Islamic Fascism: the Nazi Connection
December 11, 2012 By Gary Aminoff
Many people buy into the premise that the World Trade Center attack on September 11 was a result of some misguided foreign policy of the United States. Others believe that Islamist terror attacks began in the 1970s, 1980s or 1990s as a result of something that we, as a country, have done to provoke such an attack.
When confronting an enemy it is helpful to know what it is that drives him. The U.S. and the West need to realistically look at the true motives of Islamic terrorists in order to properly confront them. I will show that Islamic Jihad is not motivated by any specific policies of the U.S. or the West, but instead is principally motivated by a fanatic, obsessive hatred of Jews, and that Islamic Jihad was, and continues to be, strongly influenced by the Nazis.
Despite common misconceptions, modern Islamic Fascism was not born during the 1960s, but during the 1930s. Its rise was not inspired by the failure of Nasserism in Egypt, but by the rise of Nazism in Germany, and prior to 1951 all of its campaigns were directed, not against Western colonialism, but against the Jews.
It was the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in Cairo in 1928, that established Islamic Jihad as a mass movement. The significance of the Muslim Brotherhood to Islamic Fascism is comparable to the significance of the Bolshevik Party to Communism: it was, and it remains to this day, the ideological reference point and the organizational core for all later Islamist groups, including Al Queda and Hamas.
While British colonial policy contributed to the rise of Islamic radicalism, the Brotherhood’s jihad was not directed against the British, but focused almost exclusively on Zionism and the Jews.
Membership in the Brotherhood rose from 800 members in 1936 to over 200,000 in 1938. In those two years the Brotherhood conducted a major campaign in Egypt, and it was against the Jews, not against the British occupiers. This campaign against the Jews, in the late 1930s, which established the Brotherhood as a mass movement of Islamic Jihadists, was set off by a rebellion in Palestine directed against Jewish immigration from Europe and Russia. That campaign was initiated by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Muhammed Amin al-Husseini.
Al-Husseini was extremely impressed with Adolf Hitler and his anti-Jewish rhetoric. In 1941 he visited Hitler in Berlin. He was so enthralled with Hitler and the Nazis, and their plans to exterminate the Jews that he decided to remain in Berlin. He lived there from 1941 to 1945, recruiting Muslims in Europe for the Waffen-SS. He was very close to Hitler. Husseini’s best friends were Heinrich Himmler and Adolf Eichmann.
He convinced Hitler that he would be able to persuade his Muslim brothers in the Arab world to carry out the extermination of Jews in the Middle East, just as the Nazis were doing in Europe.
In November, 1943, In appreciation of the work that al-Husseini was doing in exterminating Jews, Himmler wrote him the following telegram:
“To the Grand Mufti: The National Socialist movement of Greater Germany has, since its inception, inscribed upon its flag the fight against the world Jewry. It has therefore followed with particular sympathy the struggle of freedom-loving Arabs, especially in Palestine, against Jewish interlopers. In the recognition of this enemy and of the common struggle against it lies the firm foundation of the natural alliance that exists between the National Socialist Greater Germany and the freedom-loving Muslims of the whole world. In this spirit I am sending you on the anniversary of the infamous Balfour declaration my hearty greetings and wishes for the successful pursuit of your struggle until the final victory. Signed: Reichsfuehrer S.S. Heinrich Himmler”
In his memoirs after the war, Al-Husseini noted that “Our fundamental condition for cooperating with Germany was a free hand to eradicate every last Jew from Palestine and the Arab world. I asked Hitler for an explicit undertaking to allow us to solve the Jewish problem in a manner befitting our national and racial aspirations and according to the scientific methods innovated by Germany in the handling of its Jews.” The answer I got from the Fuehrer was: ‘The Jews are yours.'”
The Muslim Brotherhood organized mass demonstrations in Egyptian cities during the late 1930s under the slogans, “Down with the Jews”, “Jews get out of Egypt and Palestine”, and the like. Leaflets called for a boycott of Jewish goods and Jewish shops, and the Brotherhood’s newspaper, Al-Nadhir, carried a regular column on “The Danger of the Jews of Egypt.”
The Brotherhood’s campaign against the Jews in the 1936-1938 period used not only Nazi tactics, but also significant Nazi funding. As the respected Norwegian historian Brynjar Lia recounted in his monograph on the Muslim Brotherhood, “Documents seized in the flat of Willhelm Stellbogen, the Director of the German News Agency in Cairo, show that prior to 1939 the Muslim Brotherhood received financial subsidies from the German Legation in Cairo. Stellbogen was instrumental in transferring these funds from the Nazi regime to the Muslim Brotherhood.”
From August 1938 through the end of the Second World War, Amin al-Husseini received financial and military assistance and supplies from Nazi Germany and from fascist Italy, which he sent to Egypt and Palestine. From Berlin, al-Husseini played a significant role in inter-Arab politics.
At the same time, the Muslim Brotherhood became the first organization to propagate, in modern times, the archaic idea of a belligerent and violent jihad and the culture of longing for death. In 1938, Hassan al-Banna, the Brotherhood’s charismatic founder, published his concept of Jihad in an article titled “The Industry of Death.” He wrote: “To a nation that perfects the industry of death and which knows how to die nobly, Allah gives proud life in this world, and eternal grace in the world to come.”
This slogan was enthusiastically taken up by the “Troops of God”, as the Brothers had begun to call themselves. As they held demonstrations in the late 1930’s in Cairo, marching in fascistic formation they would sing: “We are not afraid of death, we desire it. Let us die to redeem Islam”
The death cult that became a hallmark of modern Islamic Fascism was laced with Jew-hatred from the very beginning. This attitude sprung not only from Nazi influences but it also drew directly on Islamic sources.
First, Islamic Jihadists considered, and still to this day consider, Palestine (that includes present-day Israel) to be an Islamic territory (Dar al-Islam), where, according to the Koran, Jews must not run a single village, let alone a state. At best, in their view, this land should be Jew-free (Judenrein); at the very least Jews there should be relegated to subservient status (dhimmi) and should live under Sharia law. The existence of a Jewish State in Dar al-Islam contradicts the word of the Koran, which is why Muslims are so intent on destroying Israel. So long as Israel exists in Dar-al-Islam, the precepts of the Koran are not being fulfilled. There are a lot of passages in the Koran and in the history of Muhammed and his conquests that give justification to Islamists for the killing of Jews.
In 1946, the Muslim Brotherhood made sure that the Grand Mufti, who was then being sought as a war criminal by both Britain and the U.S. was granted asylum and a new lease on his political life in Egypt.
Al-Husseini had been a close ally of both the Muslim Brotherhood and the Nazis. In addition to directing Muslim SS divisions in the Balkans during the Second World War, he had been personally responsible for blocking negotiations late in the war that might have saved thousands of Jewish children from being exterminated in the gas chambers.
All of this was known in 1946 by both Britain and the U.S. Nonetheless, both chose to forego criminal prosecution of al-Husseini in order to avoid hurting their relations with the Arab world. France, which was holding Al-Husseini, deliberately let him go at the request of the Arab League.
For many in the Arab world, what amounted to amnesty for this prominent Islamist who had spent years broadcasting Nazi propaganda to the Arabs was seen as a vindication of his actions. The Arabs started to view Al-Husseini’s past with pride rather than with shame. Escaped and wanted Nazi criminals now flooded into the Arab world where they knew they would have sanctuary.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s unconditional solidarity with Al-Husseini and with his Nazi compatriots now in the Middle East led to anti-Jewish riots throughout Egypt and the Middle East just months after the liberation of Auschwitz. In 1946, Yugoslavia requested extradition from Egypt of Amin Al-Husseini for War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. The Egyptian government refused to release him.
After the war, Al-Husseini used his recently acquired Nazi methodology to implement his vision of a Middle East free of Jews. Belief in a worldwide Jewish conspiracy had migrated from Nazi Germany to the Middle East, where it survived and flourished.
An especially striking example of its continuing influence is the charter adopted in 1988 by the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine, now known as Hamas. In this Charter, the following language appears: Hamas defines itself as the “spearhead and the avant-garde of the struggle against World Zionism.” “The Jews,” the charter explains, “were behind the French Revolution, and the Communist Revolution. They were behind World War I and World War II. There is no war anywhere without the Jews having their hand in it.”
In 1930s and 1940s Europe, the sheer absurdity of the claims made against the Jews by the Nazis made it difficult for educated Europeans to take them seriously. In the Arab world, when the Islamists make the same absurd claims, they are taken very seriously.
Western understanding of Islamic Fascism fails when, instead of acknowledging the fact that Jew-hatred in the Middle East had reached epidemic proportions well before September 11, and that New York was considered the center of World Jewry by Islamic Jihadists, it advances the claim that Islamism originally arose in response to recent American and Western policies.
When the 9/11 Commission report stated that Osama Bin Laden’s grievance with the United States may have started in reaction to specific U.S. policies, the report gets history wrong. Understanding the real motive for Islamic Jihad, and explaining it to the American people, is important if we are going to effectively confront Islamic Fascism.
Gary Aminoff can be reached at gaminoff@gmail.com
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Islamic Fascism: Qutb and Azzam
December 15, 2012 By Gary Aminoff
Osama Bin Laden, the leader of Al-Queda and planner of the 9/11 attack on America, was first politicized not by specific U.S. policies, but by the writings of Sayyid Qutb and the Jihadist lectures of Abdullah Azzam, both of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Qutb was the son of a highly-educated Egyptian nationalist. He traveled to the United States and lived for two years in Colorado while attending university. Qutb was a devout Muslim and wrote of the United States: “No one is more distant than the Americans from spirituality and piety.” American sexual permissiveness and promiscuity particularly appalled Qutb. He was incredulous at the liberties permitted American teenagers. He feared the same influences would invade Egypt.
Qutb concluded that major aspects of American life were “primitive” and “shocking.” His experiences in the U.S. partly formed the impetus for his total rejection of Western values and his move towards pure Islamic traditionalism upon returning to Egypt. Resigning from the civil service, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1950s, an organization suffused with Nazi Jew-hatred and supported by Nazi financing, as I reported in Part 1 of this article. He became editor-in-chief of the Brotherhoods’ weekly newspaper, and later became head of the Muslim Brotherhood propaganda section, as well as an appointed member of the Guidance Council, the highest branch in the Muslim Brotherhood.
Qutb believed that the timeless message of the Koran included the sacred duty of faithful Muslims to wage jihad “against the corrupt new Kingdom of Israel, its imperial American sponsor, any other Western influences, and corrupt Muslim rulers.” According to Qutb, a Muslim must wage war against any influences in opposition to traditional Islam, and especially against a “Zionist Entity” in Dar al-Islam.
The writings of Qutb resonated with many Muslims, who were radicalized by them. He developed a huge following of jihadists in Egypt, which swelled the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood, and eventually throughout the Arab World. His writings contributed greatly to recruiting Egyptians and other Arabs to the cause of Islamic Jihad. Most of today’s Islamist leaders are followers of the writings of Qutb.
Abdullah Azzam was a Palestinian who went to Egypt to continue his Islamic studies at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University. During his studies he met Sheik Omar Abdel-Rachman, the man behind the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, now serving a life sentence in the U.S., Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and now the ostensible leader of Al-Queda, and other followers of Sayyid Qutb. Azzam was a visionary. He was heavily influenced by the writings of Qutb. He envisioned a pan-Islamic transnational movement that would transcend the political map of the Middle East. He also envisioned the restoration of the Caliphate and the destruction and removal of the “Zionist Entity” from Dar al-Islam. Azzam was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and one of the original founders of the Muslim Brotherhood of Palestine, now known as Hamas.
In 1976 Azzam moved to Saudi Arabia and became a lecturer at the King Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah where he became a mentor to a young student by the name of Osama Bin Laden. Both Azzam and Qutb planted the seeds that drove Bin Laden to his destiny.
Keep in mind that Islamofascism is not an ideology that ignites protest in its followers as they rub up against social injustice. On the contrary, what provokes Islamic violence is any sign of modern development in the Muslim world, such as scientific inquiry, political or personal self-determination, women’s equality, the existence of religions other than Islam, especially the existence of the State of Israel. The radicalization of Islam is not the consequence of poverty and lack of opportunity. It is the result of their longstanding desire to destroy the Jewish state, eliminate Jews from the middle east, and establish Islamic rule throughout the world.
The failure of the West to see this, and our failure to recognize the substance of Islamist ideology — the Death Cult, the Hatred of Jews, Nazi ideology, which was taken up by the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1930s and 1940s, and their profound dislike of freedom, leads back again and again to the mistaken belief that the root cause of terrorism is U.S. policies.
This approach is appealing to the West because of the specious hope it holds out: if Islamic terrorism has its roots in American policy, then a change in that policy can lessen terrorism. These erroneous views are strongly held by the American left.
Ultimately, the refusal on the part of the West to recognize the Islamists’ true motives results in a reverse of responsibility: the more deadly the terrorism the greater is American guilt. Our support of Islamist hate groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoot, Hamas, weakens us and increases the threat to ourselves and to our allies in the region.
A struggle against Islamic Jihad waged in ignorance of its history and ideology will not succeed. Not to confront the real ideological roots of Islamic Jihad, especially its well-documented connection to its Nazi anti-Semitic origins, stymies any Western push for political, economic, or cultural modernization of the Muslim world.
The greatest threat to our freedom and to the future of America as we know it is the Islamist threat. It is the overriding issue of our day. The fact that this is not recognized by a majority of Americans, particularly on the left, enhances that threat.
Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West
Saturday, February 26, 2011
*(be sure to see the last article on the page for how Leftist George SOROS fits into it all)*
The Nazi Connection to Islamic Terrorism (Autographed) (Paperback)
By Chuck Morse
Product Description
This is the remarkable story of Haj Amin al-Husseini who was, in many ways, as big a Nazi villain as Hitler himself. To understand his influence on the Middle East is to understand the ongoing genocidal program against the Jews of Israel. Al-Husseini was a bridge figure in terms of transporting the Nazi genocide in Europe into the post-war Middle East.
As the leader of Arab Palestine during the British Mandate period, al-Husseini introduced violence against moderate Arabs as well as against Jews. Al-Husseini met with Adolf Eichmann in Palestine in 1937 and subsequently went on the Nazi payroll as a Nazi agent.
Al-Husseini played a pivotal behind-the-scenes role in instigating a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in 1941 as he urged Nazis and pro-Nazi governments in Europe to transport Jews to death camps, trained pro-Nazi Bosnian brigades, and funneled Nazi loot into pro-war Arab countries.
The Islamic Tsunami: Israel and America in the Age of Obama – (Hardcover)
By David Rubin
Upon taking office, President Barack Obama pledged to change the dynamics of America s adversarial relationship with the Islamic world. Just seven years earlier, the terrorist attacks on September 11 had shattered the American sense of security like never before; and further damaged the tenuous relationship with the Islamic world.
The American administration was unprepared to respond to terrorist attacks of such devastating proportions. The shockwaves that reverberated across the nation diverted the American public’s attention away from their government’s inconsistent and morally ambiguous negotiating tactics. On the other side of the globe, the Islamic world asserted that American support for Israel was in fact the cause of horrible acts of terror. What is the origin of this glaring confusion? Could Israel truly be the cause of Islamic terrorism?
In “The Islamic Tsunami: Israel and America in the Age of Obama,” author David Rubin uncovers the true nature of Islam: a dangerous, violent ideology that strives for world domination through terrorism, as well as what Rubin calls non-violent aggression. Rubin uncovers the reason why Islam chooses terror over peace and explores Israel and America’s vital roles in combating the rampant spread of Islam throughout the world.
This groundbreaking book explains why the rise of Obama has been so unsettling for the U.S. Israel relationship. Examining the constantly evolving and often uneasy relationship between Christians and Jews with an eye on the future, “The Islamic Tsunami” merges history with current events to create a complete and intuitive analysis of the historically troubled trichotomy between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. With contributions from the Founding Fathers and the ancient but relevant biblical sources, David Rubin delivers a powerful and lucid battle plan for confronting the Islamic threat to our civilization; a bold strategy that will halt the Islamic tsunami once and for all.
All net proceeds from the sale of “The Islamic Tsunami: Israel and America in the Age of Obama,” will go to the Shiloh Israel Children s Fund, an organization dedicated to easing the trauma of children who have been victims of terrorist attacks. Established by David Rubin after he and his son were wounded in a terrorist attack, the not-for-profit Fund also helps to rebuild the biblical heartland of Israel.
Eyewitness reveals how to defeat ‘Totalitarian Lie’
Former Hitler Youth gives chilling but life-saving warning to America
Because it has abandoned moral absolutes and its historic Christian faith, the U.S. is moving closer to a Nazi-style totalitarianism, warns a former German member of the Hitler Youth. And today only, WND readers can get Hilmar von Campe’s acclaimed book, “Defeating the Totalitarian Lie: A Former Hitler Youth Warns America,” for only $4.95 – a 67 percent discount!
“Every day brings this nation closer to a Nazi-style totalitarian abyss,” writes von Campe, now a U.S. citizen, and founder of the national Institute for Truth and Freedom to fight for a return to constitutional government in the U.S. – the key, he believes, to keeping America free.
“I lived the Nazi nightmare, and, as the old saying goes, ‘A man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument,'” writes von Campe. “Everything I write is based on my personal experience in Nazi Germany. There is nothing theoretical about my description of what happens when a nation throws God out of government and society, and Christians become religious bystanders. I don’t want to see a repetition. The role of God in human society is the decisive issue for this generation. My writing is part of my life of restitution for the crimes of a godless government, of the evil of which I was a part.”
Von Campe grew up under the Nazis, served in the Hitler Youth and fought against the Red Army in the Yugoslavian theater as a tank gunner in the German army. He was captured at the end of the war and escaped five months later from a prisoner of war camp in Communist Yugoslavia.
“It took me a long time to understand and define the nature of National Socialism,” says von Campe. “And, unfortunately, their philosophy continues to flourish under different labels remaining a menace to America and free human society.”
Von Campe’s message is that political freedom and democratic rules alone are not sufficient to govern humanity justly.
“Democratic procedures can be subverted and dishonest politicians are like sand in the gearbox, abundant, everywhere and destructive,” he writes. “What I see in America today is people painting their cabins while the ship goes down. Today in America we are witnessing a repeat performance of the tragedy of 1933 when an entire nation let itself be led like a lamb to the Socialist slaughterhouse. This time, the end of freedom is inevitable unless America rises to her mission and destiny.”
Von Campe says he sees spiritual parallels among Americans and his childhood Germany.
“The silence from our pulpits regarding the moral collapse of American society from within is not very different from the silence that echoed from the pulpits in Germany toward Nazi policies,” he explains. “Our family lived through the Nazi years in Germany, an experience typical of millions of Europeans regardless of what side they were on. We paid a high price for the moral perversions of a German government, which excluded God and His Commandments from their policies. America must not continue following the same path to destruction, but instead heed the lessons of history and the warning I am giving.”
Specifically, von Campe warns Americans their political leaders are on the wrong footing, “denying our cultural and traditional roots based on our unique Constitution and Christian orientation as a nation. Christians don’t understand their mission.”
J’Accuse: The New York Times Promotes Muslim Brotherhood Lies, Covering Up For Nazi Collaborators
Recently, Tariq Ramadan, considered by the Western intelligentsia to be the very epitome of enlightened Islamism, wrote a New York Times op-ed in which he was not only allowed–among other total lies–to deny that the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood and his grandfather, who then led the group, were Nazi collaborators before, during, and even after World War Two. In fact, he dares claim–because he knows the mainstream media will not expose this lie–that the Muslim Brotherhood was an anti-fascist organization!
Here is my detailed discussion of Ramadan’s lies.
I wrote a short but detailed letter to the newspaper on this point at the urging of my readers but, not surprisingly, it went unpublished. Meanwhile, a student at an elite American college wrote me how this oped article was taught by his teacher as the absolute truth.
We have crossed the border into “The Twilight Zone.”
Dr. Wolfgang Schwanitz, probably the world’s leading authority on Germany and the Middle East, and myself are writing a book entitled Germany, The Nazis, and the Making of the Modern Middle East that will be published by Yale University Press next year.
The book will revolutionize people’s understanding of this issue. But I’d like to present you with three draft paragraphs from the book—fully documented by German documents—on the particular issue of the Muslim Brotherhood and fascism.
Here’s the first one:
“The Islamists of the Brotherhood were well-financed by the Germans, both directly and through [Amin] al-Husaini [leader of the Palestinian Arabs and a collaborator with the Germans]. Wilhelm Stellbogen, director of the German News Bureau in Cairo, an Abwehr [German Military Intelligence] man, and acting press attaché, paid sums of 1,000 Egyptian pounds to them several times during 1939 alone. To put this sum into perspective, the Brothers high-priority fund-raising effort for Palestine netted only 500 pounds for that entire year. The mufti of Jerusalem, leader of the Palestine Arabs Amin al-Husaini who was in Berlin cooperating closely with Hitler, also supplied money through his contacts in Cairo like Auni Abd al-Hadi, Muhammad Ali Tahir, and Sabri Abd ad-Din.”
Al-Husaini, with the Brotherhood’s cooperation, planned to kill all Jews in the Middle East once the German army conquered the area. In preparation, he sent three of his men to an SS course to learn about mass extermination.
Here’s the second section:
“On the evening of July 7, 1942, [when it seemed as if the German army would soon conquer Cairo] the Voice of the Free Arabs [the station controlled by Amin al-Husaini, mufti of Jerusalem and leader of the Palestinian Arabs] broadcast to Egypt the following message:
“Kill the Jews who took your valuables….According to Islam it is a duty to defend your lives. This can only be fulfilled by the liquidation of the Jews. This is your best chance to get rid of this dirty race. Kill the Jews! Set their possessions on fire! Demolish their shops! Liquidate those evil helpers of British imperialism! Your only hope for rescue is to annihilate the Jews before they do this to you.”
The Muslim Brotherhood, along with the neo-fascist Young Egypt party, had been given German weapons which an Arab commando team in the German army had hidden in western Egypt. It was ready to spring into action to murder Egyptian Jews and deliver the country to the Nazis. But it was prevented from carrying out this plan by the British, who seized control of Egypt in a virtual military coup at this moment. In addition, on the very day this broadcast was made, the advance of General Erwin Rommel’s forces was stopped.
But the Nazi weapons were used eventually. After the war, the Brotherhood dug them up and used them to arm their forces sent to wipe out Israel in the 1948 war. One of those in the unit–as was demonstrated in my biography of Arafat–co-authored with Judith Colp Rubin–Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography, was Arafat himself
The New York Times and other newspapers that printed Ramadan’s false account should publish the truth about the Muslim Brotherhood’s collaboration with the Nazis as well as its virulent and frequently expressed antisemitism that continues to this day.
The fact that Middle East experts, historians, and others have not deluged the Times with criticism for this travesty is astonishing.
- Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Egypt: Celebrate Now, Worry Later, Then Suffer A Lot
Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it. And those who don’t know history also smugly say things that have more holes than substance.
Recently, someone responding to an article of mine said it’s a pity I couldn’t share the world’s joy at the uprising in Egypt. That’s precisely the way I feel. But someone has to point out certain problems.
It was a pity that there were a few people, like Edmund Burke and Tom Paine couldn’t share the joy of the people at the revolution in France in 1789 and the downfall of the evil king. Silly people. Everyone was dancing in the streets. And then came the guillotine and a quarter-century of war.
It was a pity that there were a few people who couldn’t share the joy of the people at the revolution in Russia in 1917, the second one especially. At last the evil czar was overthrown! Hooray. Oops. Stalin, concentration camps, the alliance with Nazi Germany that permitted the extermination of most of my family, and 45 years of Cold War.
It was a pity that there were a few people who couldn’t share the joy of the people at the revolution in Iran. I was one of them. I watched while the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was called a saint and someone who would soon retire from politics. I watched as the “real” Iran experts met President Jimmy Carter and assured him that the moderates would take over. Darn! The rise of the revolutionary Islamist movement, the Iran-Iraq war, the invasion of Kuwait, September 11, and so on.
Does this sound familiar?
“The regime of misrule…was rapidly drawing to an end…[The people] went delirious with joy….The Revolution was an unmistakably popular movement….[Muslims marched]to the residence of the Armenian Patriarch to express their fraternal feelings with his community….”
“Everywhere it was proclaimed that the Revolution meant liberty, equality, and fraternity, above all no distinction of men on account of their creed….Speeches were delivered by leading Armenians and Greeks declaring that henceforward it would be possible for the Christians…to cooperate cordially with their Muslim brethren for the benefit of the [country].”
Such was the Young Turk revolution of 1908 in the Ottoman Empire, as described by the British ambassador. The Young Turks then adopted a policy of Turkish nationalism, suppressing other groups. Six years later they went to war. Twenty percent of the population of Anatolia died; hundreds of thousands of Armenians were murdered in cold blood; almost the entire Greek population was expelled.
History doesn’t have to repeat itself—but that won’t happen only if wise people make sure it doesn’t happen.
More millions of people have died as the result of happy revolutions then from any other political cause in the last 100 years.
But I guess I should just shut up and enjoy the celebration. I’m also looking forward to the overthrow of the “dictators” in the West Bank, Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia! Let’s party! Let the good times roll! Eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we…find out that the Muslim Brotherhood is neither moderate nor weak, and ElBaradei is neither moderate nor strong.
Oh, and definitely do NOT read this article about how the Muslim Brotherhood demanded that Egypt develop nuclear weapons back in 2006. The important thing is (sarcasm alert) if you want to understand the Brotherhood you should never read anything it said before last week, and also it will probably never happen.
And don’t listen to the fears of Egypt’s Christians either about their future. What’s the chance they’ll be fleeing for their lives by the thousands? The United States actually managed the change of regime in Iraq and (sarcasm alert) Christians are doing just fine there! Why would anyone possibly want to harm them in a democratic Egypt?
Forget that the American-designated next leader of Egypt says he will end all sanctions on the Gaza Strip so advanced weapons and longer-range missiles can pour into there. Forget that this same person–the moderate, not the Muslim Brotherhood–says the Egypt-Israel peace treaty is void because it was only a deal with Mubarak.
I’m not saying all is lost. All is lost only if people lose their heads. Will the regime survive in some form without Mubarak (it is still there, after all)? Will the army step in and make sure things don’t go too far even after a transition (though it might like a radical regime, especially one that doesn’t purge anyone; pays for its salaries and privileges, and lets it make money from business)? Will strong, popular, more moderate leaders emerge (no sign of them yet)?
The job of a political analyst is not to be a cheerleader or even–sad to say–to have a good time. The task is to ring a very big warning bell so that in the end maybe, as Bob Marley put it so eloquently, “Every little thing gonna be all right.”
The job of journalists is to tell the truth, even if it is unpalatable, not to make the Muslim Brotherhood look pretty and Muhammad ElBaradei seem to be a moderate leader.
The job of policymakers and national leaders is to figure out a strategy that will hopefully help make things turn out as best as possible, first and foremost for their country’s national interests, though humanitarian and moral considerations should also be on the list.
These people can only perform their jobs if they understand the reality from which they are starting. Otherwise, wishful thinking turns into nightmare.
And if I’m wrong I will gladly meet you in Cairo’s Tahrir Square in a couple of years and, my treat, toast the glorious Egyptian democratic revolution with champagne. Assuming it’s still legal there.
Pro-Nazi Sites and Iran’s Regime: An Update
I first broke the story internationally of Nazi sites apparently under Iranian government supervision or even control. Here’s an update on the story showing that the regime has only made minor modifications trying to camouflage its direct support or such activities. The sites have not been shut down. Here’s an update on the story.
Iran’s Nazi Site–First Reported Here–Has Now Become An Issue in Iran
The fact, first reported in Rubin Reports, that Iran is broadcasting and apparently endorsing a pro-Nazi Internet site and discussion group has now become an issue within Iran.
A major Iranian site points out, as I had noted, that deputy minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance Muhammad Ali Ramin had links to neo-Nazi groups when he lived in Europe and approved of their ideas. He then returned to Iran where he launched the government’s official denial that the Holocaust ever happened. Ramin is also considered to be responsible for the new site extolling the Third Reich, since the site says it is under the supervision of his ministry.
After being criticized for antisemitism, the regime’s institution cynically urged that the word “Zionist” be used rather than “Jew,” a perfect example of how a lot of the pretense that hatred is merely anti-Israel is a veneer to hide the real standpoint being presented.
The new report on this story comes from the UAE-based al-Arabiya network which is more moderate than its rival, Qatar-based al-Jazira network. It can also be attributed to the fear of a more powerful Iran armed with nuclear weapons on the part of Gulf Arabs and their governments.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Exclusive: Is Iran’s Regime Officially Running–Or Merely Helping–a Pro-Nazi Site?
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By Barry Rubin
Is Iran’s government sponsoring an Internet site that extols the German Nazis, their history and achievements, including the antisemitism that the current Iranian regime also supports? Or is it merely permitting one to operate in its highly censored communications’ system?
Here are the facts. There is a discussion group site entitled IranNazi that has an Iranian internet URL. It is written in Persian and seems to have begun on August 24. All the material on the site is pro-Nazi and features pictures of Adolph Hitler, the swastika, and goose-stepping German soldiers. There is an English-language part as well.
This site pretends to be an association for the research of Nazism and to be “completely historical and scientific.”
کاملا پژوهشی و علمی تاریخی است
It includes such topics as claims that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, the well-known antisemitic forgery is true; insistence that the mass murder of Jews by the Nazis ever happened and is in fact a lie; makes the prediction that Israel will collapse in five years; and highlights cartoons and satire ridiculing the Holocaust. All four of these positions are also taken by the Iranian government and official media.
The main page includes the following message:
این تارنما طبق قوانین جمهوری اسلامی ایران و تحت نظارت کارگروه رسانه های دیجیتال وزارت فرهنگ و ارشاد جمهوری اسلامی فعالیت می کند .
In English it means: “This website is under Islamic Republic of Iran laws and it is under the supervision of the working committee on Digital Media of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.”
The site is registered to this place under the IRNIC, Iran’s domain manager and an arm of the government. It is owned by a company in Isfahan. There is also evidence, however, that the site goes through a server in Arizona. The Phoenix hosting company is called Atjeu.com. This doesn’t prove, however, that the site is not sponsored by the Iranian government. It does go out on the state-controlled server and is allowed to claim government sponsorship.
Iran does not have freedom of speech and certainly not freedom of the Internet. Given the tight censorship in Iran and the fact that all sites are closely monitored, permission to publish–especially to claim government sponsorship–is evidence of state backing.
So is this, then, a state-backed site, showing just how far the regime has gone in boosting Nazism historically and antisemitism or a private initiative by some Iranian immigrants in the United States who are supporters of the Iranian regime? Is the statement on the site, which has not been suppressed by the government, accurate? It isn’t completely clear.
A very well-informed and highly credible Iranian notes that the fact that it isn’t blocked “is a significant indication that the government at least does not have problem with it.” The deputy minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance is Muhammad Ali Ramin, who was President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s advisor on Holocaust issue and founder of Holocaust Institute in Tehran and the president of the conference of Holocaust; A Global Perspective, which denied that the mass murder of Jews never took place.
A reader asked me whether anyone would be surprised to see something like this happen.
Obviously, one more Internet site doesn’t prove anything huge. Yet the fact that it is in line with the Iranian government’s public positions is a reminder of just what these stances are and what they signify.
Well, except for the explicit boosting of the German Nazi regime itself–rather than just denying its crimes and basically endorsing its policies–this is not really different from the regime’s positions. It is shocking, but more on a symbolic than a substantive level. If this is a private group lying about its sponsorship that point should be made clear, but it still reminds us of what the current Iranian regime is saying…and doing.
My broader answer is that while many observers won’t be surprised, given the regime’s hatred of Jews as well as of Israel, the national home of the Jewish people, there are others who will be genuinely shocked.
The conventional wisdom in many quarters that Iran’s regime is a rational government that looks only to its national self-interest. There is something to be said for this view. We have seen times when Iran’s rulers–some if not all–exercised caution and showed that the regime’s survival was their highest priority. The decision to end the war with Iraq in 1988 and avoiding direct aggression or armed conflict with other neighbors provide examples.
On the other hand, Iran has been able to be more provocative without incurring armed conflict because the other side, including the United States, is so reluctant to counter its actions, including state sponsorship of terrorism and covert, indirect attacks on American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Certainly, the answer is not to launch an armed attack on Iran. But the proper answer has been to exert sufficient threats, pressure, and support for Iran’s foes to deter, contain, and frighten Iran into being more cautious.
The Iranian regime is a radical Islamist government, not a Nazi or fascist one, though there are points in common. But also as I’ve written elsewhere, Iran’s government is the closest thing we’ve seen to an irrational, ideologically motivated ruler since the fall of Germany in 1945. There have been other such rulers–Idi Amin in Uganda, the Cambodian Communists, the Afghan Taliban come to mind. But we have seen how these regimes have behaved and how many people they’ve murdered.
And none of those others, including Nazi Germany itself, had nuclear weapons.
Update: This story, first reported here, has now become a controversial issue within Iran.
Fear and Survival: The Tragedy And Threat That Is George Soros
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By Barry Rubin
I’ve long pondered the bizarre doings of billionaire financier George Soros, who’s become the single biggest funder of left-wing and often anti-Jewish (certainly, anti-Israel) causes in Europe and North America. Most recently, it was revealed that Soros was a huge contributor to the anti-Israel J Street group even though the organization had lied about that connection.
But how can one explain the behavior and motives of Soros? For me, finally, the missing piece of the puzzle has fallen into place.
The first key bit of evidence was Soros’s interview with the December 20, 1998, “Sixty Minutes” television show in which he recounts his experiences as a 14-year-old boy in Nazi-occupied Hungary, a time when he said his “character was made.” Soros’ father had sent him to live with a bribed Christian government official who was involved in confiscating Jewish property.
A lot of the discussion about this interview has been misdirected over whether Soros was in some way a war criminal. This is clearly untrue since he was barely a teenager and didn’t actually do anything but observe. He was as he describes himself, a “spectator.”
Let’s get a more sophisticated, accurate understanding by examining what Soros actually said about the experience long afterward. What did he learn from being a spectator, watching both sides but truly being on neither side?
Did watching the extinction of his fellow Jews in Hungary make him feel guilty? No, Soros replied. This is an extraordinary answer. It was decades later and Soros could have done the polite social thing, which would have made him look better, of pretending to feel bad about it.
Soros didn’t emphasize, though he mentioned as a passing afterthought, that he didn’t feel guilty because he did nothing wrong. But what about survivor’s guilt, something almost anyone Jewish would feel when he survived and so many others didn’t? Again, no, said Soros.
Soros showed precisely why he didn’t feel or even pretend to feel guilty. When the astonished interviewer asked whether Soros might have thought, “I’m Jewish and here I am, watching these people go. I could just as easily be there. I should be there?”
Soros’ response is truly extraordinary:
“Well, of course I c–I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away. But there was no sense that I shouldn’t be there, because that was–well, actually, in a funny way, it’s just like in markets–that if I weren’t there–of course, I wasn’t doing it, but somebody else would–would–would be taking it away anyhow.”
Notice how he stutters, no longer the powerful multimillionaire who shakes countries but rather reverting back to the frightened, helpless little boy, his life endangered because he is a Jew. Unlike almost every other Jew in Europe, however, he had a choice.
Does he blame the Nazis and Hungarian fascists or the Jews for putting him in that perilous position? Who does he identify with? What conclusions does he draw about how to ensure his survival in future? Soros tells us clearly:
“I could be on the other side or I could be the one from whom the thing was being taken away.”
For me, this is the key to Soros and his behavior today. He would choose to stand with those he sees as winners not losers; strong, not weak; the non-Jews rather than the Jews, the determined extremists rather than the toothless moderates. After all, that choice had been the basis of his survival. What is most important is that Soros survive and prosper, and his background gives him a very different outlook from most Jews and most rich people on how to achieve that goal.
Yet he is no confident mogul but a very frightened man. In this, he is less unique. Non-Jews don’t understand how inside of even the most seemingly powerful Jews—Henry Kissinger offers a prime example—there is a strong sense of fear and vulnerability. One misstep, they think, and everything he has could all be taken away instantly.
Being too much of a Jew is something you will rue. The more visible your wealth and power, the more danger to you. That kind of thinking stems not merely from the Nazi era but is a Jewish condition that goes back to the Middle Ages, when at any second a lifetime of hard work and success could be replaced by poverty, exile, beating or death by a rampaging mob.
How have Jews responded? Some by assimilating and others by being quiet, the kind of approach one might expect someone like Soros to take.
Still others by being defiant as Zionists or as proud Jews. Compare Soros to the man whose life most parallels his, Abe Foxman, long-time leader of the Anti-Defamation League, who was a hidden child during the Holocaust. Another option, becoming a leftist revolutionary, combines defiance of existing society with assimilation and abandonment of Jewishness.
The life of Soros, however, led him to a unique solution: convincing him that he must be highly visible…on the winning side. No longer could he have the anonymity of that fourteen-year-old camouflaged boy, but he could still stand on the safer side of the confrontation.
Read that key sentence again: “I could be on the other side [the stronger side, the side persecuting the Jews] or I could be the one from whom the thing is being taken away.” In context, he is essentially saying that he could not imagine himself enough of a fool to be on the losing side and is determined never to be one of those helpless, doomed Jews.
And so, decades later, he sought to be on or buy off those he saw as the winning side. As for those on the Jewish side–and Israel being the most intense expression of that posture—they would be the losers in history.
Now comes the final piece of the puzzle. On November 7, 2003, almost five years after the television interview, Soros made a rare appearance at a pro-Jewish Jewish event, a conference of the Jewish Funders Network.
Asked about antisemitism in Europe, Soros responded that it was the result of the policies of Israel and the United States, and particularly of President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. “If we change that direction, then antisemitism also will diminish,” he said.
Once again, his words led somewhat in the wrong direction as some of the attendees were outraged. After all, blaming Jews for antisemitism is an old argument of antisemites. But to focus on that is to miss the point.
Soros continued:
“I’m also very concerned about my own role because the new antisemitism holds that the Jews rule the world,” he explained. He knew he is personally vulnerable to such charges. After all, Soros added, “As an unintended consequence of my actions,” he said, “I also contribute to that image,” no doubt referring to an incident of a few weeks previously when Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammad referred to Soros personally in saying, “Jews rule the world by proxy.”
So he must prove to the enemies of the Jews that he is not someone they should see as an enemy. By fighting Jewish interests he can claim to diminish antisemitism while also protecting his own interests.
What did Soros say was the main lesson he had learned on those streets in 1944 Hungary? “That one should think ahead. One should understand and–and anticipate events and when–when one is threatened.”
So for Soros, religious Jews, Zionists, and in effect the overwhelming majority of the Jewish communities of the world are bringing disaster on themselves by provoking an antisemitic backlash.
His intention here is in no way to help the Jews (“the ones from whom the thing was taken away) but to act in what he perceives as being his own benefit. Soros is not the first Jew in history to calculate that if Israel didn’t exist or that if the Jews merely shut up and hid their identity there would be no problem with antisemitism. And if this happened he could be safe. It isn’t surprising that he has come to hate the people who he believes directly endanger his life and wealth.
Similarly, he is scared that conservatives are provoking a leftist upheaval. Soros is insuring himself against the new winning side by financing it, believing that if America and Europe move ever leftward, this will reduce pressure against capitalism in general or at least protect his personal wealth. After all, he must reason, why would the radical movement–anti-capitalist or anti-Israel–ever turn on its patron?
In effect, Soros reserves the phrase “never again” not in regard to Jewish suffering but in regard to his personally never being “the one from whom the thing was being taken away.” And meanwhile he can, ironically enough, use his wealth and power to be the Jew who in the entire world came closest to ruling “by proxy.” All the more need for him to take such protective measures.
It is true, as the expert on Soviet affairs Bertram Wolfe remarked about Leon Trotsky (who Wolfe regarded as a “Jewish antisemite”), “A man can reject his heritage but he cannot root the traces of it out of his soul.” But for Soros those traces are those of the loser in history. He regards Zionism and Israel as fantasies that will only build the momentum to return Jews to their traditional victim status.
Ironically and sadly, of course, by putting his money into anti-Israel and left-wing causes he is not merely anticipating events but making bad outcomes more likely; not reducing antisemitism but intensifying it; not ensuring social peace but making costly and tragic conflict more likely.
In short, unfortunately, what Soros mislearned from the tragedy he observed as a youth has made him a man helping to bring about more tragedies.
He was also wrong in saying that if he didn’t do these things someone else would. There is no one else to play this role because there is no one else who has his combination of life experience and bottomless riches.
Note 1:
Melanie Phillips has provided a list of causes backed by Soros’s main front groups that gives a sense of what the billionaire has been doing. Among them:
“•Promoting the view that America is institutionally an oppressive nation
•Promoting the election of leftist political candidates throughout the United States
•Opposing virtually all post-9/11 national security measures enacted by U.S. government, particularly the Patriot Act
•Depicting American military actions as unjust, unwarranted, and immoral
•Promoting open borders, mass immigration, and a watering down of current immigration laws….
•Defending suspected anti-American terrorists and their abetters
•Financing the recruitment and training of future activist leaders of the political Left
•Advocating America’s unilateral disarmament and/or a steep reduction in its military spending….
•Promoting the tenets of radical environmentalism, whose ultimate goal, as writer Michael Berliner has explained, is “not clean air and clean water, [but] rather … the demolition of technological/industrial civilization….”
Note2: A friend suggested it would be appropriate to quote these lines from Bob Dylan’s song, “Positively Fourth Street:”
“You got a lotta nerve
To say you got a helping hand to lend
You just want to be on
The side that’s winning.”
Freedom and Liberty vs. Islam and Sharia 