Interesting stuff. I'm a bit of a History buff and have (after just a little googling) came across this. (Bernard Lewis is a History Professor at Princeton Uni speciality in Islam and its interactions with the West)....Havent gone as far as seeing the peer reviews of Bernards work, but Princeton is usually the bedrock of academic vigour (usually). I'll just put it out there and others can decide for themselves.
Bernard Lewis says that, in addition to the old goal of Arabia being free of the presence of Jews, the Mufti “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 SS-Hauptsturmführer Dieter Wisliceny who knew the Mufti well,
The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichmann and Himmler in execution of this plan... He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz . . . 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 el-Husseini 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 to be 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.” In 1943, he wrote to the Hungarian foreign minister:
If there are reasons which make their removal necessary, it would be indispensable and infinitively preferable to send them to other countries where they would find themselves under active control, for example, in Poland, in order to protect oneself from their menace and avoid the consequent damage.
Netanyahu, the Mufti and Hitler | Chronicles Magazine
I then went to Lewis's wiki page to see if he was an "Islamaphobe" and found this....(pretty much not imo).
Views on Islam[edit]
Lewis presents some of his conclusions about
Islamic culture,
Shari'a law,
jihad, and the modern day phenomenon of terrorism in his text,
Islam: The Religion and the People.
[40] He writes of jihad as a distinct "religious obligation", but suggests that "it is a pity" that people engaging in terrorist activities are not more aware of their own religion:
Muslim fighters are commanded not to kill women, children, or the aged unless they attack first; not to torture or otherwise ill-treat prisoners; to give fair warning of the opening of hostilities or their resumption after a truce; and to honor agreements. ... At no time did the classical jurists offer any approval or legitimacy to what we nowadays call terrorism. Nor indeed is there any evidence of the use of terrorism as it is practiced nowadays."[41]
In Lewis' view, the "by now widespread terrorism practice of suicide bombing is a development of the 20th century" with "no antecedents in Islamic history, and no justification in terms of Islamic theology, law, or tradition."
[42] He further comments that "the fanatical warrior offering his victims the choice of the Koran or the sword is not only untrue, it is impossible" and that "generally speaking, Muslim tolerance of unbelievers was far better than anything available in Christendom, until the rise of secularism in the 17th century."
[43]
