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Talk:Amin al-Husayni/Archive 1 Talk:Amin al-Husayni/Archive 2 /Archive 3

Has anyone actually read the Mufti's book?

Is there an English or Hebrew translation? I can't read Arabic. --Ravpapa (talk) 16:57, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Neither can I, but I console myself that most people in here can't read English either. E.g. I've been watching this passage for some months.

'wrote articles for the first new newspaper to be established in Palestine, Suriyya al-Janubiyya (Southern Syria)'Nishidani (talk) 18:40, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

What are you hinting here ? Is this something about the article (i.e. that palestine was never an independent state and considered part of Syria ?) or is it something about the editors of the article ? If it is about the editors - please spare us the details - we would much rather focus on the subject of the article. Zeq (talk) 21:18, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

It's simply about the ability to read English and correct mistakes. Once the obvious mistake is corrected, then the sentence can be rewritten to correct the factual error. One cannot focus on the subject of an article if one is incapable of understanding the simplest elements of prose style and indifferent to facts. Nishidani (talk) 21:23, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

footnotes

I removed the missing footnotes banner, they are present 91.178.80.176 (talk) 16:03, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I wonder if we can focus on the disputes regarding this article

Now that most of the discussion has been archived, this space looks pretty peaceful. I am wondering if we can make a list of the points of dispute. This is what I remember:

1. The lead: should it say "National home blablabla" or "Jewish state"?
2. The first sentence of the section 1929 Palestine riots', specifically the explicit causal connection: "... al-Husayni's propaganda ... led to the 1929 Palestine riots, ..."
3. Evaluations of the Mufti's role in the 1929 riots, and specifically the position and validity of the Shaw commission.

Are there other specific areas of dispute that I have missed?

It is my impression that Nishidani has misgivings about the overall tenor of the article, specifically that it leaves the reader with a sense that the Mufti was and remains the hero of the Palestinian movement, the "Father of Palestinian Nationalism" (I am quoting myself from a previous post); and that this sense is incorrect and tends to taint the entire Palestinian movement with the stigma of Nazism. Nishidani, please confirm or correct.

Issues of overall tenor are hard to address, but if we can resolve all the textual issues, we might be on the way to removing the POV tag from the article. --Ravpapa (talk) 07:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, they are some of the salient points, and we can dispose of them rapidly if common sense and fidelity to standard methods prevail. You can add that a 'new newspaper' is not a particularly intelligent phrase, and that (contentwise) the passage containing it suggests the first Palestinian newspaper was published in 1919, when in fact the first Arabic paper, based in Haifa, came out in 1908. Nishidani (talk) 09:19, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Blanking of dubiously sourced info

The statement "al-Husayni is alleged to have said, 'I declare a holy war, my Muslim brothers! Murder the Jews! Murder them all!'" was sourced to Leonard Davis and M. Decter, published by the Near East Report. Near East Report is the publishing organ of AIPAC ("America's Pro-Israel Lobby"). Davis and Decter's book has virtually no documentation and no bibliography. It is a handbook for Israel lobbyists and activists, not a scholarly work. Midge Decter is a journalist, editorialist, and grand dame of America's neo-conservative movement. Leonard Davis (these days, he goes by Lenny Ben-David) was AIPAC's Director of Information until he accepted a post as Israel's Chief of Mission to the United States.

In summary, stop wasting our time with this crap, Armon. <eleland/talkedits> 23:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

The information was restored with the addition of two references. The authors are an ultra-right talk-radio host and Internet columnist, and the esteemed author of "The complete idiot's guide to Jewish history and culture". That is closer to a willful insult than an attempt to address the serious lack of credibility attached to these allegations.

A simple question: when and where did al-Husayni say this? Where was it originally published or broadcast? The random "Masada 2000"-type websites which repeat it (often in variant phrasings) seem to agree it was in a Berlin propaganda broadcast, but are divided between 1941, 1942, and 1944. (Some date it to 1947 in Jerusalem, oddly.) The fact that nobody seems to know the details, or agree on the wording, points to an historical fabrication. <eleland/talkedits> 01:49, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

4 points: 1) The sentence clearly says "alleged". 2) Arguing with the sources like this is WP:OR based on a genetic fallacy 3) WP:V "verifiability not truth" and finally 4) Despite all that, if the quote was in fact "out of character" in any way, I'd be more inclined to agree with you. The guy was a Nazi collaborator and he said the same things in his Berlin radio broadcasts. <<-armon->> 02:15, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

1) The sentence clearly says "alleged", without making it clear that the allegations are made by unreliable partisans. 2a) Evaluation of source reliability and notoriety is a central task of Misplaced Pages editors and does not constitute original research. 2b) Your link to genetic fallacy is confusing at best. Please explain yourself more specifically. 3) Your link to WP:V is confusing, since you are quoting the pithy catch-phrase without explaining how it applies, or acknowledging that:

• All quotations and any challenged material should be attributed to a reliable, published source using an inline citation.
• Sources with a poor reputation for fact-checking or which rely heavily on rumors and personal opinions should be avoided.
• Surprising or apparently important claims that are not widely known should be supported by multiple reliable sources, especially regarding historical events or politically charged issues.

4) We all know he was an anti-Semitic fascist, but the statement "he said the same things in his Berlin radio broadcasts" is proof by assertion. If credible sources quote him saying the same thing, give us the credible sources and you can shut us up. <eleland/talkedits> 04:44, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Look eleland, the quote is cited and verifiable in that sense. Your theories about the sources' motivations and/or bias and especially your theory that it a fabrication is irrelevant unless you have evidence to back it up. <<-armon->> (talk) 21:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure that antisemite and fascist are the right terms. Particularly the second one.
Idith Zertal, in Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood considers he would be better painted as a nationalist-religious fanatic.
NB: concerning quotes about the Mufti alleged antisemitism (or extremist views), many have been gathered here : .
Ceedjee 08:18, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, "anti-Semite" (or "antisemite") seems to be a reasonable conclusion. At the very least, he was willing to exploit anti-Semitic sentiments for his own purposes - both Arab antisemitism and Nazi antisemitism. If there's active debate on the subject we should summarize those opinions, with attribution, rather than trying to settle it ourselves. "Fascist" I'm not qualified to say. Maybe it's a blind spot but "fascist", "national-religious fanatic", etc all seem to blur together for me. Then again I have a hard time distinguishing the policies of some European national-conservative parties from fascism, so what do I know. <eleland/talkedits> 23:33, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Only on WP could we have an argument that a Nazi might not be an antisemite (rolling eyes) <<-armon->> (talk) 21:57, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. And we are on wp. That is the problem.

As far as I know, all we could say is that he is pictured as an antisemite but I never found reliable sources (ie historians) who claim he was antisemite while eg Tom Segev in One Palestine, Complete tag several British soldiers as antisemite. Ceedjee (talk) 18:50, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

More dubious sources

Well, the heading says "dubious", but that's a euphemism. The source is in fact blatantly unreliable. Moshe Pearlman, who "has directed Israel's information services and advised Premier David Ben-Gurion on public affairs" , writing about the Palestinians' leader during the immediate run-up to the Jewish-Arab civil war in Palestine, doesn't get to put words in Husayni's mouth, thank you very much. <eleland/talkedits> 04:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

• here is a quote from a latter the Mufti wrote to the Germans asking them to elminate the "Jewish national homeland in Palestine" Zeq 07:00, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

But that's a completely different quote. It isn't even an anti-Jewish quote. It's anti-Zionism. It's something a mainstream rabbi could have said in 1939! <eleland/talkedits> 07:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Eleland, I think you are confusing "reliable" with "biased". No one argues that Pearlman is a biased source. But, while many dispute the conclusions Pearlman reaches, I don't think anyone has challenged the facts that appear in his analysis. WP:Reliable Sources defines a reliable source as:

• The material has been thoroughly vetted by the scholarly community. This means published in peer-reviewed sources, and reviewed and judged acceptable scholarship by the academic journals.
• Items that are recommended in scholarly bibliographies are preferred.
• Items that are signed are more reliable than unsigned articles because it tells whether an expert wrote it and took responsibility for it.

Pearlman is all of those things. His books have undergone rigourous review by the scholarly community, and are often quoted in other scholarly works. Indeed, some of his books are considered important source material for any study of some of the subjects he dealt with.

If our article had quoted Pearlman in stating a conclusion about the Mufti - for example, stating that the Mufti was an antisemite - I would certainly agree that the quote would have to be accredited in the text, and not only in the footnote. However, adding the accreditation here suggests that you doubt that the Mufti actually said what he is quoted as saying. Such a challenge of fact seems unwarranted and would have to be supported by some indication that Pearlman fabricated facts that appear in his books - something I would be interested in seeing if you have such evidence.

Here is another example: Edward Said had a clear and openly stated bias about Middle Eastern affairs. But no one questions the quality of his scholarship, and to bracket statements of fact from Said's writings with comments such as you have added would be inappropriate. --Ravpapa 07:05, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Those are valid arguments, but I will need objective evidence about Pearlman's work before I can accept them. At least in the English language, he seems to be fairly obscure, and his work Mufti of Jerusalem not widely cited since the 1950s. He was a journalist and author but not a trained scholar. Phillip Mattar, Executive Director of the (pro-PLO, but respected) Institute for Palestine Studies, states that "The biographers of the Mufti ... often told us more about themselves than about him. They were written by Jewish nationalists, such as Moshe Pearlman ... who attempted to villify him and discredit his movement ... The accounts were so polemical that the historical al-Husayni and the movement he led were scarcely discernible."

In summary, all we verifiably know about him is that he was a Haganah spokesman and a public relations adviser to Ben Gurion. Please support your assertions. <eleland/talkedits> 07:32, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Your response suggests that you are unfamiliar with Pearlman's work. He wrote at least 20 books on various subject concerning the Middle East, including one of the most important biographies of Ben Gurion. He served in senior roles in the Israeli government for 40 years, and is therefore not only an important chronicler of events, but also a first-hand source of primary importance. His works are cited frequently in scholarly journals (a quick Google search will find reviews of his work in journals published by Oxford University, University of Chicago, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but there are surely more). His work is cited in two doctoral theses I am now reading on the Mufti.

None of the references I have read have cast aspersions on the validity of his data, though some do disagree with his point of view.

If the quote in question were out of character for the Mufti, if it were the only existing instance of a documented antisemitic statement, I would perhaps agree with your reticence to accept it as fact. But, as you well know, the Mufti himself made no secret of his views, and the quote in question is just one of many well-documented quotes on the subject.

I would like to take this issue a step further. Your edits appear to some extent to be an attempt to excise evidence of the Mufti's radicalism from the article. Nishidani at one point argued that the article (I am paraphrasing, Nishidani, please correct me if I am wrong) appeared to him to be an attempt to blacken the entire Palestinian national movement by presenting the Mufti as (a) a viscious antisemite and Nazi, and (b) the undisputed founder and leader of Palestinian nationalism. The first is true, but the second is not. Throughout his career, the Mufti, while the most visible of the Palestinian leaders, was always the subject of bitter opposition, and never enjoyed unchallenged popular support.

If we wish to avoid the impression that the article is slandering Palestinian nationalism, the way to do this is not by obfuscating the Mufti's positions, but by showing that they were not representative of the Palestinian national movement. The article makes almost no mention of this - for example, of the opposition of the Nashashibis, of Kawkji, of Abdullah. There are many Palestinian nationalists who have rejected the Mufti's pro-Nazi and antisemitic views, even while admiring the Mufti's dedication to his people.

In summary, the way to make the article balanced and informative is not to remove facts which might be offensive, but to add material which puts the life of the Mufti into a wider and more representative context. --Ravpapa 11:07, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Agree completely with Ravpapa. <<-armon->> (talk) 22:02, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

No, I am not familiar with Lieutenant Colonel Pearlman's work, which is why I asked for evidence. I am of course aware that he wrote a large number of books, the best known being his biographical retrospective on Ben Gurion and his book on the trial of Eichmann. I have done the Google searches. I didn't find the information you're referencing. I found plenty of criticisms of Pearlman. He is often classed alongside the notorious fabricator Joseph Schechtman as someone who aimed to discredit al-Husayni. Even more sympathetic profilers agree that he tended toward rhetoric and appeal to emotion and wore his Zionist sympathies on his sleeve. In any case, he is one source, from 60 years ago in the midst of a civil war against Husayni's side. He states that Husayni made this statement in a Berlin Radio propaganda broadcast. Since the British and Americans would have been recording all such broadcasts for intelligence purposes, why is Pearlman the only person who seems to know about it?

One more interesting thing I found in my Google searches: The question of a very similar alleged Mufti quote from Pearlman was discussed in an ArbCom case, where one user identified it as "the core of the dispute". The users who kept trying to insert it were "cautioned to avoid using propagandistic sources". Hmmm... <eleland/talkedits> 12:09, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Do I understand from this post that you consider the claim that the Mufti was antisemitic and a Nazi to be a fabrication? --Ravpapa 14:34, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I can't speak to what you may or may not understand, but it's not relevant to this discussion, which is about the reliability of a specific source for a specific quotation. <eleland/talkedits> 14:59, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

In Israel's Holocaust and the Politics of Nationhood , Idith Zertal explain how the Mufti has been exagerately pictured as antisemite. So, the answer to your question (Ravpapa) is indeed that this image has been, at least partly, fabricated. Ceedjee (talk) 18:52, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I suspect you're right, but the real issue here is whether we can use a Haganah spokesman's propaganda tract from 1947, or an AIPAC's propaganda tract (they literally distribute it by the caseload), to put words in Husayni's mouth. If these quotes are documented and verifiable, there should be better sources available. <eleland/talkedits> 20:05, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

My mind on this issue is that wp can introduce the controversy around Mufti's antisemitism. In that context and only in that one, could all these quotes be given.

So :

• if we jsut want to state that the Mufti was antisemite : no.
• if we develop the controversy around the image of the Mufti in Israeli historiography : yes.

Ceedjee (talk) 20:20, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

I think we should stick to discussing the mufti as viewed by sources. If there are sources - academic sources - who show his antisemitism we should have that. He aligned with the Nazis and his whole life worked against the jews - this is enouigh to call someone an antisemite. here are some academic data on the subject: http://www1.yadvashem.org/about_holocaust/studies/vol35/Mallmann-Cuppers2.pdf

The view that Israel distorts the mufti image is that of a small group - not worthy of an enclopedic mention, most of the are here : http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n4p11_Okeefe.htmlZeq (talk) 04:28, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

(outdent)

Why are we getting into this kind of a discussion? I raised objections to two specific quotes from two specific sources. I still haven't gotten any halfway convincing or even relevant answers. People are talking now about the broad sweep of al-Husayni's life and views. What about the two quotes and the sources? <eleland/talkedits> 04:49, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Nobody has to follow your process or leadership to drive a 24 months old controversial discussion.

Do you know the topic ? How many books did you read about that ? Which ones ?

How many articles did you write on wp:fr ?

Your question has been answered

By me : it depends on the matter treated - if we just want to state the mufti was antisemite, there are not reliable sources and both quotes should be forbidden.

By Zeq : he is antisemite; there are many other sources on the topic and it can be guessed he considered both these 2 quotes are reliable.

Ceedjee (talk) 07:56, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

allied with hitler

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php here is a picture of him together with adolf hitler —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.250.171.134 (talk) 17:26, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

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