History, that irascible old chronicler of human folly, has a way of burying its most grotesque episodes under the polite varnish of selective memory. Some events, like the Blitz or the fall of the Berlin Wall, are burnished and retold with relentless vigour, while others are conveniently shunted into the attic, left to gather the dust of scholarly obscurity. Among those inconvenient truths lies the story of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who found in Adolf Hitler not merely a temporary ally, but a kindred spirit. His infamous statement — “Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world… The answer I got was: ‘The Jews are yours’” — is as chilling as anything uttered in the 20th century.
Yet, unlike Hitler, Goebbels, or Himmler, al-Husseini’s name is not seared into the public imagination as synonymous with genocidal intent. He remains a shadowy figure in the margins, mentioned occasionally, often apologetically, as though acknowledging him might upset the delicate balance of the modern political narrative. And that is precisely the problem. For his collaboration with Nazi Germany was not a footnote but a chapter in the story of antisemitic hatred — one that reverberates even now in the shrill chants and placards of modern antizionism.
At first glance, the idea of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Adolf Hitler sitting down for a cordial meeting in Berlin — which they did on 28 November 1941 — sounds like the fever dream of a particularly malevolent playwright. On one side, a Palestinian Arab religious leader draped in flowing robes, his rhetoric steeped in pan-Islamic fervour; on the other, a German dictator in military garb, a man who ranted about “racial purity” while chain-smoking and plotting industrial-scale murder. What could these two men possibly have in common?
The answer, depressingly, is everything. Both men viewed Jews not merely as political opponents or economic rivals but as a cosmic blight, an evil force that needed to be erased from the world altogether. For Hitler, Jews were the imagined architects of all that he despised — communism, capitalism, modernity, and liberalism. For al-Husseini, Jews were the interlopers threatening his dream of an Arab and Islamic dominion in the Middle East. If history is a tapestry of motives, then antisemitism is the black thread that wove their ambitions together.
It is worth remembering that al-Husseini’s hatred did not begin with Hitler. As early as the 1920s, he was inciting violence against Jewish communities in British Mandate Palestine, orchestrating riots that left hundreds dead. He was, if you will, an early adopter of the politics of elimination. When he fled British authorities in 1937, he eventually found sanctuary not in the Arab capitals of Cairo or Baghdad but in the heart of Nazi Europe, where his venomous ideology found a perfect host.
The meeting between al-Husseini and Hitler was not a polite exchange of diplomatic niceties. It was a meeting of predators circling the same prey. The Mufti sought Hitler’s blessing for an Arab-led campaign of extermination, not merely in Palestine but across the Arab world. In his own words, he requested the freedom to “solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany.” Scientific methods. One can almost hear the echo of the trains, the hiss of the Zyklon B, and the grinding machinery of the death camps in that grotesque phrase.
Hitler, for his part, responded with chilling simplicity: “The Jews are yours.” He assured the Mufti that once Rommel’s Afrika Korps had conquered the Middle East, Germany would support the eradication of Jews there just as it was doing in Europe. Here was not just a political alliance but a grotesque communion of ideologies, a shared vision of annihilation.
While in Berlin, al-Husseini did not sit idle, sipping tea and waiting for the war to end. He became a willing accomplice to Nazi propaganda, broadcasting venomous radio speeches in Arabic, calling on Muslims across the Middle East to rise up and slaughter Jews wherever they could be found. He exhorted his listeners to adopt Hitler’s “final solution” as their own.
Even more disturbingly, the Mufti played a role in recruiting Muslim units for the Waffen-SS. The 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS “Handschar,” composed largely of Bosnian Muslims, was formed with his blessing. These were not mere soldiers; they were trained to carry out the same atrocities that defined the Nazi war machine. Al-Husseini, far from being a passive observer, actively lent his religious and political authority to the Nazi cause.
And yet, despite all this, al-Husseini’s name rarely appears in discussions of the Holocaust or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Why? Partly because his story is inconvenient. It disrupts the simplistic narrative of Israel as a “colonial oppressor” and Palestinians as eternal victims. It reminds us that the roots of Palestinian nationalism are tangled with the darkest ideologies of the 20th century. It also highlights a truth many would rather ignore: that antisemitism in the Arab world was not a European import but a homegrown ideology, later supercharged by Nazi influence.
To mention al-Husseini is to invite uncomfortable questions. How much of his legacy survives in the rhetoric of groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, whose charters still call for the extermination of Jews? How much of the anti-Israel sentiment parroted on Western campuses today echoes the same dehumanising propaganda he once broadcast from Berlin?
It has become fashionable in some circles to claim that “antizionism” is distinct from antisemitism — that one can hate Israel without hating Jews. While in theory this is possible, in practice the line is wafer-thin, and often crossed with gleeful abandon. The language of modern antizionism — the demonisation of Israel as uniquely evil, colonial, and genocidal — borrows directly from the antisemitic playbook. It erases Jewish history, denies Jewish indigeneity, and seeks to dismantle the only Jewish state in the world.
Al-Husseini’s rhetoric was not about borders or policies; it was about existence. He did not object to Jewish settlements in Tel Aviv because of urban planning issues; he objected to Jews being there at all. This existential hatred is precisely what animates modern rejectionist movements. When protestors chant, “From the river to the sea,” they echo, knowingly or not, the Mufti’s vision of a land cleansed of Jews.
There is a psychological element here that warrants attention. Hatred, particularly collective hatred, offers a seductive form of moral clarity. It simplifies the world into a binary of good versus evil, oppressed versus oppressor, and allows those who embrace it to feel righteous without the burden of self-examination. This is as true of al-Husseini’s time as it is today.
Antizionism, much like the antisemitism of the 20th century, thrives on this false moral high ground. It cloaks itself in the language of human rights and social justice while perpetuating the oldest hatred known to civilisation. Al-Husseini’s alliance with Hitler is not a historical curiosity but a stark reminder of how quickly the language of “justice” can be weaponised to justify atrocity.
Why does this matter now, some might ask? After all, al-Husseini has been dead for decades, and the world has moved on — or so we like to believe. But history is not a museum exhibit to be admired from behind glass; it is a living force, shaping the narratives and ideologies of the present. The lies told in one generation have a way of mutating, like viruses, into the slogans of the next.
When we see Western activists waving flags and chanting for “intifada,” do they know that the very concept of globalised jihad against Jews was nurtured by figures like al-Husseini? When university students shout that Israel is a “colonial project,” do they understand that this rhetoric is the direct descendant of a propaganda campaign crafted in Nazi Berlin?
It is not pleasant to say these things. We live in a world where complexity is feared, and where pointing out inconvenient truths can earn you accusations of insensitivity or worse. But if we are to understand the modern war against Israel — not just the bombs and bullets, but the psychological and ideological war — we must acknowledge where it came from.
The roots of modern antizionism lie not in noble resistance to oppression but in a dark legacy of hatred. Al-Husseini was not a freedom fighter but a man who sought to extend the Holocaust into the Middle East. His words — “The Jews are yours” — were not the musings of a frustrated nationalist but the declaration of a man who wished to see an entire people exterminated.
To borrow a metaphor from fable, al-Husseini was a wolf who wore many disguises — religious leader, nationalist hero, anti-colonial figure — but beneath the cloak was a predator who sought only blood. The tragedy is that his ideology did not die with him. It lives on, in subtler forms, in the chants of crowds who believe they are calling for justice but are, in fact, repeating a script written in hatred.
The lesson of al-Husseini is not simply historical; it is moral. We must learn to name the wolves of our time, to see through the disguises of rhetoric and virtue-signalling, and to recognise that hatred, once unleashed, devours everything — even those who wield it as a weapon.
Sources:
1.Hajj Amin al‑Husseini, Memoirs of the Grand Mufti (Damascus, 1999), as quoted in Skeptics StackExchange, “Is Amin al‑Husseini's memoir being accurately quoted concerning …” (Skeptics SE), referencing the Mufti’s chilling demand: “Our fundamental condition… eradicate every last Jew … The answer I got was: ‘the Jews are yours.’
2. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “Hajj Amin al-Husayni Meets Hitler,” Holocaust Encyclopedia], summary of German propaganda newsreel documenting the meeting in Berlin on November 28, 1941.
3. The 13th Waffen Mountain Division “Handschar”, Wikipedia, accessed July 22, 2025, documenting its formation with the Grand Mufti’s blessing and involvement in atrocities, including massacres and police operations during WWII
