See the relevant segment in the video "The Forgotten Refugees" (2005) - [
www.youtube.com]. The unfortunate distortion appears within an otherwise reliable segment on Haj Amin al-Husseini's trip to Berlin, including audio of an Arabic radio address from Berlin.
Without being an expert specializing in Middle Eastern history and politics, but as a historian interested in the period, it seems to me that this film is relatively accurate and attempting to be even handed. At the same time, I advise students to watch for evidence of bias, of inclinations to interpret or characterize evidence in ways that sometimes go beyond what the evidence really says or shows or demonstrates. The use of statistics is sometimes loose, with some exaggeration of numbers of Jewish refugees. My impression is that the number 800,000 is firmer than "a million" used in the film.
The segment about Arab Nationalism, starting around minute 20, and the specific segment regarding Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti, starting around minute 21, is worded a little sloppily, going beyond or leading the viewer to go beyond what the evidence really states. Recommending setting up concentration camps in the Middle East for Jews is not the same as Auschwitz, but the radio address quoted, calling on Arabs to rise up and "Kill the Jews wherever you find them," along with the Mufti reviewing Bosnian Muslim pro-Nazi troops (film footage), could lead someone to conflate all the bits into an allegation that the Mufti advised Hitler.
For more about Nazi contacts with the Mufti and Nazi propaganda toward Arab speakers in the Middle East, see works of Jeffrey Herf (U of Md).
I don't have a "smoking gun" to prove that this film is Netanyahu's source. The allegation he expressed might be commonly believed in some circles, but I have no evidence for that.
A related dilemma revolves around Ben Hecht's dramatic book PERFIDY. There are suspect details. But anyone with knowledge of the period's history (1930s-40s) who reads his memoir CHILD OF THE CENTURY will note that he often played fast and loose with historic facts. But he was professionally a screenwriter and playwright, who was an active advocate for rescue of Jews, who perhaps did not feel that his poetic license need be surrendered when fighting for justice as he saw it.
Khabdeihu ve-hashdeihu might be a standard for viewing any historical testimony, especially by people who are not eyewitnesses, participants, or trained historians. And even historians and eyewitnesses and participants must be subject to shrewd, analytic consideration.
As someone has pointed out, humans were created with 2 ears but only one mouth, suggesting that one should listen twice as much as speak.
Robert Shapiro
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/01/2015 01:29PM by mlb.
