Talk:Amin al-Husseini

2 points

• Zero. I think the earlier text said Mattar gave out his probable date of birth as 1895. We had two notes, one in lead, one in the opening para of his life. I've tried to harmonize, hope without distortion
• I changed this, which keeps popping back:

Husseini was and remains a highly controversial figure. Historians debate to what extent his fierce opposition to Zionism and support of Nazi Germany was grounded in Palestinian nationalism or antisemitism or a combination of both.

It simply won't wash, because it is phrased to wash Palestinian nationalism with antisemitism, (b) Husseini was for a good part of his career a pan-Arab nationalist, not a Palestinian nationalist (c) Palestinian nationalism in wiki articles, is insistently given as arising relatively later than Husseini's floruit. The alternative statement therefore is distinctively POV-tilted. Nishidani (talk) 14:16, 27 April 2012 (UTC)

Citation needed

Historians dispute whether his fierce opposition to Zionism was grounded in nationalism or antisemitism or a combination of both.

For the record, that formulation was agreed on a few years back as a NPOV way of describing two distinct currents in post-war historical work on the Mufti. No one minimally familiar with the literature would deny that Pearlman and Schechtman, to cite but a few, dye him deeply in the anti-Semitic tradition. In the 1980s, both an Israeli and a Palestinian wrote influential biographies which altered this, and argued his opposition to Zionist was nationalist (Elpeleg and Mattar). You'll find a huge amount of books and articles, most written with an eye to the geopolitical fallout of the image you concoct, still keeping alive the antisemitic line, while specialist scholarship accepts the framework of Elpeleg and Mattar's nuanced line, that his objection was nationalist (pan-Arab rather than strictly Palestinian). For these reasons I think it a fair synthesis of the rift in the historical tradition. it could be removed from the lead of course. Perhaps someone could come up with a meta-source that further analyses the facts. But I don't think this is controversial enough to require a tag, even though Greyshark is certainly within his rights to ask for a source.Nishidani (talk) 07:52, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

Asking citations, i merely asked for sources which tag him as antisemite and the ones saying he was only a nationalist, so readers would compare. Nevertheles, there is some problem claiming that "Historians dispute" - is there a specific citation regarding argument among historians? I think not. Seems to me the better version would be:

Though al-Husseini is accused by several historians that his fierce opposition to Zionism was grounded in fierce antisemitism, several other historians claim it was grounded either in Arab nationalism, or a combination of both nationalism and antisemitism.

Cheers.Greyshark09 (talk) 07:55, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

As all serious modern biographies show, al-Husseini became an antisemite. It is simply not in accordance with his biographers to repeat, with the early Zionist literature, that his opposition to the movement was grounded in anti-semitism. If so, all Palestinian Arabs who opposed the settlement of their land by Zionists would be antisemites. They were nationalists. The text has gone to great pains to get the nuances right. The early prewar and postwar Zionist hisoriographical tradition argued he was motivated by antisemitism. Modern Israeli and Palestinian scholars see him as basically an Arab nationalist whose position led him to antisemitism. The line as given (I think worked out years ago by myself and a pro-Israeli editor) gives both alternatives, and then allows for the complexity of both elements in his unfolding attitudes. This is commonsense, coherent with the best literature, and NPOV.

This is why I think the citation tag should be removed. For it is obvious from the text throughout that this generic summary as per WP:LEAD gives the gist of scholarly contentions and polemical differences in the literature. ?Nishidani (talk) 09:21, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

That is your private interpretation and editorializing (removal suggestion). And just for record - when you are saying If so, all Palestinian Arabs who opposed the settlement of their land by Zionists would be antisemites, you are implying that Jewish population of Southern Syria and later British Palestine was on "Arab land", hence making you clearly an Arab nationalist yourself. It is a bit problematic - i don't really appreciate nationalists of all kinds because of their strong POV.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:09, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Could you kindly not 'personalize' our interchanges. There is, everyone knows this, an early Zionist interpretation insisting he was a native antisemite, and a more modern specialist interpretation (Elpeleg, Mattar, Laurens) that sees his later antisemitism as an outgrowth of his political failures in Palestine. This has nothing to do with 'private interpretations'. Your second point is an inferential non-sequitur, and incomprehensible.Nishidani (talk) 17:39, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

You are correct, i need not involve personal remarks.Greyshark09 (talk) 17:49, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

FWIW, I think the sentence in the article now is fine, considering it's in the lead and is supposed to summarize the sourced information in the article. No More Mr Nice Guy (talk) 20:06, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks, NMMNG. I'd still be happier if I could get Greyshark to see this as a fair summary of the various positions in the last two sections (which might be conflated). I've just edited part of that for compression, because I think a few more scholars and their various positions could be added there. Nishidani (talk) 20:27, 13 June 2012 (UTC)

Nishidani, your edits are fine and actually as most of the time you do a great work on referencing. I guess i was mostly just pissed off by some other editor at the same time. Sorry for that and i will try not to involve personal remarks as well suggested by you.Greyshark09 (talk) 18:24, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

No problem. I have the same regard for your own work here, which is, as far as I have seen it, pretty scrupulous and avoids tendentiousness.

And I didn't take that remark badly. We all have our days. I hope you keep on board here. There's still quite a bit of work to be done. This is one of the hardest articles to write per WP:NPOV. Cheers Nishidani (talk) 19:34, 14 June 2012 (UTC)

Was Amin al-Husseini a "leader" of the Muslim Brotherhood?

I note that this article is listed under , but there is nothing in the article mentioning an association with the Muslim Brotherhood. The main Muslim Brotherhood article describes an association, which is supported by a single reference to an overtly biased book review in Front Page magazine, but is not supported by any NPOV scholarly source directly. Can this be corroborated and corrected if necessary?Jemiljan (talk) 09:29, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Good point. Thanks for raising it. I hadn't noticed that this had been added. Husseini met Hasan al-Banna's brother in the mid thirties, but that's all I remember. I haven't read anything that suggests al-Husseini was a leader of that organization though. It would surprise me, though in the late 40s no doubt, when he did come back to Gaza via Egypt there would have been contacts. Needs checking.Nishidani (talk) 09:37, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

As far as i know, al-Husseini was not an official representative of the Brotherhood, though it is possible he was a member or had some kind of relations with the movement. In any case, the Brotherhood had its strongholds in Syria, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, but had mediocre support in Mandatory Palestine, where the Palestinian Arab national movement led by rival Nashashibi and al-Husseini clans was the most dominant, whether secular in first case and semi-religious in the second.Greyshark09 (talk) 09:53, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Elpeleg's book on the Mufti mentions some informal connections he had with the MB and support he gave them on some occasions. Calling him a "leader" of the MB is certainly going too far. Zero^talk 10:24, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Well, Jemiljan, provisorily, that suggests to me we can remove it, since there is a consensus all round by long-term editors here. I'd wait though for several hours for further imput, just in case. If a source (a strong source - those that mention the connection are all poor polemical books not noted for accuracy) is found to justify it, then it can go back. Nishidani (talk) 10:29, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

Thanks to all of your for your thoughts; I appreciate the input that all of you have given. Amin al-Husseini said and did plenty of controversial things that can be easily corroborated, so when I notice that certain polemical sources embellish his already colorful track record, much less declare him to be a "leader" of a group whose association may have been only in passing or vague, general terms, then I immediately have to question the veracity of it. At the same time, perhaps these exaggerations warrant mention in the article? Also, not only the Category listing, but also the reference to the main Muslim Brotherhood article should be fixed to reflect as well. I haven't brought up the issue there, but it should be. I have to stop editing for a period as I'm under several work deadlines, so if any of you are game, then please pursue it.Jemiljan (talk) 22:35, 17 June 2012 (UTC)

We only mention 'exaggerations' if the secondary literature contains meta-analyses of the way his biography has been the object of tendentious trends, from whatever side. In any case, the article does mention this, succinctly and adequately I think, in the references by Rouleau (perhaps we should translate the French footnote?) and Novick at the end. Of course, if first-rate articles or books are forthcoming that analyse this aspect in more depth, they'll certainly be read and evaluated for whatever insights they may contain.Nishidani (talk) 06:22, 18 June 2012 (UTC)

Verification of obscure ref required

ref name=princeton>Princeton Papers. Department of Middle Eastern studies. Vol 9-8: pp.217-221

• This is poor referencing. That is a journal, the volumes are 9-8, which seems back to front, and in any case if so, one cannot give a page number to 2 volumes. The journal has an editor unnamed, and presumably this is to an article, unnamed, with an author or two, unnamed. I'm removing it until this can be fixed.Nishidani (talk) 14:54, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

McMeekin

• Sean McMeekin is used as a source (The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power, HUP 2010 p.360). It has all of the hallmarks of RS yet on the page cited, clearly he has no knowledge of what he is talking about, and therefore is probably not RS on the Mufti, let alone his role in Iraq: The relevant passage is this:-

'The Mufti was a pioneer in race-murder, having incited Arab mobs to lynch hundreds of Palestinian Jews in Jerusalem riots in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936. Al-Husseini had excelled himself in organizing the anti-Semitic pogrom in Baghdad in June 1941,'p.360

That itself is sheer nonsense, unsupported by serious historiography. His source is Dalin and Rothman whose screed no reviewer of standing regards as RS, as determined in our archives. Therefore I will remove this. The Baghdad pogrom and al-Husseini is covered by historians who specialize in the subject. We should restrict ourselves to them,Nishidani (talk) 15:19, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Can't find any reference to Dalin and Rothman in McMeekin's book on page 360. Sean McMeekin is Assistant Professor of International Relations at Bilkent University in Turkey and is widely used throughout Wikipedia. That particular book has been very well received. see Harvard catalog. Please reinsert deleted material or at the very least source the fact that he uses Dalin and Rothman as his source. 76.179.5.174 (talk) 01:55, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

As said, anyone who can write:The Mufti was a pioneer in race-murder, having incited Arab mobs to lynch hundreds of Palestinian Jews in Jerusalem riots in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936, isn't going to get on this page. He's not a reliable source because he gets all of the primary facts wrong, and his assertions are inane, according to modern specialist scholarship. Period.Nishidani (talk) 06:54, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

You sidestepped my challenge of your assertion that McMeekin used Dalin and Rothman as his source. If you cannot support that, you need to strike it. No one should claim that a historian "gets all of his primary facts wrong" without showing at least one primary fact that is wrong. The idea that the Mufti incited Arab mobs to kill Jews is a primary fact supported by most historians (as opposed to historiographers). It appears you do not want to use this author as a reliable source because he expressed an unpopular and unflattering opinion of the subject, one that numerous historians share. 76.179.5.174 (talk) 11:59, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

Nishidani is correct. The quoted sentences are nonsense contrary to the great majority of good sources. Zero^talk 12:08, 29 June 2012 (UTC)

You are no doubt correct. The following sources that collaborate McMeekin are probably either no good, or part of the tiny minority who agree with such "nonsense". Some fools have awarded some of them history prizes, Pulitzer prizes, chairs at prestigious universities, and diplomatic positions at the United Nations. What would they know?

• Richard S. Levy
• Gilbert Achcar
• Ian Denis Johnson
• Robert S. Wistrich
• Bernard Lewis
• Douglas Porch
• Conor Cruise O'Brien
• Matthias Küntzel
• Simon Sebag Montefiore
• Klaus-Michael Mallmann

76.179.5.174 (talk) 02:07, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Funny. Achcar says that Husseini was not an extremist in his early career and in support cites an article of Pappe that argues he was a moderating influence. (p.129). A Nish said, anyone who uses ridiculous expressions like "pioneer in race-murder" doesn't belong here. Nor does anyone who doesn't know the meaning of the word "lynch". Zero^talk 03:43, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Achcar says on pg 203: "It is, however, undeniable that the mufti espoused the Nazis' anti-Semitic doctrine, which, as we have already seen, was easily compatible with a fanatical anti-Judaism cast in the PanIslamist mold." I would remind you that the "Nazi's antisemitic doctrine" included what McMeekin refers to as "race-murder." As to when he came to his racist opinions, Richard S. Levy says, "Already during the 1920's, the Mufti began casting Palestinian Arab opposition to Zionism in terms of a struggle between Islam and the Jews." 76.179.5.174 (talk) 13:14, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

According to Webster's, lynch = "to put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal sanction." According to Levy's Historical Encyclopedia of Prejudice and Persecution" pg 366, "The [1929] rioters massacred 129 Jews and injured over 300 more, most of them defenseless members of the old religious communities in Hebron and Safed...." I suggest to you that McMeekin's use of the word "lynch" was quite appropriate, and perhaps he is not the one who doesn't know the meaning of the word. 76.179.5.174 (talk) 13:14, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

You haven't read the relevant articles, or, more importantly, the relevant literature, and neither has McMeekin. McMeekin speaks of 1920, 1921, and 1929. There are (a) official enquiries for each event (b) the secondary scholarly literature on this decade and the archival evidence. In those years there is no official or unofficial documentary evidence that Husseini pioneered race-murder by Arab mobs to lynch hundreds of Palestinian Jews. Race murder is something essentially alien to Islam, as opposed to Judaeo-Christianity, which found theological sanction for it, and invented it, in the Tanakh/OT books like Deuteronomy and the Book of Joshua, and then refined it with modern pseudo-science. He incited to get the Jews lynched in his 1940s broadcasts. He did, if official investigations are to be trusted, no such thing in the 1920s. He broke with Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, according to one view, after the 1929 episode precisely over this question.Nishidani (talk) 13:57, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Nishidani, you make a number of unsupported points . Your original post accuses McMeekin of having "no knowledge of what he is talking about" and that "His source is Dalin and Rothman." Now you claim with equal basis that McMeekin has not read the relevant articles! Searching his book there is not a single reference to Dalin and Rothman. This assertion by you was made to justify removing the reference to his book and seems to be without proof. Why should we accept the rest of your assertions regarding this author?

His Bibliography can be accessed here and any fair reading will show it to be complete and extensive. Two of McMeekin's books have been published by Yale University, and one by Harvard University. This particular book was published by Penquin Books/Allen Lane, the same company that publishes Ian Kershaw. Mr McMeekin teaches history (not historiography) at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Yet for some reason you take it upon yourself to claim that he has not read the relevant articles, "has no knowledge of what he is talking about, " his opinion is "sheer nonsense" and unsupported by "serious" scholarship. What do we have except your personal opinion to support your aspersions? If every historian were disqualified because he makes what some people would consider "outlandish" statements, there would be few references available.

You keep listing credentials. McMeekin has no knowledge of what he is talking about in the quoted statement, which ignores the relevant scholarship on Husseini by Arabists, be they Israelis like Elpeleg, or Palestinians like Mattar, or historians of Palestine and al-Husseini like Laurens, to name but a few. He's reliable in his own field (German-Ottoman relations), but this topic is outside of his specific research topic, and he uses sources there that are demonstrably not academically respectable.Nishidani (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

And speaking of outlandish statements, this one by you, qualifies, though it is out of the purview of this article: "Race murder is something essentially alien to Islam, as opposed to Judaeo-Christianity, which found theological sanction for it, and invented it, in the Tanakh/OT books like Deuteronomy and the Book of Joshua, and then refined it with modern pseudo-science." 00:08, 1 July 2012 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.179.5.174 (talk)

Again no argument, no sources, no knowledge of what you are talking about. Deuteronomy 7:1-5. 20:16-18, Exodus 23,24 etc. 'These texts mandate a holy war of extermination against Canaanites because of the threat they pose to Israelite identity.' Sandra L. Gravett, Karla G. Bohmbach, F. V. Greifenhagen, Donald C.Polaski, An Introduction to the Hebrew Bible: A Thematic Approach, Westminster John Knox Press, 2008 p.217. The ethnic esclusivity outlined there, and later canonized in halakhic law, was challenged under Christianity (Galatians 3:28) and Islam (Qur'an 5:18) as contradicting the universality of God (ibid. p.234). Of course, the latter two dispensations, in their critiques, drew on Hebrew prophetic critiques, of those views redacted after the exile to affirm ethnic exclusivity, so no one comes out with a clean nose on this. But what I said is just basic biblical knowledge, and amply corroborated by modern scholarship.Nishidani (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

The confusion here is, generally (Bernard Lewis and Wistrich apart), between narrative history by generalists, and historical monographs and books on theme written by accomplished area specialists, which is what wikipedians dedicated to hauling what was an actrociously written article in 2007 out of its slough of partisan despond, are doing here. Simon Sebag Montefiore is a wonderfully readable narrative historian whose books are sensitive and even-handed, for example. But if we take the passage you think he approves of, because he, in your view, 'corroborates McMeekin', you're dead wrong.

'The Mufti was' a pioneer in race-murder, having incited Arab mobs to lynch hundreds of Palestinian Jews in Jerusalem riots in 1920, 1921, 1929 and 1936. Al-Husseini had excelled himself in organizing the anti-Semitic pogrom in Baghdad in June 1941,'McMeekin p.360

That is an ontological statement about who Husseini fundamentally was. If you examine Montefiore, you will find, certainly, mention of his early 'rabble-rousing' (but then rabble-rousing and incitement is amply documented for his adversaries in those early years). But you will also find thumbnail sketches like this:

'Husseini belonged to the Islamic tradition; Nashashibi to the Ottoman. Both opposed Zionism but Nashashibi believed that, faced with British power, the Arabs should negotiate; Husseini, in a meandering and capricious journey, ended up as an intransigent nationalist opposing any compromise. At first, Husseini played the passive British ally, but he would ultimately reach far beyond the anti-British stance of many Arabs to become a racial anti-Semite and embrace Hitler’s Final Solution to the Jewish problem.’ Simon Sebag Montefiore,Jerusalem: The biography, Random House, 2012 p.569.

McMeekin's language, drawing on sources that ignore modern scholarship and that have failed the RS high bar we observe here, defines al-Husseini as a sanguinary antisemite from the outset. Montefiore's nuanced language gets it right. He became an antisemite when he made a pact with the devil, Hitler, some 20 years into his life as a Palestinian nationalist. Montefiore has used judgement and wide reading to suggest to his reader that Husseini meandered into an alliance with the Nazis and in the end (nota bene) became a racial antisemite, which is diametrically opposed to the unhistorical undocumentable account McMeekin has served up.

Montefiore's adjective there (racialist) is probably dead-wrong, but the overall interpretation is fair. The most comprehensive up-to-date and neutral analysis of both the history of modern Palestine and of al-Husseini within the context of 1920-1948, written by Henry Laurens, and now, in its 4th volume, stretching well beyond 2000 pages, though barely down to 1982 so far, can find not one scrap of evidence that Husseini's antisemitism at the end had anything racialist about it. He came to hate the Jews because they were, in his view, a people who had robbed and wrecked 90% of the pre-Balfour population of their natural rights to a state and nationhood (no justification, of course. But, as Fisk says, Churchill and Roosevelt made a pact with the devil precisely at the same time as Husseini committed himself to Hitler. They formed an alliance with Stalin, who had committed genocide in the Ukraine, and an industrial scale holocaust of the innocent in the gulag archepelago where 5 to 10 times the number of victims of the shoah perished, in full knowledge he was a murderous thug. For in war, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, precisely the dictum many Arabs adduce to explain why Husseini, against sensible advise among his own ranks, threw in his lot with Hitler and Mussolini. It was a geopolitical calculation, made with Nazis and fascists who despised Arabs, but were ready to support him against the British with regard to Palestine. The same reasoning led Abraham Stern and Yitzhak Shamir, a future PM of Israel, to try and forge a temporary alliance between the Stern gang and the Nazis).

We do well therefore, to edit with a cold eye to any hypocritical POV tilting which would simplify the inhumane complexities of history. We only manage to do this, with a notoriously controversial figure like al-Husseini, by expecting that an article like this will require years of close source-control, maximum care in checking even what otherwise good sources say, so that we can get past the propaganda be it simplistic smearing or apologetic defensiveness, to make a nuanced and balanced summary of the best modern evidence. McMeekin, who has no qualifications in this specific area, fell foul of the noisy recitative of a subgenre of historical writing going back to Pearlman and Schechtman, as all of those who have worked this article and the relevant literature, would note immediately. So no matter what the credentials of people using him for anything on al-Husseini, their status has no authority on wikipedia, for he has no credibility on the subject of Husseini, as the puerile generalization, with its counter-factual assertions cited above shows.Nishidani (talk) 09:40, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Now with respect to this statement by you:

"Simon Sebag Montefiore is a wonderfully readable narrative historian whose books are sensitive and even-handed, for example. But if we take the passage you think he approves of, because he, in your view, 'corroborates McMeekin', you're dead wrong."

From: Jerusalem the Biography:

"In his memoirs written in his Lebanese exile, he [Husseini] reviled in the fact that Jewish "losses in the course of the Second World War represented more than 30 percent of the total number of their people whereas the Germans' losses were less significant" and citing the Protocols and the World War One "stab in the back" myth, he justified the Holocaust since there was no other way to scientifically reform the Jews." 476 On the same page Montefiore quotes Achcar saying: "He entered into the Nazis' criminal delirium about 'the Jews' as it burgeoned into the greatest of all crimes against humanity."

What has this to do with the price of fish? In his old age Husseini was an antisemite? No one is denying that. Antisemitism was not what dictated his politics from 1920s down to the mid-30s. To say so, is to use the cheap argument that a colonial people opposing a mass demographic invasion under an imperial power of foreigners who happen to be Jewish, could have no motivation other than the anti-Semitism which was characteristic of Balfour and most of the European powers. They couldn't possibly be motivated by the universal desire to live in their own country and not be swamped out or evicted by imperial fiat. There were several hundred pogroms in 1919, killing several thousand Jews in 1919 in the Ukraine alone, and as soon as Palestinians expressed outrage at the way European racism and imperial colonial rule disposed of their Jews on their Arab homeland, the Arabs must be (a) antisemites (b) interested in pogroms. Nishidani (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I am glad you think him even-handed,, but if that isn't collaboration for McMeekin's view I'm not sure what would be.

You again err. In writing 'collaboration' you mean 'corroboration', and that one historian uses another historian's work for a fact or a perception never translates into evidence or proof that the former is collaborating with, or corroborating, everything his colleague writes.Nishidani (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Trying to determine the exact year(s) in which Husseini became a "racial" antisemite strikes me as irrelevant in the extreme. We don't inquire this of Hitler or Himmler or Goebbels do we? Why do we consider it relevant for Husseini unless it is to somehow excuse or pardon it in some way? To claim as you do that race-hatred is foreign to Islam and therefore Husseini was not a racist is at best an unsupported prejudice.

There were numerous red herrings in your response, including such things as the geopolitical alliance of the west with Stalin, which has nothing at all to do with this article except to serve as an apologetic. Even those with the briefest history background are aware that Stalin perpetrated "an industrial scale holocaust" though your figure of "5 to 10 times the number of victims of the shoah perished" is debatable. On the whole, however, the killings were not on "racialist" lines as with Hitler. Hitler could be said to be a "pioneer in race-murder", along with his henchmen and supporters (including Husseini).

While you may not like McMeekin, or what he has to say about Husseini, you have proved not one thing of your assertions against McMeekin, but only your own bias. Of course you and your friend have already said there is no way that you would permit McMeekin a voice in this article, "period", and since you have not put up a convincing rationale with 3rd party proof, I have nothing further to say. 76.179.5.174 (talk) 02:21, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Basically you want to take a few polemic sentences out of a book mostly about other things and use them to replace the findings of highly detailed works by historians who specialize in the subject. This simply can't be allowed. This article already treats Husayni's actions during the Mandate period and his collaboration with the Axis during WWII, both at considerable length. What we don't need is a violent and vituperative summary, any more than we need a laudatory one (which could also be extracted from a "reliable source", I have a large collection). Zero^talk 03:09, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with Zero0000. A polemic sentence taken from a book not dealing with the topic and contradicted by sources from scholars who studied directly the topic should no be used. This even less given the Mufti attitude towards Jews during the Mandatory period and his collaboration with Nazis is perfectly described. Pluto2012 (talk) 08:46, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Looking more at McMeekin's book I see Joan Peters style atrocities everywhere. What about: "The most notorious of the Mufti's death squads, the Handschar SS division, 'slaughtered 90 percent of - 12,600 - of Bosnia's 14,000 Jews". In fact, the Handschar did not go into action until 1944, long after most of the Bosnian Jews were dead. This is easy to check, not disputed by anyone, and is proof absolute of the unreliability of McMeekin as a source. (And the Handschar was not the Mufti's squad either, that's ridiculous.) As professional support for this assessment, this review can be cited. The section of the book that this appears in is called "a political rant, rather than a historical, scholarly piece" due to its almost exclusive reliance on Dalin and Rothmann's "questionable study". Zero^talk 04:01, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

reviled in the fact. 'Revile' is not a synonym, but an antonym of 'revel', which is what you perhaps intended to write.

'Husseini became a "racial" antisemite strikes me as irrelevant in the extreme. We don't inquire this of Hitler or Himmler or Goebbels do we?'

Actually we do, if we refers to scholars. See Brigitte Hamann, Hitler's Vienna: A Dictator's Apprenticeship, Oxford University Press, 1999 pp.347-359.

Since you 'have nothing further to say,' while the reason, 'lack of third party proof' ignores the substantial arguments from the specific scholarship on Husseini used throughout the article, we can I guess just drop this. Nishidani (talk) 08:54, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

One final point for the edification of anyone else who might read this. The actual offending sentence that was removed, along with any McMeekin reference, was "When the Anglo-Iraqi War broke out, al-Husseini used his influence to issue a fatwa for a holy war against Britain. As the British advanced on the capital, al-Husseini excelled himself in organizing the Farhud pogrom in Baghdad,[123] - This sentence was removed because of a quite different sentence that was found in McMeekin's book that is fully supported by other historians. This is a bit of tendentious editing at its worst. 76.179.5.174 (talk) 12:04, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

@Nishidani- You made a number of small grammatical/spelling errors yourself, but since they added nothing to your argument, I didn't find it necessary to point them out. After all, we are not writing a thesis here. At least I am not. 76.179.5.174 (talk) 12:23, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Some comments for the lead

Hello,

Great job if we compare this lead to what it was 4 years ago...

There are two sentences that I disagree with (but nothing critical) :

• "He was promised the leadership of the Arabs after German troops had driven out the British.[7]"

That is contradictory to what I read. I am quite sure having read that Hitler (and Nazi establishement) refused to give this promise to him not to harm the position of Vichy France and Italy in the Arab world. I think Fist is not wp:rs enough for such a statement.

• [T]he British head of Palestine’s Criminal Investigation Division told an American military attaché that the Mufti might be the only person who could unite the Palestinian Arabs and 'cool off the Zionists'.[8]

That may be true that it was stated but I think this is wp:undue for the lead. Who cares what CID could have told to an American attaché ? More, this is also highly controversial (and that his analysis from a primary source is false) : the struggle between Husseini and Nashashibi and the remnants of 36-39 were so deep that no one could have united Palestinian Arabs. It can be pointed out that Abdallah did so more efficiently for this other side and united Nishidani affiliated Palestinian Arabs under his banner but with more political pragmatism (and British support).

Pluto2012 (talk) 09:25, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

I agree with you on both points. Zero^talk 09:40, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

Agreed. There is a very long and intricate account in de Felice of al-Husseini's negotiations, and the fact that he failed to get any concessions from either Hitler or Mussolini on the only point that really interested him, their backing for Arab and Palestinian independence. I've never got round to fixing that, because I stopped short of the heavy groundwork required to go through the 1941-45 section. Fisk is clearly not adequate, and I am (ir)responsible for the second WP:Undue addition Pluto objects to. It should have gone down in the relevant section. I added it, if I recall correctly, because it showed some trace of British antisemitism, and stupidity at a crucial point, and I though the lead required some indication of the manoeuverings not only of the Axis Powers, but also of the victorious allies, whose behaviour had questionable aspects. I'll remove the second bit immediately. We can hunt for an improvement to the line with the Fisk citation. I'll try to do that later if I survive a Sunday dinner in Italy, which is usually devastating to clear-headedness.Nishidani (talk) 09:49, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

The Atlas Affair

This all goes back to Primary documents published in one source before the UN declaration in 1947. It's not as cited as frequently as one would expect. Perhaps we could document it better?

(2) De Felice's archival readings of the Italian and German dealings with the Mufti highligh the idea that Germany toyed with the Mufti, but refused to budge, on his requests since Gaylani offered them better prospects in Iraq. The Italians preferred the Mufti, whom the Germans found intransigent, and too insistant on what they would never concede, the independence of Arab countries (besides Egypt). It's a complex story over a 100 pages long that needs boiling down to a few lines. Nishidani (talk) 11:37, 1 July 2012 (UTC)