Trudy Gold
Haj Amin El Husseini, Part 2
Trudy Gold - Haj Amin El Husseini, Part 2
- We’ll give it a few more minutes, Trudy.
Okay, darling. We’ll give it to 17:32 I think. Should we?
Yes. Yes.
Oh, there’s a question already. Let me see what it is.
Thank you. That was from Sonya, ‘cause we’d answered her question.
Oh, bless her. I think when people put up their questions, they should say what country they’re from. Is that possible?
Well, they can just type it into the Q&A.
That’d be interesting, be very interesting.
I’ve noted some people have raised their hands. If you have a question, can you just drop it into the q and a for us? 'Cause I can’t unmute you if you raise your hand to ask a question. So you can put them in the q and a. Okay, we’ve got Basil from Toronto. Yolanda is also in Toronto.
Either the Canadians are more vociferous than any other group, or they are the biggest group. We’ve got .
And we’ve got, Sonya is also in Manchester in the United Kingdom, another one from Toronto. And Trudy, there’s a question for you about why the Mufti was not tried and condemned as a close ally of Hitler. We’ll get to that in the talk.
Yes, of course we will.
And Bob from Memphis, Tennessee, Deliana from Toronto, Hazel in Seattle. Oh, we have Sonya. It’s a Sonya from Brazil. Hello all the way in Brazil.
What’s the time difference there?
I don’t know. Ronna, Cape Town. Hannah in New Jersey. Norman from Santorini.
This is lovely.
We’ve got someone from Bloemfontein. How’s is it, Ray?
From where?
From Bloemfontein in South Africa.
All right. I like the way you say it.
All right, Trudy, we have gone seven over. Welcome. We’ve got over 1,300 participants online from all around the world. So Trudy, I’ll hand over to you.
Well early evening in London and welcome everyone. And today I am continuing looking at Haj Amin El Husseini, of course one of the most controversial figures in this particular chapter. This is under the overarching issue of Zionism and the Holocaust. So can we see a picture of him, if you don’t mind, Judy? Whilst that’s happening, I’m going to give you a little of his background. The first question I want to ask you, and as we go through this course, it’s a very important question. Was the Arab-Israeli conflict always inevitable? Number one. Number two, what is the relationship between the Shoah and the establishment of the state of Israel?
Visuals are displayed throughout the presentation.
Bearing in mind there is no such thing as objective history and also that we are now moving into one of the most controversial areas in Jewish history, where we’re going to see a clash, not just between various factions within the Zionist movement, which I’m already talking about, but now with the clash with Arab nationalism. So let’s look a little bit at the background of the man who, as I said to on Tuesday, he was the man more than any other who put Arab nationalism on an extremist path and he’s absolutely tied up with the notion of the creation of a Palestinian state. And you can see from his dates, we’re not sure whether he was born in 1897 or '98. He dies in 1974, and he comes from a very wealthy land owning family in Palestine under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. There were three major land owning families. He was the son of the Mufti Tahir, who had always, from the beginning, been against Jewish settlement in Palestine. The family had land around South Palestine and in Jerusalem, 13 members of his family had been mayors of Jerusalem. His half-brother Kamil had also been Mufti.
Now, let me explain. The post of Mufti, which he’s going to be granted in the early twenties, means that he’s the guardian of Islamic Holy places. In Islam, there is no real line between religion and politics. Remember the prophet Mohammed was a political leader as well as a religious leader. So where you have the separation of powers in the West, it’s not the same in Islam. And as Mufti, he’s going to wield an incredible amount of power. He studied at the Qur'an school in Jerusalem. It was an Ottoman government school. He then went to a Catholic secondary school run by Greek missionaries. Remember Jerusalem was an international city. There are religious groups from all over the world, all over the Christian world. Then he studied at Alliance school under its non Zionist director, a man called Albert Antebi. Can we see his photograph, Judy? Because I think it’s quite important to bring him into the story because then you might understand the various views at the time. His dates are 1873 to 1919, and he’s going to be the principal of the school where the Mufti studies.
He’s originally from a Sephardi Jewish family in Damascus. His grandfather had tragically been a victim of the Damascus blood libel. It was in 1840, it was the first accusation of the blood libel in the Muslim world, and it was a Christian import. More about that later. He himself had studied that at an Alliance school. Important to remember that the Alliance is an organisation that had been set up in Paris by Cremieux, and its aim was to spread Jewish and French culture amongst Sephardi Jewry. And its aim was also about the glory of French culture. I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, what on earth is Jewish nationalism. If you think about France and Napoleon, it had been Napoleon who was the first ruler in Europe who tried to come to terms with what the Jews were. And if you remember, he had actually convened an assembly of Jewish notables. He had posed them the 12 questions, can a Jew be loyal to the country he lives in? What is the power of the rabbis? Will you defend the country you live in, et cetera. And his envoy to the meeting had actually said to the Jews as individuals, everything to Israel as a group, nothing. Napoleon did not want, as he said, a nation within a nation. And this was very much the thrust of French Jewry.
So French jury, the Alliance to spread the glory of French culture throughout the Jewish world in the Orient, as they called it. So he studied at an Alliance school that many of you in Europe will know, and I’m sure all over the world, at the Rue de Rosiers, that lovely area of Paris, which is such a Jewish quarter. He studied blacksmithing because Alliance schools were also very involved in giving Jewish young people a trade. Then he studied engineering. He is appointed to be the principal of the Alliance school in Jerusalem till 1913. As I said, he’s a passionate Francophile. Now, what he wanted, and this is very important, he was against Zionism. What he wanted was Jewish emancipation under Turkish rule. He was fluent in French, in Hebrew, in Arabic, and English. And not only that, he was a master of law, of the law of the Beth Din, Sharia law, French law and Ottoman Law. So one of his roles, he was the intermediary between the young Zionist settlers of the second Aliyah, you know, those young pioneers who had come out to Palestine, mainly from Eastern Europe, very much under the sway of Zionists socialism. And you have characters like the Rothchilds who are setting up settlements like Rishon le Zion.
And he is the intermediary, and he’s also the intermediary between the Arab notables and the Rothchilds. Because the land for these settlements was bought from Arab nobles by the Rothchilds and other Jewish philanthropists. The JNF had been established in 1907, and of course the complexities of law. So I’m putting together the whole pattern for you. So he’s actually very important. He was actually held in high regard by the Husseini family and the other important land owning family, the Nashashibi and also the labour Zionist trusted him. They saw him very much as a man of integrity. This is his philosophy, which he summed up. I desire to achieve the conquest of Zion through economic means, not political means. The Jerusalem I would cherish is the Jerusalem of spirit and history, not modern temporal Jerusalem. Remember the Labour Zionists were in the main atheistic. I want to be a Jewish deputy in the Ottoman Parliament and not in the Jewish temple of Mount Moriah. Ottoman Jews have the same rights and responsibilities as the Jews of England, France, and Germany. I wish to create a powerful Jewish economic centre embedded in universal democracies.
I do not want to be a subject of Judean autocracy. He died very young. He died of typhus in 1919. And in his testament, this was his hope. I hope Palestine will develop along the Swiss Cantorial system under an inter allied protectorate of French English condominium, which would allocate lands to immigrants, but keeping free of the Germans and the Russian Communist. Now, this, he wrote, remember at the end of the First World War, and it’s fascinating because Haj Amin El Husseini studied with him. He then turned to the University of Cairo. Can we have a look at that? It’s one of the oldest universities in the world. Can we have a look at the, yeah. It was founded in, I think, 968 of common era. So it’s one of the oldest universities in the world. And he studied under a Salathi intellectual, man called Rashid Rida.
It’s very important to understand when a man changes the course of history, it’s very important to understand the kind of mentors that he had on the way. And Rashid Rida was a Salathi. What he wanted, he wanted to reform Sunni Islam. Now he then goes on a pilgrimage with his mother to Mecca. Mecca, of course, is the centre of the Muslim world. And from then on, he has the title Hajji. Now, when World War I broke out, he was commissioned into the Ottoman Army. Remember, he comes from one of the most important land owning families in Palestine. Although at that time, he would’ve referred to it in his dream as Greater Syria. And I’ll come onto that in a minute. November, 1916, he was wounded. So with a disability, he returns to Jerusalem. He’s on leave when the British take the city. Now, this is where everything really becomes complicated. The British in the First World War, and I’ve done this in depth with most of you if you’ve studied online for the past few months, we’ve done this in a lot of depth.
The British having conquered the Ottoman Empire, they have made promises to different peoples. They have made promises to a man called the Emir Hussein, no relation, who was sheriff of Mecca. They had promised him that if he had revolted against the Turks, then they would give him land in the Middle East centred on Damascus. Now why? Because never forget that the Arab peoples have a long and great and glorious history. The followers of Mohamed within a hundred years of his death created the largest land empire the world has ever known. And their greatest dynasty was in Damascus. Their second greatest dynasty was actually in Baghdad. And by promising to put a man in power who is considered to be the guardian of the Muslim holy places and a descendant of the prophet, this is really serious. And it was his son, the Emir Faisal, who enters Damascus, the head of a victorious Arab army along with Lawrence of Arabia. Meanwhile, the British have done a secret deal with the French, that once the war is over, they more or less cut up the Middle East because it very important, I said this to you last week, and I did advocate that you get hold of Martin Gilbert’s atlases.
I will be showing maps from time to time. But it’s really important that you take all this in because remember all the borders that you know today did not exist. And if you take a line a little bit north of Haifa and you run it all the way, the deal was that the French would take everything to the north, the British, everything to the south, which contradicts the promise they’ve already made to the Arabs. And then of course, in November, 1917, the Balfour Declaration. They then of course, win the war. They have promised that Damascus would belong to the French, but they had hoped to create a fait accompli. By having their troops there, they hoped to take the whole of the Middle East. Remember, this is the days of colonialism, the French and the British are rival colonial powers in the Middle East. They both have their eyes on oil, which is becoming more and more of a factor, the economic potential.
And don’t forget, back in 1876, the British under Disraeli had bought the Suez Canal with a dream of a land empire that stretched all the way from Suez to India. Now, so you have this man who now, he has fought for the Turks. What has happened is the British in Palestine. And what happens now is that, at the San Remo conference, which is actually, it’s the hundred and first anniversary at the moment, which divides up the Middle East. The French have their way, and the Emir Faisal is evicted from Damascus. Can we see his picture please, Judy? Yeah. There’s the Emir Faisal. He’s evicted from Damascus. The British give him a consolation prize because at the San Remo Peace Conference mandates are established. The French are to have a mandate on Syria and they carve out Lebanon. The British have a mandate on Palestine and on Iraq. Now, this is important. The mandate on Palestine comprises of what is today Transjordan, Israel, the West Bank, Gaza, and the Golan Heights. That is the Palestine mandate.
Now the British have an issue because they hope, Winston Church is the colonial secretary, he hopes that he can solve the problem. Now, as far as the Mufti is concerned, when the French, after the San Remo Peace Conference are given the mandate on Syria, there is a war. The Mufti, well, let’s call him that, Haj Amin El Husseini, along with 500 Palestinian Arabs, not only were they part of the army of the British that completed the conquest of Palestine, he recruited these individuals to go and help Faisal. He’s becoming more and more of an Arab nationalist. So he had fought for the British. Now he goes, because Faisal, there is a battle. Can we see the next slide please? The Battle of Maysalun. Now this is when the French actually go in and evict Faisal. Haj Amin El Husseini is fighting with Faisal’s men, along with a lot of his followers who, remember he’s a very important landowner who before that had fought with the British to put Faisal in place.
Meanwhile, the British try and solve the problem by chopping off two thirds of the mandate and creating Transjordan, which they give to Faisal’s younger brother Abdullah. Now most of you know this, those of you who are new, I hope I’ve gone slowly enough. And for those of you who know it well, I’m sorry, but I just think I have to pull the whole picture together. He had always been a strong supporter of a Syrian kingdom. He was a pan-Arabist at this stage. He didn’t want the area divided up by the British, by the French. What he wanted was to restore the glory of Arab nationalism. And let me also explain something else to you. One of the reasons I showed you the footage of Jerusalem is I wanted you to see just how rundown the whole site of the Temple Mount was. What Haj Amin El Husseini is going to do is to press the case of Jerusalem as a very strong contender, as a very important Islamic holy place.
And the other thing you have to consider, he also begins to emphasise the policy of Dar al-Islam. When the conqueror Omar conquered Jerusalem from the Christians way back in the seven hundreds, what was laid down was how the conquering Muslims will deal with every other people. Pagans should be converted by the sword. But there are two special groups, the Jews and the Christians, because they are the people of the book. They don’t have to be converted, but they are dhimmis, they are subject peoples. And the world is divided into two spheres. The sphere of Islam and the sphere of war. Dar al-Islam is integral to the world of Islam. And no non-believer can rule in Dar al-Islam. You know, the first seeds of this go back to Khartoum when General Gordon, you know, the great massacre in Khartoum, well, who went against General Gordon, the Mahdi, almost a Messianic figure in Muslim terms to do what?
To purify Islam from the corrosive effects of the West. And now Haj Amin is buying into all of this that basically he still dreams of a unified Arab empire centred on Damascus. But he’s also thinking in terms of the centrality of Jerusalem and also pulling together the Arabs of Palestine. Now how politicised were the Arabs? Well, the land owning families, of course the Husseini clan from the beginning was the most extreme. The Nusaybah was prepared to do some sort of accommodation, but gradually attitudes are going to tighten. In 1919, the Pan Syrian Congress in Damascus supported the Emir Faisal for king of Syria. So already a lot of Arabs are going to emerge as different countries, which up until now have been really fiefdoms within the Turkish Empire. And that year, in 1920, after the eviction of Faisal, he actually founds a branch of the Syrian based Arab club.
Now, it also has to be said that he begins to get quite a lot of support amongst certain British officers. Why? Look, maybe the Zionists just made terrible colonials and there were some very sympathetic characters, but many of the officers that were stationed in Palestine had previously been fighting the Red Army. And really they came to Palestine, I’m going to call it Palestine for ease from now on. They came to Palestine with what? With the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in their nap sacks. And of course you had the Black and Tans in Ireland from Ireland now in Palestine. So you’ve got a very, very tight cocktail. Now he’s totally disillusioned. And then it all explodes into the Nebi Musa riots. Can we please see the next slide, Judy? Yeah. Here you see these are religious riots in Jerusalem around the time of the Feast of Nabi Musa. Now it’s at this stage that the Haganah was founded, Jabotinsky led the Haganah in Jerusalem.
The high commissioner’s not there yet. It’s a military administration. Weizmann and the Palestine Commission had begged the British authorities to do something about it. They knew that there was going to be an eruption, and there was an eruption, and there were murders in Jerusalem, and they spread. Jabotinsky, leading the Haganah, what happens is he’s imprisoned for 15 years, he’s given a 15 year sentence. The Mufti is sentenced to 10 years. Haj Amin is sentenced to 10 years, by the way, he’s not yet Mufti, but he escapes. It’s a very important case because remember Jabotinsky had been actually honoured by the British for service in the First World War. He was a great hero. He had many friends in London, and he also had friends in Palestine. I don’t want you to think that every British soldier, every British officer was anti-Zionist. They weren’t. There was Minots Hargan who was a great supporter of Jabotinsky.
It was a cause celebre. When the first high commissioner, a Jew, a Zionist rise in Palestine, what then happens is that Jabotinsky is let out under an amnesty. But from then on, as far as he’s concerned, it’s all over. Right. It was asserted by Weizmann, and in fact by Minots Hargan, that the riots had actually been instigated. They went as far as that by Allenby’s chief of staff, Colonel Bertie Harrod Waters Taylor, who was an admirer of the Mufti. Right. So you now have the high commissioner in Palestine, and he’s in charge of all placings. And the post of Mufti is vacant. And who should it go to? An Nashashibi or a Husseini? And he gives it to a Husseini. He gives it to Haj Amin El Husseini, who by this time is a completely convinced Arab nationalist. And he sees it in complete conflict with the Zionists who are coming into Palestine. If you think about this terrible clash, think about the Jewish world at the end of the First World War.
We’ve discussed it before. Think of the horror story in the Ukraine, the horror story all over Eastern Europe. Consequently, if you are a Zionist, you believe that the diaspora, there’s something completely wrong with the diaspora and you are just sitting there waiting for trouble. You’ve got to come to Palestine. So the Zionists are pushing for immigration. And now with the Mufti you have a very vocal Arab leader who is saying no. And the question is, I suppose for me, the great if and but of history, if the Emir Faisal had been allowed to remain in Damascus, would it have gone on a different or path? Because Weizmann and the Emir had made a kind of peace treaty. And this is what really pushes Haj Amin El Husseini into real Arab nationalism. And as the twenties develop, he makes a very close friendship with a man called Colonel Richmond. Richmond is in charge of antiquities on the site of, well, what do we call it? It’s the site of the Mosque of Omar. It is the site of the Western Wall.
He was in charge of antiquities. He’s in Palestine between 1927 and '37, he converts to Roman Catholicism in 1926, he had fluent Arabic. He was very much a partisan in favour of the Arab cause. He was violently anti-Jewish. And ironically, his son, John Richmond, was one of the founders of Cabu and campaigned on behalf of the Palestinians from the sixties onwards. Okay, this is what he said. I’m talking now about Ernst Tatum Richmond. His son is reporting. My father could not believe that the British government, which had claimed to be liberating the Arabs from Turkish misrule, really intended to give the Palestinians a smaller say than they had enjoyed under the Turks. He was disillusioned with his superior Wyndon Deeds, who was a committed Zionist because he believed in the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. So what’s going to happen in the twenties and in the thirties, you’re going to see the Mufti time and again, if you like, wrenching up the problems. In 1929, there is a dispute at the Western Wall very much fanned by Betar, because you’ve got to remember, we’ve covered this, how Zionist politics are solidifying. Betar desperate to get as many into Palestine as possible, not wanting to say there’s and Jabotinsky actually saying there’s an Iron Wall.
Jabotinsky was beginning to realise that was no accommodation to be had with the Arabs. And what happens is a mechitza is set up at the Western Wall. This is a desecration of an Islamic holy place, very much pushed up by this Colonel Richmond. And of course the Mufti uses a huge excuse as Mufti he can call people to jihad, which he does. You have Betar arranging marches, a young Jewish boy is stabbed. It all explodes in the 1929 riots, which leads to murders both in Jerusalem and in Hebron. And so it goes on in 1933 when the Nazis do that extraordinary deal with Haim Arlosoroff, which enables more German Jews to come to Palestine. By 1935, the Mufti is wrenching up again. 1936, you have the 36 riots. Can we go on again please? And have a look, Jude. So have a look at the next. If you have a look we have all the horrible pictures of those terrible riots, which I have covered when I looked at the history of Zionism. Those of you who missed these lectures, once the website is up, they will all be available. So here you see those terrible Arab riots.
Now the Mufti is also very much restoring, he’s spending a lot of time making Jerusalem absolutely central. And he also ran a secret society, it’s called Al Fida'ia I hope I pronounced it correctly, the self sacrifices. And they’re going to play a very important role in anti-Zionist activities. We’ve seen a picture of Sir Herbert Samuel who makes him Mufti really to keep the balance of power. He’s also elected the president of the Supreme Muslim Council, which gives him an annual fund of 50,000 pounds, which he controls and he can distribute to Arab sources. I should also say though, Jewish agency had a budget far in excess of that, of 600,000 pounds. He’s also in control of the Islamic courts. He has the power to appoint teachers and preachers, and he now sees himself as the guardian of Haram Al-Sharif. So he’s pulled together this to become Islam’s third holy place. He believes it should be a noble sanctuary, although it was neglected in Ottoman times, that was wrong.
And this is where, of course, he’s helped by Colonel Richmond. Also, he’d met with Syrian nationalists back in 1929, believing that they could still pull off a united state of really greater Syria, which would include most of Palestine. It’s important to remember in Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood were created in 1928. You see, once the colonials are embedded in the Middle East, you have the whole issue of can a dhimmi rule over a non dhimmi? And think what you’ve got. You’ve got the dhimmi people, the Christians bringing to Palestine another dhimmi group, the Jews. Right. So the situation is really, really exacerbating. And we now come to really another very, very dark story. The Mufti certainly crosses over the border between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And he makes his first approach to the Nazis back in 1933. At first, they don’t want anything to do with them. At first, remember the Nazis believed that Palestine could solve their Jewish problem for them. This is the view expressed by the editor of Angriff. He actually toured Palestine in the spring of 1937.
It’s good that the Jews from Germany came to Palestine to spend their fortune here, but it will not take root. Their fortunes will be spent and the Arabs will liquidate them. Now, what has happened? Between '33 and '37 the Nazis don’t take the Arabs seriously, but beginning to see another school of thought. By 1937, the possibility was there will be a war. If there’s a war, just as in the First World War, the British enticed the Arabs to revolt. Well, maybe if there’s another war, the Arabs will revolt against the British for them. So the German Foreign Office, this is Von Maur in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He sends a memorandum on June the first to German embassies in London to the consul general in Jerusalem. And who was the ambassador in London? Ribbentrop. It is the goal of Germany’s Jewish policy to promote the immigration of Jews from Germany as much as possible. In order to achieve this object, sacrifices are being made in foreign exchange currency.
In this new situation these documents explain the German attitude to Palestinian affairs can no longer be determined by internal political considerations. The formation of a Jewish state or a Jewish led political structure is not in Germany’s interest. Since a Palestinian state would not absorb world Jewry would create an additional position of power under international law for international Jewry. Here you have the fantasy of it all. They realise on any rational level that the Jews have no power, but they still believe in the international world Jewish conspiracy. You know, they even set up a bureau during the war to find the headquarters and the protocols. They decided it was in New York. Germany therefore has an interest in strengthening the Arab world as a counterweight against a possible increase in power for world Jewry. Now this is what they had to say about the Arabs. The German nation has been like the Arabs, split into numbers of separate states and principalities. Some of them incorporated into non-German kingdoms. The successful struggle of Prussia under Bismarck, and now Germany under Hitler, provides a powerful model and example.
And what you begin to see happening in Palestine, particularly after Mussolini conquers, remember the whole of the Arab world is open to axis propaganda. And Nazi antisemitism is going to have appeal for people who feel themselves threatened by a Jewish state. And there was even proposals in some Nazi circles to accord Arian status to some Arabs, including Haj Amin El Husseini. Evidently he had bright blue eyes. So in those extraordinarily bizarre notions of Arianhood, although in '33, Hitler had actually referred to Arabs as half apes. At this stage, they’re now wondering, can we make the into an arian? And instructions are sent to the German missions in the Middle East to adopt a sympathetic approach. Okay. The mood of the thirties. I’m going to give you a little bit of background to some of the young Arabs. This is a man called Sami al Jundi, who was one of the early leaders of the Ba'ath party.
And he said this, he’s looking back, “We were racist, admiring Nazism "reading its books and source of its thought, "particularly Nietzsche, Victor, "and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. "We were the first to think of translating Mein Kampf. "Whoever lived through this period in Damascus "would appreciate the inclination "of the Arab people to Nazism. "For Nazism was the power which could serve as its champion. "And he who is defeated, will by nature, love the victor.” And al Jundi later describes how he was looking for Rosenberg Smith’s the 20th Century in Damascus, and finally found a French abridged version belonging to Michelle Aflaq, who was the other founder of the Ba'ath party, which is going to be so important later on in Iraq. In 1939, after the Arab riots of '36, the Mufti’s persona non grata, he’s not allowed back into Palestine, and he is in Lebanon for a while. But in 1939, he’s in Iraq. Now, think about it. Iraq is a British mandate. So the Iraqi government had no cause but of course, to support the British. After the fall of France, Syria is under the control of the Vichy government.
Syria and Lebanon are now under the control Vichy. Iraq is under the control of the British. And it’s at this stage that the Mufti is instrumental. Can we see the next slide, please? No, could you go back one? Yeah, that is Rashid Ali. And it’s at this side, the prime minister, Rashid Ali, the king was dead, there was a four year old boy as king. This is the grandson of the Emir Faisal. And as a result, he takes power. It was done through an agreement with the Mufti who sent his secretary to negotiate. This is a pro-Nazi coup of Rashid Ali, who becomes prime minister in April, 1940 with the promise of axis support. And so they carry out this coup. And as a response to it he becomes prime minister in 1940 and one year later they go for the coup. And on June the first and second there’s a brief interregnum between his collapse because of course the British send the Army in, and it’s during those terrible days that David Raziel, of course lost his life. He was sent in by the British, if you will remember to assassinate Haj Amin El Husseini. He’s in a car, which is strapped by the Germans. So basically the coup fails, but between the British troops, the British troops are on the outskirts of Baghdad.
Between the failure of the coup and the arrival of the British troops, there’s a club called the Al-Muthanna Club, which was very much staffed by ex-friends, ex-compatriots of the Mufti who had fought in the Sharifian army. They actually instigate the most terrible pogrom. 600 Jews were murdered, 240 were injured, nearly a thousand homes destroyed, businesses looted. And it was carried out by the troops, by police and the followers of Rashid Ali. They wanted vengeance. They blamed the Jews for the dispute. And what was absolutely appalling is that the British army was outside, they were outside the city. And one of the officers said, “Why on earth don’t you send somebody in?” And he said, “Send the troops in?” And he said, “No, I’m not going to. "I’ve got to wait till the new prime minister calls me in.” So the pogrom raged. And what is fascinating, and I am going to be a little partisan, is that what is fascinating, this whole story is never given much prominence any more than the expulsion of the Jews from the Arab ward is given much prominence. So that’s the situation in 1941.
The British are backing control in Iraq. So where does the Mufti go? Well, he goes to Germany. He becomes incredibly useful to the Nazis. How is he useful to them? He is very interested in spreading propaganda. I’m going to read you one of his broadcasts. This is one of his broadcasts. This is a broadcast of November, 1943. It’s the duty of Muslims in general, and Arabs in particular to drive all Jews from Arab Muslim countries. Germany is also struggling against common fo who oppressed Muslims in their different countries. It is very clearly recognised the Jews for what they are and resolved to find a definitive solution from the Jewish danger that will eliminate the scourge that the Jews represent to the world. Can we go on and have a look at a couple more pictures, if you don’t mind? Go on, Jude. Yep. There you see the Mufti with Hitler. Hitler revealed the final solution to him. He was also often seen with Himmler. Let’s have a look at that picture.
Can we see the next picture of the Mufti with Himmler? Yep. Let me just read you another broadcast. This is the 11th of November, 1942. And remember, he’s broadcasting to the Arab world. Before the outbreak of war and before the axis took up arms to stop the Anglo-Saxon Jewish greed, there was one nation who had fought alone against these forces for more than 20 years. That nation is our Arab nation, which is fought against the English and the Jews in Egypt, in Palestine, Iraq, and Syria, in all parts of the Arabian Peninsula. After the outbreak of the present war, our nation continued in their struggle, determined to achieve its aims. That is liberty, independence, unity, and sovereignty. From the outbreak of this war, the Arab nation has had neither peace nor neutrality. It was engaged alone in the hardest struggle against the Anglo-Saxon Jewish policies. This war was for the Arab people, none other than the continuation of the uninterrupted struggle, which it has sustained alone for 20 years.
Today, the Arab people, has at its side the powerful enemies of its own enemy. In this war, the Arabs are not neutral. They cannot be neutral for the reasons I have already given and for the interest they have in the results of this war. If God forbid, England should be victorious, the Jews would dominate the world, England and allies would deny the Arabs any freedom and independence would strike the Arab fatherland to its heart and would tear away parts of it to form a Jewish country whose ambition would not be limited to Palestine, but would extend to all other Arab countries. But if on the contrary, England loses and its allies are defeated, the Jewish question, which for us constitutes the greatest danger, will be finally resolved. All threats against the Arabs would disappear and millions of Arabs will be free, and many Muslims in Asia and in Africa would be saved. He also was involved in attempts to stop rescue.
He actually put pressure on the Turkish government not to allow Romanian Jews to go to Palestine. So he’s complicit in that. And let’s see another picture please, Judy. Here you see the Mufti reviewing Muslim troops in Bosnia, and they of course were fighting with the Nazis. This is a Muslim SS regiment, which were responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews. And you see him giving the Nazi salute. He also visited a concentration camp. Unfortunately I haven’t included that photograph, but we have photographs of that. So I think we can say very clearly that the Mufti was very much on the side of the Nazis. He actively encouraged them. Here you see the absolute proof of this. And he wanted Hitler’s victory. He dreamt of a judenrein world. So he way a long time ago crossed the line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism. When the war was over, he fled to France. He was under house arrest, but he is still head of the Higher Arab Committee.
And what he did, he managed to make the issue of the Arabs and Palestine not just an issue of the Arabs and the Jews living there, but of the Arabs and later on of the Muslims. And one of the reasons the British found it very, very difficult in 1945 to do any deals with the Zionists was because they were terrified therefore of huge upheavals in the Arab world, and in the Muslim world, all you have to think about is India and Pakistan. Ernest Bevin, the colonial secretary in the New Labour government, what did he say? He said, “There are 80 million Muslims in India "I cannot offend.” So basically the Mufti, I think in terms of his personality, he brooked no opposition. There were moderate Arabs, they tended to be assassinated. So the situation was you had an incredibly ideological man who grew in his ideology and was opposed to any accommodation with Zionism. He way crossed the line with anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. And he’s going to still have a lot of power, although he’s not allowed into Palestine, he’s still going to have a lot of power.
And the other way he’s going to become important, and I’ll be coming onto that later on in another presentation, is he’s going to be very important in Egypt and Syria, helping Nazis flee there. And not only that, I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, Lears, who was one of Goebbels’ brightest sparks, he was invited by Haj Amin El Husseini to become part of the propaganda ministry under natsa. So you are looking at an Arab world, which is anti-colonial, which is becoming increasingly nationalist, and this sort of Arab nationalism becomes anti-Semitism. Now does that mean that every Arab in Palestine wanted it? No, of course it doesn’t. All I’m pointing out is that you have an extremist in control and he remained in control after the war. He was the man who in 1937, at the time of the Peel Commission, there can be no accommodation. He knew by that time they were onto a winning ticket with the British, because the British couldn’t afford to offend the Jews.
So it’s a very, very tragic story. And a man who, as I said, did change the course of history by the sheer force of his will and his personality. But I think in his case, we could say he changed the force of history for evil. And you know, to me, this is where I think ideology is so, so dangerous. You know, there is no room for flexibility of thought. And what he did was he made the war against the Jews a holy war. And a Holy War is a just war. So I think I’ll finish there. I hope I’ve managed to pull together the picture for you. Should we see what the questions are like?
Q&A and Comments:
Q: Lionel, “Please do not forget my question, "why the Mufti was not tried or condemned "as a close ally of Hitler.”
A: I’m afraid if you want a very, very cynical answer to that, very few of the of Nazi war criminals were brought to justice, either. Look, think of at the end of the war, there was a rush, for example, to pick up Germany’s best scientists. Think about characters like Wernher von Braun. Now, the Mufti was, look the British, you know, when he was under the house arrest in France, MI6 said, he’s going to be useful in Palestine. He can keep the Jews down. And remember the situation in Palestine, what did we look at? We looked at the Lehi assassination of Lord Moyne. So the British administration in Palestine was not prepared to make any inroads in favour of Zionism at that stage. That’s why the Zionists were looking for a new sponsor in America.
Q: Now this is from Nigel Levee. “Trudy, here’s a curve ball. "Do you consider that the expedition request to bring "the Mufti to justice for war crimes "made by Britain and France at the end of the war "was merely a facade, and it was in order "to preserve their respective relationships, "power and influence with the Arab world?”
A: Yeah. Yes. Let’s see. Can I think about that and come back to that question? Look, we know that there’s no way the British and the French wanted to bring him to justice. Of course they didn’t. Think about it. They still needed the oil. Arab nationalism had erupted in the Second World War. If you’re talking about it pragmatically, of course they colluded in his escape to Egypt. Yeah. And then he goes to Syria. He’s instrumental, of course, in fanning the flames of war. And don’t forget also we’ll be dealing with this, Nigel. Abdullah of Jordan wanted to do a deal with the Zionists. He wanted to do a deal with Bangorian. It was people like the Mufti. But the point about the Mufti, he was so hated by the other Arab leaders in 1948.
You know, the question is, Palestine, when the United Nations partitioned Palestine, that one third that’s left between a Jewish state and an Arab state, what happened to Arab Palestine? Well, most of it was taken by Jordan, and Gaza was taken by Egypt and they sealed the borders. So there’s a lot of history that I think has been rewritten on the basis that Britain and France colluded and manipulated the Suez crisis. Perhaps that’s not a far-fetched theory. Isn’t it a pity that we never have total access to government papers? It’s a good point, Nigel.
Q: Why was the haj never assassinated?
A: Hmm, I can’t answer that question. I would say he was very, very well protected, number one. And I think probably the Israelis had an awful lot more to think about in 1948. Look, he dies in 1974. He does lose his power because there’s such, particularly after the fall of the monarchies, he loses his power with the new regimes.
This is from Audrey. Last year at the end of the lecture, we were wondering if we should voice controversial opinions. Yes. We can’t give into cancel culture. Audrey from Vancouver.
This is from Mona. Don’t forget you’re meant to say which countries you are in so that we get a picture. In school we used to teach that bystanders to bullying were just as guilty. So in your last talk, I believe people who stood by were guilty of allowing the Shoah to continue. You see that is the problem. But then let me throw something else at you. Are we all bystanders to what’s going on in China then? Hmm? Look, there are many reasons why Haj Amin was not tried as a war criminal. I think that was very, who’s going to try him anyway? You know, was was he going to be tried at Nuremberg? Look, the French and the British were losing all their possessions, anyway. It would not have been a smart move. And besides there was an awful lot of sympathy for, no, I’m not going to go that far. There wasn’t sympathy for the Mufti, but there wasn’t that much sympathy for Zionism amongst the British, believe me, particularly after the assassination of Lord Moyne. And I made this mistake when I was talking about Lord Moyne. I love this group. If I make a mistake, it’s corrected. In fact, of course, it was Lord Moyne’s father who gave Kenwood to the nation. He was part of the facilitation after his father’s death.
I’m reading Paul Johnson’s Modern Times. And he dates the Haganah after the Jewish Brigade in World War II. No. The Jewish Brigade. No, there was a lot of members of the Haganah came from the Zion Mule Corps or the 37th and 38th Royal Fusiliers that had fought for the British. No, the Jewish Brigade. No, maybe he’s talking about the Palmach. You’d have to send me, Myrna, the actual extract because he doesn’t make mistakes.
Elaine’s is listening to lector in Montreal about a new book by Judy Balaton. Yes, let me explain, and I keep on saying this. We know about this book and luckily my daughter runs Jewish Book Week and we’re going to do it as a joint free event. I think it’s going to be in June, July. So it will part of Lockdown University. Thank you for that information.
Q: Audrey, “Was the Arab Jewish conflict inevitable?” “Having studied Islam, I urge you to "investigate the principle as Dar al-harb and Dar al-Islam. "These lands worldwide, which are already Islamic "and those which need to be converted. "Also, keep in mind that under Islamic belief, "any land which has once been ruled by a Muslim "cannot be ever relinquished.”
A: I think you better be careful on this, Audrey. I mean, I am not an expert on Islam, but I’ve read widely and I’ve read Bernard Lewis. I do not believe that Muslims living in the West they do not want the, look, of course extremists do, but the majority of Muslims also want a separation between church and state. So we’ve got to be careful. If there’s any hope of accommodation, we’ve got to try and use reason. So it depends. Are you dealing with an extremist or are you dealing with someone who wants to find accommodation? And please don’t forget, Avraham Stern believed that the land of Israel was the land as given by the Almighty in the first book of the Bible, which would take us almost to Iraq.
Howard, “Hussein made the position of Mufti so important. "Before him, it was more honorary. "Without his major pushing, "there could have very likely been a more friendly "relationship between Jews and Arabs.” Yes, I agree with that, Howard. There’s absolutely no doubt if an Ashabia had been made Mufti, they were much more accommodating.
Yes, Rodney, think biblically, Abraham and his sons. I am a modern historian. I think that we should talk to Jeremy Rosen about that. I wouldn’t feel competent to give that lecture.
This is from Michael. “I’m deeply concerned about those Jews on the left "who are have a blind spot for anti-Semitism "and anti-Zionism that are generated by people "like Farrakhan and Gordon. "And I’m very worried about those Jews on the right "who ignore the white supremacists. "I see these blind spots as being a truly "achilles heel for all Jews worldwide.” I believe there’s a lot in what you say. I am going to be talking later on about the growth of antisemitism on the right and on the left. And I’m going to be bringing in colleagues to talk about it on the right. The Mufti meeting with Hitler seems to be a perfect example of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It’s eight decades since these two met.
Q: What lessons can this teach Jews who might have blind spots based on their political affiliation?
A: Look, it’s complicated, Michael, think about that lovely quote of Elias Canetti. There are no people more difficult to understand than the Jews. But there’s under 14 million of us worldwide. If I was going to ask you for a definition of Jew, you’d probably come up with, goodness knows how many we would come up with. There are people who live in England who are very left wing Jews and they have swallowed the ideology. Personally, I’m terrified of any ideology. I prefer flexibility of thought.
What is the name or author? This is from Steve of the Atlas. It’s Sir Martin Gilbert. Jewish History Atlas or the Arab Israeli Conflict: It’s History in Maps.
And this is from Sheila Chai, who studied with Yehuda Bauer at the Hebrew U, also viewed him on Al Jazeera online being interviewed about the question regarding the relationship between the Shaoh and the creation of the state. You might already have included in your analysis. I thought his view was the Shoah made it more difficult for Israel to survive, the reservoir of people who’ve been the main community. Look, let me say she, Sheila, there is a huge divide between diasporic historians and Israeli historians. I have huge respect for Yehuda Bauer. Robert Wistrich also had the same view. They said that Zionism was inevitable, whether there was the Shoah or not, there would’ve been a Jewish state. I personally do not believe that because you didn’t have the numbers. In 1933, you only had 200,000 Jews in Palestine. I’ve had many debates with historians on this one. And you are never going to get the answer because it depends, you see, again, this is one of the questions of history.
May I suggest to you that if the Shoah is a huge factor in the creation of the state of Israel, it’s terribly negative consciousness. And for many Israelis, look, they have built up Hebrew as a language. They’ve built up the infrastructure of the state. But pragmatically, could they have done it on 200,000? I doubt it, because the one thing that Jews didn’t do is to go and live in Israel, is to go and live in Palestine, even when they could. Okay, so let’s be careful. Of course after 1933, that’s a different story. Now, the Jews who came from Germany to Palestine, I would suggest to you they weren’t Zionists, but they were for fulfilling Zionism. So Sheila, I’d be careful about that. Even though even the great Yehuda Bauer and the great Robert Wistrich, because we are all products of our environment.
Howard, I’m going to have to use maps. He’s asking about .
Q: David Septon, “Was the Jewish Arab conflict inevitable? "Probably, yes. "But first a question, "were there any other peoples in history who returned "to a land populated by others?”
A: Oh, that’s an interesting question. I don’t know about return to a land populated by others. I’m going to have to think about that. But certainly I would suggest to you, if you actually look at the history of peoples, most people take land through conquest. I think 90% of the countries of the world have come in through right of conquest. If you think of the European settlers in America, the settlers in Australia, the settlers in New Zealand, the settlers in Africa. Come on.
Q: Can you explain why this pro Zionist, the Mufti appointed this anti-Semite instead of the candidate?
A: I don’t think he looked at it. I don’t think there was an in-depth assessment of Haj Amin. I think it’s as simple as that.
Q: Yes, the Muslim High Council didn’t, they were moderates and they were controlled. Melvin is saying, why did he appoint them?
A: The Muslim high Council wanted an . It was a question of the balance of power as far as he was concerned. Sir Herbert Samual was in a very difficult position. He was a Jew and a Zionist, and he was in Palestine to rule for the British government. And it must have been an incredibly difficult situation.
Margaret, “Such a complicated history, "amazed at your clarity.” I hope it’s been clear. You see, what I’m trying to do now is pull lots of bits together.
Q: This is from Gerald. “The Arabs demanded that Jewish immigration be limited. "This was contrary to the idea of a Zionist homeland. "Did not Balfour concede that the Jews would ultimately "become the majority in Palestine? "To what extent did the British later in the thirties "frustrate this object by encouraging "Arab labour to come from Egypt and Syria "by preventing Jewish immigration to Palestine. "In short, the Brits have a lot to answer for.”
A: Okay, Gerald, problem. What I’d like you to do is to actually examine the Balfour Declaration. Have a look at the letter. You can even find it online. Have a look at it and you try and work out what it means. Because by 1939, the British said it meant absolutely nothing. Look, Churchill back in ‘22, cut off two thirds of the mandate and created Transjordan. And Balfour was a very complicated character. What did the Balfour Declaration really mean? Certainly the Zionists saw it as a triumph. Jabotinsky quite early on said it’s got to be a state. Weizmann went along with homeland.
Now this is from Leila. This is lovely. “Lawrence of Arabia stayed one night "with my partner’s family in Iraq "and was all for a Jewish state.” Yes, Lawrence of Arabia was very in favour of Zionism. Wonderful.
Q: This is from Robert. “Why wasn’t the Grand Mufti allowed to live out in his life "and was not assassinated?”
A: Look, can I just suggest, just think what they tried to do from 1945? One of the most important things they had to do was to ingather the exiles to deal with the tragedy of Jewry. I’m going to be talking about Nacham in a few weeks. I don’t know if there’s anyone left alive who can answer that question for you. I don’t know. I’ve never read any records of it, so I’m not privy.
This is from Lynn Julia, so I’m great Lynn’s online. Lynn, by the way, is probably by July will be giving some presentations on the Jews of the Arab world. And this is what she said. “Trudy, you are right that the Farhud "is not given the prominence it deserves. "Harif will be organising a Zoom commemoration "on the 80th anniversary of the Farhud Massacre on the 30th of May at 5:00 PM. "Details, you can all see it.” Lynn. Thank you. By the way, Harif is a very, very good Zoom channel and it’s seriously about the Jews of the Arab world, which we have neglected up until now. Because basically most of my colleagues, we are Eurocentric, I’m afraid. Lynn is coming in to talk about the Jews of the Arab world. And I know some of her colleagues will be with her on this.
Q: Barry, “Did not the San Remo Conference "confirmed that the Hall of Palestine "was designated a Jewish homeland?” “So granting the cran creation of Transjordan "was reneging on the Balfour Declaration.”
A: You could say so.
Q: Adele. But we’re clutching at straws here because the British had the power. Churchill wanted, he believed, and Lawrence told him that if he gave away some of the mandate to create another Arab mandate, Transjordan, it would solve the problem.
A: Unfortunately, it didn’t. He hoped by having the Emir Faisal in Iraq and his brother Abdullah in Jordan, then that area of land could be left for the Jews. And there was no Jewish settlement in Transjordan, by the way. It was Jabotinsky who was worried that Europe was about to explode, and he thought we would have to ingather all the exiles. And that’s why the Irgun, they always wanted both sides of the Jordan.
Q: Anna Paco, “Fast forward 80 years, "please comment on the potential political, "economic and humanitarian reproachment "between Israel and its Arab neighbours "represented by the Abraham Accords.”
A: Yes, history is interesting. Is it not? You know, it might well be that there are interests, economic, political, and social interests, which will stop fanaticism. And I’m going to say this, in my view, fanaticism is on both sides. And that is always dangerous. I’m going to sound like a Jewish grandmother. If we’re going to create a world that’s fit for our grandchildren, we do need to make some sort of accommodation. And who knows, maybe it will be this.
Q: This is from Martin. “Can you ask Trudy to have a session "devoted to Ayatollah Mohammad Al Shirazi "and his clan in relation to Iraqi, Iran?”
A: Look, I will be leaving this to Lynn and her colleagues, but we are going to be dealing with these issues because none of my close colleagues, it’s not our field. And I feel very strongly that we have to leave this to the experts.
Q: Was Anwar Sadat also involved?
A: Anwar Sadat was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood along with Gamal Abdel Nasser. They were fighting the British in Egypt, he was a young man, of course they were, they wanted to get rid of the colonials.
Q: How much complicity?
A: Good question, Melvin. I’ve not seen the documents. Will we ever see them?
The name of the author is Sir Martin Gilbert.
Q: What was the Muftis attitude towards Jews living in other Arab lands?
A: I can’t answer that. I don’t know, but I have a hunch. Look, he’s gone into anti-Semitism, remember? And we know that the situation, look, Sephardi Jews fell under the Nazis too, and it was the same story.
Q: Did the Mufti ever meet Eichmann?
A: I don’t know. He certainly met Himmler. He went to a camp. Remember Eichmann’s a functionary. Germany now regards Hitler as an evil tyrant.
Q: Do you know how the Arabs now regard the Mufti?
A: Yes, I do actually, because a very close friend of mine, he has a very close friend who is a Jordanian princess, actually. And for a long time she thought the Mufti was a hero until he gave her a few books to read. And now she’s moderated her view. Look, who are heroes and who are villains? The British were very upset when the two people who assassinated Lord Moyne were buried with great military honours on Mount Herzl with Rabin there. And of course in the Jewish world, I sometimes think, you know, people talk about counterculture. I’m being very frivolous here. I’m thinking of all the statues and stained glass windows in England and in Europe that offend me because they’ve been anti-Semites or anti-Jewish. I mean, have you any idea how many stained glass windows there are in churches with such a negative view of the Jews? You know, there is a church in Paris, in the old Roman part of Paris, which there’s a stained glass window, which tells the story of how a bunch of Jews broke into the church, desecrated the wafer, the biscuit. It flew up to heaven and it landed on another site and they built a church. Now I happen to find that stained glass window very offensive. I also find in many cathedrals, you see the synagogue downcast and the church triumphant.
Q: And what about Richard the Lionheart, the statue of Richard the Lionheart?
A: The worst pogrom in first settlement England happened in his reign. Not his fault, but it happened in his reign. I’m trying to be a little frivolous here.
Q: What was his reaction to Israel winning the Six-Day War?
A: One can imagine.
Okay, this is from Tony. “So much important information.” You see, I have the Martin Gilbert Maps. Can I explain the problem is I’ve given lectures on all of this. I’m wondering how we could do that. Once the website is up, you will be able to have copies of them.
Q: Leslie, “Why was France was a safe haven for criminals?”
A: I’d be careful on that, if I were you. Depends who the criminal is.
Q: Where was the House of Saud in all of this?
A: Oh, that’s an interesting question, Ronnie. The Emir Hussein, sharif of Mecca was the man the British had encouraged to revolt against the Turks. And it was his two sons in Iraq and in Transjordan. Now, what happened to him? There was a tribe in the middle of the Hejaz, the peninsula, called the Sauds. They were Wahhabis. That’s why the British didn’t deal with them. They were extreme austere Muslims. There was a war in the Hejaz. They conquered that dynasty and took it over and it became Saudi Arabia. And of course, because of the oil, they became great friends of the West. There’s an extraordinary speech of Churchill’s on the dangers of Wahhabism actually in 1921. It’s in Hansard. I’ll find it for you, absolutely fascinating.
This is from Robert. “I have a Christian Arab Palestinian friend "who was born in Haifa in the thirties. "He and his Christian Palestinian friends "are more critical of the Muslim Palestinians "and the Grand Mufti than the Jews.” I should also mention that in the war, I forgot to bring this in and it’s important, in the war, the Mufti was actually involved in plotting revolt in Palestine. They called it Operation Atlas. In the German colony there were quite a lot of, I’m sorry, I’ve lost my place. So this is why I’m swiping up. There were quite a lot of Germans in Palestine and the Templars, don’t forget the Templars. So basically Operation Atlas was to promote insurrection in Palestine. And don’t forget the hundred days of dread at El Alamein. If the British had lost at El Alamein and Rommel had swept through, we know that the Einsatzgruppe were more ready.
This is from Bob. He’s giving me a lovely compliment. Thank you so much, Bob.
Q: This is from Maurice in Canada, “Did the Mufti advised the Palestinians "to flee in the 48 war?”
A: Ah, yes. But on the other hand, there was a massacre at Deir Yassin. So partly the Arab leadership was totally disunited. I promise you I will be do dealing with this in a great deal of detail. In many ways, '45 to '48 are the most important areas in modern Jewish history.
This is from Marin. “The problem is fundamentalism, "whether within Islam, Christianity, or Judaism.” Yeah. Everyone’s entitled to their belief systems, but I think more and more, and I think it’s because the world is so fractured. You know, when there’s economic, social, and political disunity, people want certainties and fundamentalism. And it can be in religion, it can also be in politics. The rise of populism, believe the leader, it makes you feel safer. The real work has to be done on the psyche, on the human condition.
Am I aware of the book The War of Return? I’m not quite sure, so I won’t be lecturing on it, but if you send me the details, I can look at it. It’s very hard to find Martin’s map books, wish they would be reprinted. Don’t know what I can do about that. I mean, don’t know what to say.
What book do I recommend on the history of Israel? Joel from Dallas, Texas? Oh, I don’t know. You see, I’m looking at my shelf. I probably have about 50. I’m not saying I’ve read every of them by heart, but what I do need to know is to get a picture. Tom Segev is an interesting author, but some people think he’s too loaded politically. It’s not just the history of Israel you need. It depends on the period you are interested in.
I guess, Judy, it’s back to the bibliography again, isn’t it? There are several atlases by Gilford. Is this the one? Look, Martin Gilbert’s Jewish History Atlas is a very good one. But there is a specific atlas, the atlas book called the Arab Israeli Conflict:, Its History in Maps. Yes, It’s The Routledge. Yes, that is it. Wait a minute, The Routledge, make sure it’s by Martin Gilbert. A great book on the real politic is A Line in the Sand. Yes, David. Certainly. Yes, you are totally correct.
Hi, Trudy.
[Trudy] Right. Are we nearly there?
Yes. Because we have another talk starting in about five minutes.
Oh goodness! Yes. Yes.
Five minutes we have the Jewish Museum coming up.
Okay, darling, thank you so much, Judy.
Well thank you so much and thank you to the nearly 2000 people that joined us today. It was amazing.
And can I just say, I hope I was relatively balanced. These presentations are getting harder and harder in terms of balance. But anyway, the Jewish Museum presentation will be fantastic, and of course we’ve got some marvellous presentations over the weekend. And on Monday I am coming back to start talking about the Jews of Hungary. And I will be looking at Hungary up until 1945. I am not dealing with the customer affair, not this time. Okay. I have, and we will do it again, but not at the moment. Judy, can you think of a way of, if we put some maps online, is that possible?
We can speak offline, Trudy. I’m sure we can try and work something out.
Please don’t email Judy about this. Judy and I will talk offline to see if there’s a way we can help you on this. Thank you, Judy, as ever.
Thank you. Welcome. Thank you to everybody. Thank you.
[Trudy] Love the hair.
And we’ll see everybody in 45 minutes. Take care everybody. Bye-bye.
God bless. Bye, darling.