Speaker 1: Well, let me to tell you what you would have
Speaker 1: seen and heard.
Speaker 2: If you'll not be pleasants listening, if you're at lunch,
Speaker 2: or if you have no appetite, now is a good
Speaker 2: time to switch.
Speaker 1: Off the radio, an ancestor of my main chaine. If
Speaker 1: you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however.
Speaker 2: Improbable, evasion, Russian banji out of it, you don't GENEROPI one.
Speaker 1: Who knows that a lot of work I will needs
Speaker 1: by the thousand year. I wish I could say tonight
Speaker 1: that a lasting peace is inside.
Speaker 2: I don't see any laughing dream.
Speaker 1: I see an a laughing night. Moore.
Speaker 2: I as if we care for Asu to kail, if
Speaker 2: we care for assure to gail.
Speaker 1: If some say the world.
Speaker 2: Will end, empire, some stay Anie.
Speaker 1: From what I have tasted of desire, I hold those
Speaker 1: of flavor fire.
Speaker 2: But if it had to perish twice, I think I
Speaker 2: know I'm not to hate to say that the destruction
Speaker 2: Ice is also great, and look sufficed.
Speaker 1: This is history.
Speaker 2: Well, it has not come up as much as one
Speaker 2: might expect.
Speaker 1: I do sometimes get asked why I've spent.
Speaker 2: So much time three years, to be exact, talking about
Speaker 2: the most infamous Grand Muffy of Jerusalem, Hajamin now Husseini. Now,
Speaker 2: this is a fair question, and while some asking might
Speaker 2: have some motivated reasoning at work, I figured it was
Speaker 2: worth delving into a little bit, if only as a
Speaker 2: brief addendum to the well the six hour beast I
Speaker 2: recently unleashed.
Speaker 1: Upon all of you.
Speaker 2: So why does Hajami now Husseini matter? To state it plainly,
Speaker 2: and to leave you with perhaps a more pointed example,
Speaker 2: Hajamen matters not just because of the significant effect that
Speaker 2: his rhetoric, actions, and even mere existence has had on
Speaker 2: the historical memory of the birthing pangs of Israel and
Speaker 2: the image cousured by his most fervent, rabid foes. There is,
Speaker 2: in my view, much more to it than that. I
Speaker 2: would like to believe that I have demonstrated this very
Speaker 2: effectively in the most recent episode of the podcast and
Speaker 2: other writing and podcasting that I've done on the subject
Speaker 2: of Haja Mein, or even just on subjects that relate
Speaker 2: to Haja Mein. Hajjamen matters and must be brought from
Speaker 2: the dust bin of history to be carefully examined, in
Speaker 2: my opinion, because, like all monsters from our past. He
Speaker 2: was still a man and a man with agency, just
Speaker 2: like the rest of us. There is a reason the
Speaker 2: relationship with his father is what opened the main narrative
Speaker 2: of the most recent episode of history. Impossible to restate
Speaker 2: the gist of that mini meditation on the influence fathers
Speaker 2: have on their sons. This influence can create ripple effects
Speaker 2: across time that can be felt many many decades after
Speaker 2: those fathers and sons have shuffled off this mortal coil.
Speaker 2: This was as made obvious by the episode's narrative thrust
Speaker 2: referring to the influence that Hajamin al Husseini's father, Muhammad
Speaker 2: Tahira al Husseini had on the future Grand Mufty, namely
Speaker 2: his views on what would come to be known as Zionism,
Speaker 2: or as to Hear likely saw it, the encroachment of
Speaker 2: mostly European Jewish emigres on his decidedly purer to keyword
Speaker 2: there Arab homeland. The circumstances of this.
Speaker 1: Influence of to Hear on Hajja Mean are what is.
Speaker 2: Unique to the story of Hajja Mean and thus what
Speaker 2: makes him in part significant. But the influence to Hear
Speaker 2: had on his young son arguably was not that significant.
Speaker 2: We are all influenced by our parents, whether through their
Speaker 2: actions or through their absence, and there can, indeed be
Speaker 2: long term consequences of such influence. Those consequences are what
Speaker 2: makes Hanja Mean unique in the historical record, but the
Speaker 2: fact that they at least partly stem from the influence
Speaker 2: of his father are not what makes Haja Mean unique
Speaker 2: in the historical record. And perhaps paradoxically, that is what
Speaker 2: I believe makes him important and worth discussing. I say
Speaker 2: paradoxically because it hardly makes him unique, but it also
Speaker 2: reveals the human essence at his core, which was always
Speaker 2: there within him, even as his soul clearly rotted away
Speaker 2: over the years with the choices that he made and
Speaker 2: the hatreds that he carried. To make this point clear,
Speaker 2: let's ask, does this parable of paternal influence not apply
Speaker 2: to other controversial leaders in world history, even the most bloodthirsty,
Speaker 2: even the Stalins, the Polepots, the Hitlers. Indeed, I believe
Speaker 2: it does. In fact, it applies very neatly to another
Speaker 2: controversial leader in this nearly century and a half long conflict.
Speaker 2: More importantly, a man who is quite literally on the
Speaker 2: opposite side of this conflict, that is a one Prime Minister,
Speaker 2: Benjamin Netanyahu Nettan Yahoo, like Haja Mean, grew up in
Speaker 2: the shadow and indeed overcame the ship, at least to
Speaker 2: a certain extent, of his father, ben Zion Netanyahu. Ben
Speaker 2: Zion was a formidable presence in Israel's history, having served
Speaker 2: as secretary to the infamous head of the Revisionist Zionists,
Speaker 2: Zaiev Jabotinsky. He lived to be one hundred and two
Speaker 2: years old, passing away in just twenty twelve, and his
Speaker 2: presence especially loomed large over his son. As Jeffrey Goldberg
Speaker 2: wrote in the Pages of The Atlantic back in the
Speaker 2: September twenty ten issue, quote always in the back of
Speaker 2: Bibi's mind is ben Zion. One of the Prime Minister's
Speaker 2: friends told me, he worries that his father will think
Speaker 2: he is weak. Ben Zion, by all accounts, was worshiped
Speaker 2: by his sons and their childhood, and today, the sixty
Speaker 2: year old Benjamin, who has been known to act in
Speaker 2: charmless ways, conspicuously upholds the Fifth Commandment when discussing his
Speaker 2: father at a party marking Benzion's one hundredth birthday held
Speaker 2: this past march at the Monoch and Began Heritage Center
Speaker 2: in Jerusalem, before an assembly that included the President of Israel,
Speaker 2: Shimone Perez. Benjamin credited his father with forecasting the Shoa
Speaker 2: and in the early nineteen nineties, predicting that Muslim extremists
Speaker 2: would try to bring down the Twin Towers in New York.
Speaker 2: Many people in Lecud party circles have told me that
Speaker 2: those who discount ben Zion's influence on his son do
Speaker 2: so at their peril. This was the father giving his
Speaker 2: son history's marching orders. One of the attendees told me,
Speaker 2: I watched Bibby while his father spoke. He was completely absorbed.
Speaker 2: How much of Bibby's policy decisions, including those related to
Speaker 2: West Bank settlements, as well as his post ten to
Speaker 2: seven policies, are related directly to ben Zion's influence, It
Speaker 2: is obviously impossible to say for certain. However, it is
Speaker 2: also impossible, given the evidence provided by Goldberg and the
Speaker 2: sources with whom he talked to, claim that there was
Speaker 2: and remains no influence.
Speaker 1: Ben Zion.
Speaker 2: Natanyahu, in the tradition of revision of Zionism's infamous and tractability,
Speaker 2: would proclaim in a terse speech given at his one
Speaker 2: hundredth birthday party. Quote from the Iranian side, we hear
Speaker 2: pledges that sued in a matter of days, even the
Speaker 2: Zionist movement will be put to an end and there
Speaker 2: will be no more Zionists in the world. One is
Speaker 2: supposed to conclude from this that the Jews of the
Speaker 2: Land of Israel will be annihilated, while the Jews of America,
Speaker 2: whose leaders refuse to pressure Iran, are being told in
Speaker 2: a hinted fashion that the annihilation of the Jews will
Speaker 2: not include them. The Jewish people are making their position
Speaker 2: clear and putting faith in their military power. The nation
Speaker 2: of Israel is showing the world today how a state
Speaker 2: should behave when it stands before an existential threat, by
Speaker 2: looking danger in the eye and calmly considering what should
Speaker 2: be done and what can be done, and to be
Speaker 2: ready to enter the fray at the moment there is
Speaker 2: a reasonable chance of success. Much can be gleaned from
Speaker 2: this outlook, both related to geopolitical news at the time
Speaker 2: and how it is informed by a well at this
Speaker 2: point perhaps more justified, at least in a post ten
Speaker 2: to seven world preemptively defensive israel Centric worldview with an
Speaker 2: interesting inversion of the dual loyalty trope an implied allegation
Speaker 2: of insufficient loyalty by American Jews. But there can be
Speaker 2: no doubt that the outlook informing this speech has its
Speaker 2: fingerprints on Benjamin Netanyahu's own approach to foreign policy. The
Speaker 2: point to take home from this is less that I
Speaker 2: am just as capable of deploying a potentially problematic psychoanalytic
Speaker 2: framework against the controversial Prime Minister of Israel, just as
Speaker 2: problematic as the one I deployed against the controversial Grand
Speaker 2: Muffy of Jerusalem Hajaja Mean. It is more that the
Speaker 2: point with which I open the most recent episode of
Speaker 2: the podcast is even more proven. That men are often
Speaker 2: influenced by their fathers, and this can have reverberating effects
Speaker 2: across time in ways that they and those of us
Speaker 2: watching are probably unable of fully appreciating in the moment.
Speaker 2: After all, even the greatest men among us are only human,
Speaker 2: and because we are all only human, we can recognize
Speaker 2: a lot of what drives men in positions of power
Speaker 2: that most of us can only dream of possessing, and
Speaker 2: realize why they could well be figures not to be
Speaker 2: trusted to make a bad situation better. I mean, in
Speaker 2: a way, I'm more deploying a classic cinematic villain trope.
Speaker 2: I'm more doing that than anything else with this imagining.
Speaker 1: As I am.
Speaker 2: Speaking these words, Old Bibby sitting across the table from
Speaker 2: Haja Mien, perhaps, each sipping on a lemonade in the
Speaker 2: hot Jerusalem sun. I'm not sure who says it, but
Speaker 2: I don't think it matters very much, since it works
Speaker 2: either way, honestly. But one of them eventually smiles and says,
Speaker 2: you and I are very much alike.
Speaker 1: I hope I.
Speaker 2: Don't sound too preemptively defensive when I say this, but
Speaker 2: I also want to make it clear that despite my
Speaker 2: biases that I would like to believe I've sufficiently acknowledged,
Speaker 2: both on the show and in my writing, that I
Speaker 2: have been and remain very aware that there are a
Speaker 2: lot of varying perspectives on how things have devolved so
Speaker 2: horribly in the Holy Land, especially if we place October seventh,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three as a start date for our analysis.
Speaker 2: In other words, I am very aware that it is
Speaker 2: not just a bunch of Arab Nazis running around with
Speaker 2: a thirst for Jewish blood full stop. There are other
Speaker 2: major factors at work, as there always have been, and
Speaker 2: the more thoughtful among the commentariat have discussed these factors
Speaker 2: over the years. For example, some of the most compelling
Speaker 2: arguments that I have seen made from a position more
Speaker 2: sympathetic to the Palestinian plight, is questioning why the settlements
Speaker 2: of the West Bank continue to be built despite everything
Speaker 2: that might justify their existence in the minds of more
Speaker 2: strident Zionist Israelis, or despite everything that the Palestinians, namely
Speaker 2: the more politically and especially religiously radical among them, have
Speaker 2: done to place themselves and more importantly, the millions of
Speaker 2: their regular ie civilian counterparts, in the situation that they're in.
Speaker 2: And this class of Palestinian radical has indeed done this,
Speaker 2: and yet I will be the first to admit that
Speaker 2: it is all a bit complicated, to say the least.
Speaker 2: As Andrew Sullivan, the famous writer and journalists, observed back
Speaker 2: in twenty twelve in a truly amazing essay and one
Speaker 2: that actually inspired me to write the original essay. This
Speaker 2: particular podcast special is based on, as he observed quote,
Speaker 2: the Palestinians have for a long time, been their own
Speaker 2: worst enemies, and in the past have not sought peace
Speaker 2: for much of the past sixty years. The Palestinians bear
Speaker 2: a huge responsibility for their own situation quote. But Sullivan
Speaker 2: also so granted this fact one now more resonant and
Speaker 2: unfortunately prescient post ten to seven, while also asking very pointedly,
Speaker 2: quote why continued to build the settlements on? Quote why
Speaker 2: indeed we can't, or at least I can't pretend that
Speaker 2: this question is discounted because of the lack of responsibility Palestinians,
Speaker 2: namely their more radical and less radical leadership, have as
Speaker 2: authors of the humiliation and even destruction that they have faced.
Speaker 2: The question of West Bank settlements is not mutually exclusive
Speaker 2: from applying the appropriate amount of moral responsibility on Palestinian
Speaker 2: leadership across time. However, to return to the main point, let's.
Speaker 1: Loop all this together.
Speaker 2: It's this notion of placing the appropriate moral responsibility that
Speaker 2: brings us back to our pal now Husseini. Given these
Speaker 2: things that help flesh out the moral complexity of the
Speaker 2: narrative that I've been tackling, it is indeed fair to
Speaker 2: ask why place so much focus on Jajamin Now Husseini.
Speaker 2: The short version, my mini thesis, if you will, is
Speaker 2: simply that he is underrated, both in the historical and
Speaker 2: more importantly, in the moral record. This problem of his
Speaker 2: being underrated is still in the process of being corrected,
Speaker 2: and despite not being a real historian, at least not yet,
Speaker 2: I'd like to think that I'm contributing at least in
Speaker 2: some fashion to correcting this deficient we'll say record, But
Speaker 2: this record, this long developing record, has hit many many
Speaker 2: hiccups along the way. As I already covered in the
Speaker 2: just released episode of History Impossible. This is partly due
Speaker 2: to how much misinformation is out there about the man,
Speaker 2: coming from what we can call the Zionist camp, and
Speaker 2: partly due to how much seeming in curiosity and at times,
Speaker 2: as we also covered, very clearly deliberate obfuscation that there
Speaker 2: has been coming out of the Palestinian Nationalists or Palestinian
Speaker 2: sympathetic camp. As a reminder, this runs the gamut from
Speaker 2: Bibi Netanyahoo falsely claiming that Hajamen was the real brains
Speaker 2: behind the Holocaust, to activist scholars claiming that he was
Speaker 2: not actually the monster that he has been painted as,
Speaker 2: and even some pretending that nothing he did between nineteen
Speaker 2: forty one and nineteen forty five mattered enough to discuss
Speaker 2: at any length or depth. This is a clear problem,
Speaker 2: and it's one that actually has its own history. So
Speaker 2: this means we're going to briefly dive into what normally
Speaker 2: is my least favorite part of historical scholarship, but to
Speaker 2: be honest, really interesting to me, at least in this case,
Speaker 2: and that is historiography as in the history of doing
Speaker 2: history of a particular topic, and that's a pretty loose definition.
Speaker 2: In the paper the Historical Problem of Hajamin al Husseini,
Speaker 2: Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, published by the Jerusalem Center for
Speaker 2: Public Affairs in the Jewish Political Studies Review, author Joel
Speaker 2: Fishman explains that the lack of attention and thus confusion
Speaker 2: that has arisen over the course of the past half
Speaker 2: century since the Mufti's death is due to many reasons.
Speaker 2: The first reason he cites is that, thanks to the
Speaker 2: methodology of early Israeli historians of collecting and preserving sources
Speaker 2: with the intent of allowing research to take place in
Speaker 2: the future, quote, lost opportunities and major gaps in our
Speaker 2: knowledge unquote, formed world events also conspired to make these
Speaker 2: opportunities more difficult to seize, with diplomatic developments between the
Speaker 2: PLO and the Israeli government in the nineteen nineties, i e.
Speaker 2: The Oslo Accords, leading to a supposedly moral imperative that quote,
Speaker 2: in order to make peace of the PLO, it was
Speaker 2: necessary to forget the past. The problem of diplomatic real
Speaker 2: politique aside, there were practical difficulties as well, such as
Speaker 2: the declassification of records from the war years, occurring at
Speaker 2: different times and more importantly, in different languages and in
Speaker 2: different countries. As Joel Fishman explains, these sources included quote,
Speaker 2: Nazi documents captured by the Red Army State Department and
Speaker 2: CIA collections which have become declassified, and related primary sources
Speaker 2: from Germany. It was not even until the late two
Speaker 2: thousands and early twenty tens, when books like Jeffrey Herb's
Speaker 2: Masterful Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World and David Modoedel's
Speaker 2: Incredible Islam and Nazi Germany's War, which by the way,
Speaker 2: were both used very extensively in the research of the
Speaker 2: last episode, that the story of the Mufty began to
Speaker 2: emerge from the murk of recently unearthed historical documentation. Basically,
Speaker 2: the truth, the real dirty truths, I should say, surrounding
Speaker 2: the Grand Muffy really only started coming out very recently
Speaker 2: as of this recording. Now, Hajamen had indeed gotten coverage
Speaker 2: from sources like Bayan al Hut and Philimtar, but without
Speaker 2: all of the documents unearthed in the nineteen nineties and beyond,
Speaker 2: there was little that could be effectively contested in there,
Speaker 2: as in Matar and al Hoot's sugarcoated or arguably dishonest accounts,
Speaker 2: no doubt contributing to Hajamen's underrated status. This revival of
Speaker 2: interest thanks to the new information brought to light, of course,
Speaker 2: produced an opposite effective bias in some corners of the discourse,
Speaker 2: leading of course to the more extreme claims made about
Speaker 2: Haja Mien and his role in the Hulla. But the
Speaker 2: point to remember is that a more fully fleshed out
Speaker 2: sketch of the Grand Mufty and his thoughts and actions
Speaker 2: was not even possible until very recently. The best comparison
Speaker 2: that I can think of that I want to make
Speaker 2: is that for a long time, William Shire's excellent book
Speaker 2: The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich written in
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty and you know, it is an excellent book.
Speaker 2: It is by no means bad, but it was the
Speaker 2: mainstream source for looking at the history of Nazi Germany
Speaker 2: for a lot of people. Now, there was obviously other
Speaker 2: books out there, but it was kind of considered a
Speaker 2: gold standard, mostly because I think william Shire was there.
Speaker 2: But flash forward several decades and many debates later. I mean,
Speaker 2: just go to your local Barnes and Noble or local
Speaker 2: independent bookshop and look at the history section where there's
Speaker 2: the World War II sub section, because I guarantee you
Speaker 2: it is a sub section. The coverage has become much
Speaker 2: more fleshed out, as I'm sure you can see, and
Speaker 2: we having incredible work like Timothy Snyder's Blood Lands e
Speaker 2: Were between Hitler and Stalin, or Max Hastings's Inferno The
Speaker 2: World at War in nineteen thirty nine to nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 2: just to name a few examples that I tend to
Speaker 2: see a lot and ones that.
Speaker 1: Are both very good.
Speaker 2: When thinking about it in these terms, one might be
Speaker 2: tempted to suggest, as I kind of am, that the
Speaker 2: depth of scholarship on Haajamin al Husseini has only just
Speaker 2: begun to scratch below the surface. The scratching continues, with
Speaker 2: more material being produced on the Grand Mufty and painting
Speaker 2: an increasingly interesting picture of not just his relationship with
Speaker 2: Nazi Germany, but his overall thinking and eventual impact on
Speaker 2: the wider world. Now it is certainly possible to overstate
Speaker 2: Hajaman's impact on certain things. To revisit the most controversial
Speaker 2: chapter in his time spent with the Nazis, it is
Speaker 2: hardly certain that he was able to effectively influenced change
Speaker 2: on the level of Nazi policy when it came to
Speaker 2: their final solution of the so called Jewish question. But
Speaker 2: it's also become much more possible to establish just how
Speaker 2: complicit he actually was when it came to the well
Speaker 2: established crimes of that regime. Again, the evidence seems pretty
Speaker 2: clear that at the very least, he was well aware
Speaker 2: of the extent of their so called Eastern policies, and
Speaker 2: that he tried to ensure the efficacy of those policies
Speaker 2: on various Eastern European Jews, including thousands of children. Whether
Speaker 2: he was successful or not is less relevant than the
Speaker 2: fact that he tried. That was the point that I
Speaker 2: made in the episode, and we know that thanks to
Speaker 2: the very good research being done. To put it bluntly,
Speaker 2: I do not believe that I would have been able
Speaker 2: to strike this balance in the last episode of the
Speaker 2: podcast without the incredible scholarship that has been done by
Speaker 2: the likes of Gilbert Atchkar, Joel Fishman, Klaus Genzica, Jeffrey Hurf,
Speaker 2: Jenny Label and David Moddel.
Speaker 1: I'm just reporting on.
Speaker 2: What they have found, and that kind of scholarship, it
Speaker 2: should be said, would not have been possible without the
Speaker 2: diligent curiosity of such scholars with an interest in Hajajamin
Speaker 2: al Husseini and a desire to basically just not take
Speaker 2: the clearly politically motivated scholars like al hut Khalidi Matar
Speaker 2: and Papa at their word that frankly, when it comes
Speaker 2: to the Mufty, there's just nothing to see here. As
Speaker 2: Joel Fishman insists, quote, we must make sure that our
Speaker 2: own understanding of this chapter of history is comprehensive, truthful,
Speaker 2: and accurate. It is a disservice to ignore this part
Speaker 2: of the past, because it is crucial for our understanding
Speaker 2: of the present and for the reasonable formation of policy.
Speaker 2: It is simply not possible to build upon a foundation
Speaker 2: of myth and ignorance. The career of Hajamin al Husseini
Speaker 2: represents a major historical problem, and the question of his
Speaker 2: place in history must be placed on the public agenda.
Speaker 2: It still requires thorough and sustained examination. If we look
Speaker 2: beyond the individual articles which appear in this issue of
Speaker 2: the Jewish Political Studies Review, we may identify several larger themes.
Speaker 2: The fusion of religion with politics in the form of
Speaker 2: a new Islamism, the sickness of arabanti Semitism, and of
Speaker 2: course the Mufti's historical responsibility.
Speaker 1: And now for.
Speaker 2: The complicated part that I'm probably making way too complicated
Speaker 2: for my own good, but here goes. If it is
Speaker 2: not yet clear, I could not agree more with the majority,
Speaker 2: the vast majority, I would even say of Joel Fishman's sentiment. Unfortunately, though,
Speaker 2: I have to urge caution to anyone who might think
Speaker 2: that we take Hajamen's career and responsibility as our guiding
Speaker 2: north star for coping with the historical memory that has
Speaker 2: fueled such vast and apocalyptic death and destruction upon the
Speaker 2: Arabs and Jews of the Holy Land, especially after the
Speaker 2: events of ten to seven and the subsequent war that
Speaker 2: has claimed the lives of thousands.
Speaker 1: It is true, without question.
Speaker 2: I think I've made this clear that I believe this,
Speaker 2: but I will say it again as a matter of
Speaker 2: pointless throat clearing, that the bloodthirsty, genocidal and yes, savage
Speaker 2: and animalistic brutality brought upon the Israelis stands firmly in
Speaker 2: the same universe. Firmly, I gotta say that word again,
Speaker 2: firmly in the same universe, as Haja means own genocidal hatred,
Speaker 2: and by extension his status is a true Muslim Nazi,
Speaker 2: if there is such a thing. But if we are
Speaker 2: to base the entire moral calculus of how to deal
Speaker 2: with the quote unquote Palestinian question, truly, for lack of
Speaker 2: a better term, on Hajamin's record, the ease with which we,
Speaker 2: or at least Israel's government could come to some pretty heinous,
Speaker 2: morally compromised conclusions increases exponentially. We spent hours, and by we,
Speaker 2: I mean I I spent many hours. But you were
Speaker 2: all there with me, listening, looking at the vile things
Speaker 2: said about Jews that came from Hajamin's pen and mouth
Speaker 2: during and before the Second World War, so it's not
Speaker 2: worth revisiting them here. But his bloodthirstiness and ruthlessness claimed
Speaker 2: the lives of many Arabs and Muslims as well. That's
Speaker 2: an important thing for us to remember. As historian Jenny
Speaker 2: LaBelle has written, quote, the Mufti was accused of numerous
Speaker 2: murders of his own people, which left behind twenty thousand
Speaker 2: neglected orphans and many poor people in the homeland. They
Speaker 2: also accused him of using humanitarian and religious funds for
Speaker 2: payments to his followers who practiced terror and carried out crimes.
Speaker 2: The Shaikh from Jaffa accused the Mufti that he had
Speaker 2: corrupted and subdued the public opinion media by means of
Speaker 2: arms and confiscated printing presses from their legitimate owners unquote.
Speaker 2: Someone like this is not simply morally compromised or someone
Speaker 2: who has simply quote unquote gone insane. This is someone who,
Speaker 2: if given the means an opportunity, which he thankfully never got,
Speaker 2: would join the annals of history with the likes of
Speaker 2: Joseph Stalin Polpot or yes, Adolf Hitler. And yet despite this,
Speaker 2: I see very little utility, and in fact, conversely, I
Speaker 2: see potential for true danger in using Hajamin as a
Speaker 2: guiding light for present and future policy. This is why,
Speaker 2: as much as I wholeheartedly agree with Joel Fishman that
Speaker 2: the story of Hajamen must be examined and re examined
Speaker 2: and told and retold in order to fully understand his
Speaker 2: breadth and depth as a historical actor. And as I've
Speaker 2: been suggesting, a human being, a very very flawed human
Speaker 2: being like the rest of us, that I can't bring
Speaker 2: myself to go the whole way with this line of reasoning.
Speaker 2: I can't say that there is a lot of use
Speaker 2: beyond the academic or intellectual, at least not right now,
Speaker 2: and not in the way that many people, especially those
Speaker 2: inclined to see the Palestinians as problematic by default, may
Speaker 2: be tempted to see in the story of Hajamin al Husseini.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of talk in the United States
Speaker 2: the last month or so as of this recording at least,
Speaker 2: and I've joined in on it. If you haven't seen it,
Speaker 2: go check out my piece on violent rhetoric on Substack.
Speaker 2: But there's been a lot of talk about that, about
Speaker 2: the role of existentially phrased rhetoric violent rhetoric in compelling
Speaker 2: people to act in a certain violent way, and it
Speaker 2: is for good reason. Like I said, check out the
Speaker 2: piece that I wrote about violent rhetoric causing violent behavior,
Speaker 2: or rather the fact that it doesn't. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: I'll have a hard time convincing a good portion of
Speaker 2: my audience that such a thing is true, with emotions
Speaker 2: still running as high as they are. But when it
Speaker 2: comes to the idea of crafting policy toward a historically
Speaker 2: hostile people based on how their first self appointed political
Speaker 2: and spiritual leaders saw you as Jews in this case,
Speaker 2: in ways a little better, if not worse than the
Speaker 2: National Socialists of Germany, than the probability of treating all
Speaker 2: of those people, not just the radicals, as existential threats
Speaker 2: goes up. And with that probabilistic increase, you were also
Speaker 2: running the risk of treating them in some truly disproportionately
Speaker 2: cruel and unusual ways. Now this must be made clear,
Speaker 2: because I can already hear the shouting from either side
Speaker 2: of this long running debate that a the Palestinians have
Speaker 2: clearly shown themselves as an existential threat to the existence
Speaker 2: of the world's only Jewish state and her people, or
Speaker 2: b that Israel is already treating Palestinians in truly disproportionately
Speaker 2: cruel and unusual ways. What I am saying does not
Speaker 2: diminish these opinions. One can very easily make the argument
Speaker 2: that Israel has every right to feel exist essentially threatened
Speaker 2: by the Palestinians, especially when their government, that is Hamas,
Speaker 2: sees such astoundingly high support from the populace, and that
Speaker 2: same government does obviously hold as much, if not more
Speaker 2: hate in their hearts for Jews as people as the
Speaker 2: Nazis did, And one can very easily make the argument
Speaker 2: that Israel's response has been disproportionately cruel, especially in the
Speaker 2: context of the nakedly imperialistic statements made by members of
Speaker 2: the Lecud party and the Dettan Yahoo Cabinet. One can
Speaker 2: even make relatively reasonable arguments if you mistakenly, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: but regardless, reduce the proportion to literal numerical comparisons, which
Speaker 2: in my view is a fool's errand in a war.
Speaker 2: The point is this, we can and should use Hajajamin
Speaker 2: al Husseini's record responsibility and influence across time as a
Speaker 2: guiding principle for understanding men who radicalize themselves and develop
Speaker 2: monstrous characteristics. But we should not use these things for
Speaker 2: informing wartime policy. Is David Joseph Volodsko and I discussed,
Speaker 2: and as he has written, the Israel Hamas war is
Speaker 2: already underway. It has been for over nine months as
Speaker 2: of this writing, fast closing in on one year. The
Speaker 2: dead can't be made alive, and continuous pleas of ceasefire
Speaker 2: mean very little when both sides of the conflict understandably
Speaker 2: show very little interest in seizing anything or at least
Speaker 2: finding some kind of common ground required for a lasting peace.
Speaker 2: But the war will eventually end, and the question of
Speaker 2: how to conduct things after that happens is the much,
Speaker 2: much more important one. At least by my estimation, the
Speaker 2: questions of war conduct are rather moot at the moment,
Speaker 2: if you ask me, especially since the world remains watching
Speaker 2: and as morally defunct and inconsistent as the UN has
Speaker 2: been on this issue and really on all issues related
Speaker 2: to Israel, it won't let us forget any infractions committed
Speaker 2: during wartime. In other words, there's no rush the accounting
Speaker 2: for such things will come, and it will come later,
Speaker 2: whether we want them to or not. It will be
Speaker 2: the occupation that follows that will serve as the true
Speaker 2: litmus test on Israel's trustworthiness on the world stage, at
Speaker 2: least as far as I'm concerned. And I would rather
Speaker 2: they or anyone not use the legacy of haja Mean
Speaker 2: as the barometer for how to treat millions of Palestinians
Speaker 2: a dozen generations removed from him and his ilk, because
Speaker 2: if I've learned anything in the process of researching this
Speaker 2: story over the years, there were very few people who
Speaker 2: hated Jews as much as Hajamin now Husseini did.
Speaker 1: And when you see.
Speaker 2: Him as the guiding principle for how to treat a people,
Speaker 2: rather than just an unspoken or even subconscious influence on
Speaker 2: the most radical among them, there is very little that
Speaker 2: you would not justify doing in order to prevent the
Speaker 2: horror of ten to seven from happening. Again, take it
Speaker 2: from someone who does as young as he was, remembers
Speaker 2: nine to eleven and the years that followed, and the
Speaker 2: kind of justifications that were being made for things like
Speaker 2: literal torture. This is to say that Hajamin al Husseini
Speaker 2: should serve as a guidepost for a worst case scenario,
Speaker 2: both for Arabs in general and for Jews in particular.
Speaker 2: Preventing such a figure from rising to the occasion, as
Speaker 2: it were, requires a deep and serious investment in the
Speaker 2: lives of Palestinians. Once this war, which remember is already happening,
Speaker 2: is over, to revisit what David Velodsko and I spoke of.
Speaker 2: This is the real moral responsibility in a post ten
Speaker 2: to seven world, making sure it does not happen again
Speaker 2: in the most sustainable and dignified way possible for everyone involved,
Speaker 2: ensuring peace quote unquote, at least in the short term
Speaker 2: by shooting and incinerating and exploding any and all threats
Speaker 2: faced by the Jews of Israel.
Speaker 1: But without a long term, truly.
Speaker 2: Peaceful investment, the death and destruction will then literally be
Speaker 2: for no reason, and it will simply perpetuate the cycle
Speaker 2: of violence that we have been watching unfold for over
Speaker 2: a century. Simply fighting, destroying and displacing will just create
Speaker 2: another vacuum in the Arab world.
Speaker 1: They say nature abhors.
Speaker 2: A vacuum, and I say, here's like Hajamin al Husseini
Speaker 2: crave it. And if he is not used as an
Speaker 2: object lesson for what not just Arabs and Jews, but
Speaker 2: all people should avoid and prevent, then the consequences could
Speaker 2: and likely.
Speaker 1: Would be disastrous.
Speaker 2: At best, people like Hajamen just managed to make things worse,
Speaker 2: and at worst, well, we have plenty of examples with
Speaker 2: body counts that the Grand Mufty could only dream about.
Speaker 2: S