By Aish.com

Who was Haj Amin Al Husseini and what role did he play in the Holocaust?

Haj Amin Al Husseini encouraged Adolf Hitler and other Nazi leaders to exterminate European Jewry.

At the Nuremberg Trials, Dieter Wisliceny, a deputy of Adolph Eichmann, said:

“The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry... He was one of Eichmann’s best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures.”

In 1920, a young Al Husseini used a pilgrimage ceremony near Jerusalem to stir up anti-Jewish fervor. In riots, five Jews were murdered and hundreds were injured.

Convicted of incitement by the British, Al Husseini fled to Damascus. He returned months later after being pardoned by a new British High Commissioner.

In 1921, Al Husseini became Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and rallied his followers around a popular cause: hatred of the Jews.

Al Husseini was the first to accuse Jews of scheming to destroy the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to build the Third Temple. He played a central role in inciting large-scale pogroms that began in Jerusalem in August 1929 and spread to Safed, Hebron, Haifa, Tel Aviv and elsewhere. Within days, 133 Jews had been butchered and 339 injured.

The Mufti planned a revolt against British rule but was caught receiving funds, weapons and military instructions from fascist Germany and Italy in 1936. The British issued a warrant for his arrest. Al Husseini escaped to Jaffa dressed as a woman, and went to Lebanon in a boat.

In 1941 Hitler invited him to Berlin.

Hitler gave him a staff of sixty to run an Arabic-language radio service to foment anti-Jewish sentiment in the Middle East.

The Mufti exhorted on air, “Kill the Jews wherever you find them. This finds grace in the eyes of God, history and religion.”

Al Husseini hoped to exterminate the Jew of the Middle East, replicating Nazi methods. He envisioned huge crematoria for Jews in the Dotan Valley near Nablus.

Nazi Germany’s defeat put an end to the Mufti’s plans. Arrested by the French after the war, Al Husseini escaped and made his way to Egypt. He remained influential and outspoken in his Jew-hatred, spreading his ideas until he died in 1974.

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