Recently, actor and vocal pro-Palestine activist Guy Pierce apologized for reposting content featuring notorious white supremacist and neo-Nazi Nick Fuentes.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but this keeps happening over and over again. Former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke praises Ilhan Omar. Goyim TV, a neo-Nazi video sharing platform, picks up on the Mapping Project, a BDS Boston initiative which tracks Jewish individuals and institutions, including kindergartens and disability centers, in the Boston area. Kosher restaurants are vandalized with Nazi symbols in the name of Palestine.
This is not an accident.
It’s also not a surprise, given the origins of this movement.
There’s a good reason your rhetoric keeps resonating with neo-Nazis.
WHAT THIS POST IS NOT ARGUING
- That Palestinians are Nazis, support Nazism, or are antisemitic simply by virtue of being Palestinian. That is not true.
- That Palestinians do not have a legal right to self-determination. All people have a right to self-determination, and if the mainstream pro-Palestine movement was about that alone, then I’d happily support it. Unfortunately, that’s currently not the case.
- That all Palestinians want to eliminate the State of Israel. That, again, is not true.
I would highly appreciate it if people in the comment section would not accuse me of making these arguments, because again, that is not what this post is saying at all.
Then again, this is social media, and antisemites see whatever they want to see, so I don’t exactly have high hopes for this disclaimer...
THE CAUSE WAS NOT HIJACKED
" The Arabs have taken the Final Solution to the Jewish problem. The problem will be solved only in blood and fire. The Jews will soon be driven out."
LEAFLET OF THE ARAB HIGHER COMMITTEE, NOVEMBER 1947
One of the most frustrating things I often hear from well-meaning Israel-Palestine peace activists is that the pro-Palestine cause has been “hijacked” by antisemites, neo-Nazis, and terror-supporters, particularly in the West. I wish that were true.
Unfortunately, it’s not. The cause wasn’t hijacked by antisemites; the cause was started by antisemites, Nazis, and Nazi collaborators, and antisemitism has been the cause.
Does this have to be the case forever? No, I don’t think so, and I hope that the pro-Palestine movement will someday prioritize the lives and sovereignty of Palestinians over the destruction of the Jewish state. But in the meantime, avoiding this painful reality for the sake of a comforting — yet empty — narrative is not getting us any closer to finding a peaceful and just solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
THE GRAND MUFTI OF JERUSALEM
Up until 1920, there was no movement for an independent Palestinian Arab state. Instead, the Palestinian cause was tied to a greater pan-Arab cause, which sought to establish a pan-Arab state in Greater Syria, including the territories now encompassing Israel and the Palestinian Territories. It was only after France took over Syria in 1920 that Arab nationalists in Palestine, led by Haj Amin Al-Husseini, began advocating for an Arab state in Palestine.
Al-Husseini, known as the father of Palestinian nationalism, was a virulent antisemite who eliminated any moderate Palestinian Arab voices and allied with the Nazis as early as 1933. Instead of challenging his extremism, the British appeased it, appointing him Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in 1921. In 1936, Al-Husseini became chairman of the Arab Higher Committee, the unified Arab leadership in British Mandatory Palestine.
After the 1936-1939 Arab Revolt, which was at least partially financed by the Nazis, the British sent the Mufti into exile.
In 1941, Al-Husseini moved to Berlin, where he lived out the rest of World War II in a luxury villa financed by the Nazis. He met with Hitler and appealed to the Nazi leader on behalf of the Palestinian Arab cause.
Al-Husseini toured Nazi concentration camps and worked as a wartime propagandist, encouraging Muslims to support the Axis powers.
THE ARMY OF THE HOLY WAR
You are probably familiar with the Haganah, Irgun, and Lehi — the Zionist paramilitary militias prior to the establishment of the State of Israel and the formation of the IDF. What you may not know is that the Palestinian Arabs, too, had a paramilitary force in 1948: the Army of the Holy War, often described as Haj Amin Al-Husseini’s “personal” army. Its first-in-command was Abdul Qadir Al-Husseini, whom the Mufti had sent to Berlin for explosives training in 1938.
The second-in-command in the Army of the Holy War was Hasan Salama. Salama, like Al-Husseini, spent a good portion of World War II living in Berlin under the auspices of the Nazis, where he worked as Al-Husseini’s senior aid. He also joined the Sicherheitsdienst, or the intelligence arm of the SS and the Nazi Party. In October of 1944, Salama participated in the failed Operation Atlas, a Nazi plot to attack Jewish targets in Mandatory Palestine. He narrowly avoided capture by the British.
During the 1948 War, Salama commanded Yugoslavian Bosnian former members of the Muslim division of the Nazi Waffen SS.
THE ARAB LIBERATION ARMY
Meanwhile, the Arab League established the Arab Liberation Army in late 1947 as an alternative to Al-Husseini’s Army of the Holy War. The Arab Liberation Army was comprised of volunteers from a number of Arab countries — including Palestinian Arabs — who wished to join the fight against Israel.
Like the Army of the Holy War, the Arab Liberation Army was commanded by a former Nazi: Fawzi Al-Qawuqji.
Al-Qawuqji spent the majority of World War II living in Nazi Germany, where he became a Wehrmacht colonel. His likeness was used extensively in Nazi propaganda.
FOREIGN NAZI AND FASCIST VOLUNTEERS
The Sentinel reported on February 12, 1948 that some 30,000 former Nazi soldiers and soldiers belonging to various other fascist forces had joined the fight in the Middle East on behalf of the Arabs, forming a militia known as Black International.
"These Poles, Russians, Germans and Yugoslavs…are the 'Arabs' fighting for national liberation…Actually their cynical joy is unbounded at the double gift which has been handed to them — the opportunity to butcher Jews, and get paid for it."
THE SENTINEL, FEBRUARY 12, 1947
- Former Bosnian members of the Muslim division of the Waffen SS fell under Salama’s command and carried out attacks on behalf of the Army of the Holy War at times when the local Palestinian Arab villagers refused to get involved, as was the case in an attack on Jewish transport to Rishon LeZion, when Arab residents of Bayt Dajan chose not to fight.
- As early as March 1947 – that is, many months before the Partition Vote – the Australian Jewish News reported that an organization had been formed in Cairo to “liberate” high Nazi officers from Allied POW camps. According to the report, most of these Nazi POWs were then smuggled into Palestine and employed as “instructors” for the Palestinian Arab youth organization Al-Futuwwa (which had been modeled after the Hitler Youth to begin with) and Al-Najjada, a Palestinian Arab scout paramilitary organization that was active between 1945-1947.
- On January 22, 1948, a contingent of 40 Bosnian Yugoslavian troops (i.e. between 800-2000 individual soldiers) arrived in Jaffa under the command of Hasan Salama. They were former members of the Waffen SS and had likely known Salama from his days working for the Nazis.
- Along with thousands from the Waffen SS, hundreds of members from the 13th and 23rd SS Divisions volunteered to fight as well.
- A January 14, 1948 report in the Yishuv newspaper Davar noted that 30 former Nazi POWs were involved in battles against the Yishuv in Hebron and Jerusalem.
- On January 23, 1948, the Bnai Brith Messenger reported that the Haganah executed two Nazis – one of them a former Wehrmacht officer – who’d affiliated with the Arab Higher Committee.
- Per the February 12, 1948 report in The Sentinel, many of the members of Black International trained prospective Arab fighters in Syria. A minority engaged in actual attacks against Yishuv settlements.
- On April 29, 1948, The Sentinel reported that when the Haganah took Haifa, its terms of surrender for the Arab Higher Committee included the release of Nazi German fighters into Haganah custody.
- On May 25, 1948, the IDF shot down five Egyptian pilots. Three of them were not actually Egyptian, but German Nazis.
- In October 1948, Baghdad Radio reported that the Arab countries had recruited former Nazi pilots who took part in the London Blitz to fight Israel.
Political cartoon published in The New York Times, May 16, 1948.
Note that here, “Palestine” describes not the Palestinian Arabs, who did not yet collectively identify as Palestinians, but to the Yishuv, or the Jewish community in pre-state Israel.
NAZI WAR CRIMINALS
It’s estimated that at least 4000 high-ranking Nazi war criminals found refuge in Arab countries post-World War II — around five times the amount of Nazi war criminals that settled in South America. While many lived private lives from there on out, others joined the Palestinian cause and actively pursued the elimination of the State of Israel.
The list is extensive, but one of note is Otto Ernst Remer, a Nazi officer best known for stopping the plot to assassinate Hitler. After the Holocaust, Remer fled criminal charges by settling in Egypt, where he served as an advisor to Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser. In Egypt, Remer formed close alliances with the Muslim Brotherhood, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, and a young Yasser Arafat.
"I know Mr. Arafat quite well, naturally. I saw him many times. He invited me to eat at his headquarters. I knew all his people. They wanted many things from us."
OTTO ERNST REMER
THE SWITCH UP
"Antisemitism is always a means rather than an end; it is a measure of the contradictions yet to be resolved. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures, and State systems. Tell me what you accuse Jews of—I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of."
VASILY GROSSMAN
Given how heavily influential the Nazis were to the beginnings of the Palestinian cause, it’s rather ironic that it’s “Zionists” that are now widely accused of collaborating with the Nazis...or of being Nazis ourselves. But when you understand the nature of antisemitism, you’ll realize that the accusation is not all that surprising. After all, antisemites project the worst things about themselves onto the Jewish people.
So how did the Palestinian movement go from enthusiastically entrusting the help of the Nazis to fight the Jewish state to calling Zionists Nazis?
The answer lies in the Soviet Union.
THE SOVIET INFLUENCE
The Soviet Union voted in favor of partition and the establishment of the State of Israel, believing that Labor Zionism would help spread socialism to the region. Very quickly, though, it realized that it had bet on the wrong party: this was during the Cold War, when the Soviet Union was competing for influence against the United States, and allying with the Arab states was much more advantageous.
As early as the 1950s, the Soviets started enacting enormous propaganda campaigns in the Middle East. In 1969, when the United Nations passed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, Brazil and the United States unsuccessfully fought to include a clause condemning antisemitism. The Soviet Union, which had been heavily oppressing its Jewish population for decades, worried that such a clause would be used to rebuke them for persecuting Soviet Jews. So they included a counter proposal, which was a clause that equated Zionism to Nazism.
By the 1970s, the libel that Zionism is a continuation of Nazism featured heavily in Soviet propaganda, including hundreds and books and articles which were translated to Arabic and a number of other languages.
For a full bibliography of my sources, please head over to my Instagram and Patreon.