Hijacking of Holocaust Remembrance Day: Screening of Al Jazeera Gaza Documentary refers

Dear Sir/Madam,

Hijacking of Holocaust Remembrance Day: Screening of Al Jazeera Gaza Documentary refers

I am writing to complain and protest with regard to the hijacking of the annual Holocaust Remembrance Day event to screen an Al Jazeera documentary on Gaza: “Al Shifa The Crimes they Tried To Bury”

No matter how one may feel about the recent conflict, in particular the claims made by various parties, such an event is a time of sombre reflection and not a platform for political posturing by organisations and individuals, especially those who are not directly affected by the Holocaust.

A similar event occurred in Ireland this week, resulted in the removal of Jews who turned their backs on President Higgens, in protest at his address where he referred to the Holocaust as ‘an attempted genocide’.

The screening of the documentary in this manner, alongside the lighting of candles, at the Groote Schuur auditorium in which the context of the Holocaust was stripped of its connection to AntiSemitism, was calculated to grandstand.

“In remembering the Holocaust, we recognize threats to freedom, dignity, and humanity – including in our own time. Today – in the face of growing economic discontent and political instability, escalating white supremacist terrorism, and surging hate and religious bigotry – we must be more outspoken than ever. We must never forget – nor allow others to ever forget, distort or deny the Holocaust.” António Guterres, United Nations Secretary-General,

Repackaging the Holocaust as if it were a mere trope, to be superseded by more contemporary issues, is not only offensive, but completely inappropriate given South Africa’s role in the tragedy involving industrial scale euthanasia of Europe’s Jewish population barely 80 years ago. A role our country refuses to acknowledge.

It appears the following organisations were involved in this week’s event: Desmond & Leah Tutu Foundation, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Gift of the Givers and SAJFP.

The result must be rejected as curated propaganda and replacement theology. Our constitutional rights to dignity, religious freedom and  freedom from war are not served by obliterating history.

Here is what they don’t teach you in our local history books:

One year before the 1938 Evian Conference, Minister of the Interior under the Smuts government, D F Malan passed a piece of Anti-Semitic legislation aimed at preventing Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany entering South Africa. The last ship to arrive before the law went into effect, the SS Stuttgart was thus met by Malan’s brown-shirts in Table Bay with force. South Africa later attended the Evian Conference in France where the leaders of the world discussed the “Jewish Problem” and determined to act collectively to not allow the deportation of German Jews under Hitler to continue.

With thousands entering British Palestine, both the British and Arabs began a well-publicized campaign to stop the flood. It was the Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini, later President of the All-Palestine government in Gaza (1948-1956) who personally met with Hitler in November of 1941, appealing to the Fuhrer himself to deal with the problem. By that time, the Farhud (Arabic for Pogrom), a violent dispossession of Jews from the Middle East & North Africa at the behest of Husseini, was well under way.

This motion was backed by Arab leaders from Saudi Arabia and Iraq in a round of shuttle-boat diplomacy the same year between Berlin and the Arab world. By January of 1942, Adolf Eichmann was presenting his plan for what became known as “The Final Solution”.

It was a ‘solution’ to precisely the topic under discussion by our own government. Thus at the Wannsee Conference, in the southwestern Berlin borough of Steglitz-Zehlendorf, Germany, and with Hitler notably absent, the Nazi Party delivered its infamous address to the German High Command. A diabolical plan to deal with the 11 million Jews then under Nazi Occupation.

Husseini would later tour the Trebben ‘concentration camp’ murder factory, as he enthusiastically supported the Nazis in their endeavor to ‘kill all the Jews’.

Palestinian academics condemn Abbas Holocaust statement

In response to recent statements by President Mahmoud Abbas, a group of Palestinians have​ released an open letter:

We the undersigned, Palestinian academics, writers, artists, activists, and people of all walks of life, unequivocally condemn the morally and politically reprehensible comments made by President of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas about the Holocaust. Rooted in a racial theory widespread in European culture and science at the time, the Nazi genocide of the Jewish people was born of antisemitism, fascism, and racism. We adamantly reject any attempt to diminish, misrepresent, or justify antisemitism, Nazi crimes against humanity, or historical revisionism vis-a-vis the Holocaust.

The Palestinian people are sufficiently burdened by Israeli settler colonialism, dispossession, occupation, and oppression without having to bear the negative effect of such ignorant and profoundly antisemitic narratives perpetuated by those who claim to speak in our name. We are also burdened by the PA’s increasingly authoritarian and draconian rule, which disproportionately impacts those living under occupation. Having held onto power nearly a decade and a half after his presidential mandate expired in 2009, supported by Western and pro-Israel forces seeking to perpetuate Israeli apartheid, Abbas and his political entourage have forfeited any claim to represent the Palestinian people and our struggle for justice, freedom, and equality, a struggle that stands against all forms of systemic racism and oppression.

Rashid Khalidi — Sherene Seikaly — Tareq Baconi — Muhammad Ali Khalidi — Zaha Hassan — Noura Erakat — Raja Shehadeh — Isabella Hammad — Lana Tatour — Nadia Abu El-Haj — Bashir Abu-Manneh — Raef Zreik — Leena Dallasheh — Lila Abu Lughod — Kareem Rabie — Mezna Qato — Amahl Bishara — Dana El Kurd — Nadia Hijab — Samera Esmeir — Ahmad Samih Khalidi — Abdel Razzaq Takriti — Maha Nassar — Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian — Huwaida Arraf — Rosemary Sayigh — Areej Sabbagh-Khoury — Tamara Ben-Halim — Yezid Sayigh — Jumana Manna — Nadim Bawalsa — Yousef Munayyer — Omar Qattan — Ismail Nashef — Nu’man Kanfani — Himmat Zoubi — Shahd Hammouri — Hamzé Attar — Hana Sleiman — Haithem El-Zabri — Samir Sinijlawi — Mussa’ab Bashir — Sam Bahour — Huda Al Imam — Bashir Bashir — Joey Ayoub — Michel Khleifi — Layth Malhis — Abdalhadi Alijla — Anis Mohsen — Karam Dana — Omar Dajani — Ubai Aboudi — Issam Nassar — Bassam Massarwa — Zaina Arekat — Bahaa Shahera Rauf — May Seikaly — Jerry Jareer Khoury — Rania Madi — Wesam Ahmad — Refaat Alareer — Omar Jabary Salamanca — Mona Hewaydi — Y. L. Al-Sheikh — Yasmeen Hamdan — Emilio Dabed — Ines Abdel Razek — Basheer Karkabi — Majed Abusalama — Leila Farsakh — Yazan Khalili — Moien Odeh — Hilary Rantisi — Tariq Raouf — Aimee Shalan — Nadia Khalilieh — Linda Kateeb — Bassam Dally — Zahi Khamis — Sami Jiries — Razzan Quran — Nour Salman — Jamal Rayyis — Izzeddin Araj — Tarek Ismail — Susan Muaddi Darraj — Basman Derawi — Rawan Arraf — Asad Ghanem — Assad Abdi — Umayyah Cable — Fahad Ali — Samar Dahleh — Ayman Nijim — Jumana Musa — Miryam Rashid — Helga Tawil-Souri — Leila Shahid — Leena Barakat — Nadia Saah — Hana Masud — Asma Al-Naser — Diana Buttu — Selma Dabbagh — Rana Issa — Riyad Khoury — Nasser Saleh — Said Abu Mualla — Haneen Zoabi — Muayad Alayan — Afnann Egbaria — Khaled Karkabi — Jaber Suleiman — Tarif Khalidi — Pelican Mourad — Ibrahim Fraihat — Basel Ghattas — Wisam Gibran — Fathi Marshood — Radi Suudi — Ahmed Abofoul — Omar Barghouti — Abdelhamid Siyam — Noor A’wad — Lara Elborno — Areen Hawari — Liyana Kayali — Nadia Naser-Najab — Kamal Aljafari — Anthony Broumana — Seema Hejazi — Fady Joudah — Samah Sabawi — Ramy Al-Asheq — Yousef Abu Warda — Khalil Sayegh — Nadim Khoury — Waseem Abu Mehadi — Jonathan Kuttab — Line Khateeb — Abdellatif Rayan — George Abed — Khalil Shikaki — Diana Alzeer — Lena Khalaf Tuffaha — Nadim Rouhana — Bassam Shihada — Hiba Husseini — Majed Kayali — Nahed Schäffer-Awwad — Burhan Ghanayem — Loubna Turjuman — Abeer Al-Najjar — Naseer Aboushi — Yasmeen Daher — Siman Khoury — Amani Barakat — Dimah Habash — George Bisharat — Walid Afifi — Hasan Hammami — Khalil Hindi — Akram Baker — Margaret Zaknoen DeReus — Mazen Masri — Tanya Keilani — Marzuq Al-Halabi — Hanan Toukan — Abdelnasser Rashid — Fadya Salfiti — M. Muhannad Ayyash — Yasser Abdrabbou — Maurice Ebileeni — Rashida Tlaib — Lina Qamar — Oraib Toukan — Rima I Anabtawi — Emad Salem — Mona Khalidi — Mohammed Said Samhouri — Raja G Khoury — Sara Husseini — Nasser Mashni — Jawadat Abu El-Haj — Norma M. Rantisi — Ann Shirazi — Ahmad Shirazi — Suheil Nammari — Nafez Abo-Elreich — Moosa Omar — Karem Sakallah — Farouq R Shafie — Mahmoud Muna — Izzat Darwazeh — Awni Daibes — Nadeem Karkabi — Ra’fat Sub Laban — Lina Ramadan — Gabriel Mifsud — Khaled Hamida — Basma Al-Sharif — Ali Mansour — Falestin Naili — Manar H. Makhoul — Nabil Armaly — Hassan F Hamed — Waleed Karkabi — Nada Elia — Abed Azzam — Hassane Karkar — Ben Jamal

Published by IOL Daily News under my byline

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DECLASSIFIED: How a controversy over a Palestinian supporter of the Nazi Party exposed a campaign to sugar-coat events in the aftermath of WW2

WHEN PHOTOGRAPHS of Palestinian leader Amin al-Husseini touring Trebbin Concentration Camp appeared the images were greeted with disbelief. The 6 previously unknown photos in which the Palestinian leader and self-styled ‘grand mufti of Jerusalem’, al-Husseini, inspects a Nazi concentration camp along with Nazi senior officials and government figures, are shocking to say the least.

Three of the images now in the public domain provide “irrefutable proof that all of the men present had precise knowledge of the fate of Jews in Hitler’s Germany — and of the likely fate of Jews in their own home countries under Nazi rule, ” writes Wolfgang Schwanitz. The photos are stamped “Photo-Gerhards Trebbin.” 

This evidence of Palestinian leadership involvement in the events surrounding the Holocaust, as more than simply a disinterested party, stand alongside documentation and commentary by Schwanitz, showing a delegation including Iraqi politician Ali al-Kailani accompanying al-Husseini. These are not the only clues, indicating that al-Husseini’s published memoirs, upon which much of current historical opinion on the politician (including a controversial Wikipedia article) is based, are just plain wrong.

Joel Fishman in a forward to a special issue on al-Husseini in the Jewish Political Studies Review says:”During the past decades, new archival sources have become available. They include Nazi documents captured by the Red Army, State Department and CIA collections which have become declassified, and related primary sources from Germany. “

“For example, in 1977, the State Department declassified the “Axis in Arabic” files of the US Embassy in Cairo. This valuable collection includes transcripts of the Mufti’s speeches to the Arab world, broadcast from Berlin by shortwave.”

“Approximately 8 million pages of documents declassified in the United States under the 1998 Nazi War Crimes Disclosure Act added significantly to our knowledge of wartime Nazi crimes and the postwar fate of suspected war criminals” write Richard Breitman and Norman J.W. Goda in the introduction to their book Hitler’s Shadow. Yet other documents remain classified, see postscript below.

Dr Steven Wagner of Brunel University London, head of a project which aims to ‘unmask al-Husseini via his war-time letters and diaries’ concurs:

“It’s now possible to set the record straight. Researchers have lacked access to direct primary evidence about Husseini’s time in Germany and Italy during 1941-45. Lack of evidence has hampered research about Husseini’s aims, motives, and decisions. Most of what we know about him has derived from his own memoir, written decades later, compared against colonial archives.”

Yet a good deal of this apparent ‘new evidence’ was already in the public domain in some form, long before the circumstances of al-Husseini’s close relationship with the Hitler regime was raised in a very public fashion in 2015, at which time, the evidence appeared then, to the casual observer, to be merely transcripts of a 1941 meeting with Adolf Hitler, ‘an innocent meeting with Der Fuhrer’, along with several books by authors accused of ‘Nazifying the subject matter’.

In reality most of the early intrigue stems from evidence submitted before Nuremberg and later Eichmann trial.

Abbas ’50 Holocausts’ comment draws fire, lame local response as Israel cracks down on Palestinian rights groups

IT’S BEEN quite a week. 7 days after Salman Rushdie was stabbed by an assailant and rushed to hospital where he remains on the critical list, Mahmoud Abbas was drawing fire for comments he made at a press conference alongside German Chancellor Scholz, prompting an investigation by Berlin police.

Abbas claimed that Israel had committed “50 Holocausts” against Palestinians.

The remarks, during a news conference in Berlin alongside German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, sparked outrage in Germany, Israel and beyond. Scholz said Wednesday he was “disgusted by the outrageous remarks” made by the Palestinian Authority president.

He also rejected the use of the term ‘apartheid’ to describe Israel.

Police confirmed a report Friday by German daily Bild that Abbas was being investigated for possible infringements of laws making it a criminal offense to downplay or deny the Holocaust.

Abbas’ statement is consistent with replacement theology which denies the involvement of Palestinian leadership in the tragedy under Amin al-Husseini (pictured touring concentration camps with German high command) and the result is Nakba inflation, in which massacres of Jews by Arabs in the Middle East, including expulsion and cession of land owned by Jews, some 100 000 square km of deeded property, is rendered invisible.

Nether remarks by Abbas or Sholz received media coverage in South Africa. Instead, I awoke this morning to press releases from local rights organisations such as South African Jews for Free Palestine (SAJFP), objecting to seven Palestinian civil society and human rights organisations ‘forcibly shut by Israeli raids on Thursday’. A tragic case of injustice versus injustice in which both parties to the conflict feel emboldened to deny the rights of the other?

The reasons offered by Israel seem to be allegations the organizations are being used as ‘fronts for terror activities’. JFP were quick to point out this was a common accusation made during the State of Emergency under apartheid. Whether the result actually translates into apartheid is another matter.

One can only hope the SAJFP is as vocal in its objection to Holocaust denial and will provides readers with an explanation as to why there is currently no Secular Freedom Charter in a struggle which purports to be analogous to the struggle against apartheid.