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The 14th of April this year marked Holocaust Remembrance Day, when communities around the world commemorated those murdered in the Holocaust, including 6 million Jews and others considered “undesirable”, such as the Roma, by the Nazi regime.

The purpose of such ceremonies is not only to remember the victims, but also to examine how such atrocities happened in the first place.

When countries fell under German occupation during the Second World War, the Nazis often found willing collaborators in the local population prepared to assist in the deportation and execution of local Jewish communities. The extent of this collaboration depended on a range of factors specific to each country, its population, and its administration. For example, countries such as Denmark, Albania, and Czechoslovakia are generally considered to have had stronger records in protecting Jewish populations, whereas countries such as Norway, Belgium, and Croatia saw more pronounced collaboration. A similar dynamic affected communities in the Middle East and Africa, which were also affected by the war.

It is in this context that the Palestinian role in the Holocaust can be assessed. The issue has been debated by historians for decades, and remains significant because of thinkers such as post-colonial heavyweights such as Edward Said. They argue that the Palestinians were the “victims of the victims” of the Holocaust, and that they were burdened with Jewish immigration after the war because of European crimes that were not their own. That argument becomes harder to sustain if Palestinians were in fact collaborators with the Nazi regime.

Arab nationalism

To understand the Palestinian role, we must start in the 1920s, when Arab nationalism was gaining momentum as populations across the region reacted against British and French rule after World War I. In the British Mandate of Palestine, which encompassed what is today Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank, there was an additional element of tension. The late 19th century brought waves of antisemitism across Europe.

This convinced many Jews that they needed a state of their own in their ancient homeland, where Jews had lived continuously for more than 3 000 years. The effort to achieve this aim was led by the Zionist movement, and as Russia pogroms ramped up, more Jews fled to the region.

Among Arab leaders were many moderates who supported Jewish immigration because it brought innovation and economic growth, and they sought engagement with the new arrivals. However, Arab nationalists viewed Jewish refugees as alien invaders who had to be opposed. As a result, during the 1920s and 1930s they organised strikes, boycotts, and eventually the violent 1936 Arab Revolt, aimed at displacing both the British and the Jewish population.

One of the organisers of these campaigns was Haj Amin al-Husseini, who opposed the British, was deeply antisemitic, and was a murderous foe of Arab moderates. Through political manoeuvering, and despite lacking legitimacy, he was appointed as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, and later head of the Supreme Muslim Council, making him both a political and religious leader of much of the Arab population in the area during the period.

The 1936 revolt failed, but it convinced the British that Arab opinion needed to be appeased. They issued the White Paper of 1939, curtailing Jewish immigration just as Jews were desperately trying to get out of Europe. By then, the Nazi dragnet in Europe had already stripped Jews of rights, work, and property. Yet routes of escape were being blocked.

In 1938, delegates from 32 countries around the world gathered at the Évian Conference to discuss Jewish refugees. With the exception of the Dominican Republic, all countries refused to open their doors. The Muftis Arab violence had closed the last available avenue of escape, helping seal the fate of millions.

Not enough

For the Mufti, however, even reduced immigration was not enough. Throughout the 1930s he had sought support from Axis powers, and by 1939, they were ready to assist. By then stationed in Iraq, he assisted in a pro-Axis coup against the pro-British government. The attempt failed, but as a result, Iraqi Jews became victims of the “Farhud” a pogrom by the local Arab population.

The Mufti then fled to Italy and decided to make a deal with the Axis powers. In return, for his active support he asked them to endorse a programme of Arab independence, Arab unity, and the elimination of the Jewish homeland in Mandate Palestine. He met first with Italian officials including Benito Mussolini and then with the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, and eventually Adolf Hitler himself.

During the meeting, Hitler told him, “Germany has resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time, direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well,” and eventually, that "Germany's objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power."

Thus, the Mufti became an active supporter of the Axis war effort, receiving a salary 60 times that of an average Germans as well as support to broadcast Arabic-language propaganda across the region. He also met senior Nazi figures, such as Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann, and was given a tour of a concentration camp. He was later informed of the Nazi Jewish extermination programme.

His broadcasts were rabidly antisemitic, filled with conspiracy theories about Jews controlling the United States, and International Communism. He occasionally compared Jewish people to bacteria, and in one notorious broadcast from Radio Berlin, declared: “Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honour. God is with you."

The Mufti also played organisational roles, including recruiting for a special Arab unit in the German army, and getting volunteers into sabotage and intelligence missions in the British Mandate area. He was especially active in helping recruit a Muslim division for the notorious SS in Bosnia where his efforts resulted in the formation of the 13th Waffen-SS Mountain Division.

Opposed

Throughout the war, al-Husseini continued to oppose Jews reaching Mandate Palestine. In 1943, when he learned of negotiations to transfer thousands of Jewish children to safety in the area, he campaigned to block the effort. He pressured the governments of Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria not to participate. He even suggested the children rather be sent to Poland, where he knew the extermination camps awaited them.

By the end of the war, al-Husseini had fled to Egypt, where he was welcomed by Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, who praised him as a “hero who had fought Zionism with the help of Hitler and Germany”.

Historians continue to debate how effective al-Husseini’s wartime activities actually were, and the degree of broader Palestinian complicity in the Holocaust. Perhaps the greater tragedy, however, is that he helped mainstream a murderous Palestinian “resistance” ideology that crowded out moderates and negotiators.

He has been praised, and set up as a role model, by figures such as Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas, helping to perpetuate a political legacy in Palestinian society of continued support for extremism.