Jerusalem: The Biography

* ‘He entered into the Nazis’ criminal delirium about “the Jews”’, writes Professor Gilbert Achcar in his book Arabs and the Holocaust, ‘as it burgeoned into the greatest of all crimes against humanity.’ Achcar adds, ‘it is undeniable that the mufti espoused the Nazis’ anti-Semitic doctrine which was easily compatible with a fanatical anti-Judaism cast in the Pan-Islamic mould.’ In a speech in Berlin on the 1943 anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, he said ‘they live rather as parasites amongst the peoples, suck their blood, pervert their morals … Germany has very clearly resolved to find a definitive solution for the Jewish danger that will eliminate the scourge that the Jews represent in the world.’ In his memoirs written in his Lebanese exile, he revelled in the fact that Jewish ‘losses in the course of the Second World War represented more than 30 per cent of the total number of their people whereas the Germans’ losses were less significant’ and, citing the Protocols and the World War One ‘stab in the back’ myth, he justified the Holocaust since there was no other way to scientifically reform the Jews.