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Islamism and Communism -- The Ties That Bind
Islamism (or Islamofascism ) is a political ideology based on the conservative religious view of
Muslim
fundamentalism. It holds that Islam is
not only a religion, but a system that also governs the politicial, economic and
social imperatives of the state. This
places it in opposition to liberal movements within
Islam
The goal of Islamism is to re-shape the state by implementing its conservative formulation of Islamic law. Most Islamist
rhetoric and literature compares Islam not
with other religions, but with other
political ideologies, such as Fascism, Communism, Liberalism, Nationalism etc. (notice the -ism and associated members names Fascists, Communists, Liberalists, Nationalists etc)
The existence of undemocratic and corrupt
regimes all over the Muslim world led to widespread socialist movements across these countries during the
20th century; however, with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, such leftist ideologies
have largely lost influence. Islamism has emerged as the remaining revolutionary
ideology, gaining much ground through appropriating anti-Western sentiment which
has emerged due to the occupation of the Palestinian-populated West Bank by Israel.
In the aftermath of 9/11, Islamism, along
with other political movements inspired by Islam, gained increased attention in the Western media.
The media often confuses the term Islamism with related terms such as
Islam, fundamentalism, and
Wahhabism. Although the
groups and individuals representing these are not mutually exclusive, within
academia, each term does have a distinct definition. Some Islamist groups have
been implicated in terrorism and
have become targets in the War on Terrorism.
===========================================
Islam’s Nazi
Connections
By Serge Trifkovic
FrontPageMagazine.com | December 5,
2002
An essay adapted by Robert
Locke from Dr. Serge Trifkovic’s new book
The
Sword of the Prophet: A Politically-Incorrect Guide to
Islam
One of the good things one can truthfully
say about Islam is that there has never been any love lost between Moslems and
Marxists.
Sadly, the opposite end of the totalitarian political spectrum is
quite another matter. SS chief Heinrich Himmler was known to remark that he
regretted that Germany had adopted Christianity, rather than "warlike" Islam, as
its religion, and there is a disturbing amount of twisted but very real logic in
his remark. Beyond the obvious dislike of a certain other religion, we have the
plain fact that both Nazism and Islam both openly aim at world conquest. Both
demand the total subordination of the free will of the individual – the very
word "Islam" means submission in Arabic. Both are explicitly anti-nationalist
and believe in the liquidation of the nation-state in favor of a "higher"
community: in Islam the umma or community of all believers; in Nazism the
herrenvolk or master race. Both believe in undemocratic leadership by a
privileged knower of an absolute, eternal, and ultimately mystical truth: the
caliph or führer respectively. To be fair, in strict Nazism Arabs
are racial Semites and thus subhumans, but as Robert Locke has written, the Nazis did not really believe in their racial mythology when they
found it inconvenient, and they exploited their commonalities with Islam for all
they were worth. If the British army had not stopped Rommel in the sands of El
Alamein in 1942, preventing him from conquering the Middle East, the
consequences for world history might have been dramatic. What did happen was
quite ugly enough.
The Nazis began by attempting to exploit
Arab resentment of the British and French colonial rule that they were under
during the 1930’s, colonial rule which, in light of the subsequent bloody and
tyrannical history of the region, it is hard to condemn today as worse than the
likely alternative. The promised the Arabs "liberation" from the French and
British, a promise which the naïve Arabs, not grasping the character of a Nazi
regime that would likely have reduced them to slaves in its own empire, took at
face value. This gave rise to a curious Arab ditty rendered in English
thus:
"No more monsieur,
No more mister.
In heaven Allah,
On earth Hitler."
Hitler himself was even given an Arabic
name: Abu Ali. But Hitler’s Germany went further and sensed the demonic
potentialities inherent in the mythology, reliably emotionally satisfying to
persons crazed with resentment, of radical anti-Semitism. It made a concerted,
and remarkably successful effort to plant modern anti-Semitism in the Arab
world.
The founding of Israel helped further
this project. As Bernard Lewis has written,
"The struggle for Palestine greatly
facilitated the acceptance of the anti-Semitic interpretation of history, and
led some to attribute all evil in the Middle East—and, indeed, in the world—to
secret Jewish plots."
Thus even before Israel was created the
struggle to create it was turned into an existential battle of identity, with
the complete denial of the legitimacy of Jewish existence as a central component
of Moslem aspiration.
The Nazis managed to recruit some Moslems
directly. Several Moslem SS divisions were raised: the Skanderbeg Division from
Albania, the Handschar Division from Bosnia, and smaller units from throughout
the Moslem world from Chechnya to Uzbekistan were incorporated into the German
armed forces in one capacity or another. This was only taking the first step in
Heinrich Himmler’s planned grand alliance between Nazi Germany and the Islamic
world. One of his closest aides, Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger,
boasted that
"a link is created between Islam and
National-Socialism on an open, honest basis. It will be directed in terms of
blood and race from the North, and in the ideological-spiritual sphere from the
East."
What an image: a Nazi-Moslem alliance to
conquer the world! Naturally, totalitarian ideology (as shown by the Sino-Soviet
and Iran-Taliban splits, for example) is a notoriously weak glue, so it is
questionable how far this could have prospered. But the thought is chilling
enough.
Major Nazi sympathizers of this era
include Ahmed Shukairi, the first chairman of the PLO; Gamal Abdel Nasser and
Anwar Sadat, future presidents of Egypt; and the founders of the Pan-Arab
socialist Ba' ath party, currently ruling Syria and Iraq. One Ba'ath leader has
since recalled of this time:
"We were racists, admiring Nazism,
reading their books and sources of their thought. We were the first who thought
of translating Mein Kampf."
Many of the Nazi sympathizers of this era
have never repudiated their beliefs; some still openly parade them.
In 1945, one name was missing from the
Allies’ list of war criminals, that of Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti
or supreme religious leader of Jerusalem and the former President of the Supreme
Moslem Council of Palestine. In May 1941, the Mufti declared jihad
against Britain and made his way to Berlin after the British put down his
attempt to establish a pro-Nazi government in Iraq by a coup
d’etat. When he met Hitler, on November 21, 1941, he declared that the
Arabs are Germany’s natural friends, ready to cooperate with the Reich with all
their hearts by the formation of an Arab Legion. Hitler promised that as soon as
the German armies pushed into the Southern Caucasus the Arabs would be liberated
from the British yoke. The Mufti’s part of the deal was to raise support for
Germany among the Moslems in the Soviet Union, the Balkans and the Middle East.
He conducted radio propaganda through the network of six stations, set up
anti-British espionage and fifth column networks in the Middle East.
In the annual protest against the Balfour Declaration held in 1943 at the
Luftwaffe hall in Berlin, the Mufti praised the Germans because they "know how
to get rid of the Jews, and that brings us close to the Germans and sets us in
their camp is that up to day." Echoing Muhammad after the battle of Badr, on
March 1, 1944 the Mufti called in a broadcast from Berlin:
"Arabs! Rise as one and fight for your
sacred rights. Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history,
and religion. This saves your honor."
In 1941, he had pledged "to solve the question of the Jewish elements in
Palestine and in other Arab countries as required by national interests, and in
the same way as the Jewish question in the Axis lands is being solved." Bernard
Lewis writes that in addition to the old goal of a Jew-free Arabia "he aimed at
much vaster purposes, conceived not so much in pan-Arab as in pan-Islamic terms,
for a Holy War of Islam in alliance with Germany against World Jewry, to
accomplish the Final Solution of the Jewish problem everywhere."
According to German officials who knew him, The Mufti had repeatedly
suggested to the various authorities with whom he was maintaining contact, above
all to Hitler, Ribbentrop and Himmler, the extermination of European Jewry. He
considered this as a comfortable solution of the Palestinian problem. Perhaps
"the Nazis needed no persuasion or instigation," as he was later to claim, but
the foremost Arab spiritual leader of his time did all he could to ensure that
the Germans did not waver in their resolve. He went out of his way to prevent
any Jews being allowed to leave Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria, which were
initially willing to let them go: "The Mufti was making protests everywhere — in
the Office of the (Foreign) Minister, in the antechamber of the Secretary of
State, and in other departments, such as Home Office, Press, Radio, and in the
SS headquarters." In the end, Eichmann said, "We have promised him that no
European Jew would enter Palestine any more."
The contemporary heirs to the Nazi view of Judentum are not the
handful of powerless skinheads and Aryan Nation survivalists. They are schools,
religious leaders, and mainstream intellectuals in the Moslem, meaning primarily
Arab, world. Quite apart from the ups and downs of the misnamed "peace process"
in the Middle East, quite apart from the more or less bellicose posture towards
the government of Israel, the crude way they actively demonize all Jews as
such is startling.
The most prominent and influential daily newspaper in the Arab world is
Al-Ahram, a semi-official organ of the Egyptian government. In June 2001
it carried an op-ed article, "What exactly do the Jews want?"--and the answer
was worthy of the Nazi newspaper the Völkische Beobachter six decades
earlier:
"The Jews share boundless hatred of the gentiles, they kill women and
children and sow destruction… Israel is today populated by people who are not
descendants of the Children of Israel, but rather a mixture of slaves, Aryans
and the remnants of the Khazars, and they are not Semites. In other words,
people without an identity, whose only purpose is blackmails, theft and control
over property and land, with the assistance of the Western
countries."
The second most influential Egyptian daily is Al-Akhbar, which went a
step further on April 18, 2001: "Our thanks go the late Hitler who wrought, in
advance, the vengeance of the Palestinians upon the most despicable villains on
the face of the earth. However, we rebuke Hitler for the fact that the vengeance
was insufficient."
It is hard to imagine hatred more vitriolic than that which reproaches the
Nazis for not completing the Final Solution more thoroughly. What is remarkable
is not that such sentiments exist, but that they are freely circulated in the
mainstream media and internalized by the opinion-making elite throughout the
Moslem world. In the same league, we find the claim that the Holocaust in fact
never happened and that the Jews and Israelis are the real Nazis is regularly
made. The Jewish-Nazi theme is a favorite of Arab caricaturists, some of whom
use the swastika interchangeably with the Star of David, or juxtapose them.
Graphic depiction of the Jews appear to have been lifted directly from the pages
of the notorious old Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer (The
Stormtroooper.)
A final tidbit: it is no accident that a number of Nazi war criminals found
refuge in Moslem nations. Take the notorious Otto Skorzeny, an SS officer who
led the rescue of Mussolini from captivity, was described by the OSS,
predecessor to the CIA, as "the most dangerous man in Europe," and later found
service under General Nasser in Egypt. There were others.
Thankfully, the Nazis of course lost WWII
and the abortive alliance between Islam and Nazism never panned out. Sadly,
there exist Moslems today, not on the fringes but in the mainstream of their
nations, who still view this as a great lost opportunity based on profound
natural affinities.
===========================================
The Interconnection of Nazis, Communists and Radical Islamists
By Yehuda Bauer, Professor Emeritus at Hebrew University
and Recent Author of 'Rethinking The Holocaust'
The renowned British historian Lord Acton once said:
"All utopias are murderous"
One could perhaps change the famous saying to;
"All radical, apocalyptic,
universalist utopias are genocidal"
The past hundred years or so has seen
three mass movements aiming at utopias that could only be achieved by world
conquest: National Socialism, Communism, and now radical Islamism.
There are vast differences between them, to be sure, but there are also some
interesting parallels. All three developed (quasi-) religious ideologies
with sacred texts that were literally interpreted. National Socialist (Nazi)
ideology was believed in "religiously" by very large numbers of people, and
action was guided by its literal interpretation. Marxist-Leninism was undoubtedly
a "religious" belief system, with sacred texts. So is totalitarian Islamism.
All three aspired, or aspire, to rule over the entire world, promising a
utopia and an apocalyptic end to history. All three were, or are, genocidal.
Recently, an Egyptian televison interviewer, Doua Amer , was charming. She
introduced the interview by admonishing every Muslim woman strictly to observe
the only true religion. (IQRA Arab TV, May 7) Then she turned to little Basmallah,
aged three and a half: "Do you know about the Jews?" "Yes." "Do you like
the Jews?" "No." "Why?" "Because they are apes and pigs ... a Jewish woman
tried to poison our Prophet Muhammad." A wonderful example of the kind of
"humanistic" education that radical Muslims endow their small children with.
In the last 50
years or so, a new interpretation of Islam, a radical theology that has been
spreading like cancer among the 1.2 billion or so Muslim believers in the
world, or about a fifth of humanity. Where does it come from? What does it
say?
There are conservative, "fundamentalist," trends in all religions. They tend
to be exclusionary, arguing that anyone who does not share their faith is
destined to roast in hell. They are fanatic in their beliefs, and try to
convert everyone else to their particular dogma. They believe in the literal
interpretation and absolute truth of every word of their sacred texts. Such are the Wahabis,
who in the 18th century founded the belief system governing modern Saudi
Arabia and of which its evolved teachings have greatly influenced current radical Islam.
The radical Islamists are a modern phenomenon, founded
in Egypt by Hassan el-Banna in 1928, and given an extreme ideology by Sayyed
Qutb, a man who had spent some time in the US, and had come back convinced
that the West was degenerating, basis for his commentary of the Quran: Fi zilal
al-Qur'an, which he wrote while imprisoned in Egypt. Resigning from the
civil service he became perhaps the most persuasive publicist of the Muslim
Brotherhood.and that the time had come for Islam to conquer
the world.
Qutb published his brochures in the Fifties and early Sixties, until he was
executed by the Nasserist regime in 1966 because his teachings argued against
the existence of Egyptian, and for that matter any other, Arab nationalism.
Radical, totalitarian Islamists demand that the existing Arab national states
should become Islamized, governed by religious (shari'a) law, not by constitutions,
and certainly not by democratic institutions reflecting the will of a majority.
The rulers would be those who are experts in Islamic law. The aim is to
conquer
the world and make it Islamic, and an important step towards that goal
is
the toppling of the existing Arab national regimes. The final result
would
be a utopia of a peaceful mankind, ruled by Islamic religious experts.
Because of repeated Arab defeat in wars against Israel, Qutb
also declared that the Jews were a main enemy of Islam, and should be
destroyed.
Today, most of the Islamic middle east incites against and uses israel as a scapegoat to deflect the
frustration of their Arab-Muslim society from the undemocratic and
corrupt regimes all over the Muslim world which led to widespread
socialist movements which like the Soviet Union led to economic
collapse collapsed because of regime inability to change their rigid,
traditional and cultural patterns in order to enable
middle-class individualism to develop democratic institutions and
scientific
and economic progress and the ensuing mass poverty has caused members
of the intelligentsia and upper classes to develop radical Islamism,
and
recruit the foot soldiers for its totalitarian agenda.
Qutb was followed by others, most of them Egyptians; however, one of the
important teachers of radical Islam was Abul Ala el-Maududi, a Pakistani
(died in 1979). The teachings spread. In Saudi Arabia, radical Islam became
a real danger for the corrupt, absolutist Saudi dynasty as it accused the
ruling family of betraying "real" Islamic values.
It was out of this cauldron that Osama bin Laden, and the 15 Saudis who were
among the 19 terrorists on September 11, emerged. The Egyptian and most other
radical Islamists are Sunni. Parallel to them, the Khomeini revolution took
place in Shi'ite Iran. Some observers believe that the Iranian regime is
moving towards moderation; yet even they will agree that the radical conservatives
are still in power and are vigorous in their attempts to prevent any such
development from taking root.
Trying to destabilize the West, Sunni and Shi'a radicals have now been cooperating.
There is no center to which all these groups owe loyalty - one of the novel
things about this phenomenon is the fact that it is the ideology that is
common, whereas the organizational structure is diffuse.
There are more than a dozen radical groups in Algeria, and an even larger
number in Kashmir; but they maintain loose associations between them, and
regard each other as brothers-in-arms; almost all, if not all, acknowledge
their Egyptian, Muslim Brotherhood, origin. Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine
say so openly.
The ultimate aim of all these groups is not only, as some observers have
argued, the eviction of American troops from Islamic lands, especially Saudi
Arabia, or the annihilation of Israel - though these certainly are immediate
targets, and the problems which they represent serve as triggers for radical
Islamist actions. Yet, if all US troops were withdrawn from Saudi Arabia,
and Israel defeated, with its Jewish population annihilated - and these are
declared Islamist aims - the main target would still remain: world conquest.
National Socialist (Nazi) ideology was believed in "religiously" by very
large numbers of people, and their action was guided by its literal interpretation.
Marxist-Leninism was undoubtedly a "religious" belief system, with sacred
texts. So is totalitarian Islamism.
All three aspired, or aspire, to rule over the entire world, promising a
utopia and an apocalyptic end to history. All three were, or are, genocidal.
The Nazis and Communists targeted Jews then, and radical Islamists do so
now, though each in different ways. The Nazis wanted to murder every single
Jew in the world. The Stalinists wanted to eliminate the Jewish people as
a people, and exile Soviet Jews to Siberia. Osama bin Laden defined his aims
in 1998: to kill "Jews and Crusaders" (i.e. Christians).
What is the attitude of the West to these developments? Again, there seems
to be a parallel. In the Thirties, there was sympathy with the aims of a
Nazified Germany trying to undo the "unjust" Versailles treaty system. In
parallel, many intellectuals thought that the Soviet regime was doing something
new and positive - they were to think that way in the Fifties and the Sixties
as well.
The treatment of minorities, especially Jews, was considered to be unfortunate,
but there were excesses in every positive revolution, weren't there? Nowadays,
there is European lip service to the need to fight international terror,
but many intellectuals and the politicians who represent their thinking in
effect defend the right of the radical Islamists to pursue their agenda -
as long as they don't attack Europe, but keep their attacks concentrated
on the almost universally hated US, and of course Israel.
In the past, Jews were persecuted as individuals. Now it is easier because
one need not be an anti-Semite; one can simply be in favor of the annihilation
of the collective Jew, Israel.
It is wrong to see in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict either the main reason for the rise of radical Islamism or, on the
other hand, to ignore its impact on radical Islamists. It is an ethnic, and
now increasingly an ethno- religious, conflict, and like all such conflicts
between adversaries that are unable to defeat each other, can only be solved
by a compromise which at the moment the elites on both sides oppose.
Palestinian society is fragmented: radical Islamists, who apparently control
some 30 percent of the population, do not want any political settlement,
but call for the annihilation of Israel, a member state of the UN, and by
clear implication of its inhabitants.
The
Islamic state to which radical Islamists aspire would, under their
constitution, turn Christian
Palestinians into non-citizens. Other armed militias oppose this, but
have
joined the Islamists in suicide murders and terror attacks. The total
toll of lives in more than two years of intifada is around the
2,500 mark (about the number of victims of a week's Hindu-Muslim
disturbances
in India, last month); but the issue is not the number of victims, but
the
damage done to the two societies.
A political compromise, which is ultimately unavoidable, will undoubtedly
help in the fight against radical Islamism, but will most certainly not end
it. The radical Islamist attack on the Jews is a first, potentially genocidal
step. Ultimately and explicitly, as in similar previous situations, it is
directed against Western civilization as such.
If intellectual, economic and political defense against radical Islamism,
and not just military responses, is postponed because of weak-kneed Western
attitudes, the price paid later will be very high indeed, as was the price
the world paid for the rise of National Socialism and Soviet Communism, if
not more so.
===========================================
The Arab/Muslim Nazi Connection
Turning the
West Bank into another "Bosnia" (Photo Album)
From :Eretz Yisroel.Org
As things are going, if
Netanyahu
succeeds... The area will be
like Bosnia.
-- Palestinian Authority
Minister of
Justice Freih Abu
Meddien
"The era of interim agreements," said
Ben-Ami,
"is dead. It only exists in the
imagination. The Palestinians
have
absolutely no faith in interim agreements, for their
reasons. We are also opposed to them. They have only
given birth to terror and to a Bosnia-like
situation
(in the territories)."
-- Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami
Although there was ample proof to arrest
him
[Hajj Amin al Husseini] as a war
criminal after
the war, the Allies made
no effort to do so... Yugoslavia,
asked
for his extradition... but the Arab League and the
Egyptian government succeeded in having the
demand tabled
-- Encyclopedia of the Holocaust
Arab leaders and
media outlets have long been addicted to comparing Israel to the Nazi regime,
while at the same time demeaning the extent of the Holocaust.
This obsession
with defaming and antagonizing the Jewish people and state was on full display
in recent years and reached a crescendo – or rather nadir – the day before Pope
John Paul II visited the Temple Mount during his Holy Land pilgrimage.
The Grand
Mufti of Jerusalem, Sheikh Ekrima Sabri, just hours before hosting the Pope,
gave a series of press interviews, first telling the AP: "The figure of 6
million Jews killed during the Holocaust is exaggerated and is used by the
Israelis to gain international support… It's not my problem. Muslims didn't do
anything on this issue. It's the doing of Hitler who hated the Jews," asserted
the acid-tongued Mufti – a figure appointed by Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
"Six million? It was a lot less,"
Sabri repeated for an Italian newspaper. "It's
not my fault if Hitler hated the Jews. Anyway, they hate them just about
everywhere." The Mufti finished the day with Reuters, charging, "We denounce all
massacres, but I don't see why a certain massacre should be used for political
gain and blackmail."
However, as a matter of record, there was a
well-documented, thriving relationship between the Arab/ Muslim world and Nazi
Germany, with perhaps the most significant figure linking Hitler to the Middle
East being none other Sabri's very own predecessor, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj
Amin el-Husseini. Here is a brief review of that dark, overlooked chapter in
history.
During World War II the rabidly
anti-Semitic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, pledged
his unequivocal support to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist
movement. The Grand Mufti was put on the Nazi payroll in 1937 after he
met with Adolf Eichmann in Palestine. In fact, when the Grand Mufti had
to flee the Middle East in 1941 after the failure of the pro-Nazi coup
in Iraq, he was welcomed to Berlin by Hitler and provided with
high-power transmitters in order to broadcast pro-Nazi propaganda to
the Middle East. (More on the Nazi Grand Mufti)It should be pointed out that National Socialism had a profound impact
on the political philosophies of many radical Islamic political
organization, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in Egypt in
1928), Nasser`s Young Egypt movement, the Social Nationalist Party of
Syria founded by Anton Sa`ada, and the Ba`ath Party of Iraq.
One of the
main leaders of the 1941 pro-Nazi coup in Iraq was Khairallah Tulfah,
the uncle and guardian of Saddam Hussein. When Saddam failed in his
attempt to assassinate the Iraqi leader Abdel Karim Qassim in 1959, he
fled to Egypt where he was given protection by Grand Mufti- protégé
Nasser and ODESSA-connected former Nazis.
The Grand Mufti had also organized an all-Muslim unit of the SS for
Hitler
and was instrumental in forming the pro-Nazi Muslim Hanschar brigades
in Yugoslavia. After the war and his conviction for war crimes by the
Nuremberg Tribunal, the Grand Mufti fled to Egypt where, as part of the
ODESSA network of former SS operatives, he maintained close ties to
former high-ranking Nazis who were now engaged in gun-running
operations to Arab countries fighting the fledgling State of Israel.
One such ex-Nazi gunrunner was Major General Otto Ernst Remer
(1912-1997), known as the ``Godfather of the neo-Nazi movement.`` Remer
had a major part in thwarting the Generals` Plot against Hitler in July
1944. Hitler rewarded Remer by putting him in charge of his protection
detail. In the chaos of the immediate post-war period, Remer escaped de-Nazification and returned to Germany.
In 1949 Remer and his associates founded the Sozialistische
Reichspartei in Lower Saxony, but the party was banned in 1952 as a
neo-Nazi political organization. Remer then settled in Egypt where he
began his close friendship with the Grand Mufti and also became security adviser to Gamal Abdel Nasser.
Remer, along with his associate Alois Bunning (who was Eichmann`s
assistant in the SS), operated his gunrunning company, the Orient
Trading Company, out of Damascus for many years. In the 1980`s, when
the statute of limitations expired for the crimes he was alleged to
have committed, Remer retired and returned to Germany where he became a close adviser to Michael Kuehnen,
the most important neo-Nazi leader of the postwar period in Germany.
Bosnian Moslems were recruited by the Grand Mufti Hajj Amin al Husseini (Arafat's 'cousin') to serve in the ranks of the German Waffen-SS.
The
following pictures take place in Bosnia, two years after the Grand Mufti Hajj
Amin al Husseini (blood relative of both the current Temple Mount Mufti and
Yasser Arafat) launched an unsuccessful pro-Nazi coup in Iraq.
In that coup, an
Iranian - Khayrallah Tulfah - was jailed for four years for his pro-Nazi
activities. He wrote a booklet called "Three Whom God Should Not Have Created:
Iranians, Jews, and Flies.", which was later distributed by the Ministry of
Education of Iraq. In 1947, Khayrallah Tulfah gave a home to his sister's ten
year old son, an orphan. His name was Saddam Hussein.
In the 1990's. the Christian Serbs later sought
retribution for what they claimed were "massive war crimes" by the Islamic
Bosnians during World War II, during the Bosnian-Croatian war in former
Yugoslavia.
| |
 |
Bosnian Moslems wearing fezzes
with Nazi insignia
Under the initiative of the Grand
Mufti of Jerusalem-a powerful Moslem leader exiled in Berlin-Bosnian Moslems
volunteered to serve in the ranks of the German Waffen-SS. Their special uniform
combined Nazi with Moslem elements
Date:
1943 |
 |
The Grand Mufti inspects Moslem SS units
Under Husseini's initiative and
supervision, Yugoslavian Moslem volunteer units-called "Handjar" (Sword)-joined
the German Waffen-SS. They fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia and massacred
Bosnians and Croatian Jews.
Date: 1943
Era: During WWII |
 |
Bosnian Moslems who volunteered to the German
army
Thousands of Bosnian Moslems
responded to the Mufti's call and volunteered to serve in the German army. The
volunteers wore special uniforms; the Nazi insignia decorated their fezzes
(typical moslem hat).
Date:
1943 |
 |
Nazis review Bosnian Moslem volunteers to the
Waffen-SS
In the spring of 1943, Bosnian
Moslems, responding to their Mufti's call, volunteered to serve in the German
army. They formed their own battalions within the ranks of the Waffen-SS. The
Germans publicized the Moslem-German collaboration.
Date:
1943 |
 |
Bosnian Moslem soldiers in the German army, at
prayer
Hajj Amin al Husseini, the Grand
Mufti of Jerusalem, allied himself with Nazi Germany. While exiled in Berlin and
sponsored by Nazi agencies, he brought to the creation of Moslem battalions
within the German Waffen-SS.
Date:
1943 |
 |
Hajj Amin al-Husseini with Bosnian Moslem
fighters
Husseini flew from Berlin to
Sarajevo to bless the Moslem army inspect its arms and observe its exercises.
Husseini's army in Croatia was comprised of some 20,000 Bosnian Moslems, all of
whom volunteered to serve in the German Waffen-SS. |
 |
Bosnian Moslems who volunteered to the German
army
Moslems living in Bosnia,
Yugoslavia, responded to the call of the exiled grand Mufti of Jerusalem and
enlisted as volunteers in the German army. Seen here are uniformed volunteers
holding a propaganda brochure: "Islam and Judaism."
Date:
1943 |
 |
Bosnian Moslems as volunteers in the German
army
Hajj Amin al Husseini-the Grand
Mufti of Jerusalem exiled in Berlin-planned to create a strong Arabic army and
to put it at the disposal of the Axis powers. Eventually, he succeeded in
forming Moslem units within the German Waffen-SS.
Date:
1943 |
 |
Close-up of Nazi officers reviewing Moslem
volunteers
Closeup of "Responding to the
initiative of the exiled Grand Mufti of Jerusalem", the Germans created separate
Moslem battalions within the Waffen-SS. Here, unidentified Nazi dignitaries
review the new recruits.
Date:
1943 |
 |
Bosnian Moslem soldiers in the German army during
prayer
During the spring of 1943, some
20,000 Moslem Bosnians responded to the Mufti's call to join the German
Waffen-SS. The Moslem volunteers, who served in separate units named "Handjar"
(Sword), actively participated in war operations.
Date:
1943 |
|
Nazi ally, Al
Husseini was Arafat’s “hero”
By Itamar Marcus
(08/05/02)
Arafat’s “hero” uncle was a Nazi Mufti<>
In an interview this week Arafat called his “uncle“, Arab leader and Nazi ally, Hajj Amin Al Husseini, “our hero”. Arafat referred to
“our hero Al Husseini" as a symbol of withstanding world pressure, having
remained an Arab leader in spite of demands to have him replaced because of his
Nazi ties. This he compared to Palestinian withstanding of world pressure for
reform of the Palestinian Authority today, which includes the American demand to
replace Arafat.
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem - The Führer's Mufti
Hajj Amin Al Husseini (1895-1974) was
the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
(and the notorious Nazi who mixed Nazi
propaganda and Islam.)
“He supported the Nazis, and especially their
program for the mass murder of the Jews. He visited numerous death camps and
encouraged Hitler to extend the "Final Solution" to the Jews of North Africa and
Palestine. In 1946 he escaped to Egypt.”
He was wanted for war crimes and the slaughter of Jews in
Bosnia by Yugoslavia. His mix of militant propagandizing Islam was an
inspriation for both Yasser Arafat and Saddam Husein: He was also a close
relative of Yasser Arafat (his cousin) and grandfather of the current Temple Mount Mufti.
"Arafat's actual name was Abd al-Rahman abd al-Bauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini.
He shortened it to obscure his kinship with the notorious Nazi and ex-Mufti of
Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini." Howard M. Sachar, A HISTORY OF ISRAEL
(New York: Knopf, 1976). The Bet Agron International Center in Jerusalem
interviewed Arafat's brother and sister, who described the Mufti as a cousin
(family member) with tremendous influence on young Yassir after the Mufti
returned from Berlin to Cairo. Yasser Arafat himself keeps his exact lineage and
birthplace secret. Saddam Hussein was raised in the house of his uncle
Khayrallah Tulfah, who was a leader in the Mufti's pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in May
1941. [Simon Wiesenthal Center Web
Site]
Husseini with Nazi soldiers and
with Hitler
The following is the text from the
interview:
Interviewer: “I have heard voices from within the
[Palestinian] Authority in the past few weeks, saying that the reforms are
coordinated according to American whims…”
Arafat: “We are not
Afghanistan…We are the Mighty People. Were they able to replace our hero Hajj
Amin al-Husseini? ... There were a number of attempts to get rid of Hajj Amin,
whom they considered an ally of the Nazis. But even so, he lived in Cairo, and
participated in the 1948 war, and I was one of his troops.”
[Al Sharq al
Awsat, a London Arabic daily, reprinted in the Palestinian daily Al Quds, Aug,
2, 2002]
ALSO SEE:
The Nazi Roots of
Palestinian Terror
14-Part Debate (EC)
(07/22/03)
One of the most prominent Arab leaders in
Palestine and the Middle East. Some believe that Husseini's collaboration with
the Germans was designed to obtain support for Arab national goals from a power
that seemed to have good prospects for winning the war. Others link his sympathy
for Nazi Germany to his enthusiasim for its anti-Jewish policies, particularly,
the Final Solution. Some even perceive a general ideological affinity between
totalitarian Fascist and Nazi theories and Islam, as conceived by
Husseini.
Pre - War Contacts with the Nazis
After he had broken with Britain, Husseini sent
two emissaries to Berlin to make concrete proposals for collaboration. This
occurred in December 1937 and in May 1939. As a result, Wilhelm Canaris, chief
of the Abwehr supported the Arab uprising in Palestine.
Husseini's Fate is Linked With
the Fascist
Powers
After World War I, the Great Powers of
Europe jockeyed for influence in the Middle East's oil fields and trade routes,
with France and Britain holding mandates throughout most of the region. In the
1930s, the fascist regimes that arose in Italy and Germany sought greater stakes
in the area, and began courting Arab leaders to revolt against their British and
French custodians. Among their many willing accomplices was Jerusalem Mufti Haj
Amin el-Husseini, who fled Palestine after agitating against the British during
the Arab Revolt of 1936-39
He found refuge in Iraq – another of Her Majesty's
mandates – where he again topped the British most wanted list after helping pull
the strings behind the Iraqi coup of 1941. The revolt in Baghdad was
orchestrated by Hitler as part of a strategy to squeeze the region between the
pincers of Rommel's troops in North Africa, German forces in the Caucuses and
pro-Nazi forces in Iraq. However, in June 1941 British troops put down the
rebellion and the Mufti escaped via Tehran to Italy and eventually to
Berlin.
Once
in Berlin, the Mufti received an enthusiastic reception by the
"Islamische Zentralinstitut" and the whole Islamic community of Germany,
which welcomed him as the "Führer of the Arabic world." In an
introductory speech, he called the Jews the "most fierce enemies of
the Muslims" and an "ever corruptive element" in the world. Husseini
soon became an honored guest of the Nazi leadership and met on several
occasions with Hitler. The Mufti intervened with pro-Nazi
governments in Eastern Europe, making sure that additional hundreds of
thousands of Jews were sent to Nazi death camps.
He personally lobbied the
Führer against the plan to let Jews leave Hungary, fearing they would immigrate
to Palestine. "As a Sequel to This Request 400,000 Jews Were Subsequently Killed." (The Nation)
He also strongly intervened when Adolf Eichman tried to cut a deal
with the British government to exchange German POWs for 5000 Jewish children who
also could have fled to Palestine. The Mufti's protests with the SS were
successful, as the children were sent to death camps in Poland instead. One
German officer noted in his journals that the Mufti would liked to have seen the
Jews "preferably all killed." On a visit to Auschwitz, he reportedly admonished
the guards running the gas chambers to work more diligently. Throughout the war,
he appeared regularly on German radio broadcasts to the Middle East, preaching
his pro-Nazi, anti-Semitic message to the Arab masses back home.
To show gratitude towards his hosts, in 1943 the Mufti travelled several
times to Bosnia, where on orders of the SS he recruited the notorious "Hanjar
troopers," a special Bosnian Waffen SS company which slaughtered 90% of
Bosnia's Jews and burned countless Serbian churches and villages. These Bosnian
Muslim recruits rapidly found favor with SS chief Heinrich Himmler, who
established a special Mullah Military school in Dresden.
The only condition the Mufti set for his help was that after Hitler won the
war, the entire Jewish population in Palestine should be liquidated.
| Hajj Amin al-Husseini with Bosnian Moslem
fighters
Husseini flew from Berlin to
Sarajevo to bless the Moslem army inspect its arms and observe its exercises.
Husseini's army in Croatia was comprised of some 20,000 Bosnian Moslems, all of
whom volunteered to serve in the German Waffen-SS. |
<>
After the
war, Husseini fled to Switzerland and from there escaped via France to Cairo,
were he was warmly received. The Mufti used funds received earlier from the
Hilter regime to finance the Nazi-inspired Arab Liberation Army that terrorized
Jews in Palestine.
From
October 1941, Husseini linked his fate with the fascist powers. He also was in
touch with the Japanese. He sought to pursue Arab national political goals and
lend his support to the Final Solution. For the former he set three main goals:
the issuance of a joint German-Italian declaration recognizing the independence
of the Arab nations and their unity in federation; the establishment of a center
for Arab sabotage and propaganda, under his control; and the formation of an
Arab army to fight on the Axis side.
The German foreign minister, Joachim von
Ribbentrop did not make the declaration Husseini wanted, but in a private letter
said much of what Husseini wanted to hear regarding Arabs states under British
auspices. Neither did the Mufti create the center he had in mind, but he did
link himself with Axis intelligence. To demonstrate their support for the idea,
the Germans dropped two Arab parachutists over Jericho and five over Mosul,
Iraq. Husseini's plan to form an Arab legion failed to gain much response. As of
1942, a small German-Arab training section was created, with 130 men. In
November 1944, the Arab legion was set up, but it existed mostly on
paper.
A Moslem Leader in the Service of the
Nazis
Husseini's contribution to the Axis war effort was
more successful in his capacity as a Moslem leader. He recruited and organized
Bosnian Muslim battalions in 1943, known as the Handjar (Sword), who were put
into the Waffen-SS. They fought partisans in Bosnia, participated in the
massacre of civilians there, and carried out police and security duties in
Hungary. Husseini also helped boost the fighting morale of the
Ostbattaillone.
Husseini's Support of the Final
Solution
Husseini's men attended SS training courses and
visited Sachsenhausen. At an early stage the mufti was aware of the
extermination of the Jews and he tried to persuade the Axis to extend the
extermination to North Africa and Palestine. He also repeatedly proprosed the
Luftwaffe bomb Tel Aviv. When he found out that efforts were underway to save
Jews by means of various barter arrangements, he did all he could to foil
them.
After the War - Evading Prosecution
When the war ended, Husseini was arrested in
France, but in June 1946, he escaped and made his way to asylum in Egypt.
Although there was ample proof to arrest him as a war criminal after the war,
the Allies made no effort to do so. They were deterred by Husseini's prestige in
the Arab world. In 1946, Yugoslavia, asked for his extradition, but the Arab
League and the Egyptian government succeeded in having the demand tabled.
The Arab Embrace of Nazism:
Husseini represents the prevalent
pro-Nazi posture among the Arab/Muslim world before, during and even after the
Holocaust.
<>The Nazi-Arab connection existed even when Adolf Hitler first seized
power in Germany in 1933. News of the Nazi takeover was welcomed by the Arab
masses with great enthusiasm, as the first congratulatory telegrams Hitler
received upon being appointed Chancellor came from the German Consul in
Jerusalem, followed by those from several Arab capitals. Soon afterwards,
parties that imitated the National Socialists were founded in many Arab lands,
like the "Hisb-el-qaumi-el-suri" (PPS) or Social Nationalist Party in Syria. Its
leader, Anton Sa'ada, styled himself the Führer of the Syrian nation, and Hitler
became known as "Abu Ali" (In Egypt his name was "Muhammed Haidar"). The banner
of the PPS displayed the swastika on a black-white background. Later, a Lebanese
branch of the PPS – which still receives its orders from Damascus – was involved
in the assassination of Lebanese President Pierre Gemayel.
After
the fall of Nazi Germany, Al Husseini fled to Cairo, Egypt in 1946
rather than face war crime charges for his actions in Yugoslavia. But
he continued his operations.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Al Husseini worked closely with the most influential party that emulated the Nazis was "Young Egypt," which had been founded in October 1933.
In
1952 Gamal Abdul Nasser, a prominent member of Young Egypt, was among
military officers who seized control of the Egyptian government from
King Fu'ad. Their first act – following
in Hitler's footsteps – was to outlaw all other parties. They had storm troopers, torch processions, and
literal translations of Nazi slogans – like "One folk, One party, One leader."
Nazi anti-Semitism was replicated, with calls to boycott Jewish businesses and
physical attacks on Jews. Britain had a bitter experience with this pro-German
mood in Egypt, when the official Egyptian government failed to declare war on
the Wehrmacht as German troops were about to conquer Alexandria.
After the war, Nasser's Egypt became a
safe haven for Nazi war criminals.
Al Husseini is reported to have been responsible for bringing among them Otto Skorzeny, the Nazi commando once labeled by the OSS as "the most dangerous man in Europe and who had been in charge of the
murder of tens of thousands of Ukrainian Jews and who later became Nasser's bodyguard and close comrade.
al Husseini was also instrumental in arranging the senior Nazi war
criminal Alois Brunner's employment as an advisor to the Syrian general
staff where he
served for many years and where Brunner still
resides in Damascus today.
<>Similarly, Al Husseini had a strong influence over the founding members of both the Iraqi and Syrian Ba'ath party.
Sami al-Joundi, one of the founders of the Ba'ath Party, recalls: "We
were racists. We admired the Nazis. We were immersed in reading Nazi
literature and books... We were the first who thought of a translation
of Mein Kampf. Anyone who lived in Damascus at that time was witness to
the Arab inclination toward Nazism."
After the war, as the world began to look with distaste upon Nazi
ideology, it is with little wonder that in 1951, a close relative of
the Mufti named Rahman Abdul Rauf el-Qudwa el-Husseini matriculated to
the University of Cairo. The student decided to conceal his true
identity and enlisted as "Yasser Arafat." <>Al Husseini also had a central role in the creation of the Palestinian
Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964 is perhaps his most indelible
mark on the Middle East today.
The radical Imam was the spiritual mentor of the first chairman of the
PLO, Ahmed Shukairi, and saw that much of his ideology was instilled in
the organization. More importantly, Al Husseini used his extensive
connections to recruit financial supporters for the PLO throughout the
Arab world.<>
In recent years the PLO and and most notably Yasser Arafat himself did not make a secret of their source of
inspiration. The Grand Mufti el-Husseini is venerated as a hero by the PLO. It
should be noted, that the PLO's top figure in east Jerusalem today, Faisal
Husseini, is the grandson to the Führer's Mufti. Arafat also considers the Grand
Mufti a respected educator and leader, and in 1985 declared it an honor to
follow in his footsteps
Almost 30 years
after al Husseini's death in 1974, the Palestinian people still revere
him as a hero and embrace his radical theology. The "Arab Fuhrer's"
close Nazi association and virulent anti-Semitism is perhaps the reason
that Hitler's Meinf Kampf is ranked as the sixth all-time bestseller
among Palestinian Arabs. Luis Al-Haj,
translator of the Arabic edition, writes glowingly in the preface about how
Hitler's "ideology" and his "theories of nationalism, dictatorship and race… are
advancing especially within our Arabic States."
Several of his descendants remain active in Palestinian affairs today.<>
Al
Husseini's grandson, Faisal Husseini, was part of the PLO since 1964
and served as minister without portfolio in the Palestinian National
Authority, with responsibility for Jerusalem until his death in May
2001.
The
radical imam's nephew, Rahman Abdul Rauf el-Qudwa el Husseini, or
better known for his nom de guerre: Yasser Arafat, has been a major
player in Palestinian terrorism for almost 40 years. He was the guiding
force behind the merging of the Fatah faction into the PLO. The day When Palestinian police first
greeted Arafat in the self-rule areas, they offered the infamous Nazi salute -
the right arm raised straight and upward.
By the late 1980's many of the PLO's radical Muslim financiers had
become disillusioned with the increasingly secular nature of the
Palestinian movement. Yasser Arafat's and the Palestinian community's
support of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in the
early 1990s strongly angered and prompted many of these extremists in
the Persian Gulf states to reduce or all together withdraw their
financial backing of the PLO.
An astute emerging Sunni terrorist, Osama bin Laden, capitalized upon
Arafat's political misstep and transformed his al Qaeda organization
into the prime recipient of financial support from Sunni Muslim
radicals. That funding has enabled bin Laden to wage terrorist attacks
on western and Israeli interests for over a decade. His most recent
"Letter to the American People" echoed al Husseini's propaganda claim
that "the Israelis are planning to destroy the Al Aqsa mosque."
The is little doubt that throughout history the Arabs and Jews have
encountered the kind of friction that comes from any two distinct
religious or ethnic groups sharing the same geography. However, that
history has largely been one of relatively peaceful coexistence.
The divergence from that pattern occurs in 1920 with the rise of a
virulent anti-Semitic mufti of Jerusalem whose ideology embodied more
similarities to that of Nazi Germany than to the historical Islam of
Saladin or the Ottoman Turks.
The wave of extremist Islam that has plagued the world in the latter
days of the 20th century and into the opening days of the 21st, has
little to do with ancient history or Islam. The cause lays largely at
the feet ofthe Arab Fuhrer; GraHaj
Amin Muhammad Al Husseini, who utilized murder and anti-Semitism to
consolidate his power over his fellow Arabs and further his personal
quest to be caliph of the pan-Arab world.
ALSO SEE:
The Nazi Roots of Modern Radical Islam
(Defence Watch) By Tom Knowlton (12/23/02)
Arafat, the Nazi
(WND) By Joseph Farah
(08/14/02)
Arafat´s Terrorist
Past
(WND) By
Reed Irvine (05/11/02)
The Day Arafat Was
Offered Power
(WND) By Joseph Farrah (05/20/02)
Yasser Arafat: (ICT.org Report)
Psychological Profile and
Strategic Analysis
Writers: Paul Longgrear, Raymond McNemar
Source (both Pictures and Text):
http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t031/t03148.html
Museum of Tolerance, Multimedia Learning Center
Copyright © 1997, The Simon Wiesenthal
Center
____________________________________________
================================================
The Palestinian-Al Qaeda-Neo-Nazi Connection
By William Grim Posted 2/25/2004
On the surface there would seem to be little to unite the Aryan
racialists of the neo-Nazi movement with the terrorists of radical
Islam.
To the neo-Nazis, Muslims are almost all members of ``inferior`` races;
and to the Islamic terrorists, the neo-Nazis are almost without
exception either atheists or members of fringe quasi-Christian sects.
But the reality is that there has been close cooperation between Muslim
extremists and Fascists ever since the founding of the Nazi movement in
the 1920`s. For all of their differences, Muslim extremists and Nazis
have always been united by a common group of beliefs and goals: hatred
of Judaism (and conventional Christianity), hatred of democracy, and a
desire for the destruction of Israel and the United States.
A
little background is in order. During World War II the rabidly
anti-Semitic Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Al-Husseini, pledged
his unequivocal support to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialist
movement. The Grand Mufti was put on the Nazi payroll in 1937 after he
met with Adolf Eichmann in Palestine. In fact, when the Grand Mufti had
to flee the Middle East in 1941 after the failure of the pro-Nazi coup
in Iraq, he was welcomed to Berlin by Hitler and provided with
high-power transmitters in order to broadcast pro-Nazi propaganda to
the Middle East. (More on the Nazi Grand Mufti)
It should be pointed out that National Socialism had a profound impact
on the political philosophies of many radical Islamic political
organization, particularly the Muslim Brotherhood (founded in Egypt in
1928), Nasser`s Young Egypt movement, the Social Nationalist Party of
Syria founded by Anton Sa`ada, and the Ba`ath Party of Iraq. One of the
main leaders of the 1941 pro-Nazi coup in Iraq was Khairallah Tulfah,
the uncle and guardian of Saddam Hussein. When Saddam failed in his
attempt to assassinate the Iraqi leader Abdel Karim Qassim in 1959, he
fled to Egypt where he was given protection by Grand Mufti- protégé
Nasser and ODESSA-connected former Nazis. The rest, as they say, is
history.
The Third Position
The rise of Al Qaeda and the explosion of neo-Nazi activity in Germany
and elsewhere coincided with the breakup of the USSR in the early
1990`s and the political vacuum created by the absence of the former
Soviet behemoth. Neo-Nazis in both Europe and the United States began
making overtures to Islamic terrorists and even to Louis Farrakhan`s
Nation of Islam movement. The resulting admixture of Nazi and
Islamicist ideologies is something that is termed the ``Third
Position.``
Simply put, adherents of the ``Third Position`` oppose both communism
and capitalism, the latter category subsuming Israel, the United States
and
all other democratic countries which are believed to be under the
control of ``International Jewry.`` To this end, the socialist portion
of Nazi beliefs is emphasized (as opposed to Hitler`s reliance on
corporatism), but the core belief in anti-Semitism is left unaltered.
Like the original Nazis, the Third Positioners are eager to form
alliances with Muslim (and black) extremists who share their
anti-Semitic beliefs.
In Germany, the neo-Nazi leader Gottfried Kuessel has maintained close
ties to Farrakhan`s Black Muslims, and Karl-Heinz Hoffmann, thought to
have been involved in the murder of Jewish publisher Shlomo Levin as
well as the Oktoberfest bombing of September 26, 1980, in which 13
persons were killed and over 200 injured, has long maintained ties with
Arafat`s PLO and even moved his paramilitary training camp to Lebanon
in 1980 with PLO assistance.
In France, the neo-Nazi leader Robert Faurisson maintains close ties
with Ahmed Rami, the former broadcaster of the now-defunct Radio Islam,
a viciously anti-Semitic station that operated out of Stockholm for a
number of years. And for some time, Sweden`s neo-Nazis have provided
skinheads for use as Rami`s bodyguards.
Much of the coordination of neo-Nazi/Muslim terrorist activities is
done in the United States. Since overt Nazi activity is outlawed in
Germany and many other European countries, neo-Nazis and Islamic
extremists have taken advantage of America`s First Amendment protection
of almost all political activity. In fact, the headquarters of many
German Based Neo-Nazi Organizations today are run out of the United
States.
The Internet and electronic banking make communication and the transfer
of funds instantaneous. Even when the transfer of funds needs to be
done in person, American law permits every individual to enter or leave
the country with $10,000 in cash or negotiable securities without reporting it.
The First Gulf War in 1991 was a catalyzing event in the development of
neo-Nazi and Islamic terrorist relations. Early in 1991, the German
neo-Nazi leader Michael Kuehnen contacted the Iraqi Embassy in Bonn and
offered to train and equip a squadron of neo-Nazi mercenaries to assist
Saddam in the coming war against the alliance led by the United States.
Indeed, when Kuehnen was arrested for the last time by German police in
April of 1991 (Kuehnen died shortly afterwards of AIDS), included among
the documents found in his apartment was a copy of a draft treaty
between the ``Anti-Zionist League`` and the ``Government of Iraq.``
Another German neo-Nazi leader, Heinz Reisz, appearing live on Hessian
state television on January 25, 1991, gained a great deal of notoriety
by proclaiming, ``Long live the fight for Saddam Hussein, long live his
people, long live their leader, God save the Arab people.``
Although upwards of as many as 500 neo-Nazi mercenaries, formed into a
so-called Freedom Corps, were sent to Iraq in 1991, their military
effect was negligible at best. Eyewitness accounts say that most of the
mercenaries did little other than parade around Baghdad in SS uniforms.
The members of the ``Freedom Corps`` fled Iraq after the first night of
Alliance bombing. Regardless of the ignominious military performance of
the neo-Nazis in Iraq in 1991, this was an important event because it
led to greater ties and cooperation among American right-wing
extremists, European neo-Nazis and Islamic terrorists.
Oklahoma City
Domestic terrorism in the United States also rose greatly in the
aftermath of the first Gulf War. Timothy McVeigh, himself a veteran of
that conflict, stunned the world by his bombing of the Murrah Federal
Building in 1995 in Oklahoma City. But the evidence suggests that the
neo-Nazi/Islamic terrorist network played a significant role in this
act of terrorism.
First, the choice of a terrorist target in Oklahoma is very telling.
Although Oklahoma is a conservative southern state that has a
reputation for patriotism, it is also one of the bastions of the
neo-Nazi movement in the United States. In 1991, the Oklahoma Klan
leader Dennis Mahon led a rally in support of Saddam Hussein in Tulsa.
And Oklahoma is also home to Elohim City, a neo-Nazi paramilitary
compound that has served as a training ground for right-wing extremists
for the past thirty years. Groups associated with Elohim City have
included The Order, Covenant Sword and Arm, White Aryan Resistance and
the Aryan Republican Army. The latter group included Timothy McVeigh
among its members.
Extremists residing at Elohim City received military-style training
from a number of sources. One of the trainers there was Andreas Carl
Strassmeir of Germany, a neo- Nazi and the son of Guenter Strassmeir, a
chief aide of disgraced former German chancellor Helmut Kohl. The elder
Strassmeir is widely regarded as the architect of Kohl`s reunification
plan that merged the former East Germany with the Federal Republic in
1991.And Guenter`s father was one of the original members of the Nazi
Party in the early
1920`s.
Andreas Strassmeir is important to this story because he not only
became a close friend and confidant of Timothy McVeigh, but also
because he is regarded by many investigators as John Doe #2, the
unknown person assisting McVeigh and Terry Nichols at the scene of the
Oklahoma City bombing who was seen by a number of eyewitnesses.
In addition to training various neo-Nazi and militia groups, Strassmeir
was involved in a number of very curious activities. According to an
FBI report dated May 10, 1995, ``Additional documents reveal that
at one time Strassmeir was attempting to purchase a 747 aircraft from
Lufthansa; however, the reason for the purchase is not reflected in the
documents.``
In 1995 it would not have been unreasonable for an FBI investigator to
give Strassmeir`s attempted purchase of a Boeing 747 mere passing
notice. In light of 9/11, however, Strassmeir`s aborted airliner
purchase gives one pause and raises the real possibility that 9/11 type
attacks were being planned as far back as 1995 by insiders in the
neo-Nazi/Islamic terrorist network. (And flying a privately owned jet
or one operated by remote control would save the problem of hijacking
airliners en route.) Strassmeir left the United States shortly after
the bombing and currently
resides in Berlin.
Mutual Enemies, Mutual Interests
The many points of contact between the neo-Nazis and the Islamic
terrorists and their mutual targets of large public buildings
demonstrate what I would like to term the``Strangers on a Train``
scenario of current terrorist activity.
In the Alfred Hitchcock movie
of that name, two men unknown to each other meet on a train and start
talking. Each needs to dispose of a person. They agree to kill each
other`s intended victim, thereby eliminating the element of motive from
the ensuing police investigations. In a similar manner, evidence of
late tends to support the idea that Al Qaeda is farming out terrorist
work -- which is why
American investigators have been so interested in the remote area of
South America where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay border each other.
It is there that wealthy German ex-Nazis, Islamic terrorists, Basque
and IRA terrorists on the lam as well as narco-terrorists are known to
be in steady contact. The possibilities for Mafia-style terrorist
``contracts`` are virtually unlimited.
It may come as something of a surprise to some when they realize just
how well funded the various neo-Nazi organizations are. Authorities
have known for years that a Swiss banker by the name of Francois Genoud
has been funding neo-Nazi activities throughout the world. Genoud first
gained prominence as the financial adviser to the Grand Mufti of
Jerusalem. He is alleged to have funded neo-Nazi activities through the
use of confiscated Jewish funds that were deposited in Swiss banks by
the Nazis. Genoud funded the legal defense of Eichmann during his trial
in 1961. And most chilling of all, Genoud was closely associated with
the Palestinian terrorists who murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich
Olympics in 1972.
Another Swiss financier of neo-Nazi and Islamic terror is Ahmed
Huber,
(nee Albert Huber), a former journalist who converted to Islam. Swiss
authorities raided Huber`s suburban home outside of Berne on November
8, 2001, when U.S. officials identified him as one of the chief
financial operators for Al Qaeda. Huber had been very active with the
Al Taqwa (literally ``Fear of God``) international banking group, an
Islamic terrorist front organization that had been funding the
activities of Hamas and other Muslim extremists. According to a report
released by Germany`s Bundesamt fuer Verfassungsschutz (``Office for
the Protection of the Constitution``), Huber ``sees himself as a
mediator between Islam and right-wing groups.``
Huber and others of his ilk have found that Holocaust denial
organizations provide the ideal venues for coordinating the efforts of
the neo-Nazis and the Islamic terrorists. Indeed, Holocaust denial is
the one area in which the beliefs of the neo-Nazis and Islamic
terrorists coincide completely. And given the levels of post-9/11
security, international Holocaust denial conferences now have greater
importance for planning and coordination among the neo-Nazi/Islamic terrorist networks.
This is due to the unfortunate fact that Holocaust denial organizations
have the patina of scholarly respectability. Groups such as the Santa
Barbara, California-based Institute for Historical Review produce
glossy quasi-academic-style journals complete with footnotes and
bibliography and well-designed and user-friendly websites.
Holocaust denial groups sponsor international meetings that allow
representatives of neo-Nazi and Islamic terrorist groups to meet
because they narrowly fall within guidelines in most Western countries
allowing for the free exchange of ``ideas.`` And with the current
embrace of anti- Semitism by most leftist academics (in addition to
their traditional anti-Americanism), there is now often very little
difference between the symposia sponsored by officially recognized
Middle Eastern Studies organizations in America and Europe and those
organized by Holocaust denial groups.
While American forces continue to identify and destroy Al Qaeda`s
ability to conduct terrorist activities on its own, we must become more
vigilant to the increasing possibility of ``terror by hire`` as
neo-Nazi and other right-wing extremists step up to fill the void.
The next 9/11-style terrorist attack may not be attempted by a keffiya-
wearing Arab terrorist spouting quotations from the Koran, but by an
IRA terrorist whose services were purchased by a left-wing European
intellectual attending a Middle Eastern Studies caucus of some leftist
academic group during an annual conference in Omaha or Chicago or San Francisco.
|
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Islam:
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Soviet Era Weapons Re-Appear in "rogue states"
Charles R.
Smith -- Aug. 5,
2004
The Cold War may be over but the Soviet Union
lives on in the form of dangerous weapons sold around the world. The Soviet
empire developed some of the most deadly weapons in history and many of them are
re-appearing in the inventories of rogue states.
U.S. defense
intelligence sources assert that North Korea is developing two new missiles
based on a Soviet design from the Cold War. According to a report published by
Janes, both North Korean missiles appear to be based on the Soviet R-27 - NATO
code name SERB SS-N-6 - submarine launched ballistic missile. The new North Korean
missiles are estimated to have a maximum range of 2,400 miles. One version is a
land-based, road-mobile, missile and the second version is a submarine or
ship-mounted system.
The submarine and ship-mounted version is of special concern in that North
Korea and Iran have reportedly worked together on a ship-mounted ballistic
missile capable of being deployed near American shores, within easy striking
distance to many U.S. cities.
"A pernicious aspect of North Korea's new R-27-based missile is that
Pyongyang is able to leap into the second generation of liquid fuels-storable
liquid fueled rockets. Now the North Koreans can move out of vulnerable
cave-based launch facilities made necessary by their 1940s level SCUD technology
and put missiles into silos, submarines or ships," stated Richard Fisher, Vice
President of the International Assessment and Strategy Center.
"This will serve to exponentially raise their ability to create future
threats, especially when they begin to export to technology to
proliferation-prone Pakistan and other terrorist-inclined clients," stated
Fisher.
Moscow Approved
The concern is considered very real inside Washington. The Soviet R-27
missile carried a single nuclear warhead. A second version, called the R-27U,
could carry three nuclear warheads. Each R-27U warhead had the destructive force
of 200,000 tons of TNT, more than enough to destroy a U.S. city.
Janes reports that the technology may have originated from the Russian VP
Makeyev Design Bureau in Miass, Chelyabinsk, which developed the Soviet
submarine, based R-27 missile. Twenty missile engineers from the bureau were
detained by Russia in December 1992 as they were attempting to fly to North
Korea.
The missile engineers had reported that they had approval for their travel to
North Korea from the Russian Ministry of General Machine Building and the
Ministry of Security. The engineers stated that they had been recruited to
assist North Korea in developing a space launch vehicle.
Relations between North Korea and the U.S. have been tense since the
admission by Pyongyang that it was developing a nuclear bomb. The admission led
to six-party talks sponsored by communist China but little progress has been
made at the Beijing negotiations.
North Korean MIG-29
However, the military tension between the U.S. and North Korea has been at a
peak throughout the year. According to Tokyo Shinbun, a Japanese intelligence
aircraft flying in international waters off the coast of North Korea was
threatened by a missile attack from a North Korean MiG-29 fighter in March.
According to an official statement made by the Japanese Self-Defense Forces
(JDF), a North Korean MIG-29 fighter engaged and locked its fire-control radar
onto an EP-3 Japanese intelligence and electronic warfare aircraft that
approached the Korean Peninsula.
The JDF responded by scrambling two F-15J jet fighters to the scene. When the
two F-15J fighters arrived the North Korean MiG-29 turned off its targeting
radar and left the area.
However, the MiG-29 returned later to lock onto a U.S. RC-135S scout plane
that was flying at a lower altitude than the Japanese patrol aircraft. According
to the JDF, the North Korean MiG-29 continued to maintain a fire-control radar
lock for more than 20 minutes on the U.S. plane.
The Soviet era MiG-29 Fulcrum is the top of the line jet fighter for the
North Korean air force. Although, not as advanced as western fighters the MiG is
considered to be good dog-fighting machine equipped with long-range and
short-range air-to-air missiles.
Migs For Sudan
Yet, the Fulcrum has also been in the news lately. Russia came in for harsh
criticism last week from the U.S. State Department when state-owned jet producer
MiG delivered 12 MiG-29 Fulcrum jet fighters to Sudan.
According to the Moscow Times, the main MiG assembly plant at Lukhovtsy,
south of Moscow, had some 200 MiG-29 fighters on hand when the Soviet Union
collapsed in 1991, most of them ready to ship. The MiG design bureau is in the
process of selling off the Soviet hardware to nations like Algeria, Yemen and
Sudan.
According to MiG director Valery Torianine, MiG plans to deliver 36 MiG-29
Fulcrum fighter planes this year to foreign buyers, 20 new aircraft and 16
modernized versions.
U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton sharply criticized Moscow for
selling the advanced jet fighters to Sudan. The United States currently lists
Sudan as a sponsor of international terrorism.
The U.S. and other western powers are pressing Sudan to end its racist war
against indigenous black tribes in the Darfur region. Over the past 15 months,
Sudanese government-backed Arab janjaweed militia have left |
