arendt) has offered an explanation for why Wisliceny would give false testimony on this point. And I must point out that her book does not contain a single, solitary footnote. Pearlman wrote an entire book, with argument and documentation, to substantiate his conclusions; Arendt wrote an unsubstantiated paragraph, nay, a sentence! It is entirely unclear why Arendt's views are to be preferred to those of Pearlman, whose use and reproduction of primary sources is most careful and forthright, and who carefully references all of his material. It appears to be a case of clear bias (in favor of Husseini). Pearlman passes every conceivable test of careful scholarship and being an insider to the field (standards defended by Nishindani, no less). It is one thing to have a policy to rely on secondary sources (as defended by Zero), and quite another to use secondary sources only on one side of a controversy. If Wikipedia editors should not be considered qualified to use primary sources to debate the experts, then neither are they qualified to decide the controversy in favor of one expert over another. If the encyclopedia reader cannot learn about both sides of a controversy, and in particular if he gets only the side that produces more opinion and less documentation on the question, he is being preached to.

Are Rafael Medoff and Bernard Lewis proper "insiders" on this question? Rafael Medoff is a historian of the Holocaust, but to my knowledge not on the questions considered here. And Bernard Lewis is an expert on Islam, which does not make him an expert on Husseini. Medoff's position that Wisliceny’s testimony “conflicts with everything else that is known about the origins of the Final Solution” and Lewis’s claim that “it seems unlikely that the Nazis needed any such additional encouragement from the outside” both contradict a widespread consensus established by specialists on the Final Solution (which I attempted to place in the article). I quoted numerous historians of the Final Solution, but I will restrict myself here to Tobias Jersak, who explains that: "Since the 1995 publication of Michael Wildt's documentation on the SS's Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst SD) and the 'Jewish Question',' it has been undisputed that from I933 Nazi policy concerning the 'Jewish Question' aimed at the emigration of all Jews, preferably to Palestine.” There was in fact the so-called “Ha'avara transfer agreement [that] granted 'privileges' for those Jews willing to emigrate to Palestine, allowing them to transfer at least part of their property.” [Jersak, T. (2000). Blitzkrieg revisited: A new look at nazi war and extermination planning. The historical journal, 43(2), 565-582. (p.571)] As Michael Marrus and Robert Paxton concluded, “until the autumn of 1941, all was provisional. . . No one defined the final solution with precision, but all signs pointed toward some vast and as yet unspecified project of mass emigration. When the war was over, the Jews would leave Europe and the question would be resolved.” [Marrus, M. R., & Paxton, R. O. (1982). The Nazis and the Jews in occupied Western Europe, 1940-1944. Journal of modern history, 54, 687-714. (p.687)]. This was the understood policy "until the autumn of 1941," when the Nazis finally convinced themselves that they could not simply push the Jews out. Though they preferred to do that, explains Marrus, “the problem was, of course, that there was practically no place for them to go.” It was just as the Nazis were realizing, in the “autumn of 1941,” that nobody would take the Jews, that Hajj Amin al Husseini arrived in Berlin. Shortly after this, the Wannsee Conference was held, and the new policy was officially decided on. The moment of Husseini’s arrival is therefore well timed to agree with Wisliceny’s claim that Husseini’s urgings contributed to the Nazi policy shift from expulsion to extermination. It also fits Husseini’s violent opposition to see Jews arriving in British Mandate Palestine, which had been the Nazis’ preferred policy. Naturally, the well-documented facts of Husseini's role recruiting and training Bosnian Muslim SS troops and his propaganda activities for the Third Reich, plus his earlier role directing terrorism against civilian Jews in British Mandate Palestine are all in harmony with Wisliceny's claims.Thefactsmaam2011 (talk) 16:44, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

The claim that Holocaust historians are the wrong people to know why the Nazis decided to kill the Jews is one of the most delightful bluffs I've seen in Wikipedia, and I've been here for 10 years. Thanks for that pleasure. Then you got me on the rebound by copy-pasting stuff other people quoted from (blush) Holocaust historians. Brilliant! Why don't you tell us what Jersak and Marrus & Paxton said about the Mufti's involvement in their papers? Zero^talk 16:55, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't have the time to delve properly into all this, I would just like to point out that in his revert, Nishidani removed properly sourced material with an edit summary that amounts to OWN and BITE. Apparently, his work was interrupted and since it was only a newbie who made the change, he can revert it without citing any other reason than his displeasure with the edit. This will not fly. Combined with the general tone of his comments to people who don't agree with him, I suspect AE is just around the corner. For the record, there's also a 1RR violation in there. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 18:44, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

That isnt exactly true. In addition to the edit wiping out a large amount of changes made to unrelated sections, the edit added several poor sources, among them the problematic ones mentioned here (those published by the self-publishing firm iUniverse) as well as one that has been discussed at RS/N previously. The other editor wiped out a large amount of other edits, and did so while putting in, at least some, unreliable sources. I have not looked at all of the edit, but from the first 75% of it I think it is fairly clear that your representation of it is faulty. nableezy - 19:13, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I second these concerns. It appears as if some editors are just picking holes in any source that supports content they don't like. No source discredits or debunks the Auschwitz assertions so any personal issues by us pseudo-historians amount to nothing more then good old OR, a big no-no.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 19:10, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

I love it when people lay back, tinker with, what, 3 or four minor edits to wikipedia over a long lazy day (yeah, I looked over the records and did my sums) and then rush to raise 'concerns', and murmur darkly of huge controversies stirring on AE over 'inappropriate behaviour' on a talk page when some moron like myself spends 11 hours checking all of the references on a long page, only to see a newby rush in to make his first edit on this of all pages (yeah, we all know what that means), revert 38 edits, demolish a new consistent template for all sources, put into the lead a WP:Fringe theory no one seriously believes, and cry 'shame!' when the devastation is cancelled, though he had no problems with cancelling an innocuous edit from Medoff (though in the wrong section), erasing Zero's close analysis of a possibly erroneous edit, and the fix he put in to mend it, restoring the old pagination p.351 to a book by Lewis (1997), when in the meantime a newer edition had been introduced, linked to an url that gave p.311, thus rendering the control of sources unworkable; changimg 'Jews, Bolsheviks and Anglo-Saxons' to 'Jews, the United Kingdom, the USA and the Soviet Union, when the new source he introduces actually says what the text he cancelled reported for the Mufti's speech of December 1942.etc.etc.etc. No doubt about it - a laid-back,kibitzing approach, with a cop-patrol eye for infractions by the working class does make one's day. Chat away. I'm busy reading sources you can't giggle or google up to get a quick slant on or ammo against whoever. Drop me a note when you get bored with waiting for me to make some reportable slip so the usual games of getting at adversaries can be replayed, and I'll come back and start working the page again. Nishidani (talk) 20:52, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Nishidani is quite correct. Thefactsmaam2011's edit wiped out a large amount of valuable editing, like citation formatting, that must have taken Nishidani a long time to perform. Any one of us would have been very annoyed if it happened to us. Regardless of Thefactsmaam2011's claims, such editing is anti-social, and if it does it again I'm going to report it for vandalism. Zero^talk 23:41, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Leaving aside the bizarre observation that several editors here think Nazis are reliable sources, my assertion that Pearlman's book is propagandistic was questioned so I'll repeat my simple example showing exactly how reliable Pearlman is. He is referring to the Shaw commission of enquiry into the 1929 riots in Palestine.

• Pearlman (p17): "There was unanimity in the findings of the commission that the attacks were planned"
• The Commission report (verbatim from the conclusions, p158): "The outbreak was not premeditated."

We can also note that Pearlman is described explicitly as a Zionist propagandist in a recent study (Giora Goodman, "'Palestine's Best': The Jewish Agency's Press Relations, 1946-1947, Israel Studies, vol 16, no 1, 2011, 1–27) and soon afterwards was appointed to the IDF Spokesperson's Unit. Not a third-party source, but an active member of one team in the dispute. Zero^talk 00:11, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Actually there is no problem to put a POV citation in the article per WP:NPOV. NPOV clearly states we need to balance various POVs, not drop them all and find some elusive "neutral" view (who decides if it is neutral?!). The vital question about Pearlman is his professional background. For example many state Benny Morris is using his POV when being extremely critical towards Israel, while on the other hand he is being accused of being a "Zionist" (his personal citation) by pro-Arab sources. The point is that it doesn't make Morris any less useful and reliable, as he is a Professor of History, and not a discredited one (like Finkelstein and Arnaiz-Villena who came from other fields and turned "pseudo-historians", and were expelled from Academy). So, what is Pearlman's background? I made some shallow search and found he studied B.Sc in international relations under Prof. Herold Laski in London, but abandoned academy in favor of journalism. I therefore conclude he is not an historian, and his reliability can be questioned. On the other hand he was in a very sensetive position within the state of Israel, in its first years, so he might include some good material afterall, but merely as primary source.Greyshark09 (talk) 16:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

I have to partly disagree with you Greyshark...

Pearlman is clearly a primary source in this context given his a member of one side. ore, even if he would have been "neutral" or a recognized expert, his works are old and we cannot rely on him and his mind is not relevant if it is not supported by more recent sources.

His position cannot be compared with Benny Morris, Efraim Karsh or Ilan Pappé who may be more biaised than him (or not ; or it doens't matter) but who are our contemporary historians who published recent works having access to the full current material.

It is as if we would write an article of physics with Leibniz and Newton articles. That is not a right way. We need recent physics books to develop such topics.

81.247.129.47 (talk) 21:01, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Zero. re the mufti crux

'Husseini demanded and received the title Grand Mufti that had earlier been created by the British for his half-brother.' (Elpeleg)

One hesitates to query Elpeleg but the phasing has an odd ring to my ear. If his half-brother held the title, and Husseini succeeded him, then by rights, the term introduced by the British for his predecessor would carry over to the new incumbent. ‘demanded and received’ sounds to me like an authorial judgement on Husseini’s character. There’s quite a bit that could be said of this, but neither Elpeleg nor Khalidi get it quite right. It was not ‘created’ by the British, but probably borrowed by the British from Egyptian usage. A source we use, admirable in its command of Arabic sources, says this

‘(Kāmil) was allowed to use the title Grand Muftī (al-Muftī al-Akbar)-maybe following the usage in Egypt-an innovative British move which suggested his pre-eminence over the other muftīs in Palestine.’ Kupferschmidt 1987 p.19

‘Soon after the British began to style Kāmil al-Husaynī as the Grand Muftī (al-Muftī al-Akbar), a title which had hitherto been unknown in Palestine but which was probably copied from Egypt.This gesture was, in part, meant as a reward for Kāmil’s cooperation with the British, but it may have been intended to substitute some kind of a new hierarchy for the former Ottoman one.’p.78

(The allusionin the second quote is to the fact that the Ottoman Qāḍī’s functions had been delegated to the Mufti, who thereafter assumed a dual function not associated with the former title.)Nishidani (talk) 15:51, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Here are the relevant passages from Elpeleg:

Richmond and Storrs were helped by the mayor of Jerusalem, Raghib al-Nashashibi (who was later to become Haj Amin's enemy) and by the Shari'a appeal court judge, 'Ali Jarallah - brother of the first-placed candidate. These two worked to persuade Shaikh Husam Jarallah to resign from the list. This he did, and the High Commissioner was therefore able to inform Haj Amin on 8 May 1921 that he would be the next Mufti of Jerusalem. The announcement was made in person, and Haj Amin, in fact, never received an official letter of nomination, nor was his appointment ever gazetted. This did not prevent the new Mufti, at the age of twenty-six, from quickly establishing himself in this important office...(p10)
...
What lay behind the new Mufti's moderation in his dealings with the authorities was not only the promises he had made. He needed the authorities in order to consolidate his position as mufti, and to introduce into it an element of national political leadership. He demanded that the title Grand Mufti, which had been granted to his brother by the British for cooperating with them, also be given to him, and that his salary be higher than that of the other muftis. Richmond and Storrs supported this claim, arguing that since, from the spiritual and religious points of view, the status of Jerusalem was superior to that of other regions in Palestine, the Mufti of Jerusalem should be considered head of the country's Muslim community. With the establishment of the Supreme Muslim Council in January 1922, the government acceded to these demands. Haj Amin's salary was increased, and he received the same status that his brother had enjoyed. (p11)

The fact that the appointment as mufti was never gazetted is mentioned in a few other sources, including Mattar's book. Mattar also writes (p27) "Apparently there was a lingering doubt about Amin's loyalty, because he was appointed not Grand Mufti, but Mufti of Jerusalem." However, Mattar does not mention a later promotion to Grand Mufti as far as I can see. (Incidentally, though we need not care about lesser sources, the earlier polemics of Pearlman and Schechtman are both adamant that there was never such as position as Grand Mufti.) Regarding the word "created", I think this is a question of interpretation of the sources. What they created was not the general job description of Grand Mufti, but the post of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem/Palestine. As you say, the title "Grand Mufti" was used earlier in other places (not only Egypt). (Incidentally, following Khalidi and over less explicit sources, it seems that "Grand Mufti" was a Palestine-wide title and "Grand Mufti of Jerusalem" as such is wrong.) Zero^talk 23:12, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Grand Mufti was a Palestine-wide title here. But I remember reading -but could not say where- that the reason of this new situation was that at the time of the ottoman Empire, all Muftis directly depended from Isbanbul's Caliph and that with the collapse of the Ottoman empire and the British rule over Palestine, it was required to find an alternative. The position of Grand Mufti (a French word ?) was created for this reason and given to Mufti of Jerusalem (the brother of Hajj Amin).

I think we can consider both titles were linked. I wonder who was the Mufti of Jerusalem in function and the Grand Mufti from 1936 to 1948.

91.180.145.58 (talk) 08:28, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Sachar

I've found myself constrained to find substitute sources for the frequent <Sachar=178> type reference which, if you check the old pages from 2009 onwards, refers to Sachar 2006, but none of the earlier versions I have checked cite in the reference or bibliographical section what work is being alluded to. If anyone can identify this, it would be helpful. If anyone sees Sacher 2006 cites being elided, please don't regard this as a devious, undercover move by a pro-PNA operative to get rid of a pro-Israel source etc. We have page versions before the damage my work will do, so anything that slips by can be noted and recovered where indispensable.Nishidani (talk) 14:20, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

This book of Sachar gets republished all the time so probably there was some 2006 version. If you log into Amazon you can read bits of it to check. Zero^talk 16:02, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Fanks a millyun, guv. That's just the ticket, wot the doctor ordered. Have checked and the source is the one indicated.

I have Sachar 2007 in front of me. It states 1st edition dates 1976, 2nd 1996 and 3rd 2007. So it seems there is no 2006 edition.

P.178 doesn't talk about Hajj Amin. P.179 does. 81.247.129.47 (talk) 20:34, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

P.170 may source "1893" as date of birth of Amin al-Husseini... There is nothing particularly relevant on that page. Just, maybe, the usual stuff : "Although disarming in appearance and demeanor, with mild blue eyes, neatly trimmed red goatee, and gentle, ingratiating manner, Haj Amin was soon revealed as an impassioned Arab xenophobe, a preacher of venom and desctruction against his nation's and his family's enemies."

Maybe this is more interesting (pp. 170-171) : "In December 1921 the British had authorized the establishment of [the Supreme Moslim Council] to direct the religious affairs of the Palestine Muslim community; it was intended as a counterpart of the Rabbinical Council of the Jews. Yet the Moslem Council also exercised vritually unlimited rights of patronage and control over Islamic religious hierarchy of Palestinien, over Moslem schools, religious courts, and wadf (religious) trust funds. In 1922, Haj Amin was elected president of this Council by a remnant of the Moslem property owners who had voted in the last election for the Ottoman Parliament."

A link with Grand Mufti ? 81.247.129.47 (talk) 20:50, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Iraq

I've long been perplexed by the huge role Husseini plays in the antisemitic reading of Iraq in 1941, and the negligible role he plays in specialist works on Iraq's modern history. For the moment, I give, rather disjointedly, the bare bones according to Tripp. I've kept Patterson in the bibliography but eliminated his remark that Husseini 'orchestrated' things, since it is wildly out of keeping with the complex politics of Iraq at that time, where nationalists viewed with different visions and had no need of someone to 'orchestrate them', and because Patterson's sources for this are extremely poor or outdated books of dubious value. What is required is area-specialist historians who document any charges he was behind the coup, or the Farhud pogrom. For the rest, no one needed the mufti to be 'anti-British' and mentioning that Germany was Nazi Germany is not compatible with normal historical reportage, since history is about states, Germany was the actor, and the fact that Germany and Italy at the time were respectively Nazi and Fascist nations is repeatedly mentioned earlier.Nishidani (talk) 15:53, 25 September 2011 (UTC)

I coudn't have left it unnoticed that at some point your work on this article slowly drifted from article improvement and a profound work on WP:RS to a sort of "selection" of sources which meet your specific editor narrative, making WP:WEIGHT being shining all over with a red light. Unless i have seen your work so far, i would have thought you are deliberately whitewashing Husseini, while such poor sources as this one are starring on other articles. My point is that you have to be careful not to engage into WP:OR and WP:WEIGHT by deciding which WP:RS is meeting your criteria and which not, while certainly they both do apply to be WP:RS. Hope i make myself clear and this is merely a friendly suggestion to make wikipedia better.Greyshark09 (talk) 15:53, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

The grand Mufti of NO WHERE According to the JVLs sources, the Jewish Agency for Israel and The World Zionist Organization

No more Mr Nice Guy re your reversion.... The Jewish virtual library's sources are ... the Jewish Agency for Israel and The World Zionist Organization.talknic (talk) 21:39, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

As was explained to you on another talk page [6], an unsigned essay on JVL is not a reliable source. Not to mention that it doesn't say anywhere that Husayni was "no longer holding any official position representing the Palestinians", or anything of the sort. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 21:54, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

No more Mr Nice Guy --- "Oh well. Nobody can accuse me of not trying" The Middle East maze: Israel and her neighbors David A. Rausch - Page 33The British finally dismissed this Grand Mufti in October 1937

BTW what official position can a person hold when they've been dismiss from their official positions? Seems logic has somehow been washed away talknic (talk) 07:15, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

He was dismissed by British and fled Jerusalem, but he and his assossiates have never aknowledged the British authority, so he kept carrying the "Mufti" title and was recognized as such by most of the Arab world (i.e. in Iraq, Lebanon). It is a question of recognition.Greyshark09 (talk) 13:49, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Greyshark09 --- Interesting...

Two questions for No more Mr Nice Guy/Greyshark09 et al 1) Did the Jewish Agency officially or un-officially recognize him as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem after he'd been officially dismissed from his position of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem prior to Declaration? 2) Did Israel officially or un-officially recognize him as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem after he'd been officially dismissed from his position of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem? If not, isn't it rather odd to be still calling him the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem? talknic (talk) 15:38, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Do you have access to the full text of Rausch? If so, please copy out the whole paragraph for us to consider. If not, then we can't consider it at all until someone has access to the full text. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:45, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

Talknic -- Maybe you should consider the possibility that it wasn't of any particular interest to anybody (including the Jews themselves) whether or not Jewish/Israeli authorities "recognized" anybody as Grand Mufti before June 1967 (the date when Israel first exercised any effective control over the Temple Mount platform holy sites), at which time Husseini was a decrepit broken-down Nazi collaborator in Beirut, and not really fit to fill any responsible position (though this didn't prevent him from still having many fervently adoring admirers and active sympathizers, from Yasser Arafat on down...) -- AnonMoos (talk) 10:22, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

AnonMoos --- Reminder another discussion --- "If someone met..........I really don't see why we can't say that that person "collaborated with Nazis" "..........talknic -- Me either. If Hajj Amin al-Husseini met personally with Adolf Nazi and Heinrich Himmler and connived with high Nazi officials to make sure that Jews did not escape, then he collaborated with Nazis. You may quote me verbatim.

Itsmejudith -- It is not up to me to disprove. It is up to the authoring editor to prove al-Husayni was officially the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem when the incidents occurred.

No More Mr Nice Guy --- As was explained to you on another talk page [7], an unsigned essay on JVL is not a reliable source." Irrelevant. It is up to you to prove, not for me to disprove.

BTW the JPost link, which you inserted without discussion or it being submitted for scrutiny on that particular case, is due for reversion.

I am not required to provide secondary sources here in talk to show he was not grand Mufti when the incidents occurred. To that end...

HC Deb 21 October 1937 vol 327 cc23-8 55. Colonel Wedgwood -- asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to the comments made by the Royal Commission upon the conduct and position of the Mufti of Jerusalem; and whether any action has been or will be taken to remedy the state of affairs commented upon by the Royal Commission?

§ Mr. Ormsby-Gore -- The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. As regards the second part, regulations were issued on ist October depriving the Mufti of Jerusalem of his office of President of the Supreme Moslem Council and his membership of the General Wakf Committee, of which he was chairman. The Arab Higher Committee, of which he was also chairman, was at the same time declared an illegal body."

Hansard HC Deb 16 March 1938 vol 333 cc396-7 396§ 27. Mr. Mander -- "asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies the present position with regard to the case of the ex-Mufti of Jerusalem, near Beyrout; whether he is aware that the ex-Mufti is receiving a substantial monthly subsidy from foreign sources and is now directing terrorist operations from French Syria; and what representations have been made to the French Government on the subject?"

Simply citing secondary sources calling him the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, citing a labeled a photo saying he was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem when he met Hitler, citing references where he was called the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, simply do not prove he officially held the office of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem at the time. All they prove is that some folk still believed he was or perhaps they're propagandistas

A verifiable secondary source is required that says he actually held the official position of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem when those incidents took place. Got one? talknic (talk) 12:27, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

You are mistaken. It's up to you to prove your source is reliable, not for me to disprove it. Consensus on this talk page is that it is not reliable. You can take it to WP:RSN and try to find a wider consensus saying that it is.

Here are three sources that say that al-Husayni was replaced as Mufti in 1948. [8] 3rd paragraph, [9], [10]. Apparently the Muslim community didn't care if the British dismissed him or not. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 13:39, 28 March 2011 (UTC)

No More Mr Nice Guy --- WP:RSN is relative to what goes in the article. This is the talk page, it is not the article. In the article it is up to the authoring editor to prove their assertions.

Your first link, the quotes conveniently end before the author writes Mufti of Jerusalem. I doesn't cite a source after Mufti of Jerusalem, doesn't say "al-Husayni was replaced as Mufti in 1948".

The second link doesn't say al-Husayni was replaced as Mufti in 1948. The third says "appointed new Mufti to Jeruslem". None confirm he was officially the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in 1948. The British Parliamentary record at the time and they were the officials in control at the time, removed him from office. talknic (talk) 02:27, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

So you're saying that the sources you posted above were not something you wanted to use to change the article? Please make that clearer next time so I won't waste time reading them.

The first source I provided above says "Meanwhile, King Abdullah made Sheikh Husam al-Din Jarallah, a former official of the Palestine Government, Mufti of Jerusalem in place of Hajj Amin Al-Huseyni". It really can't get much clearer than that.

The second source says "Hajj Amin al-Husayni, the Mufti of Jerusalem", which also seems quite clear.

The third might be a bit ambiguous, so let's drop that one. The other two are quite enough. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 08:44, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

No More Mr Nice Guy -- Here is were things are discussed. It says Discussion oddly enough. I've used the British Parliamentary record in order that folk know what information to look for when searching for secondary sources in regards to his dismissal. It's quite a different starting point. For example

The British appointed him. The British dismissed him. Your first source is not quoting from a source. "It really can't get much clearer than that." Well yes it can get 'much clearer than that'. In place of someone no longer holding that position since he was dismissed from that position by the British in 1937.

Your second source is the author, not quoting, not giving a reference in particular for the mufti, but for a decree. talknic (talk) 11:51, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Since we have established that your understanding of the guidelines regarding reliable sources is poor, and that you are not interested in learning how to apply them properly, I see no point in pursuing this further. The sources I provided above are good, as any experienced editor will tell you. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 12:57, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

No More Mr Nice Guy A) tch tch tch ... B) Your sources didn't think to search the Parliamentary records of the actual authority over Palestine till may 14th 1948? Rather points to poor research. talknic (talk) 14:50, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

You should consider writing them a letter letting them know your conclusion about the quality of their research. After all, you've read, what, a whole paragraph of each book? And your qualifications and expertise used to critique the books are of the highest quality, I'm sure.

Please read WP:RS again and try to understand that your opinion on a book's quality of research is not relevant here. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:53, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

No More Mr Nice Guy -- Uh? Try this Page 35 and this and this and this and this talknic (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Did you notice that two of those talk about times after Abdullah replaced him (1949 and 1951), or did you just google for "ex-mufti +parliament" in google books and copied the first 5 results? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 00:13, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

How I find information is quite irrelevant to the information eventually presented, except perhaps in terms of accuracy. Yes I did notice. al-Husayni, the ex-'Grand Mufti of Jerusalem', is still being accused in some quarters after 1949/50 as the 'Grand Mufti of Jerusalem', even though the position was filled by someone else, after his dismissal in 1937. Unlike the president of the USA, forever called Mr President.. BTW 'replaced' or filled the vacant position? talknic (talk) 01:12, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

If he was being called Mufi even after he was replaced, all the more reason to call him Mufti in the article. One of the books you listed is called "the Mufti and the Fuhrer". Shouldn't that be "the ex-Mufti and the Fuhrer" according to your POV? No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 10:04, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

"...according to your POV?" ? My POV is irrelevant. After Oct 1937, according to the records of the British Parliament, call him Mufti, call him whatever you wish, he was not the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem or the Mufti of Jerusalem.

BTW Whatever he did, whenever he did it, it has no thing what so ever to do with the Palestinians of today. Non voted him into position when he held positions (nor did their parents or grandparents for that matter). None served in the Balkans, had anything to do with Hitler, fought any war in 1948, dispossessed any Jewish folk from Arab States (neither did their parents or grandparents None voted any of the regimes in the Arab States in 1948 into power (nor did their parents or grandparents)

2011 - 1948 = 63...Life expectancy of Palestine refugee 74 - 2010 average [11] (probably far lower in 1948)....74 - 63 = 11 years old .... They were ALL children in 1948, if they were born at all ... They don't teach you simple maths? talknic (talk) 11:44, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

Actually, elections were held. Husam al-Din Jarallah won but was convinced to step down by the British. But that's beside the point.

Not sure what your little rant has to do with this article. It's about Amin al-Husayni, not about the average life expectancy of Palestinians No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 14:42, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

No More Mr Nice Guy ..."Not sure what your little rant has to do with.." It was a BTW...

The Palestinians did not elect Hajj Amin al-Husayni to the position of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He was appointed by Herbert Samuel. Not sure what your little rant has to do with al-Husayni, the subject is not Husam al-Din Jarallah. talknic (talk) 16:03, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

It would really help if you had some clue what you were talking about [12], but thanks for showing why getting all your information from an unsigned essay on JVL is problematic. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 16:21, 30 March 2011 (UTC)

No More Mr Nice Guy -- The preceding posts and sources I've provided, both primary and secondary aside from JVL, show your personal attack & your assertion to be completely false. They also confirm that JVL via the Jewish Agency for Israel and The World Zionist Organization, would seem to be, in fact, correct.

Your secondary 'story' cites no source whatsoever. That you presented it, after all your fine tuition on the matter of secondary sources, seems nothing short of desperation talknic (talk) 01:41, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

It's a shame you refuse to learn anything. A. Secondary sources don't need to cite sources for everything. B. It's a historical fact that they had elections for candidates out of which Samuel selected the Mufti and that initially al-Huseyni didn't qualify. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 09:55, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

No More Mr Nice Guy -- A. How odd it is now reading through all your demands . B. "They", being a college of notables. Selected for the appointment by Samuel, from candidates elected by a college of notables. Not elected by the Palestinian population. Please read your own sources. talknic (talk) 11:50, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

A. Read the guidelines and policy. You not only don't get it, you deliberately refuse to get it. I never said or implied that a secondary source needs to cite every little detail. I didn't do that because I understand policy and know it's unnecessary. What defines the reliability of a secondary source is who wrote it and who published it. If you'd have spent some more time trying to understand and less time arguing and being a WP:DICK, you might have picked that up by now. B. "They" are Palestinians, who you said had nothing to do with him becoming Mufti. I'm glad you read a little bit and learned something despite your efforts not to.

Feel free to get your last word in. I'm done. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 12:36, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

No More Mr Nice Guy -- The record shows your unprincipled demands and now your insults.

The Palestinian people were not a college of notables. The Palestinian people were not Herbert Samuel

"...his appointment by British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel"Muslim, Christian, and Jew: Finding a Path to Peace Our Faiths Can Share By David Liepert Page 216 ...

He was dismissed in 1937 Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution, Volume 1 By Richard S. Levy page 336

talknic (talk) 16:12, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

"In 1937 after the murder of two British officials by the Arabs, he was stripped of his titles.." American Hebrew and Jewish messenger Volume 143, Issue 24 . Page 5 talknic (talk) 08:33, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Put your attention that the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem title predates the British Mandate, and continued after the departure of the British forces. Hence, your absolute reliance on British over Mufti's appointment and dismissal might not be that crucial.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

Greyshark09 It's absolutely crucial. Next you'll be telling us Olmert or Sharon still lead Israel.talknic (talk) 23:40, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

NachshonR It's all quite irrelevant, actually. A common sense reading of the above discussion shows it is at cross-purposes. After being stripped of the title and replaced, people referred to him as "the Mufti" as Jimmy Carter is sometimes referred to by Americans as President Carter or the President. And most times, yes, as the former-President or ex-President; No longer officially filling the position, but still credited with a certain regard for _having_ served the public. He wasn't _the_ representative for the Palestinian people, & they didn't send him to meet with Hitler, but certainly his former position was invoked and the reason for his presence in Europe during his collaboration. No longer Grand, certainly he was not Mufti of "NO WHERE". Best to refer to him here as "Mufti of Jerusalem," "former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem," or, "the Mufti". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.105.214 (talk) 13:59, 6 August 2011 (UTC)

I agree. As only the incumbent President is referred to as the President of the USA. Mufti or ex Grand Mufti of Jerusalem would be appropriate. To that end dismissed in 1937 Antisemitism: a historical encyclopedia of prejudice and persecution, Volume 1 By Richard S. Levy page 336 and "In 1937 after the murder of two British officials by the Arabs, he was stripped of his titles.." American Hebrew and Jewish messenger Volume 143, Issue 24 . Page 5 talknic (talk) 16:57, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

"the former Jerusalem Mufti" The Middle East today - By Don Peretz - Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994 - Page 347

"the former Jerusalem Mufti" The Arab-Israeli conflict: the Palestine War 1948 - By Efraim Karsh - Osprey Publishing, 2002 - Page 29

"the former Jerusalem Mufti's propaganda broadcasts" Hitler, the Allies, and the Jews - By Shlomo Aronson - Cambridge University Press, 2004 - Page 83

"despite the former Jerusaelm Mufti's connection with Hitler" Zionism at the UN: a diary of the first days - Eliahu Elath - Jewish Publication Society of America, 1976 - Page 97

"as seen in the activities of Husseini, the former Jerusalem Mufti" Handbook of world history: concepts and issues - Joseph Dunner - Philosophical Library, 1967 - Page 59

"Support of the former Jerusalem Mufti received by Saudi Arabia aroused antagonism to him by President Nasser who charged him with being a reactionary" The Palestine State: a rational approach - Richard Joseph Ward, Don Peretz, Evan M. Wilson - Kennikat Press, 1977 - Page 41

Shall we move on to the "ex Mufti of Jerusalem"? (About 916 Results) OR perhaps just the "ex Mufti"? (About 359 results) Maybe the "former Mufti of Jerusalem"? (About 629 results ) ..... talknic (talk) 18:26, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

How nice of you to restart this old argument that you already lost on another page. As you know, by searching without the "ex-" you can find tons of good sources still calling him mufti after his alleged dismissal. The explanation you give for this apparent discrepancy is your original research, since you did not provide any source that explicitly addresses the discrepancy. It would make just as much sense to suggest that many people called him "ex-mufti" because he had been exiled from Palestine and was unable to carry out his mufti duties. But we don't have to trade guesses, we can determine the truth easily enough. If the British government may or may not have dismissed him as mufti, then the official position of the British government is what actually matters.

1. When the British government announced Husseini's dismissal as President of the Supreme Moslem Council and member of the General Wakf Committee, it did not mention his role as mufti. Statement by Secretary of State for the Colonies. Also widely quoted in secondary sources, such as Palestine Post, Oct 3, 1937, page 1, and The Times, Oct 02, 1937, page 12.
2. The next Secretary of State for the Colonies, who we must remember was the highest British minister with Palestine responsibility, repeatedly referred to him as "the present mufti of Jerusalem", for example on 10 November 1938, 23 November 1938, and 17 May 1939. (He might have called him"mufti" on account of a former status, but "present mufti" does not allow that possibility.)
3. However, the evidence that makes all others redundant is that the British government was asked about this issue in 1943 and made an official response. An answer in the Commons to a question on notice, given by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, is the most official statement it is possible for the British government to make:

Mr. Hammersley asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies why no appointment has yet been made to fill the posts of Mufti of Jerusalem and President of the Moslem Supreme Council?
Colonel Stanley. An important distinction must be drawn between the two offices referred to by my hon. Friend. The post of Mufti of Jerusalem is a purely religious office with no powers or administrative functions, and was held by Haj Amin before he was given the secular appointment of President of the Supreme Moslem Council. In 1937 Haj Amin was deprived of his secular appointment and administrative functions, but no action was taken regarding the religious office of Mufti, as no legal machinery in fact exists for the formal deposition of the holder, nor is there any known precedent for such deposition. Haj Amin is thus technically still Mufti of Jerusalem, but the fact that there is no intention of allowing Haj Amin, who has openly joined the enemy, to return to Palestine in any circumstances clearly reduces the importance of the technical point.

1. Given as we consider it good to support primary sources with secondary sources, it is worth noting that the most respected biography of Husseini, Zvi Elpeleg's "The Grand Mufti", page 48, agrees: "officially he now retained only the title of Mufti (following the Ottoman practice, this had been granted for life)".

Zero^talk 10:48, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

Zero0000 -- A) The discussion is still up, I've 'lost' nothing. B) "The explanation you give for this apparent discrepancy is your original research," 1) They are all secondary sources and; 2) How one eventually finds sources is irrelevant to the information they contain 3) I'd agree except where ex-mufti is followed by "of Jerusalem" C) As I said in the title of the discussion. The "grand Mufti of nowhere", which doesn't preclude him being called Mufti. talknic (talk) 12:45, 14 September 2011 (UTC)

---

As of circa 1937 the Ex-Mufti - Palestine Post Wednesday, June 29, 1938 Page 3 ... [13] ... [14] ... [15] ... [16] ... [17] ... [18] ... [19] ... [20] ... [21] ... [22] ... [23] There are many more entries ... talknic (talk) 08:13, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

You mean the 150–200 entries that call him the Mufti of Jerusalem without qualification? Zero^talk 08:55, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Zero - The opposite would be 'with qualification'. The sources presently in the article are repetition of primary sources with un-qualified statements. To simply say he was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem without qualification doesn't quite 'qualify'. The onus is on the editor making the claim in the article ... talknic (talk) 10:45, 12 December 2011 (UTC)

Grammar

'he was pleased by Nazi's solution' or words to that effect. This is sourced to Elpeleg 1993, p. 72.

Since this is not grammatical (he was pleased by the Nazis' solution') could someone check Elpeleg? Nishidani (talk) 18:24, 30 September 2011 (UTC)

Reasoning behind the edit apropos the Schechtman/Grobba contradiction

The text ran:

A separate record of the meeting was made by Fritz Grobba, who until recently had been the German ambassor to Iraq. His version of the crucial words reads 'when the hour of Arab liberation comes, Germany has no interest there other than the destruction of the power protecting the Jews".(ref={harvnb|Yisraeli|1974|p=310}:denn die Stunde der Befreieung der Araber habe dann geschlagen, Deutschland habe dort keine anderen Interessen als die Vernichtung der das Judentum protegierenden Macht.ref) Al-Husseini's own account of this point, as recorded in his diary, is very similar to Grobba's.(refSchechtman 1965, pp. 307–308:'Germany has no ambitions in this area but cares only to annihilate the power which produces the Jews'.ref> Al-Husseini's own diary, seized after the war, recalls the encounter in slightly different terms.<refLaurens 2002, pp. 664–666 n.47cites the source from the archives of the Simon Wiesenthal Center:'It is clear that the Jews have accomplished nothing in Palestine and their claims are lies. Everything that has been achieved in Palestine is due to the Arabs and not the Jews. I (Hitler) have decided to find a solution to the Jewish problem, approaching it step by step without holding back. In this regard, I am about to make a just and indispensable appeal, firstly to all the European countries and, later, to countries outside of Europe'.ref>

• Grobba is cited for the crucial words: when the hour of Arab liberation comes, Germany has no interest there other than the destruction of the power protecting the Jews.
• Schechtman is cited for the view Husseini's diary account is similar to Grobba:Germany has no ambitions in this area but cares only to annihilate the power which produces the Jews'.'
• I presume that Schechtman's citation is supposed to be from the Mufti's diary. According to the way this was written before my edit, the Mufti's diary cites exactly the words used by Grobba.
• As far as I can see, these words are not in the relevant section of the Mufti's diary as amply excerpted by Laurens.
• The Mufti's diary account overlaps at points with the official Nazi account and Grobba's, of course, but not, so far, on the issue Schechtman is cited for.
• Your edit now is saying Schechtman is citing words, and attributing them to the Mufti, which, as one can verify, are almost (given small differences in translation) identical to those Grobba wrote. In philological terms, Grobba and the Mufti recalled, independently, according to Schechtman, almost the same phrasing from Hitler which, however the official minutes do not justify. This is little short of miraculous. All the more so since Grobba heard what Hitler said in German, whereas the Mufti addressed Hitler in French, and presumably listened to him via a French-language interpreter.
• It is well worth then grabbing Schechtman pp.307f. to see if this is an editorial misprision, or if Schechtman attributes to the Mufti an almost word perfect version of the phrasing used by Grobba in his account of the meeting.Nishidani (talk) 15:36, 1 October 2011 (UTC)

I consulted Schechtman pp. 306–308 before editing. Those three pages are called "The Mufti's Diary on his Meeting with Hitler". Schechtman's paragraph #3 is nearly identical with what was quoted from Laurens (only the differences you would expect from separate translations), so I have no doubt they are looking at the same document. However, I don't have access to Laurens. That paragraph is not especially interesting, in fact the main controversy that exists concerns the third of Hitler's list of points (Schechtmans' paragraph #10), which some authors translate from Schmidt as that Hitler promised to kill the Jews of Palestine. I also have Grobba's report as printed by Yisraeli (pp. 308–311; I'll send you that by email shortly). Grobba's report of Hitler's list of points is quite similar to the Mufti's according to Schechtman, and the third point is more or less identical. I don't find that miraculous, rather it adds confidence that that version is correct. It would be a much bigger miracle if Hitler told an Arab of his genocidal plans months before the other top Nazis knew about it. Zero^talk 01:51, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Btw, the text in Appendix F of Morse's awful book [24] seems to be taken from Schechtman. Zero^talk 02:07, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Ah, confirming, as also Noisetier often does with his comments, one of my favorite dictums (dicta) from Marc Bloch:'Le bon historien, lui, ressemble à l'ogre de la légende. Là où il flaire la chair humaine, il sait que là est son gibier.'! I still think it miraculous, but that is because the case was typical of the sort of things a philologist is trained to be suspicious of in second-hand reportage. (The text in Morse (Shechtman) is not the complete passage, because it leaves out stuff in the Mufti's diary, like al-Husseini's annotations of Hitler's speech style, the especial emphasis in his pronunciation of 'Juden' etc. Still, with the emailed material, I'll review. Thanks indeed in the meantime for catching me on that edit - I was using the instincts of textcritical suspicion, rather than actually comparing the original documents. I needed the warning.Nishidani (talk) 09:45, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Re revert of Chesdovi

Re this and this. Since the beginning, Dalin has been discussed, taken to RS, etc. He is notoriously bad as a reliable source. (2) He is not needed since Amin is exhaustively studied by fine historians. (3) the link to his book you provided shows he's writing a narrative of what he, Dalin, imagines is going through Amin's mind, after he is described as being at Auschwitz and egging the stokers on (all sourced to Wis) whom no one trusts. Keep this in mind. You may not like the author, but no one has caught him out using unreliable sources, unlike the many authors he criticizes, precisely, for fabricating or twisting sources.Nishidani (talk) 12:36, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Uh, brewcrewer, experienced editors don't go around mechanically reverting things already contested on the talk page, as you just did here. To engage in this is tantamount to edit-warring, since no rationale is provided, and consensus is visibly lacking. Just a reminder.Nishidani (talk) 14:43, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

The claim is recorded in so many books, we should also include it here:

There have been claims that the mufti visited the death camps in German occupied-Poland. In July 1946, Joseph Kalmer writing in The Central European Observer, talks of the existence of an "intercepted letter" which attested to the muftis presence in Auschwitz. In 1947, after apparently studying material from the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, Simon Wiesenthal wrote that the mufti had visited Auschwitz and Majdanek to study the functioning of the crematoria. Other sources attribute the claim directly to the Nazi Dieter Wisliceny, who confirmed earlier reports by Rudolf Kasztner, that he had heard that the mufti had accompanied Eichmann on a visit to the gas chambers at Auschwitz. In 1961, the mufti denied ever being in the camps or that he knew Eichmann. The alleged incognito visit has not been verified by any other sources and is of unreliable authenticity..

Chesdovi (talk) 15:07, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Come on! Kalmer is cited unverifiably, in a primary source; you write that Dieter Wisliceny, confirmed earlier reports by Rudolf Kasztner, citing Bosworth, who says no such thing. You've got it arse-about. He says that Kasztner said the notoriously unreliable Wislisceny told him the Mufti played a key role in the Holocaust, (which is patent nonsense), and in any case skewing the source, a POV-WP:OR violation there. Segev repeats what Rafael Medoff and Bernard Lewis state. In short, you've given a primary source that is unverifiable, a secondary source you misinterpret, and a secondary source which confirms what authorities on the page already say. Sure there's a lot of work to be done there, but not in this scrappy fashion. (and please read Segev's review of Dalin's motherlode of. . Nishidani (talk) 15:52, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

I am aware that Kastner heard the report from Wisliceny himself, and am sorry this was not clear. The article already covers (and debunks) the “friendship” claim, but the Aushwitz claim is missing. Even thou Bosworth states this report must “be questioned”, The Encyclopaedia of Islam nevertheless mentions it twice in the mufti’s entry. We should too. (It is interesting how Bosworth has used italics for “According to my opinion” and “I heard say” to emphasise the weakness of the claim.) The mufti denied knowing who Eichman was in 1961, yet his 9/11/44 diary entry under the name “Eichmann” calls him “very rare diamond, the best saviour of the Arabs”. Contrary to sources I have seen which state that Eichman only said he met Amin once, Saul S. Friedman writes that Eichman did not only meet Amin once at a cocktail party: He “admitted at his trial in Jerusalem in 1961 that he had met the Grand Mufti on several occasions. Their first meeting took place in 1937…” Eichman also said they met again in 1942…. So if the mufti lied about knowing who Eichman was, should we also take his word about his visit to the camps? Chesdovi (talk) 16:50, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

Seems like some people throw away their usual caution when the Mufti is the subject. There was no meeting in 1937, this is proved and not disputed. Eichmann spent one day near Haifa while al-Hussieni was unable to leave the Haram in Jerusalem due to a British arrest warrant being out on him. In any case the primary purpose of Eichmann's visit was to talk to Zionists, and the internal report he wrote after returning to Germany was published decades ago. As for the Eichmann trial, he absolutely did not admit at his trial to meeting al-Husseini more than once. From District Court session 80: Question: "Were you in touch with the Mufti? Did you co-operate with him? Would you care to give the Court information on the matter?" Accused: "Yes. As far as I know I saw the Mufti just once. This was during an evening hosted by Department VI in the Security Service guesthouse, to which most of the Specialist Officers of the Head Office for Reich Security had been invited. Each Specialist Officer, including myself, was presented to the Mufti. At that time there was an agreement between the Mufti and Himmler, according to which - I know of only three people - but in any case several people had to go through the Head Office for Reich Security as intelligence agents. In this case it was three Iraqi Majors. According to orders, these three Iraqi Majors came to work in my Section for their information for a day or two - I cannot quite remember now. Subsequently, neither I, not any officer of IVB4, had anything at all to do with either the Mufti or any of the three Iraqi Majors." He might have been lying, but he sure did not admit it. Zero^talk 15:05, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

If the Auschwitz claim is missing, of course it should be edited in, presumably in the Wisliceny postwar section. But look for the better sources. Even fine sources copy at times. I trust secondary books written by scholars who actually read the archives. I'm not here to defend the mufti, but when I came to this page 4 years ago, the sheer volume of bad reportage that turned out to distort issues was impressive. Perhaps he planned a deathcamp at Nablus, who knows. But you simply can't put that in because crummy writers repeat the meme. Exceptional claims require exceptionally good sources- that is one of our wiki rules (that sort of thing is in breach of Islamic law by the way: Khomeini, oddly enough, dismantled the Shah's nuclear programme on that very ground, atom bombs were forbidden, he ruled). Aside from WP:NPOV, when we are dealing with a character whose biography is notoriously inflected by POV pseudo-scholarship, and one who has been intensely and extensively studied by competent area scholars, I think the sensible thing to do is to raise the bar of relevant secondary source commentary high. As Novick remarks at the bottom of our page, his entry in an encyclopedia is 4 times longer than that of the major Holocaust executors, and the reasons are connected with geopolitics. I won't edit this section until I have mastered several new sources emerging in the last decade in German scholarship, quite a lot of it negative, some dubious. Nishidani (talk) 17:43, 10 October 2011 (UTC)

A recent high-quality source on this is Gilbert Achar, The Arabs and the Holocaust. Achar is extremely critical of al-Husayni, including the best argument I've seen that al-Husayni knew (by 1943 at least) what the Germans were up to. However, on the Auschwitz visit he writes "based on highly dubious evidence given by a single person". We know that person was Wisliceny, or more correctly what someone else claimed that Wisliceny said. In any case, since we have Kasztner's account of what Wisliceny claimed, and it does not have anything about what al-Husayni said during this alleged visit, we know for a fact that the story as told by Dalin is an invention. Zero^talk 07:50, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Actually I think this story about al-Husseini saying something at Auschwitz originates with Simon Wiesenthal. Wiesenthal was famous for making things up, even about himself, as Tom Segev's recent exhaustive biography demonstrates repeatedly. Despite the great things that Wiesenthal achieved, it would be a sad day for Wikipedia if we took his writing as reliable. Zero^talk 07:57, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Fully agree. I had not yet read this when I wrote my suggestion here below. 87.65.253.233 (talk) 17:57, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

The claim about planning death camps in Palestine is ridiculous on its face. The Germans did plan to occupy Palestine, and probably would have been genocidal maniacs there like in Europe, but the documentary evidence of specific plans to build camps doesn't seem to exist (and I say that because the polemic authors who would very much like to present such evidence don't seem to be able to). Connection to the Mufti is an absurd second level of conjecture which is obviously politically motivated. Why on earth would the Nazis need a Muslim religious leader, who never built anything in his life, to help build a camp? Once the Germans were in control they could do whatever they liked. Zero^talk 00:00, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, chief. My feeling is that some of these memes should be listed, eventually from RS however that mention them just to dismiss their flimsiness, if only because quite a few people come to this page and think there's a cover-up because they don't read the feverish 'facts' they encounter all over the web. But it would be a pretty weird passage. I.e. that he was engaged in a homosexual triangle with senior British administrators which explains why Zionism ran into difficulties in the early 20s; that he authored the holocaust, and the poor Germans weren't really to blame for everything; that he rebrushed up on sapper mechanics to set up a death camp in Nablus; that he was Arafat's distant uncle, and hence the PLO/PNA was the long hand of the holocaust-engineer, and the Palestinian project for homerule essentially a dream of rerunning the Nazi project etc, etc.etc. That he urged the stokers, on his non-existent (so far) visit to Auschwitz, burn or gas the huge lines of people he saw there with more vim. Or perhaps that could be ordered in a section that deals with meme-recycling sources, if we can get articles by scholars reviewing this practice. Those who view him as the Moriarty of Middle Eastern madness have, no far, plummeted, locked in a lethal embrace with the spectre their paranoia, over the Reichenbach Falls of fantasy. It deserves a story somewhere.Nishidani (talk) 08:28, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

A section called "propaganda" would be interesting. We just need a wp:rs sources that gather some of these. I wonder if Gilbert Achcar's last book could be used for this... 87.65.253.233 (talk) 17:55, 11 October 2011 (UTC)

As a general reminder, WP policy prohibits the removal of reliably sourced content because "it is not true." I see lots of chitchat, but one fundamental policy seems to be ignored. I agree with Chesdovi.--brewcrewer (yada, yada) 00:53, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Since you appear to either not have read the diffs cited at the top of this section, or forgotten them, for your convenience I will repeat them here to save time wasted in scrolling.

this and this.

They broke a fundamental policy by reporting in wiki's narrative neutral voice, i.e., as 'facts' memes from the early post-war rumour mill, and did so by recourse to a notoriously unreliable source. So there were 2 violations, one of WP:NPOV, and the other of WP:RS, something you haven't noted. The 'chitchat' clarified this, and even canvassed ways of retaining the crap. I've read several times that Hitler was prey to cacophilia, and that a dogbite left his wiener looking a bit like Goofy's ear, but I don't think that kind of stuff is included in Hitler. Biographical articles are not, optimally, playgrounds for tabloid prurience or hearsay sensationalism.Nishidani (talk) 09:13, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

The mufti's bio in the Encyclopaedia of Islam mentions the "camps" twice. If there are so many sources reporting this dubious claim, why should it not be reported here? Correct, until now, the truth has been beyond verification, but that does not negate that this widely publicized claim should be mentioned here. He was either there or he was not. If he went "incognito", bedecked in a SS uniform instead of his dashing white turban (he traveled to Paris with dyed hair and a shaven beard) - it would naturally be more difficult for onlookers and witnesses to ascertain his presence there. I suppose Segev and Achar, who both say the claim is merely hearsay, are not aware of the Kalmer claim of an “intercepted letter” and I am awaiting both their views on the matter. Chesdovi (talk) 09:46, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

For the record, the report in Encyclopedia of Islam concludes with "These reports coming only from Wisliceny must be questioned until substantiated from other sources." Zero^talk 03:15, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for the Kalmer reference, I will get that article for my collection. However, the lack of any credentials of Kalmer as a historian, together with the lack of any other mention of this "intercepted letter" by experts on the Mufti, make it altogether too fringe for inclusion. We must also note that writings of the 1946-7 period deserve special caution as the move towards a Jewish state was gathering momentum and the propagandists for all sides were working shifts. Zero^talk 11:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

In the meantime please review the thread. The point is not that these flimsy rumours cannot be mentioned, but that you require excellent sources for extraordinary claims. And they will be forthcoming in duke horse. What we are best advised to do here is not rush perfervidly to plunk in memes from crappy books, as has long been the practice.Nishidani (talk) 10:39, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Achlar may suffice. Chesdovi (talk) 10:43, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Chesdovi, you seem to be in an awful haste to plunk the junk. That remark by a Rabbi in 1978, cited by Jakobovitz (I presume) is interesting as a version of the meme we have discussed, but it is simply not going to pass any stringent test for RS on the idiotic thesis that the Mufti triggered the Final Solution. If you ain't familiar with the details of that, which indicate that planning began long before the Mufti put foot into Germany, and if you think that meeting Hitler in late November seeded the idea and inspiration for the deliberations at the Wannsee Conference two months later, look up Wannsee Conference. I've left it in, though eliding that 'frenzied' adjective, even if I've allowed the weaselly 'some' to remain. But the edit is a waste of your time. The meme the learned gentleman recirculates is best explained historically by looking at who said what and when, followed by what the best scholarship says about these rumours. And this is what several of us are working on. I've also relocated it. Given the junk scholarship on these years, I think it is generally agreed that we give the factual record in detail, as that has been established by the consensus of experts, while relegating the motherlode of postwar innuendoes to a separate section.Nishidani (talk) 13:53, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I don't know what is in discussion here exactly, but I know the academic literature on the Holocaust very well and there is barely a single historian who believes the decision to kill the Jews was made after the Mufti arrived in Germany. It is plausible (though not proved) that he visited Auschwitz, and even plausible (though apparently with zero evidence) that he wanted to build camps in Palestine. But it is not plausible that he is responsible for the Holocaust, because that has been proved wrong. As the pre-eminent Holocaust historian Medoff who is extremely hostile to the Mufti writes, "Actually, there is no evidence that the Mufti's presence was a factor at all; the Wisliceny hearsay is not merely uncorroborated, but conflicts with everything else that is known about the origins of the Final Solution." Zero^talk 14:42, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

Tom Segev's recent book "Simon Wiesenthal" confirms that Wiesenthal originated the story of Eichmann visiting the gas chambers and praising the operators. Segev writes "He was evidently the first to disseminate this story, which was to be repeated innumerable times by others. Some attributed it to Eichmann's aide Wisliceny, but there is no reliable evidence for its veracity". (p. 87) Given that Segev had unrestricted access to Wiesenthal's files, this is strong statement. Another interesting thing in Segev's book is that Wiesenthal accused Maurice (Moshe) Pearlman of stealing his information about the mufti and publishing it with the help of "Asher Ben Natan and others". Asher Ben Natan (Arthur Piernikraz) was a leading Zionist activist who later became "one of the heads of the Israeli defense establishment, and the Jewish state's first ambassador to Germany". (pp. 87, 14) This is the first confirmation I have seen of the obvious fact that Pearlman's book was a Zionist production. Zero^talk 08:39, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

There's probably a similar connection behind the May 47 (French version) and 1948 (English) submission to the UN put out by Nation Associates (The Arab Higher Committee: Its Origins, Personnel and Purposes.) I keep seeing it cited, and have yet to come across (but this is ot my field) a detailed study of who these were, and why the timeliness. But the stash of material from it appears to have formed the basis of much that was later, even to this day, circulated about the Mufti.(?)Nishidani (talk) 12:51, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Incidentally, Nation Associates still exists. In 1946-8 it was generously funded by the American branch of the Jewish Agency (something I must get around to adding to The Nation). Their 1948 dossier consists of some text plus a bunch of documents. I have the text, but not the documents. I might try again to get the lot. Zero^talk 14:42, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Now I have it all (English original dated May 1947, 74 pages). The translation of the Mufti's diary appearing in Schechtman is word for word identical with what is given in this source. However they also give photographs of what they claim is the original diary (handwritten Arabic). Zero^talk 03:36, 22 October 2011 (UTC)

There's a very interesting article for an historian in all that. Who held the diary, how was it consulted, who did the 47 paper, who translated. Not quite for this article, perhaps, but it will be interesting to read the background, if these details do eventually emerge. It won't alter anything, but will throw light on the preparations for 47/48.Nishidani (talk) 17:11, 22 October 2011 (UTC)