MEMRI Daily Brief No. 623

Preface

The collaboration between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husayni and Nazi Germany has been subjected to broad historical research. Most of the research focused on the Mufti’s time in Jerusalem. For my MA thesis at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in 1977, I chose to focus on his time in Berlin, 1941-45. In this, I was guided by two renowned professors: the late historian of the Middle East and Arab world, Yosef Porat, and the historian of Germany in the 18th-20th centuries, Moshe Zimmerman. It is my intention to publish this thesis in book form, but at this stage I will be publishing several chapters from it on MEMRI.org, while presenting its broader context. I am also including the Introduction as written at the time, and forthcoming book’s Table of Contents.

Introduction

This book discusses both sides of the relationship between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin al-Husayni – who was a central figure in the Arab nationalist movement – and Nazi Germany, particularly during the years that the Mufti was active in Berlin during World War II.

First, this book will analyze Germany’s ideological basis for cooperation with the Arabs and the compromises it made in its racial theories regarding Arabs and Muslims. This analysis, provided in Part 1 of this book, will include an overview of the development of Nazi racial theory, beginning in the 19th century.[1] It will provide a background to the main subject of this study, al-Husayni’s relationship with Nazi Germany. (Contrary to popular belief, the Nazis actually elevated the Arabs’ racial status – without attributing to them any Aryan origins or attributes, without this being a tactical measure, and even without any urgent need for Arab help in the war effort.)[2]

The Mufti was the pioneer of military and political cooperation between the Axis and the Arabs, and his relationship with Nazi Germany is described in Parts 2-5 of this book. A thorough examination of this relationship, based on original Arab and German documents (some of which were not publicly available before), reveals that the Mufti’s relationship with Nazi Germany was unique in a variety of ways when compared to other pro-Axis Arab leaders.

The ways in which the Mufti was unique include:

1. The Mufti persisted in his cooperation with Nazi Germany even as its defeat loomed and despite the Axis’ consistent rejection of his repeated petitions for its support of Arab independence and unity. Indeed, precisely during the years 1943-1945, when other Arab nationalist leaders began distancing themselves from the weakened Germany after realizing that it could no longer help them achieve their goals, the Mufti’s ties with the Nazis reached their zenith, even though he no longer stood to gain from it politically. It was during these latter years of the war that he intensified his collaboration with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the Third Reich’s “strong man” in the years that preceded its defeat, and the Mufti worked with him, his staff, and the various organs at his disposal[3]with absolute loyalty.
2. He had a strong ideological affinity to Nazi political and ideological principles, including – in his words – theFührerprinzip, the status and function of struggle, and the concept of order.[4]
3. He fully embraced the Nazis’ hatred of Jews.[5]He also thought in terms of mass annihilation (indeed, he preceded the Nazis in attempting to carry out such plans – see example F below). On several occasions, the Mufti contemplated or had been involved in genocidal actions against the Jews, including:
4. a) He personally intervened in and thwarted several deals that would have saved the lives of thousands of Jews, including children. One of these was a rescue deal that had even been approved by Himmler himself.
5. b) The Mufti sent a delegation to an “educational” visit to the Sachsenhausen concentration and extermination camp north of Berlin, which housed Department D, the department that oversaw the administration of all the Reich’s concentration camps. As far as is known, this was the only instance in Nazi Germany’s history that foreigners and non-SS members were granted permission to visit an active concentration and death camp.
6. c) He recruited Bosnian Muslims in order to form the 13th SS Mountain Division. Following the July 1944 occupation of Hungary, the division was tasked with securing the railways to Poland through Slovakia, on which half of Hungarian Jewry (430,000 Jews) were transported to their annihilation. Among these Jews were members of my own family, a fact that I had been unaware of when I began working on this study.
7. d) He played a supporting role in the operations of the Wehrmacht’s 162nd Division, known as the Eastern (Muslim) Legion.
8. e) On several occasions, he entreated Germany to bomb the Jewish population in Palestine during public celebrations.
9. f) As revealed by Italian researchers Luigi Goglia and Renzo De Felice, who found a previously unknown cache of private documents belonging to Mussolini, in 1936, the Mufti approached Mussolini with a request to contaminate Tel Aviv’s drinking water.

In addition, the Mufti adopted the Nazi terminology about a war against “world Jewry”, and he established in Krakow an “Institute for the Study of the Jewish Question” inspired by the Nazis’ institute in Berlin.

4. The Mufti enjoyed unique treatment by officials in Nazi Germany’s highest echelons. He enjoyed a close relationship with Himmler, and Hitler himself said about the Mufti: “He gives the impression [that] he has more than one Aryan among his ancestors, and it may be that he harks from the most excellent Roman origins.” After the recruitment of the Bosnian 13th SS Mountain Division, the SS also took action to provide him with a personal office in its headquarters building in Berlin. In one Nazi publication he was also referred to as “The Loyal One” (a play on his name Amin, which means “loyal” in Arabic).
5. The Mufti made important contributions to Germany’s wartime intelligence. Among other things, his spy network in the Arab world managed to provide the Axis with an early warning ahead of the November 1942 Allied invasion of North Africa (Operation Torch). Mussolini approved the plan on the condition that the operation be carried out by Libyan NCOs in the Italian army.

Sources Used In This Book

Other studies of the Mufti’s relationship with Nazi Germany rely primarily on documents from European foreign offices and on testimony by former German Foreign Office officials. By contrast, this book draws from unique Arab sources that have barely been examined with regard to the subject at hand. This will enable us to present an Arab point of view and a broader, more balanced picture.

Notable among the Arab sources referred to in this book are:

1. Arabic-language documents from the Mufti’s personal archives. The Mufti’s documents were captured by U.S. forces in the Mufti’s final refuge in Europe in Badgastein, near Salzburg, Austria. Copies of the documents were also obtained by the Haganah. The Mufti’s archives became available to researchers in the 1950s, but most of the documents that were studied were those in European languages, while the Arabic-language documents went largely untouched. In Israel, the archive containing these documents was only declassified and made available to researchers in 1985 (prior to year, some were was used by the Israel Police and the State Attorney in the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann).
2. The Mufti’s memoirs, which were published on two different occasions (the first in 1957-1958 by the EgyptianAkhbar Al-Youmdaily, and the second in 1972-1973 in the Aakher Sa’a weekly journal). The memoirs are highly detailed and unapologetic, making no effort to deny the events of the past. On the contrary: The Mufti wrote them confidently, certain in the justness of his path.
3. A series of articles written by Egyptian journalist Dr. Kamal Al-Din Galal about the Mufti’s time in Germany. The articles were published in 1972 inAakher Sa’a. Dr. Galal had worked in Germany in the 1930s and 1940s as a representative of theAl-Ahram and Al-Balagh newspapers,[6] and he was close to the Mufti’s circle. He had worked with the Mufti on sensitive projects, and at a certain point in 1943-1944 they had a falling out and severed ties. These articles provide a great deal of information, but it should be kept in mind that they are not purely unbiased. Dr. Galal claims that they are excerpts from a German-language book titled Nazism and the Arabs that was “sent for publishing” in 1972. We were unable to obtain a copy of this book, and Dr. Galal himself never mentions that the book was indeed published. (To the best of our knowledge, the only book published by Dr. Galal was his doctorate about the development of journalism in Egypt, published in Berlin in 1939.)
4. Biographies and books in Arabic about the Mufti. In our view, only two of these are truly fit for academic research. The more significant of these was written by Uthman Kamal Haddad, the Mufti’s personal secretary and envoy to Berlin. Haddad was very politically savvy, and this, together with close access to the Mufti, make his account a very important source. The second significant book about the Mufti is titledA Thousand Days with Hajj Aminand was written by Zuhayr Al-Mardini. It is based on interviews with the Mufti that took place over three years, according to the author’s claims. While Al-Mardini’s analyses are weaker than Haddad’s, the book is nonetheless very valuable, due to the large number of quotes from the Mufti.

In addition to the abovementioned Arabic sources, in this book I draw on several unique German sources that are not publicly available:

1. “German Exploitation of Arab Nationalist Movements in World War II”, written by three German generals: General Franz Halder, the chief of staff of the Army High Command (OKH) until 1942; General Walter Warlimont, a senior operations officer in Germany’s Ground Command who worked with Halder in long-term planning; and General Hellmuth Felmy, who in 1941 was appointed by the Wehrmacht’s High Command (at Hitler’s recommendation) to be responsible for Arab matters ahead of Germany’s military operations in the Middle East. The generals compiled the document after the war at the demand of their American captors, and it is located in the archives of the U.S. Army’s European Command Headquarters. It is comprehensive and rich in first-hand information about Germany’s approach to the Arabs and about historical events. In addition, it contains a fair amount of self-criticism, and is unapologetic.
2. “Eastern Nationals as Volunteers in the German Army”, written by German Generals Hans Seraphim (an expert from Alfred Rosenberg’s Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories), Ralph von Heygendorff (the second commander of the Wehrmacht’s Muslim 162nd Division), and Ernst Koestring (the commander of the OKH’s volunteers department). This document was also prepared for the U.S. Army’s European Command Headquarters, and it contains detailed information about Muslim volunteers who fought with German forces.
3. “Die Nachhut”, an internal journal for veterans of German military intelligence and of the Abwehr. It was edited by Major Franz Seubert, who had operated the Mufti’s pro-Axis spy ring, known as OMI. The February 1968 issue of the journal featured an in-depth article about the Mufti’s collaboration with the Abwehr.

A Note About Other Works

Other pivotal works written since then, most of which rely on primary sources, are included in the bibliography.

For today’s publication on MEMRI.org, I have chosen to publish Chapter 14 of my forthcoming book, Loyal To The End: The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Nazi Germany (1941-1945).

For a general picture of the entire book, see its Table of Contents, below.

Table of Contents

Loyal To The End:  The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and Nazi Germany (1941-1945)          

Introduction

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Dedication

Part 1  Ideological Background to Nazi-Arab Cooperation

Chapter 1: Nazi Race Theory and the Question of Arabs and Muslims

Chapter 2: The Nazis’ Racial Approach to Non-Jewish Semites

Part 2  The Mufti and Nazi Germany: Working With the Foreign Office and the Wehrmacht to Advance Arab Unity and Independence (1933-1942)

Chapter 3: Nazi Germany and the Arab East Prior to the War (1933-1939)

Chapter 4: The Mufti’s Status and Role in Iraq

Chapter 5: The Third Reich’s Arab Policy During the War’s Early Years (1939-1940)

Chapter 6: The Newcombe Mission

Chapter 7: The Golden Square Coup, Al-Gaylani’s Cabinet, the Conflict with the British, and German Intervention in Iraq

Chapter 8: The Grand Mufti’s Rejection of Turkey’s Offer to Mediate Between Iraq and Britain

Chapter 9: The Allied Occupation of Syria and Lebanon and the Creation of a Wehrmacht-Affiliated Arab Unit

Chapter 10: Germany Prepares for the Decisive Battle against Russia (November 1941 – November 1942)

Chapter 11: Hitler and the Grand Mufti Meet in November 1941

Chapter 12: The Letters of April 1942 and the Rift Between the Mufti and Al-Gaylani

Chapter 13: The Grand Mufti’s Cooperation with the Germans During 1942

Chapter 14: Inspecting Concentration Camps

Chapter 15: Nazi Germany – From Offensive to Decline and the Implications For Arab and Muslim Collaborators (Summer 1942 – Autumn 1943)

Chapter 16: Hallmarks of the Mufti’s Relationship With Italy

Part 3:  The Renewed Alliance: The Mufti and the SS (1943-1945)

Chapter 17: Early Attempts to Provide an Islamic Basis for Arab and Muslim Support for Nazi Germany

Chapter 18: The Mufti’s Grand Plan for Muslim-Nazi Cooperation

Chapter 19: Islam in the Service of the SS

Chapter 20: Recruitment of the Eastern Muslim Legions

Chapter 21: The Mufti and the Eastern Muslim Legions

Part 4: Attempts to Eliminate the Jewish National Home in Palestine

Chapter 22: The Mufti’s Appeals to the Germans to Bomb the Jewish Population in Palestine

Chapter 23: Thwarting Rescue Deals in Order to Send Jews to Poland

Chapter 24: Preparing for War in Palestine Following WWII

Chapter 25: In the Midst of Defeat – Late 1944

Chapter 26: General Anti-Jewish Activities (1943-1944)

Part 5: Loyal To The End: The Grand Mufti’s Worldview and Convictions

Chapter 27: The Mufti’s Persistence in Allying with the Germans

Chapter 28: What Choices Did Other Arab Leaders Make?

Chapter 29: How the Mufti Viewed the Arab-Nazi Alliance

Chapter 30: The Mufti’s Ideological Convictions and Affinity to Nazi Principles

Conclusion

Bibliography  

[1] This will refute the commonly accepted notion that the Nazis viewed the Arabs the same way they viewed the Jews, and that the Arabs would have been subject to the same fate had the Third Reich prevailed. Other sections of this study will also refute the claim of some Arabs that the Arabs had no relationship whatsoever to the fate of the Jews under the Third Reich.

[2] This was expressed clearly in several instances, including: by Nazi racial policy department chief Dr. Walter Gross in a 1942 article asserting that the Nazis are anti-Jewish and not anti-Semitic; earlier, in a 1937 article in the Nazi Party organ Volkischer Beobachter; and even as a 1942 order by Goebbels banning the use of the term “antisemitism”.

[3] Including the fighting units of the Waffen-SS, the Gestapo, the SD intelligence department, the RSHA in general, and the RSHA department that was in charge of the concentration and extermination camps.

[4] Interestingly, Hitler admired Islam as a “fighting religion”.

[5] One may wonder whether the Mufti’s hatred of the Jews was Islamic in nature, but this does not appear to have been the case. It is interesting to note that despite his religious status as a mufti, the word “Islam” does not appear even once in the charter for his Arab Nation organization. In other instances, he would use Islam as a tool to achieve his political goals (rather than being motivated by Islamic religious principles). This is also evidenced by his adoption of Nazi principles.

[6] In the 1950s, Dr. Galal was a member of the Egyptian delegation to the United Nations in Geneva.

Chapter 14: Inspecting Concentration Camps

The Grand Mufti’s Ties with the SS and With the Administration in Charge of the Annihilation of the Jews in 1942

The Grand Mufti’s ties with Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler began as soon as he arrived in Germany in November 1941. Right from the first meeting, the Mufti left a strong impression on Himmler, as Adolf Eichmann related to his aide Dieter Wisliceny. Wisliceny testified in Bratislava:

“After Mufti al-Husayni arrived in Germany, he paid a visit to Himmler. A short while thereafter the Grand Mufti visited the director of the Jewish Section at the Gestapo Department IV, Obersturmbannführer Adolf Eichmann, in his office in Berlin, 166 Kurfürstenstrasse. I no longer remember the exact date of the visit. Possibly it was at the end of 1941 or the beginning of 1942.

“By chance I was with Eichmann in Berlin a few days later, when he told me in detail about this visit. Eichmann lectured the Grand Mufti in his Map Room, where he had collected statistical accounts of the Jewish population of various European countries. He lectured in detail about the solution of the Jewish Question in Europe.[1] The Grand Mufti, according to him, was most impressed and said to Eichmann that he had already asked Himmler and had in fact secured Himmler’s consent on this point, that a representative of Eichmann should come to Jerusalem as his personal advisor when he, the Grand Mufti, would go back after the victory of the Axis powers. In that conversation Eichmann asked me whether I was willing to take the post. But I rejected in principle such Oriental adventures.

“Eichmann was greatly impressed[2] by the personality of the Grand Mufti. He repeatedly said to me, both then and on a later occasion, that the Mufti had made a powerful impression on him, and also on Himmler, and that he had an acknowledged influence in Arab-Jewish affairs.

“To my knowledge, Eichmann saw the Mufti from time to time and spoke to him.” [3]

In mid-1942, at the height of Rommel’s third offensive at El Alamein, the issue of the solving the “Jewish Question” became timely, and the Mufti had to consider how to deal with it. As Eichmann later testified:

“Three Iraqi majors came to my office… [4] One of them, I was told, was the Mufti’s cousin. They came in order to get information from my department… I was given an order to open everything before them, including the Reich’s secret matters (emphasis added – Y.C.)… The Mufti’s cousin was described to me as somebody who would become ‘the Heydrich of the Near East’.” [5]

A Delegation Sent by the Mufti and Al-Gaylani Visits Sachsenhausen

The Grand Mufti did not make do with headquarter briefings. As a Geheimnisträger (a person privy to state top secrets), he obtained permission for members of his entourage and that of al-Gaylani to tour a concentration camp, as well as to enroll in several SS courses. A two-hour-long tour was conducted in June or July 1942 in Sachsenhausen near Oranienburg, 36 km northwest of Berlin. It was attended by four Arabs, one of whom was sent by the Mufti, while the other three were sent by al-Gaylani.[6]

Sachsenhausen, among the first camps established by the Third Reich,[7] served as a “school” for veteran SS officers and members of the SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV; literally “Death’s Head Units”), under their charismatic leader Theodor Eicke (1892-1943) and of course, Himmler; later, they became the top cadre of the annihilation personnel.

In 1942, at the time of the joint visit by the entourage of al-Gaylani and the Grand Mufti, Sachsenhausen served a dual function:

It was a concentration camp that later became a death camp. During the war, some 100,000 inmates were annihilated there;

It housed the SS Economic and Administrative Authority (Wirtschafts und Verwaltunshauptamt – WVHA),[8] which included Department D. Department D oversaw the running of the Nazi concentration and death camps.

It is interesting to note that Camp Commander Hans Loritz (1895-1946) [9] lectured the Arab visitors about the “educational value” of internment at his “model camp”.

As far as is known, this was the only instance in the history of the Third Reich that foreigners and non-SS members were granted permission to visit an active concentration and death camp.[10] Such access was not even granted to Germans.[11] Foreign Office officials from the Oriental Division and from the “Germany” division dealing with Jewish affairs had opposed holding such tours. Martin Luther,[12] the head of the Foreign Office’s Oriental Division, had also opposed such visits, out of concern that the Arabs would leak information about the death apparatus.[13]

German Foreign Office Undersecretary Martin Luther.

Previous Attempts At Annihilating The Jews Of Tel Aviv:  The Mufti’s Relations with Italian Intelligence in 1936 and the Attempt to Contaminate Tel Aviv’s Water Supply

An event in 1936 offers an insight into how close the Grand Mufti was, both ideologically and in practical terms, to the idea of mass annihilation of Jews. At that time, al-Husayni was in close contact with the Italians, both on a political level as well as with Italian intelligence, and he was asking them for money and arms for the rebellion that had begun in Palestine. A compilation of secret documents from Mussolini’s office (titled “The Revolt in Palestine” and intended for Mussolini’s approval) shows that the Mufti had asked the Italians for help in contaminating the drinking water of Tel Aviv in an effort to “stop Zionist immigration to Palestine.” [14]

A September 10, 1936 memorandum details the Grand Mufti’s requests for money, weapons, and ammunition (£75,000 Sterling, 10,000 rifles, and 1,000 bullets for each rifle, 5,000 grenades, 25 cannons, 12 mortars, and ammunition for these weapons). Clause 6 reads: “[Needed]: the help of teams of experts to carry out greater sabotage of the oil pipeline than has been conducted to date, as well as agents who could contaminate the aqueduct of Tel Aviv, where most of the Jewish refugees who came to settle in Palestine reside.” [15]

Another memorandum, Document 7, dated September 26, 1936 and bearing the letter M – Mussolini’s customary way to initial approval of documents – states that the Grand Mufti had a plan to halt Jewish immigration to Palestine, and that he was requesting Italian aid, as follows:

1. Weapons and ammunition, to be conveyed via Arab loyalists to a Syrian port;
2. £75,000 Sterling;

3.The necessary materials to contaminate the aqueduct of Tel Aviv, the center where most of the Jewish population then living in Palestine was concentrated, and a team of technical experts to carry out the mission. [16]

The Italian response, approved by Mussolini, was that they were prepared to send the materials necessary for the contaminating, but that the possibility of sending a team of experts would be considered later (as would the possibility of training for this purpose Libyan NCOs serving in the Italian army).

AUTHOR

Yigal Carmon

Yigal Carmon is President and Founder of MEMRI.

---

[1] It is important to note that during this time, the term “solution” – which even Hitler used – did not yet refer to the “Final Solution” of total extermination. But these are nonetheless not death camps.

[2] When interrogated by the Israel Police in 1961, Eichmann initially denied having met al-Husayni in his office and having lectured him there. He claimed: “I saw the Mufti just once. This was during an official reception hosted by Department VI in the Security Service guesthouse, to which most of the Specialist Officers of the Reich Security Main Office had been invited. Each Specialist Officer, including myself, was presented to the Mufti… I never exchanged words with the Mufti other than to state my name when I was presented to him. I had nothing to do with the Mufti in political terms.” The Trial of Adolf Eichmann. Record of the Proceedings in the District Court of Jerusalem, Vol. IV (Jerusalem: State of Israel/Ministry of Justice. 1992), pp.1451-1452.

After being presented with Wisliceny’s testimony, Eichmann confessed to having been invited by the leadership of his Section IV to the offices of the RSHA in Vanza Street, where he met al-Husayni. The meeting, he claimed, included many SS officers (56–58 Vanza Street, today renamed Am Großen Wannsee 56-58, was the office of Reinhardt Heydrich, where, on January 20, 1942, the Wannsee Conference was held, to determine the practical steps to be taken to implement the Final Solution). While officially Eichmann headed Division B4 within Section IV of the RSHA (the division that dealt with Jewish affairs), informally he enjoyed a higher status than many Nazi officials more senior than himself.

[3] See Dieter Wisliceny’s testimony in Bratislava where he was tried in 1946 and executed in 1948.

[4] In describing them as “Iraqis,” Eichmann was presumably referring to the army uniform worn by the Grand Mufti’s men, who were in fact members of a unit within the Iraq army, composed of Palestinians, Transjordanians, and Syrians.

[5] Eichmann added that he later heard that it was this cousin who carried out the assassination at Jerusalem’s Haram ash-Sharif on July 20, 1951 of Jordan’s King Abdullah I. He was referring to Musa Abdullah al-Husayni, one of the Grand Mufti’s loyal followers throughout the war, who also aided various elements within the German establishment. See, e.g., Paul Leverkuehn, German Military Intelligence, pp.10-12, who relates that Musa Abdullah al-Husayni gave him much help in his early days as an intelligence officer in Istanbul in 1941. Musa al-Husayni and five other Palestinians involved in King Abdullah I’s assassination were hanged in Amman in 1951.

[6] David Yisraeli, The Palestine Problem and German Politics, p.248

[7] Sachsenhausen was originally established in 1933, before the establishment of Dachau, which is widely considered to have been the first concentration camp. Sachsenhausen was closed and subsequently reopened in 1936. See documents compiled following the trials of the camp’s top officials, Sachsenhausen: Documenten, Aussagen, Forschung Ergebnisse und Erlebnisberichte; The Nazi Concentration Camps (Yad Vashem compilation of documents) and Martin Broszat, Studien zur Geschichte der Konzentrationslager.

[8] The authority was established in 1942 and was headed by SS-Obergruppenführer Oswald Pohl (1892-1951).

[9] At the time of the visit by the Mufti’s men, the camp commandant was SS-Oberführer Hans Loritz, who, according to the testimony of Auschwitz Commander Rudolf Höss, would torture prisoners to toughen up SS men who seemed too soft. See Rudolf Hess, Commandant at Auschwitz: The Autobiography of Rudolf Hess, pp.170, 175

[10] In 2017, media reports surfaced about previously unknown photographs of the Grand Mufti, al-Gaylani, and other pro-Axis foreign leaders purportedly visiting the Trebbin concentration camp near Berlin. However, the photos are undated, and the only indication that they were taken in Trebbin is a stamp reading “Photo-Gerhards Trebbin”. Moreover, there are no documents corroborating that such a visit took place. In contrast, the Sachsenhausen visit was discussed in SS communications.

[11] See David Yisraeli, The Palestine Problem and German Politics, p.248

[12] It is noteworthy that Martin  Luther aimed to protect Jews who were citizens of neutral or Allied countries so as to prevent foreign policy problems for Germany.

[13] Israeli journalist Haviv Kanaan wrote in the March 2, 1970 issue of Haaretz that he had heard from an Arab officer in the Mandatory police, Fayez Bey al-Idrissi, that in the summer of 1942, ahead of Rommel’s invasion of Egypt on the way to Palestine, the Grand Mufti had planned to establish crematoriums in the Dotan valley, near Jenin.

[14] The documents were uncovered by an Italian historian, See Luigi Goglia, Il Mufti e Mussolini, Asmae; Gabineto Segretto. On the relations between the Mufti and Mussolini, see Renzo De Felice, Arabi e Medio Oriente nella strategia politica di guerra di Mussolini.

[15] Luigi Goglia, Op cit, pp.1220-21. It is unclear to which water supply the memo refers, since at that time, Tel Aviv’s drinking water was drawn from local wells and was not piped in from afar. It may have referred to a pipeline from the springs of Rosh ha-‘Ayin to Jerusalem, which was inaugurated that year. News of the festive celebration of its inauguration may have reached the Grand Mufti, who may have mistakenly thought that a similar hydraulic project existed for Tel Aviv.

[16] Luigi Goglia, Ibid, pp.1220-21

EDITORS NOTE: This MEMRI column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.