Talk:Amin al-Husseini/Archive 18

Operation ATLAS (again, sigh)
I don't think we can write that the story comes only from Bar-Zohar and Haber unless we have a source saying that. However, as far as I know all other mentions of it trace back to Bar-Zohar and Haber. That is extremely weak evidence; consider for example the claim "and according to Jericho district police commander Fayiz Bey Idrissi, 'The laboratory report stated that each container held enough poison to kill 25,000 people..'". Well, no, actually that is according to Bar-Zohar and Haber, who say it is according to Habib Kenaan, who (allegedly) said that he heard it from Idrissi "years later". What sort of evidence is that? Against that is the explicit skepticism (some would say refutation) of Schwanitz and Destremau (for which see operation ATLAS). Simply quoting Medoff quoting Bar-Zohar and Haber as if this story is established fact is preposterous. Lest it be thought that Medoff provided an additional source, there is no mention of poison in "The Arab War Effort" and the authors of that document obviously knew nothing about poison. Copy-pasting Medoff's footnote like that is not acceptable either. Zerotalk 08:19, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

To add to this sorry tale of sloppy scholarship, we can mention the small matter of names and dates. According to the National Archives summary of the ATLAS file, the expedition was led by Kurt Wieland, who "parachuted into Palestine in September 1944 and [was] captured shortly after". At operation ATLAS people have cited newspaper stories of the capture of parachutists from the end of October. However, Bar-Zohar and Haber say that the expedition started on November 5 and they were captured on November 16! Moreover, Bar-Zohar and Haber claim to name the parachutists, but none of the names is "Wielandt". Either Bar-Zohar and Haber have the dates wrong by two months (in which case why should we believe the rest of their story?), or the operation they describe was not operation ATLAS, or maybe it is just fantasy. Note that Bar-Zohar and Haber do not use the name ATLAS (I think); from where comes the assumption that they are writing about the same operation? Zerotalk 08:46, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Yep, this is getting ridiculous. Ron? Several editors nailed down the problems with this long-standing pastiche, as Zero said, some time back on the operation ATLAS page, and what Zero writes above is damning for the way we have it. I only noticed that the crappy stuff here had remained intact, uninfluenced by what was discovered over there, and, working from memory, readjusted some of it to fit the data we have there, as should have been done months ago.Nishidani (talk) 08:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Well, Ron, I gave you two days to respond and even revert the mess, but now had no option than to do this myself. Medoff is a very good historian, but as Zero says, given the dubious quality of the evidence, based on Medoff reading what Bar-Zohar and Haber say they heard Habib Kenaan say decades after the event, who in turn said he had it from Fayiz Bey Idrissi, which has in thirty years failed all attempts at independent verification, it is pointless showcasing Medoff's statement, since major historians of the topic do not mention it. I've kept in the relevant material from Lewis etc.Nishidani (talk) 12:17, 28 December 2013 (UTC)

(Sorry if I wrote this somewhere else, my memory is terrible.) There is another argument against the poison story, though of a negative nature that makes it hard to cite for that purpose. Namely, a very hostile book has examined the mission on the basis of several archival documents without mentioning poison. Namely, Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, "Nazi Palestine", p201, has the better part of a page on it. It is definitely the same mission as Bar-Zohar and Haber describe, despite the discrepancy in the dates, because three of the names of the parachutists are the same. But there isn't the least hint of poison. Zerotalk 14:11, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * One could probably add this to a meme research page. Idrissi's overseer was Arthur Frederick Giles, O.B.E., (1900-April 28, 1960?), who was assistant Inspector-General of Police, Palestine, and in charge of the Jerusalem district. He had a direct hand in the mop-up side of the operations, apparently. If so, it would figure in his war record or reports. He's mentioned in Charles Smith's, 'Communal conflict and insurrection in Palestine, 1936-1948,' in David Anderson, David Killingray (eds.) Policing and Decolonisation: Politics, Nationalism, and the Police, 1917-65,, Manchester University Press, 1992 pp.62-83,p.78. The whole article's quite interesting: one learns for example that the Poms recruited their cops from men with experience in fighting the IRA in Ireland. One of them was Raymond Cafferata, of Hebron 1929 fame, a 'Black and Tan' man, who was thought of as incompetent.(p.79). In James Barr's, A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the struggle that shaped the Middle East, Simon and Schuster, 2011 p.255 we also learn that Giles was the cop who first figured out that the Stern Gang had links with the Vichy Sûreté's Lebanese offices, and that (p.330) he tried to get Farran arrested, the cop whose lost trilby left a trail to finger him for the murder of Alexander Rubowitz, after catching him pasting up posters for the Stern Gang in May 1947. It was that incident that the Stern Gang exacted revenge for by shooting 5 British soldiers on June 28 of that year, and Farran's rigged exculpation before a jury that lay in the background of Begin's hanging of the British two soldiers they had kidnapped, and executed for 'illegal entry into the Hebrew Homeland' (compare 2000 Ramallah lynching). Worth checking if the Vichy-Stern Gang stuff is on that page - the link with the Axis via Lebanon wasn't limited to the infamous alliance proposed to the Nazis.Nishidani (talk) 18:03, 28 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Tom Segev's chapter 'Ireland in Palestine' (and other places) in 'One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate' discusses the Irish-Pal connection, with some interesting insights.  The chief historiographical difference between the Jewish-terrorist kidnapping/murder-hanging/boobytrapping-bodies of the British soldiers and the 2000 Ramallah lynching was that the former was calculated series of acts which intended -- and many argue succeeded -- in breaking the will of the British to continue military occupation of Palestine. Contrast this to the Ramallah lynching, which was apparently unplanned violence without a specific tactical goal or part of a strategic plan. The effect on the adversary (Israel) was almost the opposite of the 1947 outrages, insofar as the pro-Peace, pro-Palestinian factions within Israel were almost universally repulsed by the lynching, prompting a much less sympathetic attitude toward West Bank Arabs, and increasing the severity of the Israeli military occupation of the 'Territories.'  The 1947 act of terror was militarily effective for the Yishuv, insofar as it contributed to the political independence of Israel..  The 2000 lynching was politically and militarily counterproductive to the establishment of the Palestinian state.  Ronreisman (talk) 23:02, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * I've been busy with both Holidays and a daughter who's finishing her college applications (the focus of our family discussions at the moment :-) and so don't have time to respond fully. My (too brief) initial response is that we should avoid discussing the historiography of the 'mass-poisoning' portion of the Operation ATLAS events in this particular article, since this topic is about Husseini, not about ATLAS.  There are too many words spent on the comparatively minor detail of the 'poison' and this obscures the facts that everyone agrees are true.  The essential facts are that Husseini's associates, including the famous Hasan Salama, who was later co-commander of the Mufti's forces in the 1948 Palestine War, were part of a special commando unit of the Waffen SS which parachuted into Mandatory Palestine in the Fall of 1944.  We can all agree that the preceding statement is factually correct, not controversial, and documented by multiple reliable sources.  The other aspects, eg, to what degree the Mufti was involved in the planning of this particular operation, etc. appear more controversial.  Let's not let the controversies overshadow the expression of the most important historical facts.  I readily admit to *not* having done any deep research on ATLAS, though it's my impression that the 'mass-poisoning of the Tel Aviv water supply' is not conclusively substantiated, and so let's de-emphasize it in this article.  The appropriate place for a detailed discussion of such items would be the Operation ATLAS article. Ronreisman (talk) 22:16, 30 December 2013 (UTC)Ronreisman (talk) 22:20, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, my objections are that the current phrasing of the Operation ATLAS passage gives the impression that only a single source associates Husseini with the Operation, or that there may some question about veracity of this story of a German-Arab Commando team who parachuted into Palestine during WWII.   The undue emphasis on the 'mass-poisoning' aspect may prompt readers to question the *unquestioned* facts.   That's a bad situation which requires corrective editing.  The initial objection, however, was to Nish's affection for wording that I (and others) consider misleading and (to be frank) simply false.  Again: There is *no* 'divided scholarship' over whether the Grand Mufti hated Jews.  Even the French ref that Nish cites states clearly that he became an anti-Semite.  There are *no* reliable sources that claim he did not become an anti-Semite.  We can go around on this again in the New Year, though the facts on this subject won't change, so let the words in this article reflect the facts.Ronreisman (talk) 22:30, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * My original objection to Nish's wording, incidentally, is well stated by Zero at the beginning of this section: "I don't think we can write that the story comes only from Bar-Zohar and Haber unless we have a source saying that." If Nish (or anyone else) has a reference that supports these criticisms of Bar-Zohar and Haber, ie that they are the *only* source of the 'mass-poisoning' history, then we should cite that source to support the statement.  If there is no such source, then we can't make the statement since that would be a clear-cut case of (prohibited) Original Research.  Again: this is a discussion for the 'Historiography' section of the Operation ATLAS article; it's too much of a side-show to the subject-matter of this article's topic.Ronreisman (talk) 23:02, 30 December 2013 (UTC)
 * If you look at the edit made to the Atlas Affair, you will note that your objections are met. Bar-Zohar and Haber are cited for the story. We don't say they are the only source (even though every one citing the meme cites only their book, as far as I can see). I wrote that Husseini became an antisemite (unanimity) instead of 'was an antisemite' because the latter generic cradle to grave implication is highly controversal. The simple reasons are that (a) his politics pre-mid 1930s, his associations, and background do not give evidence of that malady (b) he began to cut a figure as a spouter of antisemitic statements after his flight from Palestine, which rose to a peak in his WW2 broadcasts. (c) It's laziness to pin generic labels that are question-begging and in the form you want, retroactive, esp. this one, on a Palestinian nationalist, also because the whole traditional Zionist propaganda-version sees his, and Palestinian opposition generally, from 1919 as motivated by antisemitsm, presumably because only an Arab antisemite could oppose Jewish plans to take over a country that was predominantly Arab. It must be the kind of race-hatred so visible in Europe because the antipathy shown to the measures taken to wrest their land from them, could not be motivated by anything but irrational hostility. This may go over well in certain popular imaginations, and those who tinker with them, but in an encyclopedic article, we go for precision of terms and analysis. To define the leader of the Palestinian resistance to that takeover 1921-1936 as basically 'antisemitic', when he was engaged day by day for 15 years in the politics of ensuring another national interest in conflict with Zionism is tactical and instrumental, a simplification to knee-jerk clichés understood in the West, but which do not reflect the realities of the era, on that patch of ground (according to some very authoritative historians).Nishidani (talk) 11:22, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
 * @Nishidani : There is NO  implication by any sane person that anyone at all (including the subject of this article) 'was an antisemite' ... generic cradle to grave.'    That, frankly, is an insane statement.  No one is 'born' an antisemite, just as no one is 'born' a racist.  There may be biological predispositions to xenophobia, though there is no possible genetic predisposition to something as specifically intellectual as a religious or ethnic prejudice.  That kind of bigotry *must* be learned, by definition.  No one (except you, Nish) is implying that the Grand Mufti hated Jews in utero.  There's no gene for hating any religious group.  Period.  So why spend any words at all on this red herring.  Particularly misleading wording that gives reader the false impression that perhaps scholars disagree that the Mufti *became* an anti-Semite, and acted accordingly. The above paragraph is an interesting representation of Nish's own Original Research, perspective, and conclusions.  The article, however, should include only properly referenced NPOV material, so that the readers may draw their own conclusions.  It is not permissible to use editorial biases (as shown above) as the rules for excluding relevant information. Ronreisman (talk) 22:51, 3 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I suggest you study the meaning of the word 'to be'. It has a long history since Parmenides first seized on its denotative ambiguities. My 'editorial bias' here is that of a grammarian, fairly familiar with what slipshod phrasing does to what we may desire to convey.Nishidani (talk) 12:08, 4 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The fragments of Heraclitus are the balance to inflated interpretations of Parmenidean fragments. The study of 'gignesthai' (becoming) is the balance to 'esti' (being).  We're not discussing pre-socratics in this particular article, however.  Please let's try to use clear language, and not obscure the relevant facts with spurious red herrings.   Clear language, backed by reliable sources, is the key.  I'll correct the vandalism done by Pluto2012 (again, sigh).  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.180.238.75 (talk) 18:19, 5 January 2014 (UTC) Ronreisman (talk) 20:20, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * The allusion was to Felix M. Cleve's,The Giants of Pre-sophistic Greek Philosophy: An Attempt to Reconstruct Their Thoughts, where, in the section on Parmenides you will find clarification on what you miss about the problem of the verb 'to be' in Indo-European languages. The tags were useless. Are you saying I misrepresent Laurens, or that the rest of the evidence of the page does not warrant the point made?Nishidani (talk) 21:33, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Nish: yes, you misrepresented the Laurens' quote by composing the text so it could be interpreted as meaning that scholars dispute whether al-Husseini *was* anti-Semitic. Laurens clearly expresses that (after ~1940) al-Husseini was clearly an anti-Semite.  Laurens says that he *became* a bigot 'gradually' as opposed to being a bigot in his earliest formative phase. The bottom line, however, is that al-Husseini clearly became an enthusiastic hater of Jews, not just Zionists, and preferred to see them in Polish concentration/extermination camps rather than live in Palestine.   — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ronreisman (talk • contribs) 00:35, 25 January 2014 (UTC) Ronreisman (talk) 00:45, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Incidentally, I really enjoy references to the Pre-socratics,since my undergraduate majors were Philosophy & Classical Greek :-) Ronreisman (talk) 00:45, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
 * 'to be' means that instead of developind a nuance point of view, Ronreisman just want to 'tag' somebody as 'he is bad' or 'he is the devil'.
 * In any case, it seems that I am not the one who is the vandal given Ronreisman perform modificiation on the article against other editors whereas there is a discussion pending on the talk page.
 * Ronreisman, get a consensus on the talk page for your edits given they are controversed. You cannot claim you are not aware of this.
 * (nb: Don't be surprised if you are not followed given your numerous personnal attacks on other editors. You need to improve your respect versus other to comply with the 4th pillar.)
 * Pluto2012 (talk) 07:10, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Once again: Please understand that no one is attacking you or the other editors as persons. I am, however, criticizing *actions* which are not acceptable.  It's not personal Ronreisman (talk) 00:23, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

I have now had the opportunity to examine the book of Bar-Zohar and Haber face to face. Why this book is taken as a serious source is a mystery, since it looks more like a historical novel. There are no footnotes or endnotes, and many passages are embellished with invented dialogue. As far as I can see, the authors' precise source for any of their claims is not identified even once in the whole book. At most there is a vague hint, as in the case of the poison story. Here is what they actually wrote (p61): "Years later he told his former subordinate, the Israeli writer Habib Kenaan, who unearthed the strange affair: ‘I remember how amazed we all were. The laboratory report stated that each container held enough poison to kill 25,000 people, and there were at least ten containers!’" Note that they don't say they heard it personally from Kenaan, only that Kenaan "unearthed the strange affair", so our text at the moment is still slightly stronger than the facts. Habib Kenaan is undoubtedly Haviv Canaan, who according to the Hebrew wiki was in the Jerusalem police force until November 1944. It looks like Bar-Zohar and Haber are milking some writing of Canaan, but they don't say which. Canaan wrote several books and many newspaper articles that it could have appeared in, including a book on al-Husayni. He is also the source of a story that al-Husayni planned to build crematoria for Jews in Palestine, which is only considered plausible by the most credulous authors. Zerotalk 08:36, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

Waffen SS 13th Handschar+ 21st Skanderbeg,
Looking over the second half of the page, I get the impression we need better sourcing here than we have.Black on the Farhud is a bit distant from the Balkans. Jozo Tomasevich's War and Revolution in Yugoslavia: 1941-1945, gives, from memory a very complex picture of these units. Take the Skanderbeg unit. They were undermanned, Albanians who joined (and Albanian Muslims had a very good rep for protecting Jews) often deserted. Its commanding officers were all German. Towards the end of the war, 2000 Handschar combatants deserted to the partisans, further defections and rebellions in the ranks took place, and it was effectively gutted and, while the name was retained, while the ranks were filled with Ustasha Croats and German personnel. (pp.154, pp.500-501) This suggests a very complex picture, and one that requires sorting out, not to exculpate the mufti, but to determine exactly what was done by whom, and when. Tomasevich is a major history, but doesn't provide many details of these units (pre October 1944/post October 2944 etc?). But there are ample histories of the war in the Balkans that might clarify this beyond generalities of the kind found in non-specialist sources.Nishidani (talk) 18:06, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * The article is about Haj Amin al-Husseini, his biography, and impact on world history. This article is *not* about the Balkan Waffen SS per se. In light of your advocacy to reduce the word-count of this article, there are better places to introduce a new text to support a tangential line of speculation and analysis of Balkan political, religious, and military WWII history. There is already text in the article describing how recruitment of Muslims into the Nazi forces was hampered by conflicts with local non-muslim fascists (I added this information long ago to provide explanatory NPOV balance). Nish, if you want to pursue this new line of thought, please edit in the appropriate topic area. The information in the article's Black material, OTOH, is essential to any informed discussion of the consequences of al-Husseini's actions. As you know, there are some 'Holocaust Deniers' who use indecisive and misleading language to imply that these units (recruited and guided by al-Husseini) *never* massacred Jews, or that they *never* participated in Nazi genocidal, *never* performed 'crimes against humanity.' The info & quotes from Black, et al, are an antidote to this particular form of popular mis-information. Surely you concur that the article should prominently and clearly present Black's factual RS documentation of specific cases of these units' anti-Semitic and anti-Serbian mass-murder. To do any less may be interpreted as trying to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia to promote a fringe POV associated with Holocaust denial. Surely you and every other editor would not want that to occur. Ronreisman (talk) 20:44, 20 January 2014 (UTC)


 * "To do any less may be interpreted as trying to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia to promote a fringe POV associated with Holocaust denial. Surely you and every other editor would not want that to occur" (Reisman)
 * Dont' expect any answer from us until you assimilated WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF; even less that you are aware that Shalom11111 was warned for the same kind of attacks. Pluto2012 (talk) 20:53, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Please calm down. My words describe the action of minimizing (or deleting) information on Waffen SS massacring Jews & Serbians.  They are descriptions of actions (or 'praxis' as Nish might say :-).  They are not directed at any individual, nor is anyone being called any names.  The issue (which we may discuss reasonably) is whether such actions qualify as a form of 'Holocaust Denial' -- as I've proposed.  If you disagree, then please express yourself. No one is impugning you or anyone else personally.  We're trying to make sure we all agree on basic editing principles.  Calm down. If this correspondence is too stressful for you we should get together over coffee (or better yet a good meal) and work the personal issue out with face-to-face conversation.  In the meantime, let's concentrate on the issues.  Do you concur that Husseini-associated SS massacres are part of legitimate Holocaust History?  That is a proper topic for discussion. Ronreisman (talk) 23:13, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * You should read again the article about Lashon Hara. I am quite sure you didn't understand this.
 * There is no "Husseini-associated SS massacres". al-Husseini supported the recruitment of Muslims for the Waffen-SS (foreign divisions) but they were not under his orders and the massacres they perpretated were not done under his name. If so, he would have been convicted at Nuremberg, with no doubt.
 * Anyone who makes Hasbarah with Shoah, ie who uses the history and the memory of the Shoah is an antisemite given he dilutes the real crimes performed against the Jews and uses their massacres, suffering and deaths for his political goals.
 * Pluto2012 (talk) 23:40, 20 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Amen! Ronreisman (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * A week ago I was accused of being a racist promoter of antisemitic memes. That was turned down. Now I am apparently siding with 'Holocaust deniers', notwithstanding the fact I mostly wrote the Raul Hilberg, article, on a man who was an early and abiding influence on my Bildung. Pluto protests and you say: 'Please calm down'.
 * Yes, I saw the flap over the Khazars article. FYI: I've heard the Khazars hypothesis presented (over coffee) as a reason why the Ashkenazim are not genetically connected to the original 'race' of Jews, and therefore have no claim to the Land.  Of course, 'race' or genetics does not determine 'who is a Jew'  (at least according to the various Jewish definitions). Nevertheless, there is ample evidence in RS documenting how this hypothesis is used in a variety of ways by anti-Semitic 'fringe' groups.  This led me to look up David Duke's essays, which were delightfully entertaining in their exposure of his inner-logic, so I really have to thank you for that ;-) Ronreisman (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * What you,Reisman, are lambasting with the usual intimidatory cliché of 'Holocaust denial', is a simple request for writing a key article in terms of strict quality control per peer-reviewed academic works. Edwin Black stands as RS for the moment but he will have to be replaced: prolific popular journalists with a swashbuckling breathtaking approach (with a mission 'to tie together the last great thread -”the role of the Arabs and Islam in the extermination of more than six million Jews and other ethnic enemies ”during the Holocaust,' - which shows he's a wild POV pusher) to writing cannot replace historians, such as Marko Attila Hoare,Bosnian Muslims in the Second World War, Oxford University Press, 2014, who will inform you that Husseini made his visits to the area at the request of Muslim notables and Himmler, for example.  The reason for the formation of those divisions is very complex, related to infra-Yugoslav sectarian conflicts and the old Bosnian Muslim desire for autonomy: caught between Chetnik massacres and Serb communists, they consulted with Italy, and the mufti, to obtain arms for self-defence. Hafiz Muhamed Effendi Pandža testified  to partisans (autumn 1943) that:'at the time of the foundation of the Muslim SS division it was assured us that the division would act only as a guardian of peace' and that al-Husseini assured him that'this division would definitely remain in Bosnia-Hercegovina, that it would be formed and trained there and that its sole task would be to defend the Muslims from those who would attack Muslims.'(p.54)
 * It wasn't, but the Handschar, Skanderbeg and Kama (the last, unknown to Black apparently, a virtual unit that never became properly operational) divisions have an extraordinarily messy history, and at the latter stage the first two were remanned by Volksdeutsch soldiers. Anything the Handschar is said to have done after Nov 1944 is highly suspect as evidence of anything regarding Husseini.
 * All you need do to get anything to stick on this page against the Mufti is to get it from academic sources that are not contradicted, or demonstably misleading, in their specific fields of research. It's very simple, and not too difficult for a figure like him. Nishidani (talk) 14:40, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I'm not acquainted with 'Marko Attila Hoare' and would be glad if you would add his contributions to the article. I do believe, however, that most (all?) of the same points Hoare makes in the above quote are already in the article's text, under 'Recruitment', using Black as RS (full disclosure:  I added most of this text in edits long ago):
 * Croatian Ustasha commanders originally assumed they could blend both Muslims and Catholics into a mixed force to be called the 'SS Ustasha Division,' but significant numbers of Muslims were alienated by the Croatian Catholic-Bosniak movement, and the ulama opposed recruitment of Bosniaks to divisions that would be subject to supervision by the Independent State of Croatia which Muslims saw as persecuting them.[198] Himmler agreed, and with Muslim leaders organized a purely Muslim division.[199] In 1943, Croatia's Muslim vice president Osman Kulenović asserted that "If this were 1941, not only 20,000, but 100,000 volunteers could have been procured".[200] When recruitment numbers failed to fulfil expectations, Himmler turned to Husseini for help, and on 21 March 1943 the latter appealed to Croatian and Bosnian Muslims, who, in his words, "are forced to endure a tragic fate ... persecuted by the Serbian and communist bandits [partisans] ... England and its allies bear a great accountability before history for mishandling and murdering Europe's Muslims, just as they have done to the Arabic lands and in India." Invited by Himmler and Muslim notables, he visited Croatia and a division,the 13th Waffen SS Mountain Division Handschar, was raised, consisting of 10,000 volunteers, less than half of the expected number.[201]

Ronreisman (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2014 (UTC)

Now that I've looked at a dozen sources specifically on the Balkans, I think the whole of this Recruitment section should be redone from the start. It's framed to see Husseini everywhere, and the context is all about Croats, out of the blue comes Husseini and the Handschar. Well history ain't simple. The best overview is in Hoare, but the background is in data like this:- "Regardless of who started the killing,Četnik groups carried out horendous massacres of Muslims. After the Italians withdrew from eastern Bosnia the Četniks entered the town of Foča between December 5 and 20, 1941 and killed 300 Muslim in teh city and several hundred in the boroughs of Goražde (1,379) . .(a long list of details ensue) . . The total estimate of Muslims killed by Četniks (alone) is between 80,000 and 100,000, most likely about 86,000... (statistically about 70% of Mosnian Muslim loses) Paul Mojzes p.98." The local communities were torn between Ustasha and partisans, joining one or another to secure some basic defences for their villages. Mojzes sums up: "Bosnian Muslims had three options, . .Many of them joined the Ustasha or Domobran forces as the Croat government courted the Muslims. . .Many Muslims concluded that their interests would be best protected if tey allied themselves with Hitler and Pavelich. Others, a smaller number at first, joined the Partisans - not trusting either the Ustase or the Četniks- and many of them became convinced Communists who, after the liberation of Yugoslavia, played a significant role in the Communist leadership. The third option was to protect themselves by creating local defense units. Germans convinced those choosing the thid option that they would be best defended bvy the creation of two SS mountain divisions. Handžar )(scimitar) and Kama (dagger= under the direct leadership of German commandes and in German uniforms but wearing MUslim fezzes and other Muslim insignia. These units were created under the fdiect influence of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajji Amin el-Hussein' ibid pp.97-8" I'd contextualize this, and then, list the murder record, incident for incident of the Handschar regarding their brutality, all ethnic groups included. I'd eliminate Black, and use the several sources that dwell on all of the details._Nishidani (talk) 17:24, 21 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Nish : This is NOT an article on the Waffen SS.  The *only* sentence in your extended quote that refers to al-Husseini is:

"These units were created under the fdiect influence of Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Hajji Amin el-Hussein' ibid pp.97-8"
 * Please keep your contributions on-topic. Any extended 'contextualization' belongs in other articles; certainly not here.  If you want to add Hoare's refs to the text already supported by the Black citations, go right ahead.  Please don't remove the Black footnote citations. Ronreisman (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * And, in all seriousness, we could get a lot of the extraneous mis-understandings hashed-out much more efficiently (with much less wasted time) face-to-face over (at the least) coffee. Ronreisman (talk) 18:10, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * 'Recruitment', using Black as RS (full disclosure: I added most of this text in edits long ago).'
 * This is the first time I've looked at this section in detail. I'm such a POV pusher that despite thinking since you edited this stuff in, that it's problematical, I haven't touched it until lately. I don't like to rush complex edits.


 * Edwin Black is not an historian By his own admission he uses 'Black's typically . . networks of volunteer and professional researchers assembled for each project.' This does not bode well
 * ' This is NOT an article on the Waffen SS.'


 * Indeed. It IS an article about Hussein. He, both under personal initiative and in response to the Bosnian Muslim leaders' recommendations,(b) helped the formation of at least two divisions. (b) made some speeches to them. So 'Recruitment' becomes complicity in what those regiments did. All forces in the Balkans committed innumerable killings (15% of the population died, the highest of any other country, if I recall my early youth's reading). The books I cite name numerous episodes of Croats killing Serbian villagers, Serbs massacring Croats or Italians, both murdering Muslims, Muslims forming their brigades under Croatian, then Nazi protection, and then murdering Croats and Serbs (all this apart from combatant-combatant warfare). The Handschar Muslims after a brief period, went home, diserted, or defected to the partisans, sometimes becoming the majority in partisan brigades. So, is the object of the details we have to claim Husseini was behind this, or not? If he was behind this why is there so much testimony from Mojses, Hoare, and Stein (George H. Stein, The Waffen SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War, 1939-1945, Cornell University Press, 1966) about the Handschar as an expression, which didn't last long, of local Bosniak Muslim communities attempts to find a defense force that would protect them in that inferno, choosing Germany, and then very quickly opting out?
 * If you write from Black, who personally did not do his homework,'Hungarian Jewish slave laborers being guarded by Handschar were so viciously and mercilessly abused, local townspeople became outraged and wondered if they could help,' then someone like myself will ask for details, because the Handschar late in the war in Hungarian operations was not Moslem, but the crack 16th SS-Panzergranadierdivision "Reichsfurher-SS" disguised as 13th Waffen-Gebirgsdivision der SS "Handschar", in order to trick the Russians into thinking they would be fighting weak Muslim draftees.(George H. Stein, The Waffen SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War, 1939-1945, Cornell University Press, 1966 p.188) That, as elsewhere means, Black is not reliable, unless he provides us with the kind of details and specifics that enable us to pin down when, where, and who, which he doesn't. You oppose contextaulization: Black's lack of it leads readers to conclusions that may not reflect the realities, let alone bear on Husseini. His brief is to anchor Islam in Nazism, which a fringe position not taken seriously by major academic authorities.


 * This is not an article only on Husseini and the Jews and the Holocaust. It is, as you say, about Husseini and his impact on history. Take away contextualization (I can sum it all up in two sentences) and you are left with Husseini's creation (out of the blue) of these divisions (false), that they were to assist Nazi plans (and not as we know, to respond to repeated Bosniak Muslim pleas for arms and a defense force) and the aim was to kill Jews, as if the Handschar's purpose was to assist the Holocaust. Black's book is used to state:
 * "'its men were brutal in decimating Serb villages, having called for the utter extermination of the Serbian Christian population"


 * And Serbs and Croats were brutal in decimating Bosniak villages. Who of 'its men' called for the 'utter extermination of the Serbian Christian population?' That last sentence is extremely odd. The Handschar troops wished genocide against the Christian Serbs? They were under the command of German officers, the killings took place in German operations, and the goons at platoon level have a policy. It even odd historically. The Christian Serb community at Tuzla was saved from Ustacha extermination in Jan 1942 precisely by the quick intervention of the local imam, who managed to get the German authorities to stop it, etc.
 * I don't believe articles are helped by sections like 'Recruitment'. Good narrative history takes one devastating quote to make its point. It does not splatter the text with numerous quotes that repeat the same message, and try to work up the reader's outrage. Black, from what I read of his first book, does precisely this.
 * In my view the whole section could be reduced to, let me think, a paagraph. (a) Context Muslims in a Balkan War (b) Husseini's work to help marshall Muslim Divisions (c) their ferocity (in context) (d) Documentable examples of incidents, like the one I gave where Muslim groups formed under those banners murdered Jews. I've been adding stuff to that section to this end, and have several pages of material on this. If you like, I can within the week (will be away) provide an example of how this can be done, without injury to the essential gist.Nishidani (talk) 20:00, 21 January 2014 (UTC)


 * @Nishisdani writes :
 * > contextualize this, and then, list the murder record, incident for incident of the Handschar regarding their brutality, all ethnic groups included.
 * Excellent! This is a *very* interesting proposal. I fully and seriously support this effort.  I've never seen such an analysis; many people would surely want to read it. This would not only be a great addition to the appropriate Wiki articles, it could easily outgrow the bounds of Wikipedia and merit peer-review publication.  May I offer introductory email to the Yad Vashem research librarians?  They invite email correspondence, and are very helpful in finding rare RS.  I also encourage you to prepare this work as peer-review paper,  which would enable you to use archival material.  I have relatives, for instance, who were partisans under Tito, and recall childhood dinners where contact with 'the Mufti's SS' (as they were called) was mentioned.  If you'd like, we could ask the partisans' living family members for more details (and maybe some substantiating documentation), and/or perhaps make connections with other Partisan archives and libraries.   An article that properly documented 'incident for incident of the Handschar' and related Waffen SS would be a valuable addition to the literature, even if it was only a review of the published RS.  My feeling is that you may easily discover previously-unpublished material and have an opportunity to contribute your conclusions in a Journal article.   You could then cite your own RS to vitiate any questions of OR/SYNTH. :-)  I heartily encourage your efforts in this regard, and would be glad to offer assistance.  Ronreisman (talk) 20:51, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Nish writes : "I can within the week (will be away) ... "   I will similarly be unavailable for wiki-work for most of the week, though not due to travel (I'm integrating software in two projects, and unless you express yourself in C, Objective-C, C++, Java, Python, or SQL I'm not likely to be able to parse text messages very well :-) Ronreisman (talk) 21:02, 21 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Partisans all died long time ago. WWII occured 70 years ago. Pluto2012 (talk) 00:11, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Actually, my mother's cousin Mikshe, who fought for Tito along with other members of our family (in those days many of the Jews still living in Yugoslavia were fighters, since most non-fighting Jewish Yugoslavs were either dead or gone) passed on about 15 yrs ago; not *that* long, really. In any case, he helped kill a good many Nazis there.  We have some great photos and other documents from that period.  There are also a lot of published material on the subject; you may be interested in reading up on the topic sometime.  And, yes, the events we're writing about occurred 70 years ago; nice of you to notice.  Do you have any other observations about these events?  What about the question of whether the war crimes committed by the Mufti's SS should be considered part of 'Holocaust History'?  143.232.129.69 (talk) 20:59, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Yes, but as with Ron's suggestion above, the problem is finding reliable sources, meaning of course, academic works on Yugoslav history and the Holocaust which (a) assert Husseini directed Handschar operations (b) and ordered the slaughter of Jews. At the moment we have the fact that he was invited by the Bosnians and Himmler to address the troops. I personally believe making the kind of statements he made suggests a moral complicity, but historians have to ascertain facts before they draw conclusions. Nishidani (talk) 07:46, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

White paper
"Al-Husseini nonetheless felt that the concessions did not go far enough, and he rejected the new policy, although it seems that the ordinary Palestinian accepted the White Paper of 1939. His biographer, Philip Mattar wrote that in that case, the Mufti preferred his personal interests and the ideology rather than the practical consideration.[113] See also Peel Commission, White Paper of 1939. Neve Gordon writes that al-Husseini regard all alternative nationalist views as treasonous, opponents became traitors and collaborators, and patronizing or employing Jews of any description illegitimate.[114] From Beirut he continued to issue directives. The price for murdering opposition leaders and peace leaders rose by July to 100 Palestinian pounds: a suspected traitor 25 pounds, and a Jew 10. Notwithstanding this, ties with the Jews were reestablished by leading families such as the Nashashibis, and by the Fahoum of Nazareth.[115]"

This is all unencyclopedic, and will have to be rewritten. The recent edit doesn't help. Psychology is fine, but not to dismiss a complex political decision on the basis of some character defect. There were intricate reasons why the Mufti and others rejected the White Paper, and they are handled deftly by Issa Khalaf, Politics in Palestine: Arab Factionalism and Social Disintegration, 1939-1948, SUNY 1991 pp.72,74ff. A fundamental reason was that it premised that any arrangement in Palestine after 1945 required Jewish consent, which the mufti interpreted as a veto power. It's true that he viewed other views as traitorous perhaps, but it is also true that he read opposition in clan terms, thought of his own politics as supra-clan national-religious, reflecting a pan-peasant islamic base, unlike the narrow positions of many opposed to him. Nishidani (talk) 16:31, 30 January 2014 (UTC)


 * A leader have to compromise sometimes, but the mufti rarely compromised. If one does not want to compromise, than he can easily find an excuse for rejection of an achievement, because his demands are not fully accepted. Issa Khalaf may have one explanation, and Philip Mattar have another one. Both should be mentioned here. Concerning assassinations, it seems that the Mufti have done his best to alienate his own people. King Abdula (although personally  I do not like him) was much better politician, and improved his relationship with possible partners  / supporters. e.g. Kaukji, Nashshibi and other local leader. He promoted those Palestinians local leaders and they were nominated as ministers / governors, and used both the stick and the carrot. Ykantor (talk) 22:18, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
 * This has nothing to do with our editing obligations, being a personal judgement in the face of contrary evidence (if you want to talk about 'rarely compromising', you'll have great problems with all I/P articles and all leaders on both sides.) Psychology, as I said, can be allowed if it is a deeply informed specialist judgement: it is not by any means the whole story, and ignores the most important thing, complex political political calculations. I will mention Mattar's view, but it is minor compared to the objective political considerations informing the Arab rejection. You added the bit about the 'majority of of Palestinians'. What evidence this is based on is obscure, but we can easily show it is not a 'factual' judgement because equally good sources state the opposite:-
 * 'It was not until the White paper had been officially rejected by the AHC at the end of May, that the political diffeences between the moderates and the Mufti came to the fore. The White Paper was rejected on the basis that it ddid not put an immediate stop to immigration, that the land policy" comes too late with imperfect remedies," and that the condition  on independence (i.e. that Jewish cooperation was required), was unacceptable. The rejection was mostly the work of the Mufti and rebel leaders and excluded some of the moderates. Of course, the Mufti was sincere and committed in his desir for independence and colonial withdrawal, and, in that sense, reflected the feeling of the vast majority of Palestinians . . .He surrounded himself with radical nationalists who tried to conduct the rebellion from Beirut and Damacus . .These were mostly men who hailed from modest provincial landowning families and who therefore did not have as much to lose as the traditional head within the AHC who were inclined towards cooperation with Britain. They, numerous rebel leaders, and the Mufti were indefinitely excluded from Palestine, and this was an added reason as to why Haj Amin rejected the White Paper without leaving an open door. ... But the Mufti's rejection of the White Paper was not just due to intransigence. In fact, his actions were motivated more by nationalist principls than the motivations of some of the moderates (75). . . The moderates suffered an 'increasing politial eclipse during the rebellion and of their fear of losing their properties through sabotage' (pp75-6)', plus the sense the Mufti snubbed them as delegates to London Conference, and temptations to think that a compromise would open up the prospect of being those whom the Palestine government would turn to to make its appointments (i.e. the moderates had their political calculations, many of which were self-interested, to conserve their property and elite interests). Other moderates contented themselves with it as freezing Zionism's political goals p.76). The Mufti had the backing of many Arab states (apart from Egypt privately). The Nashashibis pushed their family interests, the British would not come clean about their intentions at the end of the expiration, by making clear statements, etc.
 * History is not a comic book, nor reducible to the psychology of one main actor, as your edit implies. The details of the rejection of the White Paper are complex, and the Mufti's position one of several logical responses, (even if it proved in historical hindsight foolhardy). When I reedit your contribution, I will downcase any attempt to personalise the rejection by blaming the mufti therefore. Issa Khalaf 1991 pp.75f./blockquote>
 * (2) Zvi Elpeleg, The Grand Mufti: Haj Amin Al-Hussaini, Founder of the Palestinian National Movement, Routledge (1993) 2007 The White Paper (17 May 1939) recommended a stop to the construction of a Jewish national home, and the establishment of an Arab-majority state. 'This was the most important achievement that Haj Amin's military and political sruggle over the previous twenty years had produced. However, his extremism ensured that the Palestinian Arabs would not benefit from this success. It is true that the contents of the White Paper were problematical for Haj Amin on a number of counts. The commanders of the revolt, who did not accept the authority of the political leadership, were adamant in their refusal to accept the White Paper. They were not prepared to accept anything less than full independence, and they demanded, as a condition for ending the revolt, the relase of the hundreds of their imprisoned colleagues. In addition, Haj Amin was troubled by the possibility that his rivals in the leadership might exploit the situation to reap the benefits of his struggle, and, with the assistance of the British, aqssume the central positions in any new arrangement.. Beyond these problems, however, Haj Amin continued a policy based on the demand for full independence after the transitional period of ten years, or after law and order was restoed in the country, but without the conditions that appeared in the White Paper. . .(According to one insider account, Amin forced his opinion on the other members of the AHC, even after hearing that Malcolm Macdonald (the Colonial Secretary) told them it must be accepted as a golden opportunity as it had passed the House of Commons only with difficulty' (p.53) Retrospectively Amin said that Arab states accepted it with reservations and resentment because of its contradictions, noting that when 'the vast majority of the Arab Higher ommittee and the Arab League' came round to accepting it in 1945, asking the British to implement it, the Jews rejected the plan, and Britain did not implement it.'p53 (Elpeleg then says this retrospective judgement ignored the intervening fact of the news of the Holocaust which had a large impact in European sentiment (and perhaps in convincing the Jews in turn to adopt the same rejectionist position then that the AHC had adopted earlier'Nishidani (talk) 11:31, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I.e. Elpeleg ('A study of he sources makes it clear that Haj Amin threw his full weight againstthe pro-White Paper stand of the Arab states and his olleagues in the Arab Higher Committee. n my opinion, his later contradictory versions of events can be explained as a defence against the opinion that prevailed in the Arab campè after the Second World qWar.' p.54)and Khalaf give two sides, are detailed, synthetic and basically concur on the political reasons for these swings. We don't need psychology.Nishidani (talk) 11:31, 31 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Yours: "Psychology is fine, but not to dismiss a complex political decision on the basis of some character defect." . I am not sure about the psychology. Is this related to: "His biographer, Philip Mattar wrote that in that case, the Mufti preferred his personal interests and the ideology rather than the practical consideration" ? **Yours: "if you want to talk about 'rarely compromising', you'll have great problems with all I/P articles and all leaders on both sides"  . Weizmann & Ben Gurion  worked hard to convince the Zionist congress to accept the Peel partition proposal (with some complications). It was against their own hopes, that all of Palestine should be a Jewish state. So, in that case they compromised a lot. I agree with you that Israel had later some stupid leaders that  have not compromised and caused tragedies. **Yours: "You added the bit about the 'majority of of Palestinians'. What evidence this is based on is obscure".  Morris quotes Yehoshua Porath book The Palestinian Arab National Movement, 1929-1939: From Riots to Rebellion (Vol 2) (Hebrew edition p. 348). Based on this source, Morris quote a (lady) researcher called Wilson, as saying: "The average Arab guy feel that his side won, since the "white paper" was a result of the Arab armed resistance". ** Yours, quoting Elpeleg: " According to one insider account, Amin forced his opinion on the other members of the AHC,". The AHC had no representative of the opposition (e.g Nashashibi) and its' members were selected by the Mufti (better to check. I am not sure), and they still didn't support the rejection of the white paper.  ** Yours: " we can easily show it is not a 'factual' judgement because equally good sources state the opposite"  But this bold text does not prove the opposite: " the Mufti was sincere and committed in his desire for independence and colonial withdrawal, and, in that sense, reflected the feeling of the vast majority of Palestinians". The  desire for independence and colonial withdrawal is not necessarily the same as the rejection of the white paper. **Yours, quoting Issa Khalaf: " and the Mufti were indefinitely excluded from Palestine, and this was an added reason as to why Haj Amin rejected the White Paper without leaving an open door". So, Issa Khalaf agrees that the white paper rejection was partially based on the mufti personal interests. Ykantor (talk) 20:44, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have you extensive citations from two major period scholars on the complex interweaving of motives, some personal, many political, and often based on technical analyses, why the Mufti, like other radicals, opposed the White Paper. Your edit chose material to reduce the rejection to some personal matter reflecting his character. I.e. you simplify, and ignore the man in historical context. That is why I will rewrite the section according to the sources that privilege neutral historical analyses.Nishidani (talk) 08:49, 1 February 2014 (UTC)


 * In my opinion, there is no difference between us, as reflected in this discussion. My edit is nearly a word to word of Morris text, and cover 2 points: ** "he rejected the new policy, although it seems that the ordinary Palestinian accepted the White Paper of 1939". Morris is quoting Porath who quote Wilson. Moreover, Elpeleg says: " According to one insider account, Amin forced his opinion on the other members of the AHC,"., who were mostly his people. ** "in that case, the Mufti preferred his personal account and the ideology rather than the practical consideration" .All 3 sources (Mattar, Elpeleg, Khalaf) agree that the Mufti personal interests were a partial reason for his rejection of the white paper I thrust your edit will rely on those 3 sources (Mattar, Elpeleg, Khalaf), that are accepted by all of us. Ykantor (talk) 18:19, 1 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Of course. Porath via Morris is fine, but it is one view and Khalaf challenges it. As phrased the edit suggested that the mad Mufti was going against his people and was driven by eccentric personal motivations. One just doesn't write biographies of figures caught up in the centre of complex historical events so subjectively, at least for an encyclopedia.Nishidani (talk) 18:31, 1 February 2014 (UTC)

Okay. This is my proposal. Husseini, allied to radical elements in exile, hailing from provincial Palestinian families, convinced the AHC, against moderate Palestinian families who were minded to accept it, to reject the White Paper of 1939, which had recommended an Arab-majority state and an end to building a Jewish national home. The rejection was based on its perceived failure to promise an end to immigration; the land policy it advocated was thought to provide imperfect remedies: and the promised independence appeared to depend on Jewish assent and cooperation. Husseini also feared that acceptance would strengthen the hand of his political opponents in the Palestine national movement, such as the Nashashibis. Nishidani (talk) 18:01, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Ron again
"The Mufti provided a foldout pamphlet for the Handschar troops titled (in German) 'Islam und Judentum' translated as 'Islam and Judaism' which concluded with: 'The Day of Judgement will come, when the Muslims will crush the Jews completely: And when every tree behind which a Jew hides will say: 'There is a Jew behind me, Kill him!' '."

Ron. This has been said very often. Don't use crap sources. If you dredge up rubbish from seedy books, it is quite possible that they refract something useful. We've established Black is a pot-boiler writer who just rewrites what his commissioned 'researchers' lay before him as often as not. He is not a scholar, and, despite what you may believe, I removed it on those grounds, not because the quote is damaging. The quote my well be worth retaining, but absolutely not in a source like Black.

Colonel Shaul Shay does not inspire much confidence having been once deputy head of the Israel National Security Council. His website leaves no doubt that he has a powerful interpretative political agenda in making a case against Islam. But he has a (Tel Aviv) doctorate and is an IDF historian. So, provisorily he has a claim to qualify as RS and this is what he writes in an otherwise dubious book, put out by the Interdisciplinary Center Herzilya Project (i.e.) but then published by Transaction. The Handzar soldiers were presented with pamphlet called "Islam and Judaism" (Islam und Judentum) written by Hajj Amin al Husseini. The pamphlet served as a "Holy Scripture" for he soldiers who regarded Hajj Amin as a "saint" and did not doubt the purity of his motives. As they were not fluent in German and could not understand its content, the pamphlet was translated into Croatian for the Handzar Division and called "Islam i Zidovstvo". This edition was published in 1943. . .The pamphlet started with the following words:
 * 'For us, the Muslims, it is below our dignity to mention the word Islam in one breath with Judaism, because Islam is so much loftier than its corrupt foe.'
 * The pamphlet closes with a quotation from Bukhari-Muslim by Abu Khurreira:
 * "The Day of Judgement will come, when the Muslims will crush the Jews completely: And when every tree behind which a Jew hides will say: 'There is a Jew behind me, Kill him!' "
 * Shaul Shay, Islamic Terror and the Balkans, The Interdisciplinary Center Herzilya Project (2007)Transaction Publishers, 2009 p.33
 * This a truncated version of the al-Bukhari hadith (no.3,593), also used by Hamas, of course. I have no reason to doubt what Shay says, but am still looking for a better source telling us that
 * "the Mufti wrote a pamphlet for the Hanschar translated as 'Islam i Zidovstvo' (Islam and Judaism) which closed with a quotation from Bukhari-Muslim by Abu Khurreira which states:'The Day of Judgement will come, when the Muslims will crush the Jews completely: And when every tree behind which a Jew hides will say: 'There is a Jew behind me, Kill him!'.ref Shaul Shay, Islamic Terror and the Balkans, The Interdisciplinary Center Herzilya Project (2007)Transaction Publishers, 2009 p.33 /ref"

This must be in a better source than this one, from an IDF retired colonel working at the Ariel Center for Policy Researrch. Please help secure an academic source to replace this.
 * Please don't persist in using a discredited source like Black.Nishidani (talk) 06:05, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

(2)Attention Ykantor:
 * "In the Handschar SS Division headquarters the picture of the Croatian head of state was replaced by a photo of Haj Amin al-Husseini, and the Handschar were perceived as undermining Croatian authority."
 * It's also in books we already use. It was elided because, it strikes me, it is tedious. The text makes plain Husseini was a major force in the Handschar. This kind of detail could me multiplied ad infinitum throughout the text, and since it serves no purpose, is uninformative except as trivia, it was removed. We are writing an encyclopedic overview not a patch-in of anything and everything.Nishidani (talk) 19:44, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Nish: Pardon my absence from Wikipedia; If I sometimes do not respond promptly it's because sometimes I'm just too busy with other responsibilities to check in regularly. Hopefully I'll have more free time in the near future to keep up on correspondence. Ronreisman (talk) 01:13, 24 February 2014 (UTC)

Now, back to the discussion at hand: Re: Black as RS: Please let up on Black! Just because *you* don't like Black doesn't discredit him, and getting an 'amen' from your regular crowd doesn't merit the status of 'consensus' so please stop needlessly insulting poor Mr. Black. You appear to be intent on filling this article with curiously phrased text that seeks to justify the Mufti's actions and 'explain' his biography, while at the same time removing fact after fact that actually pertains to this man's life and career. In this case you have removed information about one of the most famous aspects of this man's contributions to anti-Semitic literature issued to Muslim Waffen SS who subsequently committed crimes against humanity (mostly against Serbs, although -- as Black points out -- they killed Jews brutally when they could find them). That's hardly 'trivia.'  In any case, despite your repetitious attacks on Mr. Black competence (which somehow are NOT reflected in the Wikipedia article on Edwin Black, where they would belong :-), he vindicates himself by the merit of his research, as indicated in his footnote on the "Fahrud" passage that mentions 'Islam und Judentum':
 * 112. Photo, HandscharTroops Reading 'Islam und Judentum', Bild 101111-Mielke-036-23, Summer 1943: Bundesarchiv. Savich, "Sarajevo Synagogue Destroyed by Bosnian Muslims." Serbianna, http://serbianna.com/blogs/davich/?p=308. Shay, Shaul, 'Islamic Terror and the Balkans' (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 2009), 33. Hadith, Book 41, no 6985, See Savich "Hollcaust"  See Savich, "Bosnia and Kama."

Although you've found one of sources cited by Black, I recommend that you peruse his book (and his footnotes and bibliography) to expand your knowledge of the RS. Of course that's what you may expect from an author who's won so many awards, had his history books listed on the NYT 'best-seller' list (eg "IBM and the Holocaust"), been published by University-affiliated press, and has been well-regarded by the academic historian community. Seriously Nish: if you want to make a case that Black is so biased that he cannot be considered RS (or even that he's a "crap source" as you've written above) then you need to edit the Edwin Black wikipedia article and see if your accusations will stand up to the normative Wikipedia fact-check consensus. You just can't keep trying to cleanse Wikipedia of every author who you don't like. You need to make the case in the appropriate forum. We both know you've been warned about this before. Incidentally, Black also cites a column by: Savich, "Islam under the Swastika: The Grand Mufti and the Nazi Protectorate of Bosnia-Hercogovina, 1941-1945," Serbianna, http://www.serbianna.com/columns/savich/022.shtml, which contains the following:
 * On March 1,1944, the Grand Mufti issued from Berlin the following call to all Muslims: ìKill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. Allah is with you.î Moreover, the Mufti called upon Bosnian Muslims to ìtake revenge and to punishî Bosnian Serb Orthodox Christians. Numerous eyewitness accounts testified that the Handzar Division committed the ìworst atrocities against the Serbian population.î In a photograph of troops of the Division, members are seen reading the pamphlet Islam und Judentum (Islam and Jewry), which explained the Nazi position on the Jewish Question and how it related to Muslims.These were prepared from the Muftís schools and training centers in Germany the Dresden school for Muslims in the Waffen SS, and the Goettingen school for Muslims in the German Wehrmacht.

This pamphlet is also pictured in another source cited by Black: Munoz, Antonio J., 'The East Came West: Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist Volunteers in the Cerman Armed Forces, 1941--1945," (Bayside, NY: Axis Europe, 2001) p. 250. Incidentally, if you every want to follow through with your proposal to chronicle the massacres, war crimes, and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the 'Mufti's SS' (as they were called) you may want to check out Munoz, p. 267, as well as other section of that RS.   In any case, the fact that this has been mentioned in so many secondary sources and was so important to the Mufti & his Nazi allies is sufficient evidence that this should definitely be mentioned in the article.   I agree that there's a lot of fluff in this article that demands deletion, though it's ludicrous to keep inserting more & more text that justifies the Mufti's collaborations while at the same time suppressing some of the more relevant facts that the Wikipedia readers would appreciate when they think their own thoughts about events, conduct their own discussions, and draw their won conclusions. In the meantime, please don't continue deleting relevant information with preternatural RS requirements that (let's face it) have no honest justification by any Wikipedia standard. Ronreisman (talk) 01:13, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You justify Black by citing two of his sources:
 * This morning, I looked at the Italian version of this page, and found everywhere the kind of errors we have managed to rid this page of. I.e. Amin was involved in the Armenian genocide, cited to a website 'Tell Children the Truth'. It's to avoid that sort of crap that a very high bar has been placed on this article. And Black fails to straddle it. It has nothing to do with personal dislike or some laughable Pally mirror of the AIPAC-lobby of 'an anti-Israeli lynch-mob' as a few of us were called yesterday. You, as many others, read into our stringent insistance on quality source control some political motivation. You of course don't have one. You just cite a lot of material that can be traced back to poor unreliable sources, which uniformly talk through history with memes about evil people who hated Jews and Israel. Fortunately, we have very sober historians who know that the Mufti came to hate Jews, and Israel, and who have laid out the damning evidence in respectable works of scholarship. They do so because that is what their professional obligations require of them, not because they think the story will assist Israel and blacken the name of Palestinian nationalism.
 * I know we're not supposed to pry into each other's personal lives, yet when you drop a line like " ...'an anti-Israeli lynch-mob' as a few of us were called yesterday ...." please forgive my curiosity! :-)  If you don't mind, please feel free to share the details.  :-) Ronreisman (talk) 01:59, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * You now cite two sources used by Black
 * (a)Carl Savich, "Islam under the Swastika: The Grand Mufti and the Nazi Protectorate of Bosnia-Hercogovina, 1941-1945," :This comes from a website, Serbianna, and says the Catholics were evil, and the Muslims were evil, and only the Orthodox Church saved folks. In other words, it's partisan crap.
 * His wikipedia entry states:
 * (i)'Carl Savich frequently takes a critical stance toward certain ethnic and religious groups, especially Albanians, Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats[1] to counter what he sees as the pro-Muslim, pro-Albanian, pro-Croatian bias in the US media.'
 * (ii)'Carl Savich and any reference to him was removed from the website of the University of Minnesota Center for Holocaust Studies after it was realized that his writings were not based on actual research but only his interpretation of events.'
 * From Savich you cite the following speech:
 * "On March 1,1944, the Grand Mufti issued from Berlin the following call to all Muslims: ìKill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. .."
 * So what, Ron? Check the page. It is already showcased there, with three citations from Sacher, Pearlman and Stillman. No one is sweeping this sanguinary rhetoric under the carpet.
 * (b)Antonio J. Munoz, 'The East Came West: Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist Volunteers in the Cerman Armed Forces, 1941--1945," (Bayside, NY: Axis Europe, 2001)
 * Munoz is a teacher at Farmingdale State College, and his books are self-published via Axis Europa, hence fail WP:RS on two counts..
 * Ergo, since Black uses such crap, he ain't reliable fer nuthen.
 * Because As I showed with the Judentum und Islam bit, since Black is unreliable, we must get a better source. I found one, Shaul Shay. He has a photo? big deal. Perhaps I'm old, but I don't need a photo to tell me troops posed for a war correspondent while reading the pamphlet. Our text will say that. This is not a picture gallery for illiterate dumbos. It's an encyclopedic article. Nishidani (talk) 11:50, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Nish, you have NOT shown that Black is unreliable. For instance, are you really claiming that Munoz should not be considered RS because he's a history professor at Farmingdale State College?  Are you inferring that a State College is not sufficiently prestigious to merit recognition from Wikipedia editors?  Not to mention the fact that we both know that Black's statements about 'Judentum und Islam' are completely accurate.  The idea that Counterpunch should be held in higher esteem than Edwin Black (see next section) is pretty entertaining.  Thanks for that. :-) Ronreisman (talk) 09:17, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Well reread the discussion. Black does no research, like Dalin and many others he culls stuff up from books, or gets paid researchers to dragnet them, to get material, and ignores source quality. He uses Munoz, and Munoz's record as a prolific self-published 'historian' is there for all to see. The case made against Dalin successfully is exactly the one we would make against Munoz and Black. I didn't say CCounterpunchers were more accurate. I don't cite Counterpunchers on articles, except when, as is occasionally the case, they fit WP criteria (Uri Avnery reflecting on his political career etc.) Lenni Brenner reproduces the primary documentation for the perusal of his readers, Black synthesizes stuff his researchers pass on to him. The cases you gave of the sources Black uses trace back to Munoz and Savich document the flaw. Savich s persona non grata in academe, and Munoz has no standing there either.Nishidani (talk) 10:37, 2 March 2014 (UTC)


 * Incidentally, Nish, I've added some more info from the Mikics (2014) book-review article that you've already quoted to criticize a thesis in the recent book by Schwanitz and the late Rubin (v'sholem).  Ordinarily I'd shy away from claims that Husseini visited the Death Camps and saw gas chambers, though since you've used this article it's clear that you don't consider it a 'crap source' and that it meets your requirements for high-quality WP:RS (else you wouldn't have promoted its criticisms of the Shwanitz&Rubin theories ).  Nice to have a your consensus in advance. Ronreisman (talk) 10:14, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * The Schwanitz-Rubin book contradicts the core of what is almost a scholarly consensus in Israeli, diaspora and modern Husseini scholarship. No scandal. But precisely because of this, it is an RS that must be harvested, within the context of its documentary basis, and what poeer reviewing scholars say. Mikics is only provisory, because I can't yet access the book he reviews (he's a brilliant literary critic, but not a known expert on the area(neither is Rubin, v'sholem). Rest assured that we don't have problems with damning evidence, to the contrary. All we want is to get out of memeville and ground the article in archival scholarship.scanNishidani (talk) 10:37, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

Things to be done
This deals with the Sachsenhausen visit of some of the members of his circle. I don't know why we need a long quote, which in any case exculpates Husseini. Gensicke, if he were available to anyone, would be invaluable, but I can't access the book, and using him just for this is rather pointless.
 * (1) n.162. Gensicke.


 * I have access to Gensicke (via the Stanford Library), and the he certainly does not 'exculpate' Husseini -- just the opposite! In any case, I highly recommend Gensicke.  Would it help if I scanned relevant sections and posted them somewhere you (and other editors) could download the PDF files?  Would it be legal 'fair-use' of this copyright material if we kept some sections on dropbox.com?  If this is not allowable, would there be another way to conveniently and ethically share the information?  See below for ideas on using the Internet Archive 'lending library' to share non-PD books. Ronreisman (talk) 06:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

A priority here is
 * Gerhard Hōpp,'Der Gefangene im Dreieck: Zum Bild Amin al-Husseinis in Wissenschaft und Publizistik seit 1941. Ein Bio-bibliographischer Abriß,' in Zimmer-Winkel (ed.) Eine umstrittene Figur: Hadj Amin al-Husseini, Mufti von Jerusalem, Trier 1999 pp.5-23, This should definitely be accessed as a thorough overview of the reception of the mufti in both scholarship and polemical literature since 1941. If anyone can obtain a copy of it, it would be useful for the final section.

Perhaps we need to compile a bibliography of works we haven't used (for want of ready access) Generally, we overlook such works as
 * Klaus Gensicke, ''Der Mufti von Jerusalem, Amin el-Husseini, und die Nazionalsozialisten, (1988) 2nd ed. Darmstadt 2007
 * Gerhard Hōpp, Mufti-Papiere:Briefe, Memoranden, Reden und Aufrufe Amin al-Husainis aus dem Exil, 1940-1945 (Berlin) 2001
 * Peter Wien, Iraqi Arab Nationalism: Authoritarian, Totalitarian and Pro-Fascist Inclinations, 1932-1941  (London, New York) 2006
 * René Wildangel, Zwischen Achse und Mandatsmacht; Palästina und der Nazionalsozialismus, (Berlin) 2007
 * Gōtz Nordbruch, Nazism in Syria and Lebanon: the ambivalence of the German option, 1933-1945  (Milton Park, Oxon; New York) 2008
 * Gerhard Hōpp, Peter Wien and René Wildangel,Blind für die Geschichte? Arabische Begegnungen mit dem Nationalsozialismus, Berlin 2004Nishidani (talk) 14:58, 24 February 2014 (UTC)


 * NOW we're getting somewhere! This is a very good list, Nish; thank you for the suggestions. The Hōpp, et al ("Blind für die Geschichte?") article is available vi the 'German Literature Online' website: http://www.litrix.de/mmo/priv/16599-WEB.pdf    Portions of Peter Wien's book is available via google.books : ( http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=tsSklKwkGLwC&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=Peter+Wien,+Iraqi+Arab+Nationalism:+Authoritarian,+Totalitarian+and+Pro-Fascist+Inclinations,+1932-1941&ots=qKYn0pEbHh&sig=gKuwc6948Z9BmzCAbJzxJLPoFwc#v=onepage&q=Peter%20Wien%2C%20Iraqi%20Arab%20Nationalism%3A%20Authoritarian%2C%20Totalitarian%20and%20Pro-Fascist%20Inclinations%2C%201932-1941&f=false ).      There are also some very interesting articles by Wien and the late Gerhard Höpp on the German Center for the Modern Orient website: http://www.zmo.de     Portions of Nordbruch's book are available on books.google.com, and much more is available via the Amazon website.   The Gensicke biography has been translated into English by  Alexander Fraser Gunn in 2011, released in 2011 as:  'The Mufti of Jerusalem and the Nazis : the Berlin years'  and is available via the 'Free Library' website (http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+mufti+of+Jerusalem+and+the+Nazis%3B+the+Berlin+years.-a0253493430) and is also partially available via google books and amazon.  The Stanford Library has most of the other books, except for the Zimmer-Winkel (''Eine umstrittene Figur..."), and I could scan sections that interest you, if that would help.  Ronreisman (talk) 06:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Thanks for those links Ron. I'll begin to examine them, though it will take time, given pressures of work here and elsewhere
 * Roger that. When family, work, and Life happen, then WIkipedia doesn't :-) Ronreisman (talk) 20:33, 2 March 2014 (UTC)


 * (2) I've done some expansion on the Nuremberg stuff and Eichmann trial, but only in the hope folks will see the pointlessness of making extensive cites of dead polemic innuendo and material. Almost no one takes this testimony seriously. It should be noted, but we have overnnoted it. Commonsense would dictate more summary, a synthesis in one or two sentences would suffice. Its presence here is a hangover from the good old days of Pearlman and co. (Apropos Ron, for the good of your Zionist soul I hope you take the opportunity to read Lenni Brenner's old classic. Familiarity with it won't convince you of anything but it may help you see how complex figures enmeshed in that period saw the world, and what dangerous choices many of them thought politically unavoidable.Nishidani (talk) 17:24, 24 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Nish: thanks for the Lenni Brenner recommendation, though you really don't have to go to any lengths to make a case that these issues are complex :-) You may want to look at the article in the Yad Vashem 'Encyclopedia of the Holocaust' and note the long passages and multiple paragraphs that discuss the Mufti's 'nationalist' motivations vs. the 'anti-Semitic' accusations.  It's amusing that you like to refer to Novak's jab at that article, and how it's longer than the ones on Goebels, Himmler, etc.   The (Zionist) Yad Vashemers, of course, recognize that the Mufti's motivations are much more subject to speculation than the relatively simple German Nazi racial hatred.   That's why his biography demands more context.  If you haven't read that article, incidentally, you may want to see how they've handled this editorial issue and compare to your own approach.Ronreisman (talk) 02:25, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Why do you personnalize the debate again ? Stop commenting the contributors once for all.
 * Regarding the Israeli historiography approach, Simon Wiesenthal, Moshe Perlman, Joseph Schechtman publications are without nuance (and not WP:RS any more).
 * Anyway, do you have a link to "the long passages and multiple paragraphs that discuss the Mufti's 'nationalist' motivations vs. the 'anti-Semitic' accusations" in the "'Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'".
 * Pluto2012 (talk) 07:15, 25 February 2014 (UTC)
 * @Pluto2012: 'Why do you personnalize the debate again ?'   Is that a rhetorical question?  Personally (you should pardon the expression :-) I think a more open discussion would contribute to the quality of our cooperative efforts.   In any case, Nish was playfully baiting me with a 'Counterpunch' article, and I found it pretty funny.  And, in the spirit of Full Disclosure: I used to see Alex Cockburn (v'sholem) and the Counterpunchers years ago  'digital literati' (eg Mondo) parties in the SF Bay Area, had discussions with them (even then) concerning their claim that their anti-Zionism wasn't motivated by anti-Semitism.  In at least one case (I won't mention names) it appeared that the very-progressive Counterpuncher was honestly convinced that they were *not* bigoted or prejudiced, and yet their expressions, phrasing, and mental archetypes of 'Zionists' were almost congruent with pre-Zionist expressions of anti-Semitic propaganda, and came away with the impression that this essentially 'good' person was channeling deep strains of an anti-Jewish prejudice, in a manner reminiscent of descriptions of 'good' Germans who channeled Nazi anti-Semitism during the WWII, and yet were not anti-Semitic in their personal relationships with individual Jews.  The Counterpunchers famously 'protested too much' against the many and varied criticisms from other progressives and journalists, eg: http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/07/25/guardian-praises-anti-semitic-site-counterpunch-as-progressive/   Nish was, as noted above, being playful, eg look at his criticisms of Black, et al as RS, and your comment that Perlman & Shechtman are not RS due to lack of 'nuance'  yet offering a Lenni Brenner Counterpunch editorial as acceptable RS is really pretty funny .... unless the suggestion is serious.   Lenny, g-d bless him, is a soul who has spent decades as one of the foremost 'Jews Against Zionism' and against 'Judaism'  (he likes other Jews, of course, just not Judaism :-).  His book (which Nish calls a 'classic') and '51 Documents' are favorites of Holocaust Deniers and the Stateside neo-Nazis.  For instance, among the many articles that reference Lenny on the  'institute for Historical Research' website, you may want to look at Mark Weber's 'Zionism and the Third Reich' at: http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v13/v13n4p29_Weber.html   Nish's suggestion that somehow neo-Nazi-approved references are WP:RS and (for example) Edwin Black is not, and that a group of editors who might support such propositions somehow represent 'consensus' is also therefore very humorous.  So, getting back to your original question, there's ample reason for us to understand each other and develop our empathy for each other if we're to work together effectively to improve the quality of Wikipedia articles.   So please, feel free to express you own personal opinions.  It would be better if we could do this over coffee, with attendant hospitality and etiquette, though let's see how far we can get with this notoriously prickly medium.  Ronreisman (talk) 06:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * "they were *not* bigoted or prejudiced, and yet their expressions, phrasing, and mental archetypes of 'Zionists' were almost congruent with pre-Zionist expressions of anti-Semitic propaganda,"
 * I read as a youth much Cockburn père, have followed Alexander and Patrick's work in books and articles for three decades, and trying to stick an antisemitic label on the family is stupid. They are maverick muckrakers in a peer-world of well-heeled, well-paid hacks. The fact that antisemitic bigots exploit their work is neither here nor there. Think, Ron. Those writers do not harvest antisemitic books, antisemite books exploit their material. Hitler qquoted from the Book of Joel in Mein Kampf, does that mean Joel was a Nazi?(Their sword will become our plow, and from the tears of war the daily bread of future generations will grow.) Excuse me, but such 'strategies' are infantile hasbara techniques. Read your Macbeth:'The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose,' i.e. the immediate fount of an idea, being disreputable, even evil, does not invalid the status of the quoted idea itself.
 * There are many people who fancy themselves virtuous progressives, such as the self-styled Counterpunch 'maverick muckrakers,' who are nominally very nice people, and yet exhibit unmistakable traits of 'demonization' that bear uncanny similarities to the calumnies directed against the Jews for centuries. Cockburn, et al, dedicated all sorts fo effort to claim that their anti-Zionism was NOT associated with any anti-Semitic phenomena (including conventions, a popular 2004 book, etc.).  As I've written above, in at least one case I'm sure that one of these Counterpunchers completely believed they were *not* anti-Semitic, yet there is no doubt in my mind (based on a multi-hour conversations at East-Bay Mondo parties years ago :-) that the their 'anti-Zionist' scenario would not have been possible without the un-recognized foundation of anti-Semitic pre-conditioning.  This isn't a rare phenomena. Ronreisman (talk) 23:20, 2 March 2014 (UTC)


 * @Pluto2012: "Anyway, do you have a link to "the long passages and multiple paragraphs that discuss the Mufti's 'nationalist' motivations vs. the 'anti-Semitic' accusations" in the "'Encyclopedia of the Holocaust"  Great question!  Unfortunately I haven't found an online version.  Fortunately I own the four-volume set, so here's a few passages from my copy's article on "Husseini, Hajj Amin Al-" by Irit Abramski-Bligh :
 * The story of Husseini's ties with the Axis powers, and especially with Nazi Germany, covers only a fraction of his far-flung political activities, but it has been the subject of much speculation and a variety of interpretations. Some believe that Husseinis's collaboration with the Germans was designed to obtain support for Arab national goals from a power that seemed to have very good prospects of winning the war and that had no colonial view, Husseini mainly sought a strong ally to replace the consistent support he had had from the British in the 1920s and 1930s.
 * Others link Husseini's sympathy for Nazi Germany to his enthusiasm for its policy on the Jews, and particularly its plan for the "FINAL SOLUTION," Husseini did not confine himself to the struggle against a Jewish national home in Palestine, but set "world Jewry: as the target of his fight, because in his opinion the solution of the "Palestine question" depended upon a solution of the entire "Jewish question."
 * Some go further and perceive a general ideological affinity between the totalitarian Fascist and Nazi theories and Islam, as conceived by Husseinis. Hitler's unchallenged position of central leadership and authority may have appeared to Husseini to have much in common with the all-embracing leadership that the caliph had exercised in the Muslim world, and it may have inspired hi to seek a similar position of leadership for himself.  Most importantly, National Socialism's wold view corresponded to Husseini's Pan-Arabic policy (and also to his Pan-Islamic views for the more distant future).  Paradoxically, this basic ideological affinity may account for Husseini's relatively small success with the Nazi and Fascist leaders; his global ambitions, even though restricted to Muslims, had a negative effect on government circles in Berlin.


 * The entire article contains much more, including points that are underemphasized (or not mentioned at all) in our WIkipedia text, eg. "Husseini also helped boost the fighting morale of the OSTBATAILLONE, Muslim auxiliary units of the Wehrmacht that had been formed in early 1942 and had fought bravely against the Soviet Army...." (p. 706). You may also be interested in the 1946 Yugoslav request to extradite Husseini as a war criminal, and how Egyptian government and the chairman of the Arab League:
 * "... succeeded in having that demand tabled. In the British Parliament and the UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE, the issue was taken off the agenda for "technical reasons."  The argument was that Husseini could not be regarded as a war criminal because he was not the national of an enemy state (Germany or Italy) and had not been on active service in the Axis forces. (p.707)
 * The principal refs for the article are two Zionist journal articles, Carpi (1984) (in Hebrew) and Cooper (1978), as well as Hirszkowicz ('The Third Reich and the Arab East'; 1966), Nevo ('Al-Hajj Amin and the British in World War II'; 1984), Nicosia ('The Third Reich and the Palestinian Question'; 1985, as well as Pearlman (1947) and Schechtman (1965). Ronreisman (talk) 08:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * It's also amusing to read the IHR article on 'The Mufti and the Holocaust,' including their comments on the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust article (quoted above): http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v20/v20n4p11_Okeefe.html   It's interesting to compare the IHR idiocy with our Wikipedia article's text, if only to avoid comparisons with the style & content of these retarded bigots. Ronreisman (talk) 08:55, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

One potential method of sharing non-Public-Domain research materials in the future may be for individual editors to purchase copies and then donate them to the Internet Archive, and they will 'lend' the material to other wiki-editors (and everyone else). The Internet Archive also functions as a 'lending-library' and uses Adobe digital-rights-management software to enable users to download a copy for a week, which cannot be printed-out or copied, though it can be read in it's entirety. Only one copy may be 'lent' at a time, just as if it were a bricks & mortar library that lends a copy of physical book. I'm still waiting for a price quote from the British National Archives (RecordCopyingEnquiries@nationalarchives.gov.uk) for the Operation ATLAS documents (KV 2/400--402), though if this works out I believe it will legal and acceptable to share by donating them to archive.org, though I still haven't checked out the details. Any thoughts on this, and/or on other ways for us to share rare reference resources, would be greatly appreciated Ronreisman (talk) 06:27, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Mikics had to be used for balance. I culled the most damning material against Husseini from his review because Schwanitz and Rubin's book is not yet at hand. Eventually he will be removed as we get area specialist reviews on that new book. You misinterpreted his point. He doesn't claim Arab antisemitism arose from Zionism, he claims that this would be the absurd implication of the thesis those two authors push (typical by the way of the Hertzliya line now emerging). If it's almost certain now, despite a 70 years failure to find a documentary smoking gun that Husseini visited Auschwitz, the proof with the relevant archival source will be in Schwanitz and Rubin, and must be cited eventually from that source. Quality control. And don't make blobs of quotes that are neither here nor there, as you did from Mikics. That is a device used for key staements, not for hysterical repeititions of what the text already says.Nishidani (talk) 10:37, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Nish, the Wikipedia text should present the complexity of opinion and interpretation. The WIkipedia editors should NOT filter the information according to a single 'approved' POV.   Although there is a little legitimate controversy concerning what Husseini knew and when he knew it, as well as how much influence he had over actual operations that resulted in damage to Jews (eg transports to Polish extermination camps).  The proposition that Husseini's undisputed post-1930 'staunch' anti-semitism is the product of his experience with diabolical Zionists who were supported by an international conspiracy of Capitalist & Communist Fascist Racist 'Clannish' World Jewry already has many homes on the Web, eg JewWatch, Stormfront, AranNations, IHR, CounterPunch, etc. Althoughj I'm OK with representing this POV (partially because I'm personally fascinated by the psychology and enjoy watching the proponents illustrate their thought processes :-), we don't need to make the IHR position the default 'consensus' editorial logic for this article.
 * Nish, don't you find it curious that several of the formula in our current Wikipedia article bear a great deal of similarity to the formula used in the neo-Nazi & IHR articles, eg. the emphasis on Novick's criticism of the Yad Vashem encyclopedia article, along with the criticism of the 'Jews' interest -- called an 'obsession' -- with Husseini, with the mocking statement that more attention is paid to him than to the top Nazis. It's inferred that there is something irrational in this attention to Husseini.  The inference is that there is no reason for Jews' concerns over the political legacy of pro-Nazi leader who has had thousands of militant followers who have taken arms against Jews (the Yishuv) for years after the threat of Nazi Germany has disappeared from history, and that there is no relation between WWII-era anti-Semitism and post-War anti-Zionism. The IHR (eg Weber) have formulated their argument that this is just silly at best, and more probably a mendacious attempt to use the Holocaust to justify Zionist 'crimes against humanity' directed against Palestinians.  Although Wik-editors are free to hold any political opinion, they are not allowed to make our editorial position conform to the 'consensus' of any one POV, eg a theoretical 'consensus' of Chomsky, Cockburn, Weber, and Brenner :-)
 * There's a difference between a POV that attempts to distance current pro-Palestinian politics from the Mufti's positions, or arguing that there is no reason to associate his support for Nazi 'positive control' of European Jews in Polish camps (eg his advocacy that Jewish children be sent to Polish camps -- death, as he knew -- rather than preserve their lives via refuge in Palestine).  Your position that this, and his 'kill the Jews' propaganda services, his espionage services to the Axis, his recruitment of Waffen SS who then participated in documented crimes against humanity, including torturing and murdering Jews whenever they found them, as well as his meetings and correspondence with the Nazi elite (particularly Himmler) ... that all of this an more *somehow* leads to a conclusion that this man and his group have *nothing* to do with the Holocaust is (at the very least) a hard case, and some would consider it indefensible.  The status of the Wilensky testimony should *not* be determined by any WIkipedia editor. The controversies regarding the Wilensky testimony, OTOH, should be preserved & presented, and the readers should be able to appreciate the continuing uncertainty.
 * There are several well-developed interpretations of Husseini's motivations, and there is no one who can pronounce which motivation is 'true' and which are not. Our responsibility is to preserve complexity, recognize the valid controversies, and present necessary and sufficient factual material to enable Wikipedia reader to engage in their own discussions.  If an I/P article doesn't preserve 'issue complexity' then the article is probably flawed. 67.180.238.75 (talk) 22:57, 2 March 2014 (UTC) Ronreisman (talk) 23:18, 2 March 2014 (UTC)

There's one issue that has bothered me for almost a year. None of the current Wikipedia editors currently represents the Mufti's POV. The Mufti was not, IMHO, an incompetent nor an irrational fool He was indisputably the important and influential Palestinian Arab and Muslim Nationalist leader from the 1920s until (arguably) the emergence of Arafat, and he continues to have a strong following among the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, and countless others from India to Africa. I'm not a fan, obviously, and politically left-wing progressives are not apt to empathize with his POV, even if they oppose Zionism and support his Palestinian Nationalism. So who speaks for the legitimate voice of the Mufti? I'm being serious here. If we're serious about preserving the complexities of the issues, then we need to make sure the legitimate concerns of his followers are also preserved. Last year I had occasion to meet (under somewhat unusual circumstances) members of the Al Aqsa Mosque Waqf, including the Imam. I'm inclined to reach out to him and request that a representative of the Waqf participate in our editing process. I think the additional POV will stimulate our discussion and broaden the range issues. Any objections? 67.180.238.75 (talk) 22:57, 2 March 2014 (UTC) Ronreisman (talk) 23:18, 2 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Nope. We just use academic sources here, and set a high bar, for the simple reason that Husseini, like much else, is caught up in contemporary geopolitical polemics, and far too many authors and sources are trying to prove a thesis with political implications for the ME. By the way, Ron. Like yourself, many of us have a full workday, and can't run all over the place. We handle best succinct point by point issues. To say,also, that Chomsky, Cockburn and Bremer are present on the article is counterfactual.Nishidani (talk) 11:30, 4 March 2014 (UTC)