Baudouin Loos: le "flirt" entre le mufti de Jérusalem Amin al-Husseini et Hitler ?

A l'occasion du soixantième anniversaire d'Israël, Baudouin Loos a signé un article dans Le Soir (7 mai) intitulé "Israël naît en Palestine : les années de braise". Il écrit:

"C’est en 1936 qu’éclata la “grande révolte arabe”, qui vit les Arabes de Palestine se retourner contre l’occupant britannique. (…) L’un des principaux dirigeants de la révolte, le mufti de Jérusalem Amine al-Husseine, flirtera plus tard avec Hitler…".

N'est-ce pas faire preuve de légèreté que de qualifier de "flirt" l'alliance entre le grand mufti de Jérusalem al-Husseini et Adolf Hitler, deux hommes qui partageaient la même haine génocidaire des juifs, et de surplus terminer la phrase par des points de suspension ? Il convient de rappeler qu'il s'agit d'un "flirt" avec l'homme responsable de l'extermination de six millions de juifs européens, dont un million et demi d’enfants, et qui planifiait avec le mufti "l’extermination des juifs vivant sous la protection britannique dans les pays arabes".

Sur les rapports entre le grand mufti de Jérusalem et les dignitaires nazis responsables de l’extermination des Juifs:

Video

Wikipédia: "Lors de sa rencontre avec Adolf Hitler, le 28 novembre 1941, et dans ses émissions de radio, Hadj Amin al-Husseini affirmait que les juifs étaient les ennemis communs de l’islam et de l'Allemagne nazie. Les notes sur cette rencontre sont prises par Paul-Otto Schmidt. Dans son compte-rendu, Schmidt rapporte les propos de Hitler au Mufti. Hitler expose certains projets stratégiques au Mufti, notamment, celui d’atteindre la porte sud du Caucase. Schmidt note alors : "Dès que cette percée sera faite, le Führer annoncera personnellement au monde arabe que l’heure de la libération a sonné. Après quoi, le seul objectif de l’Allemagne restant dans la région se limitera à l’extermination des juifs vivant sous la protection britannique dans les pays arabes." (Notes prises par Paul Otto Schmidt entre le Führer et le grand Mufti de Jérusalem à Berlin, le 28 novembre 1941, geheime Reichssache 57 a/41, Records Dept. Foreign and Commonwealth Office Pa/2, cité par Gerald Fleming, Hitler et la solution finale, Julliard, 1988, p. 142-143.)

Islamisme et Nazisme, une explication, Matthias Küntzel, Primo Europe

Dossier: les liens privilégiés entre nazis et Palestiniens, UPJF

Elimination of the Jewish National Home in Palestine: The Einsatzkommando of the Panzer Army Africa, 1942, Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, Yad Vashem

Jeffrey Herf: The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, review by Karl Pfeifer, Engage

The Mufti and the Holocaust, John Rosenthal on Der Mufti von Jerusalem und die Nationalsozialisten by Klaus Gensicke, Policy Review (The Hoover Institution)

Middle East Anti-Semitism, by Dr Denis MacEoin, A Liberal Defence of Israel blog

Strange bedfellows, by Seth J. Frantzman, The Jerusalem Post:

"The Long Shadow of Haj Amin
In October 1937, Haj Amin al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Arab Higher Committee, was hiding from the British authorities in the Haram al-Sharif, the holy sanctuary atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. On October 13, disguised as a Beduin, he fled to Lebanon via Jaffa. In Lebanon he received sanctuary from the French mandatory authorities but he fled again with the outbreak of war in 1939. This time he made his way to Baghdad disguised as a woman. In Baghdad in 1940 and 1941 he increased his contacts with Germany, offering to aid the Nazis in return for their help in gaining independence for the Arab states. The Italians helped him enter Turkey, and then he made his way to Rome on October 11. He met with Mussolini and then with Hitler on November 28. After the failure of various schemes to create an Arab military unit he eventually settled for recruiting Muslim volunteers to aid the Nazis from the Balkans, Bosnia and eventually Kosovo.

In speaking to potential recruits, Husseini stressed the connections they had to the Muslim nation fighting the British throughout the world: "The hearts of all Muslims must today go out to our Islamic brothers in Bosnia, who are forced to endure a tragic fate. They are being persecuted by the Serbian and communist bandits, who receive support from England and the Soviet Union... They are being murdered, their possessions are robbed and their villages are burned. England and its allies bear a great accountability before history for mishandling and murdering Europe's Muslims, just as they have done in the Arabic lands and in India."

Three divisions of Muslim soldiers were recruited: The Waffen SS 13th Handschar ("Knife") and the 23rd Kama ("Dagger") and the 21st Skenderbeg. The Skenderbeg was an Albanian unit of around 4,000 men, and the Kama was composed of Muslims from Bosnia, containing 3,793 men at its peak. The Handschar was the largest unit, around 20,000 Bosnian Muslim volunteers. According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, "These Muslim volunteer units, called Handschar, were put in Waffen SS units, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia and carried out police and security duties in Hungary. They participated in the massacre of civilians in Bosnia and volunteered to join in the hunt for Jews in Croatia." Part of the division also escorted Hungarian Jews from the forced labor in mine in Bor on their way back to Hungary. The division was also employed against Serbs, who as Orthodox Christians were seen by the Bosnian Muslims as enemies."

Le mufti passe en revue une unité musulmane de Bosnie