Talk:Amin al-Husseini/Archive 17

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to Nishidani: "including calls to kill all the Jews"

Thank you for restoring the "including calls to kill all the Jews" in the lead.

You wrote:"Restoring Ykantor's rubbishy edit (See Adolf Hitler: there is no descent into content details in the lead, though his crimes were immensely greater) wrongfully cancelled by Pluto. It will go out however."

You are right about the lead of the Hitler article, and I have just proposed to modify it a little bit.

I do not understand why do you call it 'rubbishy edit"? and what is the meaning of "It will go out however"?

If I would have been a Palestinian, I would condemn him for both moral and practical reasons. The moral aspect of his call is clear. As for the practical side :

  1. He made this call on 1944, when it was sure that Germany is loosing the war.
  2. He had done nothing to prepare his people to an expected war. On the contrary, after he took over the Najada, they become less active than previously.
  3. He initiated the fighting ( I know you do not agree) while he should have known that the Palestinians are not ready. e.g. When Husseini blocked the supplies to Jerusalem, he forced the Yishuv to decide whether Jerusalem should surrender, or the Haganah should attack , including destruction of the Arab villages along the way to Jerusalem. I guess that the Al Qastal was the first Arab village who was occupied by the Haganah ( as opposed to attacked but later abandoned). If one can not handle a fire, he should not play with matches. Ykantor (talk) 15:38, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Because several editors here keep trying to get narrative leverage for a POV, and simply do not understand what serene encyclopedic writing consists of. That means that you strive to get all of the relevant facts in, and refrain from shouting at the reader. As your remarks show you want to blame. Husseini's attitudes while in Germany to Jewish emigration to Palestine are comparable to those of David Ben-Gurion, if diametrically opposed. Husseini did everything to stop Palestine being used as a goal for Jews in some deal with the Nazis: Ben-Gurion did everything he could to stop the Jewish Agency from subverting Zionism by their attempts to look after Jews in other countries from Kristalnacht to the postwar period. Both looked with purely political calculations at the humanitarian crisis - does the proposal threaten an Arab Palestine? Does it threaten a Jewish Palestine. The mufti 'forced' nothing on the Yishuv. Benny Morris even suggests Husseini, who kept quiet about the nakba, may have desired a calamity for the Palestinians as a propaganda tool to manipulate the entry of Arab states, duty-bound in 'honour' if the truth of the disaster, once completed, were thrown their way (2004:p.178). He was a complete fucking disaster as a leader - we all know that.
Shoving the fav quote in the lead is like shoving any one of hundreds of Hitler genocidal quotes into the Hitler or Himmler or Heydrich lead, and is a deliberate attempt to signal that the Mufti's complex politics were basically alligned with the architecture of the Holocaust. They probably were not. And unless someone else removes that stuff you introduced before me, I'll take it out. Pluto's edit was correct, his negligance of the rules a bad slip.Nishidani (talk) 18:30, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
I've elided the edit, Ykantor. We do not stack the lead to push a POV which only invites a shouting match. Shalom11111. Anyone familiar with the sourcing protocols on this page would have been extremely leery of patching in, as support for a dubious edit, a pathetically poor source like the one you introduced. Bunson evidently knows nothing of the subject, as is seen by his enthusiastic endorsement of discredited works like those of 'Scholars such as David Dalin, John Rothmann, Chuck Morse'. Nishidani (talk) 14:18, 5 December 2013 (UTC)
Those few words "including calls to kill all the Jews", are correct and important. If you intend to concise the lead, it easy to to remove less important sentences. In my opinion, the lead should mention that the Mufti used to murder his Arab leaders opponents, which weakened the Arab national movement. Ykantor (talk) 17:12, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
The Hitler lead has neither declarations like 'the result of this war will be the destruction of Jewry' (Jan 1942)', nor mention of Hitler's massive murder of opponents in his party. Stalin's lead has no mention of the Kulak or the Polish Operations, except for a generic comment, and all of these systematic mass murders bear no comparison with individual assassinations of the kind Husseini probably ordered during the Great Revolt. It is a long-established policy, still used, for the IDF to assassinate Palestinian leaders, including people spotters pick out as leaders of demonstrations, but that is not in the lead of the IDF, because it is too detailed, as would be mention of Operation Phoenix, which systematically bumped off tens of thousands of Vietnamese, in General Westmoreland, though he oversaw the murders (neither are such things mentioned in the Robert McNamara lead, though McNamara admitted later that what he did in WW2 terms was equivalent to making him a war criminal etc.etc). Again, you are trying to stack the lead with spectacular rhetorical quotes to press home an impression, when the leads above all must be rigorously synthetic and scant descent into details. Nishidani (talk) 09:34, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
Your claims are correct, but the lead rule is: "The lead should be able to stand alone as a concise overview. It should define the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points—including any prominent controversies.". Hence , my proposed sentences should be added to the lead, if they are relatively more important than sentences already in the lead, which is of course debatable.

Concerning your comparisons, it might be that some sentences are sufficiently important for the lead of less notable person (e.g the Israeli prime minister) but not for a more important person (e.g. the U.S.A president) Ykantor (talk) 15:15, 7 December 2013 (UTC)

The most important points are not one-off quotations: they consist of summaries of the key moments or acts in a person's life. The lead mentions his collaboration with the Axis powers, his radio propaganda, his recruitment for the Waffen-SS, and the debate over his antisemitism. You must distinguish summary, which is general by definition, from pointed quotation in the lead, which is, to my knowledge, unexampled in comparable article leads for figures who are known, unlike Husseini's case, openly advocated, set up, and ran the extermination. Your quote is disruptive in this sense. It also showcases one of the three declared enemies the mufti singled out, omitting English and Bolsheviks ('This was the subject of the Mufti's radio addresses from Berlin, in which he exhorted the Arab world to join another global jihad targeting Bolsheviks, Englishmen and Jews.'Sean McMeekin, The Berlin-Baghdad Express: The Ottoman Empire and Germany's Bid for World Power, ‎Penguin 2010 p.362). There is no mention in the lead of Mahmoud Abbas of his notorious doctoral thesis, a classic of negationism, The Other Side: The Secret Relationship Between Nazism and Zionism, nor in Yasser Arafat 's lead of his remark:'Peace for us means the destruction of Israel'; nor in Rabbi Ovadia Yosef's lead is there mention of his call for a complete genocide of both Palestinians and Arabs, or interpretation of the Holocaust as a divinely ordained act apart from a careful generalization which avoids mentioning the nature of his controversial remarks, etc.etc.etc. In short, you don't make selective citations of damning one-off remarks in leads, as far as I can see (unless you are pushing for prominence of your POV).Nishidani (talk) 16:53, 7 December 2013 (UTC)
You are definitely right about Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Mahmoud Abbas, Yasser Arafat. However, The Mufti one-off quotation , is probably just the tip of the iceberg. He probably repeated it but it is proven once only. Thank you for reminding us Hitler article's lead. I try to modify it.

* concerning his words influence, if it is similar to Catholics influenced by the Pope words, than it is significant. Once a Catholic guy told me that he took seriously one of the latest Popes who said that the Jew should not be blamed for Jesus death.

* Say there are dogs around home, but cats are far away. If the leader call to kill all dogs and cats, than only the dogs suffer. This is similar to the Mufti call to kill all the Jews, British and Bolsheviks.

* I think that the Mufti is much more important than Yasser Arafat, because he indirectly caused the big tragedy, the Nakba. (Sorry, you probably do not agree). Ben Gurion said once: "I do not know what the people want, but I think I know what is good for them". A responsible Palestinian leader, would have accept Peel's partition which let the Yishuv having a really small state. Such a state could possibly prosper like a bigger Singapore. And as a by product, my family, could have survive the Holocaust, by immigrating to this little Israel.

* The lead should mention the Mufti's drawback as a national leader (murdered his political opponents, have not compromised with the Yishuv etc.) Ykantor (talk) 19:03, 9 December 2013 (UTC)

The analogy with the Pope is nonsense, Catholicism being distinct from Protestantism, Judaism and Islam in this regard. Islam, like Judaism, does not have a doctrinal capo who lays down the line. And in any case, most Catholics ignore the Pope's specific teachings, just as most Arabs, Palestinians included, ignored Husayni's ravings. If people were taken at their word, 50% of marriages would end in homicides because most couples either say they'll murder their spouses, or have moments when they fleetingly hope their spouse might drop dead (I'm paraphrasing: W. H. Auden's I think if men knew what women said to each other about them, the human race would die out..
Rhetoric is one thing (Obama is mostly rhetoric), policy is another. The nakba was caused by Zionism, and abetted by Husayni's incompetence (his memory should be honoured for that by Zionists) and the ineptness and insouciance, apart from Jordan, of neighbouring states. Accepting the Peel Commission findings would have been suicide for any Arab politician, since it would have meant expelling over 200,000 Arabs from their land in exchange for relocating a mere 1,250 Jews. It established, under official warrant, the idea that was later implement, the ethnic purging of Palestine of the indigenous people. Husayni is not to be blamed for this. Anyone who survived the Holocaust could have survived emigrating anywhere: Israel has nothing to do with their survival. Ben-Gurion opposed postwar Jewish settlement in nations ready to open quotas for survivors. Those of your family who survived are fortunately happy. The several millions of Palestinians have another story: they have led a life of despair for three generations as refugees and international outcasts because outsiders thought they had a (mythical) claim to their farms and houses, which was infinitely more important than native title. They don't understand why the world ganged up against them to make them pay the bill for a foreign European fratricidal genocide. They don't understand comments like yours, which imply their grief is nothing compared to your comfort.
The lead is fine as it stands. Rabin was murdered by a youth following a kind of rabbinical fatwa (din rodef) for being judged mosers. This is just what Husayni did. The rabbis who appear to have justified halakhically the action that was taken (we all know their names, Abraham Hecht, Dov Lior, Eliezer Melamed and many others) don't have this in their leads do they? What we have, for example, in the Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin is a long showcased quote hilariously citing Rabbi Arthur Waskow saying Amir got halakhic law wrong, which is hilarious because many settler rabbis thought he got it right. Perhaps we need a Pope to determine with infallibility who got the doctrine right :)Nishidani (talk) 13:27, 12 December 2013 (UTC)
Israel is directly responsible to the refugees problem, mainly because it did not let them return. But the Mufti is indirectly responsible, because he started the the snowball effect by promoting attacking the Jews. I do not think that I can convince you, but I would like to explain my POV.
Yours: "Accepting the Peel Commission findings would have been suicide for any Arab politician". I do not know, but that would have solve the problem, and benefit both sides.
Yours:"expelling over 200,000 Arabs from their land in exchange for relocating a mere 1,250 Jews.". It is a very questionable act, but we should think practically. If I try to think like a Palestinian, I would repeat yours: "the ethnic purging of Palestine of the indigenous people". However, thinking as a Jew, I would say that the Jews are just. This clash can not be solved. But there could be a practical solution, in which both side will prosper.

The Peel commission realized that Jews and Arabs can not live together, unless when one group is a small minority. (It is similar to other ethnic groups, e.g The Dutch and the Belgian people.) Hence the only solution is separation by a transfer. I know that the word "transfer" seems horrible , but if the transferred people would be compensated generously, it might facilitates a viable solution. According to your contribution, The Amnon Neuman description , lot of Arab people lived in " miserable poverty ". Would not it better for them to have much better life , although not in the same location? Is it better to stay the same while your baby chance to die is rather high , due to poor conditions? I know that the initial response is that the pride and the honor are more important, but...

Bear in mind, that both Peel and UNESCOP commissions, realized that an Arab state was not economically viable, thus the UNESCOP commission insisted on an economical federation of the Arab and Jewish states. It means that an Arab state by itself, could not afford good educational and health services. In my opinion a leader should lead his people to a better future, rather than insist on unrealistic demands (even if those are just demands). Eventually, every one of us, wants the same: better life, and even better future for the kids. Ykantor (talk) 19:00, 12 December 2013 (UTC)

Yours: "Accepting the Peel Commission findings would have been suicide for any Arab politician". According to Elpeleg book : Immediately following the publication of the recommendations, the majority of the Nashashibi familys National Defence Party supported the partition plan. However, when Haj Amin and his supporters travelled around the country denouncing partition and its supporters, the Nashashibi opposition suddenly fell silent.

The end of the summer of 1937 brought a radical change in the course of events. The National Defence Party, which had withdrawn from the Arab Higher Committee, lost much of its influence among the Palestinian public. Its leader, Raghib al-Nashashibi, lost his power base, and was no longer considered a serious threat to Haj Amin. In the meantime, it became known that the government in London supported the Peel Commissions recommendations. As Haj Amins field of manoeuvre rapidly decreased, he gave up his efforts to persuade the British to alter their policy. It became clear that he could no longer continue remaining neutral. From this point Ofl he moved rapidly, severing his contacts with the authorities and clarifying his stance of unequivocal identification with the revolt which now threatened to break out anew...

At the beginning of the revolt, the opposition, many of whose members supported the partition plan, looked on helplessly as Haj Amin's power grew, following the successful acts of hostility against the British and Jews. This was also true when the revolt was renewed after the publication of the report of the Peel Commission.

Hence, hypothetically, the we can not rule out the possibility of an Arab politician who would have successfully accepted a partition. Ykantor (talk) 05:49, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Concerning Dov Lior and his colleagues, it is a shame that they are not already prisoners. It might seems unbelievable, but a lot of Israel's troubles are caused by the bad election systems. Amnon Rubinstein has shown how a small group (few thousands only) of rightist and settler are ruling the Likud, to the extent that the prime minister can not resist them. (This was the reason that ariel sharon left the Likud and formed a new party ). We have to hope for an Election reform which will put Israel back on track, and criminals (e.g. Dov Lior) in prison. Ykantor (talk) 07:28, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
More about the Mufti indirect responsibility to the Nakba- Elpeleg says:

"But if these attributes of his provided the Palestinians with a leader who could organize and lead their struggle against the British and the Zionists, his other traits prevented the Palestinians from ever seeing that struggle bear fruit and eventually led them - almost inevitably - to the 'Palestinian Holocaust' (Nacbat Falastin) in 1948.

In the first place, this was because he always refrained from cooperating with his compatriots in the Palestinian leadership, thus alienating his rivals on a personal basis;

secondly, because he was unable to compromise with Palestinians who disagreed with him, hounding them and even resorting to assassination.(10) In this regard, we might mention a singular petition addressed to Hajj Amin in 1938 by Palestinian intellectuals who were deeply disturbed by the bloodshed in Palestinian circles. They sent one of their number - Dr. Omar al-Khalil - to Hajj Amin in Lebanon to persuade him to issue a proclamation denouncing 'the murder of Arabs by Arabs', but he refused to do so;(11) and

thirdly, he was an extremist and a fanatic by nature, qualities that prevented him from being flexible when it might have helped the Palestinian cause. His attitude throughout his political career can be summarized by 'all or nothing', and in this way he left his fellow countrymen nothing - or even worse than nothing" Ykantor (talk) 07:46, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

More concerning why Jews and Arabs can not live together- Elpeleg book: Peel commission Questions, concerning "Jews under Arab rule in Palestine:

Question- Does His Eminence think that this country can assimilate and digest the 400,000 Jews now in the country’

Answer- No.

Question- Some of them would have to be removed by a process kindly or painful as the case may be?

Answer- We must leave all this to the future.

Following the Mufti's evidence, the committee noted ironically: We are not Questioning the sincerity or the humanity of the Muftis intentions and those of his colleagues, but we cannot forget what recently happened, despite treaty provisions and explicit assurances, to the Assyrian minority in Iraq, nor can we forget that the hatred of the Arab politician for the National Home has never been concealed and that it has now permeated the Arab population as a whole. From the commission's report, it seems that its members did not give much credence to the extent of Haj Amin's sincerity or compassion. His refusal to provide guarantees for the safety of the Jewish population in the event of the establishment of an Arab-Palestinian state left a grave impression on the committee concerning the likely fate of the Jewish minority."

Yours:"Anyone who survived the Holocaust could have survived emigrating anywhere: Israel has nothing to do with their survival."

A survivor woman (a member of my family) who lost in the Holocaust all of her family and all of her father side family (all of the family that lived there), decided to go to Palestine, where she had no relatives. She joined an illegal immigrant ship, caught by the British, transferred to a camp-prison in Cyprus and released after Israel was established. While she was in Cyprus , her aunts (her mother side, who luckily immigrated to the U.S long before the war) found her, and tried to convince her to join them in the U.S. They promised to take care of everything, including a nice guy to get married with .But she decided to go to Palestine, where she could expect a relatively hard life.

A guy, whose lost his family in the holocaust, and during the war he served in the French Legion d'etranger and in the British Commando, told me that he decided to immigrate to Israel although he was not a Zionist. He realized, that where ever he might immigrate to, he has to pose as a non Jew in order to have a normal life and escape Antisemitism. He immigrated just after the 1948 war to the only place where he will not have to conceal his identity, to Israel, where he could expect hard life, as compared to the wealthy western countries.

I am not trying to convince, and do not claim that these are typical cases. However, Israel is unique for a lot of Jews. On 1947, There were less than 2 million people between the Jordan and the sea. Nowadays there are more than 12 millions there. So there was a sufficient space for everyone, and there was no real reason for the 1948 war. Ykantor (talk) 16:32, 13 December 2013 (UTC)

Sure great. Room for everyone, so they expelled 700,000 people and handed their properties over to Europeans. Nishidani (talk) 16:43, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
There was room for everyone before the 1948 war, without fleeing / expulsion. But the Arabs blocked the roads to Jerusalem, to the Negev, Galilee etc, and the Yishuv unsurprising reaction was destruction of the those blocking villages. Before the expected Arab armies invasion the Yishuv unsurprising reaction was destruction of the Arab villages along the expected invasion routes. It could have been much better If the Mufti would not have initiated and endorsed the Arabs roads blocking, and attacks.

Repeating Elpeleg words:"ut if these attributes of his provided the Palestinians with a leader who could organize and lead their struggle against the British and the Zionists, his other traits prevented the Palestinians from ever seeing that struggle bear fruit and eventually led them - almost inevitably - to the 'Palestinian Holocaust' (Nacbat Falastin) in 1948."

I'll believe that kind of judgement when I see it consistently used to describe the Jewish leaders and what befall their people, with the failures that led to the Babylonian captivity, the Siege of Jerusalem (63 BC), the First Jewish–Roman War, the Kitos War and the events surrounding Simon bar-Kochba's revolt. Any neutral reader can see how writers identify with their own people's tragedies, but cannot extend that empathy to people who suffer exactly the same fate. That is the essence of the bias. What befell the Palestinians is exactly what befell the Jews in antiquity.Nishidani (talk) 21:51, 13 December 2013 (UTC)
Yours:"writers identify with their own people's tragedies, but cannot extend that empathy to people who suffer exactly the same fate" is generally correct. But we are not discussing the ordinary Arab people but the Mufti, the leader who indirectly brought such a disaster to his own people. Ykantor (talk) 15:19, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
In poker, he was given a lousy hand, and played it badly. Zionists had with the Balfour declaration and the LN Mandate policy close to a straight flush, and WW2 gave them a full flush (after the Holocaust, no Western power, the only ones that counted, would have allowed any Arab victory than endangered the Jewish presence in Palestine). Philosophically, you think individuals count in history: I think most times they don't except in personal circumstances. Generally, things change one way or another because of the nature of the force field. Your message is, 'if you were kicked out, blame the mufti'. My view would be is: 'you were kicked out by circumstances beyond your comprehension and wholly external to your world, and those who took your place often say they were kicked out (not true) several times, and can't see why you, as opposed to them, should complain, except about the mufti'. But all this is quite pointless, and not directly bearing on editing here.Nishidani (talk) 17:07, 14 December 2013 (UTC)
*Yours:"he was given a lousy hand". It depends what was his aim. If his main objective was to keep all of Palestine as a Arab unitary state, than it was indeed a lousy hand. However, If he would have looked for a better life for his people, than he was lucky (I am not joking) , since he could accept the Peel partition, and probably as a negotiated trade in, improving his people living, education and medical services,

*Yours: "after the Holocaust, no Western power, the only ones that counted, would have allowed any Arab victory than endangered the Jewish presence in Palestine". I wish it would be true. None of the powers declared so. Hypothetically, if at 15 May 1948, whole of the Egyptian army would have invade they could have drive directly to Tel Aviv within 2 weeks, with nothing really to stop them. They could ignore the few settlement in their way, dropping a company for each of them to keep them quiet. The powers would not have done anything, due to the speedy advance. But the Egyptians spent these precious days and attacked those settlements. 2 weeks later the Israeli had already 4 fighter aircraft and few cannons, hence the Egyptians missed their chance.

*Yours:"Your message is, 'if you were kicked out, blame the mufti'". That what I am saying nowadays, as an armchair general, but at 1948, I hypothetically would have tell them to start working hard, recovering without looking to blame anyone. All those Jewish refugees that immigrated just after the 1948 war to Israel from Europe and from the Arab states, they started working hard. Most of them lost everything and came with their clothes only. Israel was very poor. In one occasion on 1950 , the Israeli wheat reserve was sufficient for 3 days only. A ship loaded with wheat was circling just outside Israel territorial water, waiting for a cable verifying the payment, but there was no money available. At the last minute, somehow the Israelis payed and got the wheat. Ykantor (talk) 03:38, 17 December 2013 (UTC)

Benny Morris' view of al-Husseini

I just corrected an attribution and citation to Benny Morris. It was not even in citation marks, which gave the view as if it those claims about al-Husseini were facts. There is one more incorrect statement about Morris' view. Morris doesn't argue that "al-Husseini saw the Holocaust as German revenge for a putative Jewish sabotaging of their war effort in World War I". He only says that al-Husseini said so. --IRISZOOM (talk) 22:49, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Thank, @IRISZOOM You're right, the wording was fuzzy, and it's still not right. The point of the sentence is that this group of scholars (among others) have stated in secondary sources that they conclude that al-Husseini was an 'anti-Semite' and not just an 'anti-colonialist.' The clause referring to the German genocide of Jews as just retribution for Jewish 'stab-in-the-back' in WWI is not really the focus of these historian's judgement. The two phrasings should be separated to continue the work you've begun in clarifying the author's opinions, as opposed to their quoting the Mufti's memoirs. I'll try to improve the paragraph's phrasing (and add Morris's own wording to the footnote). Please let me know if you agree, or suggest alternative ways we could improve this content. All the best.Ronreisman (talk) 20:31, 6 January 2014 (UTC)

Infobox issue - "Military service / Allegiance"

The most recent editor in this part erased everything except for "Ottoman Empire" with the motivation "not a soldier".

Alternative 1 - Revision by User:Pluto2012,d User:Zero0000 and User:Nishidani

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Alternative 2 - Revision by User:Anonimski (me)

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Alternative 3 - Revision by User:Ronreisman

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When I first started to fill in the data in the infobox, I made sure to only include participation in military contexts. My motivation was to include:

While I think that the list of User:Ronreisman is too long because it contains participation in contexts that aren't fully military - I strongly disagree with the edit of User:Pluto2012 (where everything is blanked save for Ottoman Empire). The first alternative simply doesn't give an accurate overview (and there is no "must be a soldier" requirement for this list).

Therefore, I suggest we restore the list to the second alternative. Anonimski (talk) 09:33, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

As you should have noticed, user:Zero0000 also chose option 1 given the allegiance refers to military service and given Amin al-Husseini was not a solider
Zero0000 pointed this in the former section.
And end of November, user:Huldra stated : "This campaign from Ronreisman and Ykantor over swastica-branding certain Palestinian military leaders is getting boring. Look at Subhas Chandra Bose, do you see a swastica there?"
Actually, I've tried editing the Subhas Chandra Bose article to add appropriate flags of 'Allegiance' (including the State he headed during WWII). I was stymied because Chose is defined as a 'Person' and the 'Allegiance' field is only allowed when the subject is defined as a 'Military Person.' I'm also preparing a new article stub for 'Relations between Nazi Germany and India,' as promised to Huldra.Ronreisman (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
What is your reasonning to add these alliegance to people who were not soldiers ? Do this mean we have to add the Nazi flag to all former LHI members or the British alliegance tag to David Ben Gurion ?
When you claim you strongly disagree with my edit, you should also explain why.
Pluto2012 (talk) 09:52, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
It would be more apropos to attach the Ottoman alliegance tag to David Ben Gurion, since he recruited for the Ottomans during WWI, not the Brits. He then operated within the laws of British Mandatory Palestine for decades, of course. It would be truthful and informative to list Golda's allegiances based on her citizen-ships (Russian, USA, Israel). Would there be an objection? Regarding LHI: the 'Stern' article certainly requires text that makes it clear that he offered alliance with Nazi Germany against the British on two occasions, though they never actually acted together, there were no joint-operations, and no actual military alliances (as opposed to the German-Mufti alliance, where all these military operations did occur). It should also be pointed out that mainline Yishuv politicians routinely compared LHI to the Nazis, though mostly because they were ruthless murderers, not due to any actual purported military coordination. Ronreisman (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
Then I guess Alternative 2 is correct? He did various forms of service in those three military contexts that I mentioned. As I said before, the "soldier" part is not a requirement, and we need to give a good overview of this person's military participation. Anonimski (talk) 09:45, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
He never did any form of military service for the Germans nor for the Holy War Army. (And certainly not during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War given the Holy War Army had been disbanded after the civil war/15 May when the Arab Legion took the control of South Samaria). He took refuge in Italy and in Nazi Germany (as a politician) and he was one (maybe the most) important leader of the Palestinian Arabs. But he was a politician and not a soldier or a general.
Pluto2012 (talk) 09:52, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
I believe al-Husseini would be insulted at the implication that he was 'not a soldier' and merely a 'politician' in the Western sense of the word. He was certainly an Arab Nationalist Fighter, who paid for his convictions with periods of imprisonment, multiple house-arrests, escapes, participation in coups, armed forces, etc. He and his family would take objection to your diminishing of his role and courage in multiple armed conflicts.Ronreisman (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
I know that the last two entries in my suggestion don't have a specific military rank associated with them, but still, my stance on the issue is that his participations should be summed up in the infobox. Only presenting the Ottoman Empire doesn't give a good overview on the allegiances this person had during his life. Anonimski (talk) 10:04, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
What you suggest is not good for two reasons :
  • In the infobox, the title just before allegiance is "military" and only refers to this. So when you write "the last two entries in my suggestion don't have a specific military rank associated with them" you don't comply with their purposes. Check with other politicians. As I told you, you will not find an allegiance of Itzhak Shamir to Nazi Germany or David Ben Gurion to the British (for the period from 1920 to 1948 or even for the WWII period) but their participation with them was clear and even more clear than the one of al-Husseini (in the case of Ben Gurion and the British).
    Hasan Salama is a counter-example. He did fight for the Nazi ; so the "alliegance" is right.
    And Abd al-Kader al-Husseini is a counter-counter-example. He was on the same "side" but never fought for them and any such "alliegance" would be wrong.
  • You cannot prove any "allegiance" of the Mufti to Nazi Germany. They were allies. The same is true of the Holy War Army and this was commanded by Abd al-Kader al-Husseini and not Haj Amin al-Husseini.
Another good example is Adolf Hitler. In his article, there are only references to WWI but none regarding WWII. And his military direct implication in WWII was much more important than the one of al-Husseini.
Pluto2012 (talk) 10:12, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
No, so much a 'revision' as the cancellation of WP:OR. This is so obvious, aside from the considerations Pluto has made, that the proposal is not serious. By rights the Queen of England thereby would acquire a substantial military service record as Commander-in-chief of the British Armed Forces and Commander-in-Chief of the Canadian Forces, as would all presidents of the United States (President of the United States, as titular 'The President commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States'). Please think around the implications of an inventive edit before wasting editors' time by rash proposals. Nishidani (talk) 12:58, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
The military service portion of the infobox is for military service. He did not serve in the SS, nor did he have any influence over its operation. Nobody can prove he owed any allegiance to it either, even though that is irrelevant to the question. So including the SS is absolutely out of the question. The Holy War Army was led by Hassan Salameh Abdel Qadir al-Husayni and though the mufti certainly had a lot of control over it he was not a member of it. So that shouldn't be included either unless standard practice for this infobox becomes to include political leaders; so far it is not. Zerotalk 13:40, 11 January 2014 (UTC)
What constitutes 'Military Service' and 'Allegiance' for the purposes of Wikipedia Inforboxes? Is there any formal definition or guideline in the Wiki docs? Though 'service to the military of a country' is a necessary condition, is it a sufficient condition? Is possession of commission (ie rank in a National armed force required? If so, then does this mean irregulars and allied-fighters are not considered to have 'allegiance' to the countries that sponsor their military operations? In this particular case (al-Husseini), I propose that: His service under the British Empire in Mandatory Palestine is sufficient for his 'allegiance' to Mandatory Palestine. His participation in the 1941 Iraq Coup and subsequent participation in the Ali-Rashid Gaylani regime fully qualify his 'Military Service' and 'Allegiance' to the 'Golden Square (Iraq).' His participation as recruiter for three divisions of Yugoslav & Albanian Waffen SS, and joint operations with German Intelligence & SS commando teams in Palestine, North Africa, Iran, Iraq, etc (eg ATLAS, etc.), are completely sufficient 'Military Service' qualifications for his 'allegiance' to both Nazi Germany and Waffen SS. His sponsorship and influence in the Holy War Army and his service as effective Chief of State of the All-Palestine State (Gaza) are sufficient to qualify his 'Allegiance.'Ronreisman (talk) 21:41, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
None of this speculation addresses the questions and answers raised and given above. We write according to sources, not according to feelings or impressions.Nishidani (talk) 23:08, 12 January 2014 (UTC)
Regarding the latest disruptive edit 'ample evidence supplied', I would note that on the kind of logic being used here, Husseini would be interpreted as having served with Sherif Faisal bin al-Hussein's army against the Ottomans, and perhaps even with the British over the period 1918-18 since he was appraised as a good officer by the British in their recruitment drives. No one feels impelled to do that however in order to buttress a pro-Husseini POV, and rightly so.Nishidani (talk) 08:51, 15 January 2014 (UTC)

Not ever deposed as mufti (at least, not by the British)

Even though one can find tons of sources that say he was relieved of the mufti position in 1937, it ain't so. In archive 14 (search for "How nice of you") you can find quotation from the best possible primary sources as well as a good secondary source (elpeleg). The British relieved him of all of his government appointments but did not see a legal way to remove his religious appointment. The Jordanian government believed they could to that in 1948, but that's another story. Zerotalk 03:30, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

According to Howard Sachar, it was on 1st December 1949 by King Abdullah: [1]. Pluto2012 (talk) 07:27, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
Unfortunately Sachar is frequently inaccurate. The change from Husseini to Nasrallah is reported in The Times on Dec 21, 1948 with a date of Dec 20. The Palestine Post reported it on Dec 23, 1948 without specifying exactly when it happened (but I might have missed an earlier report as the search accuracy is woeful). Zerotalk 09:00, 16 January 2014 (UTC)
In fact, it is me who was inaccurate here...
Sachar didn't refer to 1949 but 1948 and reading carefuly he just means it was [soon] after December 1 and not on December 1.
My mistake. Pluto2012 (talk) 18:48, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
The power of suggestion: when you said that Sachar gave 1949, I looked at it and saw 1949 too. Now it has changed to 1948 ;). Zerotalk 22:10, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

@ Ronreisman

What were the other military operations that were organised by or for the Mufti in Palestine ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pluto2012 (talk • contribs)

In this context, the info box section "Military service" should be restricted to his military service (doh). He did some Ottoman service like most young men of his social class, but after that he was not a military person for the rest of his life. Zerotalk 04:04, 11 January 2014 (UTC)>

> What were the other military operations that were organised by or for the Mufti in Palestine ?

That is a very good question. Here's a partial list:

Lewis writes:

"Under Husseini's direction, teams of Arab saboteurs were parachuted into Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine, where they attacked Allied facilities such as telephone lines, pipelines, bridges and railways. One such sabotage team was armed with a substantial quantity of poison that they were supposed to dump into the Tel Aviv water system....* A British intelligence report on the interrogation of two captured members of one of the Mufti's sabotage teams is reprinted in 'The Arab War Effort: A Documented Account,' New York, 1947, pp. 43-46. Internal German correspondence on this subject [the proposed bombing of Palestine], in German and in English translation, is appended to The Nation Associates, The Record of Collaboration of King Farouk of Egypt with the Nazis and Their Ally The Mufti: Memorandum Submitted to the United Nations, June 1948, New York, 1948. (The French version appeared in May 1947)"[1]

Mallman and Cüppers write of many similar German-Mufti military collaborations:

Another fact, clearly, is that in 1943-44 numerous mixed German-Arab commandos were air-dropped into the Middle East in order to perform act of sabotage for the Abwehr and Amt VI and to smuggle weapons for the jihad. Shellenberg confirmed this in his testimony at Nurenberg, and Berger also reported to Himmler in the spring of 1944 "a new plan regarding the deployment of his men for sabotage cased in North Africa and Palestine," which the Mufti had suggested to Schellenberg. Shulze-Holthus, in his report on the mission in Iran, included the following sentence from Kurmis: "Commandos like us have been air-dropped everywhere now ... in Iraq, Palestine, and Syria.... Abwehr II air-dropped in Palestine and a Kurdish area, from bases on the Greek islands." .... The number, timing, and results of these missions are difficult to confirm, however. The most specific information available concerns an Amt VI commando unit (referring to Operation ATLAS).... Operation Mammoth, planned by Abwehr II, is also well documented ... all the men had been captured at Arbil, near their landing point. On November 27, 1944, a Ju290 from the 1st Squadron of Bomber Wing 200 took off from Vienna and, after a stopover in Rhodes, dropped five Iraqis near Mosul by order of the Mufti; their fate remains unknown. Other verifiable missions include the air-dropping of Arab subversives and spies in Algeria and Tunisia in June, July, and October 1944, as well as the insertion of agents to blow up railway lines in Morocco. Other commandos also appear to have been sent to Palestine. [2]

@Pluto : Your question is important, and this article must include the answer. Unfortunately all of the above text was deleted from the article earlier today ( Revision as of 11:31, 19 January 2014 Nishidani ) (Comment: "Reverted most of this junk. This is totally futile messing. The page is 2 and a third times larger than the standard recommended length. It needs tightening")( https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Haj_Amin_al-Husseini&diff=prev&oldid=591399757 ).

Please help restore this information to the article, if only because your own question indicates the relevance, and natural skepticism requires greater-than-normal documentation in the supporting RS citations. Thank you in advance for your cooperation.

  • Though the Lewis RS was referenced in a citation, it appears the passage was 'cherry-picked' with undue emphasis placed on the on this portion (represented by ...* in the above blockquote):

In a separate but related matter, the Mufti repeatedly urged the Germans to bomb Tel Aviv and Jerusalem 'in order to injure Palestinian Jewry and for propaganda purposes in the Arab world', as his Nazi interlocutors put it. The proposals were rejected as militarily unfeasible.

Perhaps the undue emphasis placed on this tangential sentence about unrealized plans interfered with communicating the subjects that Lewis emphasizes in his text.

Recapping Lewis' main points:

Husseini's directed teams of Arab saboteurs who were parachuted into 

Iraq
Transjordan  
Palestine,

They attacked 

  Allied facilities
  telephone lines
  pipelines
  bridges
  railways.

One such sabotage team was armed with a substantial quantity of poison that they were supposed to dump into the Tel Aviv (Mandatory Palestine) water system.

The documentary evidence of these joint German-Mufit missions is strong. In addition to German records, British intelligence reports on one of the Mufti's sabotage teams was published in 1947, and Al-Husseini's correspondence advocating bombing Palestine was published in French in 1947, and in English a year later.

Some of the additionsl info provided by Mallman & Cüppers: During 1943-44 numerous mixed German-Arab commandos were air-dropped into the Middle East 

 Iraq
 Iran
 Palestine
 Syria
 Algeria
 Tunisia

These missions involved: 

sabotage for the German Abwehr and Amt VI
smugglong weapons for the jihad
Abwehr II's Operation Mammoth (into Iran) is well documented.

Hopefully this will indicate the scope of the Mufi-German military collaborative activity. I'm sure the Wikipedia readers will appreciate having access to this interesting information, once the deleted text is restored to that article.Ronreisman (talk) 04:21, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Don't Delete Properly Sourced Information

Please don't delete properly sourced information.

If an editor identifies properly sourced information that the editor believes should be deleted, please discuss your reasons for deletion *before* removing properly sourced information.

@Nishidani: Please either restore the following text to the article or explain why you feel they should remain deleted.

Please address the following deletion:

BACKGROUND: There has been vigorous debate and edit-warring between editors regarding the German-Mufti collaborative military operations.

Some editors have inserted patently false information into this section, such as the statement that Operation ATLAS was the only joint military operation. For instance, see edits by Pluto2012 at 02:51, 10 January 2014 (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Haj_Amin_al-Husseini&diff=prev&oldid=590019173): "The only operation that could be organised was Operation Atlas carried out by a five soldiers commando unit in October 1944."

Nishidani's edits preserved this untrue misinformation (https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Haj_Amin_al-Husseini&diff=590086227&oldid=590086160).

INAPPROPRIATE DELETION:

Revision as of 11:31, 19 January 2014 Nishidani https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Haj_Amin_al-Husseini&diff=591399757&oldid=591392510 Relevant text:

"Under Husseini's direction, teams of Arab saboteurs were parachuted into Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine, where they attacked Allied facilities such as telephone lines, pipelines, bridges and railways. One such sabotage team was armed with a substantial quantity of poison that they were supposed to dump into the Tel Aviv water system. In a separate but related matter, the Mufti repeatedly urged the Germans to bomb Tel Aviv and Jerusalem 'in order to injure Palestinian Jewry and for propaganda purposes in the Arab world', as his Nazi interlocutors put it. The proposals were rejected as militarily unfeasible. A British intelligence report on the interrogation of two captured members of one of the Mufti's sabotage teams is reprinted in 'The Arab War Effort: A Documented Account,' New York, 1947, pp. 43-46. Internal German correspondence on this subject [the proposed bombing of Palestine], in German and in English translation, is appended to The Nation Associates, The Record of Collaboration of King Farouk of Egypt with the Nazis and Their Ally The Mufti: Memorandum Submitted to the United Nations, June 1948, New York, 1948. (The French version appeared in May 1947)"

This quote was contained within the citation that supports the lead paragraph of the section. Previously, this RS citation had been used to support a single clause: "The Mufti repeatedly urged the Germans to bomb Tel Aviv..."

This clause is closely followed with the sentence: "The proposals were rejected as without militarily interest."

The awkward wording has the effect of misleading the reader regarding the scope of the Mufi-German military collaborations.

Nishidani's request to delete RS documentation of numerous German-Mufti sabotage & commando operations is inappropriate. It is noteworthy that as recently as 10 Jan Nish's edits preserved untrue information that is directly contradicted by the RS quote that he has deleted earlier today.

INAPPROPRIATE DELETION OF INFORMATION

In light of this behavior, it is worrisome that Nish appears to be threatening to delete more than half of the article (see above section). Nish's record of selective 'cherry-picking' deletions indicates that he may unduly 'trim' relevant information. For instance, Nish, please address the following deletion: Revision as of 12:00, 19 January 2014 Nishidani

> Himmler wrote: "I still intend to form the division from Muslims"

This was the last line of a 'blockquote'. @Nishidani: Why did you choose to remove that particular line? Why did you neglect to mention your deletion in the comments or Talk pages? Please explain your editing logic. Ronreisman (talk) 20:13, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Edit made byb Ronreisman

:"Under Husseini's direction, teams of Arab saboteurs were parachuted into Iraq, Transjordan and Palestine, where they attacked Allied facilities such as telephone lines, pipelines, bridges and railways. One such sabotage team was armed with a substantial quantity of poison that they were supposed to dump into the Tel Aviv water system. In a separate but related matter, the Mufti repeatedly urged the Germans to bomb Tel Aviv and Jerusalem 'in order to injure Palestinian Jewry and for propaganda purposes in the Arab world', as his Nazi interlocutors put it. The proposals were rejected as militarily unfeasible. A British intelligence report on the interrogation of two captured members of one of the Mufti's sabotage teams is reprinted in 'The Arab War Effort: A Documented Account,' New York, 1947, pp. 43-46. Internal German correspondence on this subject [the proposed bombing of Palestine], in German and in English translation, is appended to The Nation Associates, The Record of Collaboration of King Farouk of Egypt with the Nazis and Their Ally The Mufti: Memorandum Submitted to the United Nations, June 1948, New York, 1948. (The French version appeared in May 1947)"

  • Reedited by Nishidani.

The Mufti collaborated with the Germans in numerous sabotage and commando operations in Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine, and repeatedly urged the Germans to bomb Tel Aviv[177] and Jerusalem 'in order to injure Palestinian Jewry and for propaganda purposes in the Arab world', as his Nazi interlocutors put it. The proposals were rejected as without militarily interest.[178] they collaborated with the Mufti in numerous sabotage and commando operations in Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine.[179] Operation ATLAS was jointly operated by German Intelligence and Grand Mufti al-Husseini. A special commando unit of the Waffen SS was composed of three members of the Templer religious sect in Palestine, and two Palestinian Arabs recruited from the Mufti's associates, Hasan Salama and Abdul Latif (who had edited the Mufti's Berlin radio addresses).[180] The mission, briefed by al-Husseini before departure, aimed at establishing an intelligence-gathering base in Palestine, radioing information back to Germany, and buying support among Palestinians, recruiting and arming them to foment tensions between Jews and Arabs, disrupting the Mandatory authorities and striking Jewish targets.[181] The plan ended in fiasco: they received a cold reception from the Palestinians,[182] three of the five infiltrators were quickly rounded up, and the matériel seized. Their air-dropped cargo was found by the British, and consisted of explosives, submachine guns, and dynamite, radio, submachine guns, dynamite, radio equipment, 5,000 Pound sterling, a duplicating machine, a German-Arabic dictionary,[183]and a quantity of poison.[184] Michael Bar-Zohar and Eitan Haber, report that the mission included a plan to poison the Tel Aviv water supply,[185] There is no trace of this poison plot in the standard biographies, Palestinian and Israeli, of Husseini.[186]

    • My edit was obligatory. You wrote as a fact:'One such sabotage team was armed with a substantial quantity of poison that they were supposed to dump into the Tel Aviv water system.
This is an extremely tenuous assertion made, as far as we can discover, on the basis of third and fourth person memories reported in one book, whose assertions are summarily repeated as memes in later secondary literature. A ranking specialist on the Arabs and the 2WW period states there is no substantiation for this claim in 'German and British intelligence files' as of 2009.
This has been discussed thoroughly, after considerable research, on this and the related page Operation ATLAS. Notwithstanding the evidence amply given there, you have, in violation of WP:NPOV and WP:V tried to put over as an historical fact what appears to be a fringe and otherwise uncorroborated, archivally unproven, claim by two authors. That is why I rewrote your edit.
  • Himmler wrote: "I still intend to form the division from Muslims"
That Himmler was involved is already in the text. That was an obvous CE removal to avoid reduplication.
Two things still need reworking.'Operation ATLAS was jointly operated by German Intelligence and Grand Mufti al-Husseini.' Grand Mufti should be elided. In this article numerous editors, without attention to the overall text, intoduce material repeating from section to section the title 'Grand Mufti (of Jerusalem)'. No copy editor would find this acceptable. One writes at the outset, Husseini, specifies his function 'mufti', and one uses the first, his name as the narrative base, occasionally for stylistic variation altering it to 'the mufti'.
without militarily interest.'unfeasible'
In general, when messes are made, even those who spend hours cleaning up, overlook stuff. Please refrain from careless, hasty proposals or edits that require editors to go over them with a bucket and a mop. Thanks Nishidani (talk) 12:47, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
SIMPLE MISUNDERSTANDING @Nishidani : The sentence One such sabotage team was armed with a substantial quantity of poison that they were supposed to dump into the Tel Aviv water system. is from the Medoff quotation (which I accidentally mis-attributed to Lewis). I did *NOT* write the sentence. This assertion is stated in the same RS quote that is 'cherry-picked' to give undue emphasis on how the Germans weren't persuaded by al-Husseini to bomb Palestine. The full quote provides the context. You were not only not 'obligated' to delete the text, you are in fact (unintentionally) compromising the RS in a forbidden manner. Although Zero0000 has opined that the Medoff quote is too long, the fact that we've had this misunderstanding between ourselves is more than enough demonstration that this information should be included in the article to properly inform the Wiki-readers and help avoid confusion. Please restore the information you deleted yesterday at your earliest convenience. Ronreisman (talk) 21:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Nish misunderstood the quotation (which was contained within the footnote, not the article text) for my actual edits. Just to keep everything simple, the actual edits are quoted below:
  • Actual Edit made by Ronreisman

The Mufti repeatedly urged the Germans to bomb Tel Aviv[177] and Jerusalem 'in order to injure Palestinian Jewry and for propaganda purposes in the Arab world', as his Nazi interlocutors put it. Though the Germans rejected the bombing proposals,[178] they collaborated with the Mufti in numerous sabotage and commando operations in Iraq, Transjordan, and Palestine.[179]Operation ATLAS was jointly operated by German Intelligence and Grand Mufti al-Husseini. A special commando unit of the Waffen SS was composed of three members of the Templer religious sect in Palestine, and two Palestinian Arabs recruited from the Mufti's associates, Hasan Salama and Abdul Latif (who had edited the Mufti's Berlin radio addresses).[180] The Mufti personally addressed the commandos before they departed. The mission aimed at establishing an intelligence-gathering base in Palestine, radioing information back to Germany, and recruiting and arming anti-British Palestinians by buying their support with gold.[181] It also aimed at fomenting tensions between Jews and Arabs, thus creating problems for the British Mandatory authorities. The mission was intended to supply local Palestinian Arab resistance groups with resources and arms, and to direct sabotage activity primarily at Jewish (rather than British) targets.[182] The plan failed utterly, and no meaningful action could be undertaken by the commandos.[citation needed] Their air-dropped cargo was found by the British, and consisted of explosives, submachine guns, and dynamite, radio, submachine guns, dynamite, radio equipment, 5,000 Pound sterling, a duplicating machine, a German-Arabic dictionary, and a quantity of poison.[183][184] Michael Bar-Zohar and Eitan Haber report that the mission included a plan to poison the Tel Aviv water supply,[185] though this version is not supported by anti-Zionist historian Norman Finkelstein.[186] Three of the participants were arrested by the Transjordan Frontier Force a few days after their landing. The German commander was captured in 1946 and the fifth, Hasan Salama, later re-emerged as co-commander of the Mufti's Holy War Army in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.[187] Mallman and Cüppers write of many similar German-Mufti military collaborations:

Another fact, clearly, is that in 1943-44 numerous mixed German-Arab commandos were air-dropped into the Middle East in order to perform act of sabotage for the Abwehr and Amt VI and to smuggle weapons for the jihad. Shellenberg confirmed this in his testimony at Nurenberg, and Berger also reported to Himmler in the spring of 1944 "a new plan regarding the deployment of his men for sabotage cased in North Africa and Palestine," which the Mufti had suggested to Schellenberg. Shulze-Holthus, in his report on the mission in Iran, included the following sentence from Kurmis: "Commandos like us have been air-dropped everywhere now ... in Iraq, Palestine, and Syria.... Abwehr II air-dropped in Palestine and a Kurdish area, from bases on the Greek islands." .... The number, timing, and results of these missions are difficult to confirm, however. The most specific information available concerns an Amt VI commando unit (referring to Operation ATLAS).... Operation Mammoth, planned by Abwehr II, is also well documented ... all the men had been captured at Arbil, near their landing point. On November 27, 1944, a Ju290 from the 1st Squadron of Bomber Wing 200 took off from Vienna and, after a stopover in Rhodes, dropped five Iraqis near Mosul by order of the Mufti; their fate remains unknown. Other verifiable missions include the air-dropping of Arab subversives and spies in Algeria and Tunisia in June, July, and October 1944, as well as the insertion of agents to blow up railway lines in Morocco. Other commandos also appear to have been sent to Palestine. [188]

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronreisman (talk • contribs) 22:38, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Ronreisman (talk) 22:47, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


I just noticed that Reisman's version attributed an (absurdly) long quotation from Medoff incorrectly to Lewis. Also "though this version is not supported by anti-Zionist historian Norman Finkelstein" is tendentious editing at its worst, since Reisman is by now thoroughly aware that the poison story is discredited by Schwanitz who is an unchallenged (pro-Zionist, as if that matters) expert on Arab-German collaboration. Finally, it unfortunately seems to be the aim of the game to scour the internet for every last repetition of one point of view and push them all into the article. If other historians did independent research, tell us what they found; if they just repeated what others wrote, leave them out. Repetition adds nothing except noise. The article is ridiculously long already. Zerotalk 13:19, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

The Lewis --> Medoff misattribution was a fat-finger typo. Apologies for the confusion. Nevertheless, glad you brought it up. Doesn't it appear to you that the current text 'cherry-picks' the RS to give undue emphasis on un-realized plans, and yet the point of the actual citation is to list numerous joint German-Mufti military operations that were actually carried out. Doesn't this appear to be an improper use of the RS? Also: no, I'm *not* "thoroughly aware that the poison story is discredited by Schwanitz" because I've *never* seen any citations to anything he's written on this subject. Please submit a reference, preferably with the quote that makes his views clear, in order to minimize misunderstandings. What does Schwanitz write, and where is it published? Please feel free to add this (and similar) RS citation to the article's text. Finally, I've added and will continue to add balancing text to promote NPOV. I fully support the principle that editors should not use Wikipedia to promote partisan POV. That's why I'm encouraging you to help restore the information that was removed from the article yesterday. Ronreisman (talk) 21:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
By the way I just added this source for the Operation ATLAS for the meme it contains. That book however also has lengthy quotes on the Himmler-Handschar business, and the Mufti's declarations which could improve the sourcing, corroborate or substitute. It can be found here: Youssef Aboul-Enein and Basil H. Aboul-Enein, The Secret War for the Middle East: The Influence of Axis and Allied Operations During World War Two, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 2013, pp.28ff.
Thanks for this ref. Very interesting. Ronreisman (talk) 22:11, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Ykantor. I went through a major revision of this and got down to 41, and stopped. Not because of any instrinsic difficulties, but because I expected to feel like Yossarian in Catch-22 as he flew over the flak-infested skies of Bologna in that mission run, since it meant touching on stuff certain editors want to expand, hammer, highlight, showcase, repeat, etc., and would have involved several months of absurd edit-warring, since my bona fides is doubted at every step on certain arguments. The first part of the article reads, I think, fairly well: this part is a mess, precisely because some editors think you have to prove the obvious, and broadcast on a loudspeaker what anyone with normal ears can hear clearly. I'd like to have an environment where this second part could be done, without fear, suspicion and panic. There is no suppression intended: simply making a GA quality article.Nishidani (talk) 14:08, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

INAPPROPRIATE DELETION: Somehow the information that Operation ATLAS was aimed primarily at the Jewish population of Palestine (as opposed to being primarily against the British) was deleted from the section. Please restore this RS information.Ronreisman (talk) 20:48, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

You was explained that the source that you used for this (an anonymous summary of the introduction of a file in National archives) is not WP:RS.
Pluto2012 (talk) 20:51, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Schwanitz on poison is cited and quoted at Operation ATLAS. Zerotalk 22:36, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

Attention, Ron

Your editing pattern looks increasingly disruptive.

  • No attention is paid to the formatting required by the page
  • You ignore the serious problem caused by the article's length as unnecessary details keep being crammed into the page
  • The page is already 178kb and needs a strong review by an accomplished copy editor to avoid reduplication or unnecessary repetitiveness of the obvious.
  • You need quotations only when the passage is subject to contention. The extra material you provide is not under challenge but summarized in the article.
  • In the passage it took me over an hour to reedit after your last plug, there are several useless sources. The MI5 link is reduplicated in Fountain, and much of the points made are best made by citing standard academic works, which cover most of what is already said.
  • I have retained it because it conserves a note re a quantity of poison not in Mallman, who gives all of the other details.
  • We should not be using primary documents, but only secondary sources.
  • 'anti-Zionist historian Norman Finkelstein.' So we write 'pro-Zionist historian' Bernard Lewis, everywhere? No. The point made by Finkelstein has been checked by Zero and Pluto, I believe, by directly examining Elpeleg and Mattar, so it is not contentious and does not need to be sourced as a point of view by an anti-Zionist historian. To do that is to contaminate the article with POV insinuations.
  • You wrote that the Nazis collaborated with the Mufti. That is hilarious. Like writing Hitler collaborated with Quisling.
  • Sources say (MI5 per Fountain) that Wieland's planning was fucked up by the Mufti's characteristic bungling. No mention of this.
  • Sources say the Palestinians cold-shouldered the group's attempt to instigate them to arms. I put that in way back, and it disappeared.
  • The article generally, in short, needs a good deal of attention to not allow it drift into incoherent, repetitive, excessive sourcing, poorly formatted, and indifferently edited. You ignore this, as you ignore the fact that repeated attempts to egg the pud, are only thrusting the length of the page to unacceptable limits.
  • Carelessness to the obvious duties of editing that compels longterm editors to revert or to waste an entire morning fixing rash work is not a wiki virtue.Nishidani (talk) 11:47, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
@Nishidani: Perhsps your objections should be elevated to an Administrators Watchlist. In the meantime, please stop deleting properly sourced material that is relevant to the the topic, and please do not take upon yourself the 'tightening' of this article, since you risk deleting information that benefits the Wikipedia readers, and your deletions may be interpreted as vandalism. Please cite the Wikipedia documentation for 'tightening' or other relevant links that may support your complaints.Ronreisman (talk) 18:37, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
I.e. you ignore the problems I raised about an edit demanding to be deleted, and just tell me to stop interfering with what you put there. Calling me a vandal, when I am so far the only editor to actually have wasted several months writing it from top to bottom so that it might begin to have a chance of meeting mandatory standards for an encyclopedia, is fatuous. 'Tightening' had you read my remarks above, relates to the Wikipedia:Article size. As Novick said, when articles on Husseini can turn out to run four times longer than those on Hitler or Himmler, there's a problem.Nishidani (talk) 19:37, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
What you added is not properly sourced.
And even if it was, properly sourcing per WP:V is not enough.
You also have to comply to WP:due Weight (eg for the poison and the lenght of the material that you add).
I agree with Nishidani that what you added is not appropriate.
Pluto2012 (talk) 18:46, 19 January 2014 (UTC)
Compacting an article is always desired, but one should be careful not to delete well sourced and relevant sentences. Ykantor (talk) 21:24, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

@Nishidani : Finkelstein is too partisan, activist, and controversial to be considered RS on this subject. Finkelstein was denied tenure and driven from his University over issues like this, so he really can't be used as the sole source to bolster such a controversial statement. Surely better sources may be found to support the controversial text. If Zero & Pluto have found other RS, eg Epeleg and Mattar, then please provide those references. Again,Please provide (non-Finkelstein) RS.Ronreisman (talk) 05:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC) The reports on Operation ATLAS -- including reports of the poison -- have been published in a variety of sources since the 1940s, including British records of prisoner interrogations. There are multiple sources for this information. Your current wording of the article makes it appear that the evidence is much scantier than it actually is. Ronreisman (talk) 05:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Please read Operation ATLAS. The details you want in are either already there, or can be added there.
  • Finkelstein is published by a top-ranking University Press. He lost tenure not for the issue of his 'reliability'. He made his reputation by meticulous studies on the unreliability of many touted books on 'these issues'. No one one to my knowledge has every argued he systematically manipulates, distorts and ignores evidence. Finkelstein is used here for an assertion that has been independently checked by two editors who have access to the relevant books by Mattar and Elpeleg. Those authors do not mention the plot. (2) Historians who are highly critical of the mufti, such as Wolfgang Schwanitz, writing several years after the publication of the MI5 documents, say the claim you wish to showecase is 'not substantiated in British or German sources.' He is not the only authority to cast doubts on it, as you can see on the Operation ATLAS page. Finkelstein's claim is a lighter version of Schwanitz's claim. If you prefer one can substitute Finkelstein's remark on Mattar and Elpeleg with Schwanitz's point that the hypothesis has no grounding 'in British or German sources'. Nishidani (talk) 12:24, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
  • There are no multiple sources for this story that do not track back, as far as we can see so far, to the Bar-Zohar/Haber book. If there are 'British records of prisoner interrogations' available that provide details of the Tel Aviv poison plot, please produce them.Nishidani (talk) 12:24, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
Nish, Zero : I just checked the Operation ATLAS article and saw the quote:
Historian Wolfgang G. Schwanitz has cast doubts on the story
The claim that the mufti got "ten containers with poison" to kill a quarter of a million people via the water system of Tel Aviv in exchange for the five Palestinian paratroopers in late 1944 (61) is not substantiated in British or German sources. If the authors can now show really hard proof, this would be a discovery, since the British police report of 1944 on file is very detailed.[22]

The problem, of course, is that this quote is taken from a *book review* (of Dahlin & Rothman, 2008) -- not a peer-review article. Does Schwanitz really dispute that the Operation ATLAS commandos had 'some quantity of poison' or is he just criticizing unsubstantiated claims regarding the genesis, amount, and purpose of the poison? If the latter, then perhaps you may want to consider rewording the entry in the Operation ATLAS article.Ronreisman (talk) 00:53, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Book reviews by noted experts are reliable sources in Wikipedia and have been for ever. Here we have an expert historian testifying in an academic journal that the poison story is not supported by the documentation. Compared to that, you want to cite some authors in a story book (not peer-reviewed, no references, no documents, no evidence, no nothing, just a story book) that claims to have heard about the poison from, or from some writing of, they don't even say which, some journalist who they allege to have testified that he heard it second-hand years after the events. You didn't even wonder why the "Nazi Palestine" book cites the Wieland file directly without mentioning poison? Quit this nonsense. Zerotalk 07:18, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Sources say (MI5 per Fountain) that Wieland's planning was f-ed up by the Mufti's characteristic bungling. No mention of this.Ronreisman (talk) 05:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

  • Wrong. Are you reading the sources, or is this memory failure. On the page we directly link Rick Fountain's article reporting what the famous M15 documents in 2001 reveal. He writes:-

A small commando team of two German officers and three Arabs was formed in Berlin in early 1944.Their leader, Colonel Kurt Wieland, an Arabic speaker who knew Palestine, had several meetings with the Mufti and they agreed a plan: drop by parachute, establish a base, gather intelligence and radio it back to Berlin; and recruit and arm Palestinian supporters with Nazi gold. Just how it all went wrong is documented in the transcripts of interrogations by MI5 officers of Colonel Wieland and two of his men who were captured. Meddling. Before the team flew out, the Mufti's people meddled in Colonel Wieland's careful plans, changing his equipment without telling him.

  • Implication? I gave a specific source, reported on its contents, and notwithstanding the fact that a mere click would allow you to verify my description, you come back saying 'No mention of this'. This is not editing in good faith, but wasting time.

Sources say the Palestinians cold-shouldered the group's attempt to instigate them to arms. I put that in way back, and it disappeared. Please provide the sources for this information. It's interesting and probably belongs in the article, though we need to see the RS first.Ronreisman (talk) 05:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

  • The source for this information is before your eyes. It is on the page (Jefferson Adams, Historical Dictionary of German Intelligence. Historical Dictionaries of Intelligence and Counter-Intelligence. 2009 p.15) It is footnoted. I.e. you are asking me to provide information already provided, meaning you are ignoring the edits and the page, and creating a ruckus out of nothing. Adams is Adda B. Bozeman Professor of History and International Relations at Sarah Lawrence College. He is currently the senior editor of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and a member of the American Council on Germany.

Please see '@ Ronreisman' (above) and 'Don't Delete Properly Sourced Information' (below). Your recent edits have removed relevant text, obscuring the scope and variety of German--Mufti collaborative operations in Palestine, North Africa, and West Asia. I'm sure you appreciate the importance of avoiding appearance of impropriety, such as deleting RS this morning that contradicts false information that you retained in edits about a week ago. Please restore the information you've deleted and let's use the talk page to communicate civilly and work for a consensus on further refinements and improvements. Ronreisman (talk) 05:15, 20 January 2014 (UTC)

  • If you have not yet established a record for close attention to detail, care with the established formatting for a page, respect for policies like WP:NPOV, and WP:Undue, a track record for contributing comprehensively to articles in a way that they reflect wiki's best editing counsels, but rather harp on one issue over multiple pages, you can't expect to have your edits provisorily accepted by dictatorial fiat. This is particularly true here, where, as above, you ignored the actual soucing on the page, denied it and its contents existed, when I have shown that your request for further information ignores the fact that it is already given. Pages like this are not written by consistent disattention to details.

Bombing tel aviv

Medoff writes about al-Husayni's wish to bomb Tel Aviv on page 327, but we don't normally give internal page numbers for journal articles. Medoff cites two one of the Nation Associates propaganda pamphlets that contain alleged captured German documents. It is perfectly plausible, even boring, since at that time of history everyone was urging their friends to bomb their enemies. Zerotalk 08:49, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Ok, thx. I was not aware it was a journal article and didn't check further.
It is plausible but I doubt the reason provided not to perform these bombings would have been it was not feasible and I fear Medoff decided this by himself.
Anyway, that is not a major issue. Pluto2012 (talk) 07:03, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
The document provided from the German Air Force doesn't say that it was difficult to bomb Tel Aviv, rather that it wouldn't be militarily advantageous without a large effort. The main part: "In the course of the war numerous industries have been developed in Tel Aviv, founded chiefly by Jewish immigrants from Germany. Among them are tool and textile factories (felt and khaki cloth), chemical and pharmaceutical establishments, factories for optical goods, electrical appliances, shoes and leather goods. All these industries work to supply the needs of the Anglo-American armies in the Middle East. The individual plants are small, still in the first stage of development. Nothing is known about their location. The characteristics of such factories cannot be recognized on the air views of Tel Aviv. Pictures of the city show traffic and supply points of only local importance. Without doubt Tel Aviv should be considered as the object of counterattacks against the British and American terror attacks. Any attack must be carried out with very strong forces to have a lasting effect." Zerotalk 08:09, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

The story of al-Husseini's appeal to bomb Palestine and the German reaction is covered well in Schwanitz' book. If anyone needs portions translated from the German into English, please contact me and indicate the passage. Ronreisman (talk) 00:03, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

  1. ^ Lewis 1997, p. 311
  2. ^ Mallmann & Cüppers 2010, pp. 200–201.
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