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02:36It's not simply a matter of history, as the Grand Mufti's actions and influence have had a significant impact on the Middle East of today.
02:43Muhammad al-Husseini's story is rooted in the period in the Middle East between the First and Second World Wars.
02:59Al-Husseini was born into a family of wealthy landowners in southern Palestine, near the holy city of Jerusalem, with a long and proud history.
03:10At the start of the 20th century, the whole region was largely under Muslim control, with around 400,000 Muslims and as few as 25,000 Jews.
03:24The land had been part of the massive Ottoman Empire for 400 years, but during the First World War, the empire was broken up and Palestine was controlled by the British.
03:39The British occupied Palestine during the First World War.
03:45It didn't exist as a political entity under the Ottomans.
03:50But the British decided by the end of the First World War that they wanted to dismember the Ottoman Empire, and it was quite clear to them that Palestine was of tremendous strategic significance in terms of the need to protect Egypt and the Suez Canal from any potential aggressor.
04:08During the First World War, the British had made explicit promises to the Arabs in the Middle East, that they wanted a new era for the Arab people.
04:20They even sent out leaflets in Arabic, proclaiming that they fully supported the idea that Arabs should run their own countries.
04:29For al-Husseini and other politically motivated Palestinians, it meant that they were more than willing to help the British cause.
04:36You have to remember that Haj Amin al-Husseini was not simply a bystander in the events of the end of the First World War.
04:46He worked with the British as an officer in the Sharifian Arab army in Palestine to recruit, in the name of the cause of Arab national freedom, fighting with the British.
04:59He was said to be very pro-British.
05:03But this was a difficult time for those Arabs living in Palestine.
05:09They were witnessing more and more Jews settling in what they believed was their land.
05:17And even worse for the Palestinians, some of those Jews were hardline Zionists, Jews dedicated to the establishment of a solely Jewish nation.
05:25It was a situation that al-Husseini could not tolerate.
05:33Then, in November 1917, the British made a political move that has repercussions even today.
05:46They issued what became known as the Balfour Declaration.
05:50It stated that the British government now favoured the establishment in Palestine of a homeland for the Jewish people.
06:00So, in other words, the Declaration supported the idea of a country for the Jews.
06:06There was no reference to Arabs at all.
06:08There's no mention of the Palestinian Arabs in the Balfour Declaration.
06:13They're simply referred to as existing non-Jewish communities.
06:16The reason for that is that British Middle East specialists, Orientalists of the period, didn't think that there was an actual Arab population in Palestine.
06:29They simply saw them as a degenerate bunch of mixed races, the terminology that was used during this period.
06:36They didn't see that this was a cohesive community in any sense.
06:41For al-Husseini, the Balfour Declaration was devastating news.
06:47And it was this that would cause him to set out on the path that would ultimately lead him to collaborate with the Nazis.
06:54He wasn't prepared to stand by and see his homeland simply given away by the British.
06:59He decided to fight.
07:05During the Muslim festival of Nebi Musa in Jerusalem, an anti-Jewish riot broke out in protest at the Balfour Declaration.
07:19This is the first case of large-scale violence between the two communities.
07:25Al-Husseini, after the Nebi Musa riots, is accused, particularly by the Zionists, of orchestrating the entire thing.
07:34The commission that investigated the course of the riots certainly believed that al-Husseini had a part to play.
07:42Afterwards, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a military court.
07:48But he avoided jail, as he'd already fled the country.
07:52This figures as part of a larger narrative that he's a troublemaker,
07:56that the Palestinian Arabs would have been okay with Zionism if it wasn't for these extreme Palestinian Arab nationalist leaders like al-Husseini,
08:04who, throughout the mandate, continually drive them towards extremism and violence against the Zionists.
08:11Then, in July 1920, the British made a move that would give al-Husseini hope.
08:18They appointed their first high commissioner to Palestine, Sir Herbert Samuel.
08:23It was an interesting choice.
08:27He was a liberal MP.
08:29He was the first Jewish member of the British cabinet.
08:34He was a high-profile politician.
08:37And during the First World War, he is the first person to submit a proposal to the British cabinet
08:44in support of the idea of the establishment of a Jewish state.
08:50Despite his Zionist credentials, Samuel went out of his way to prove to the Arabs that, although he was a Jew,
08:59above all else, he was fair.
09:05So he declared an amnesty for all Palestinian Arabs who had previously been sentenced by the British military.
09:13Still in exile at this point, al-Husseini could now safely return to his homeland.
09:20Then came another event that changed al-Husseini's life.
09:28His half-brother, Kamal, died suddenly.
09:31He was the Mufti of Jerusalem, the Palestinian Muslim's spiritual leader.
09:37His funeral was a lavish occasion attended by thousands.
09:40His death left a serious power vacuum in Jerusalem.
09:49It was a situation that the British had to resolve quickly.
09:52Samuel realised that if there was any chance of creating stability in the region,
10:00then the right person had to be appointed as the Mufti's successor.
10:08Samuel wasted no time in selecting Muhammad Amin al-Husseini to fill the role.
10:13To enhance the authority of their chosen man, the British suddenly bestowed a brand new title on him.
10:21Not only would he be the Mufti of Jerusalem, he would be the Grand Mufti of Palestine.
10:27That is the spiritual leader of not only Jerusalem's Muslims, but of all Muslims in Palestine.
10:33It was a job for which he was barely qualified.
10:39The kind of education that would be relevant to the post of Mufti is, of course, religious education, theology.
10:46And he didn't achieve this.
10:48He started, but he interrupted to go to serve in the army, in the First World War,
10:54and never resume this education.
10:56And so he has to be someone who was very much learned in the Islamic theology.
11:00And that was certainly not the case with Amin al-Husseini.
11:04So this person, who was designated as the Mufti of Jerusalem and Grand Mufti of Palestine
11:12by the British authorities in 1921, was barely 26 years old.
11:18So a very, very young person for the job.
11:21He was such an unlikely choice that even his own people didn't think him fit for the job.
11:26He was not even part of the three persons that were selected according to the normal procedure
11:33by the community of religious persons in Palestine for the job.
11:39So he was just picked by the British High Commissioner for Palestine, Herbert Samuel,
11:47who happens to be a Zionist himself, actually, who picked just Amin al-Husseini
11:52and designated him in this job, this job that the British authorities had renamed Grand Mufti
12:00of Palestine in order to stress the fact that this was the highest spiritual authority
12:07on the territory of their mandate.
12:11But despite his lack of qualifications, Al-Husseini took office on May the 8th, 1921.
12:19And from then onwards, his power and authority seems to keep on growing.
12:23Within a year, he'd been elected president of the Supreme Muslim Council.
12:47At the age of just 26, he was now both the religious and political leader of the Arab community
12:56in Palestine, making him a hugely powerful player in the politics of the Middle East.
13:01At first, what looked like a high-risk appointment initially seemed to work.
13:16Al-Husseini worked hard to keep the peace.
13:24Towards the late 1920s, there were regular violent clashes between Palestinian Arabs and Jews.
13:31Jewish properties and even synagogues were attacked and destroyed.
13:37But the Grand Mufti was often seen attempting to restore order during the violence.
13:46Yet despite his attempts to keep the peace, there would soon be a dramatic turn of events
13:50that put him back on a collision course with the British.
13:55Those events occurred in Germany.
13:58By March 1933, support for Adolf Hitler was growing at an unstoppable speed.
14:19He'd risen to take total power over the country.
14:22He brought democracy to an end, and now, for the first time as dictator,
14:31he turned his attention to his driving and overall ambition,
14:36the destruction of the Jews.
14:39He began by imposing a national boycott of Jewish shops and department stores.
14:52Then, on the night of May the 10th, 1933,
15:06an event unseen in Europe since the Middle Ages occurred,
15:09as German students gathered in Berlin to burn books that were deemed to be Jewish.
15:15Hitler introduced what became known as the Nuremberg Laws.
15:23These severely restricted job opportunities for Jews, banned sexual relations between Jews and Germans, and in many cases, stripped Jews of their citizenship.
15:45Tens of thousands of Jews were forced to leave the country. One of their destinations was Palestine.
15:57There can be no doubt that the major factor in providing the conditions for creating a Jewish state in Palestine has been the rise of Nazism to power.
16:11And concluded an agreement with the Zionist movement, which is called the Ha'avara, a transfer agreement, to organise the immigration of German Jews to Palestine, which is the only destination to which German Jews were allowed to move part of their belongings in the form of German goods, German products, bought and exported to Palestine.
16:36In 1933, the number of Jews in Palestine was to 209,000.
16:43Because of the explosion of Zionist immigration in the beginning of the 1930s, this leads to, as a result, an explosion of Palestinian Arab anger and resentment.
16:58This is the real challenge for al-Husseini and other Arab leaders at the time.
17:05And as the Palestinian Arab population becomes more radicalised because of the situation in Palestine in the 1930s, by the middle of that decade, things really are clearly out of the control of the Palestinian Arab elite.
17:17By 1937, the number of Jews had risen again. The figure now stood at 396,000. But rather than the Mufti blaming the Germans for this influx, the German Consul General in Palestine, Heinrich Wolff, informed the Fuhrer that Palestinian Muslims were making sympathetic noises towards the new Nazi regime.
17:39New Jewish communities with extensive building programs were continuing to populate Palestine.
17:49But news for the Arab population was about to get even worse.
17:54In London, the British government rejected a demand made by al-Husseini and other Arab leaders for an official council, designed to give them more control over their homeland.
18:09It was a bitter blow to their hopes of establishing a group to represent the views of the wider Palestinian Arab population.
18:18The Members of Parliament, who rejected the proposal of a Legislative Council, did so because of the fear that this would undermine Britain's commitment to Zionism.
18:29And there was widespread belief in the Houses of Parliament that Zionism was, per se, a good thing.
18:37The Members of Parliament continued to believe the old narrative that European migration in the shape of Zionist migration would raise the living standards of the Palestinian Arabs.
18:51That the Zionists were civilizing the backward orient. And that was the spark that led to the uprising.
18:58Arab leaders in Palestine now called for a general strike. It meant a total refusal to pay taxes and a country-wide strike of all Arab workers and businesses.
19:13The Arab leadership quickly organized themselves to coordinate further political demonstrations and strikes.
19:23They formed the Arab higher committee. Its role to make demands of the British government during the unrest.
19:32The head of this new organization was the Grand Mufti himself.
19:38The Grand Mufti declared that the strike would continue until all Jewish immigration into Palestine was stopped.
19:48During the summer of 1936, the strikes brought the region to a standstill.
19:55Shops and businesses were forced to close throughout Palestine.
20:02It immediately caused widespread unrest.
20:08As violence broke out, the country's infrastructure was smashed.
20:14The transport network was sabotaged.
20:21British troops were sent in to quell the rising violence.
20:26They targeted Arab gangs who were attacking Jewish communities indiscriminately.
20:31It was the start of a three-year-long bloodbath that became known as the Arab Revolt.
20:44During that first summer, thousands of acres of Jewish farmland were destroyed.
20:49The British tried in vain to keep the peace.
20:52But by October of 1936, with the revolt already six months old, an estimated 1,300 people had been killed.
21:07The British set up and dispatched a committee to the region known as the Peel Commission.
21:11Its task was to investigate the reasons for the clashes and to come up with solutions.
21:18But their recommendations would only make things worse for the Palestinians.
21:24The Peel Commission came to conclusion, including recommendations which were very clearly tailored according to the wishes of the Zionist movement.
21:36That is, the partition of Palestine.
21:38That was the first clear pronouncement from a British source, official source, on the issue of partition.
21:45Of course, that was vehemently rejected by the Palestinians, including the Mufti.
21:54The new map gave the Jews their own land in the north, with the British retaining the area around Jerusalem.
22:04Fearing that their country was about to be carved up, violence again flared in the region.
22:10In 1937, al-Husseini was deposed as president of the Supreme Muslim Council by the British authorities.
22:17And the Arab Higher Committee was declared illegal.
22:20Unrest in Palestine.
22:22Suspecting that the Higher Committee had incited Arab leaders to start a holy war against the British government,
22:27police swooped on the secret headquarters of assassins and rebels.
22:30Many arrests were made.
22:32The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, head of the Muslim Supreme Council, was deprived of office.
22:37The frontiers are guarded with special vigilance, all roads leading to Jerusalem patrol.
22:42The British government is determined to stamp out terrorism.
22:51Warrants for the arrest of the leaders of the committee were issued.
22:54But the Grand Mufti escaped to the Haram, the holy area of the city, where he was untouchable by the British.
23:00After three months in hiding, he fled the country and began a tortuous journey that would end at the very heart of the Nazi regime.
23:10He's staying in Syria, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.
23:21Foremost in the Palestine era of trouble, he eluded the British and escaped from the mosque of Omar.
23:26Now in exile in Syria, he continued to direct the war against the British.
23:31But British troop numbers were too small to crush the revolt.
23:37Strikes, sabotage, assassinations and the guerrilla warfare went on without let-up.
23:48The British military presence was small in comparison to the Palestinian Arab forces.
23:53They were being overrun.
24:05But then Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain found a new way of freeing up extra troops.
24:10He signed a deal with Hitler, giving him part of Czechoslovakia.
24:15Allegedly, this made Europe safe from the threat of war.
24:17With more than 20,000 troops, three RAF squadrons and 4,000 police, the British now began to squeeze the life out of the Arab revolt.
24:34Villagers accused of sheltering Arab rebels had their houses blown up.
24:38Those Arabs suspected of taking part in the fighting were killed or beaten.
24:52Thousands of men were rounded up and imprisoned in detention camps without trial.
24:57At least 112 Arabs were hanged for taking part in the rebellion.
25:01According to official figures, by the spring of 1939, when the revolt effectively ended, the British had killed more than 2,000 Arabs.
25:14The British crushed the Arab uprising, which was the most significant challenge to British imperial authority in the 1930s.
25:22And a testament to the Palestinian national movement at that time.
25:28But because of the extent of British military suppression of that revolt and the brutality of that suppression against the Palestinian Arab people,
25:41you end up with a floundering Palestinian Arab movement after the revolt and going into the Second World War.
25:47And the movements of al-Husseini after the revolt are really a testament to that floundering of the Palestinian Arab national movement.
25:58That's completely lost after the revolt and after it being crushed by the British.
26:03But then in May 1939, the British government did an amazing U-turn.
26:08With Europe now back on the verge of war, they realized that they simply did not have enough men and machines to defend the Suez Canal and the precious oil fields of Iraq and Persia, as well as fighting Arab rebels in Palestine.
26:24Arab public opinion in the Middle East needed to be appeased.
26:31So they produced a paper calling for strict limits on Jewish immigration and the creation of an independent Palestine by 1949.
26:42Here was an offer that seemed to give al-Husseini and his freedom fighters everything they'd asked for.
26:49The 1939 White Paper was seen by many Palestinian nationalists, including some radical nationalists, as a real achievement of the fight that has been waged by the Palestinians ever since the start of the revolt, the great revolt in 1936.
27:12It was a sharp curtailment of Jewish immigration that was going to be limited to 75,000 over the following five years.
27:23And also a commitment that in ten years' time there would be an independent Palestinian state.
27:29They really saw in the White Paper the outcome of these years of struggle and the very high cost that they had to pay for that in lives, you know, in repression and all that.
27:46This was a real chance for the Mufti to get what he wanted.
27:49Such was his hatred of the British that he dismissed their efforts to attempt to win him over.
27:56He rejected the White Paper's recommendations.
28:00And he went much further.
28:04He called for an end to the British mandate in Palestine.
28:08He wanted the British out and the creation of a single Arab state.
28:11The forces that propel him to collaborate with the Nazis were now inevitable.
28:22He had his own selfish personal ambitions above any considerations of the real interest of his people and the movement.
28:30I'm saying that because, again, many nationalist leaders of the Palestinians considered that the White Paper should have been accepted and at the time were in favour of expressing approval of the White Paper and seeing in the White Paper a victory of the movement.
28:51Now the Grand Mufti was effectively at war with the British.
28:55And he desperately needed allies.
28:57He gave a clear indication of who they might be.
29:01Al Husseini was quoted as saying,
29:04What do we care who backs us or who we align ourselves with as long as it helps us to attain our goals?
29:11We have a common enemy, the British and the Jews.
29:27We are...
29:57As the war began in Europe, al-Husseini's deteriorating relationship with the Syrian authorities
30:13forced him to move on from his base in Damascus.
30:18This time, he made for the Kingdom of Iraq.
30:21In Baghdad, he continued his political agitating and in 1941 was involved in an anti-British revolt.
30:32From his base in Iraq, he issued a fatwa for a holy war against Britain.
30:44But just days later, British troops invaded Iraq and al-Husseini was forced to move on yet again.
30:52This time, he made for fascist Italy, where he met with the country's dictator, Benito Mussolini.
31:12Whilst in Italy, the Grand Mufti prepared a declaration confirming his support for the Axis powers.
31:17He was officially declaring his allegiance to the Nazis and their supporters.
31:25Within days, it had been sent to the German embassy in Rome.
31:28And on the 6th of November 1941, the Grand Mufti entered Berlin for the first time to meet directly with German officials.
31:38When the Mufti arrived in 1941 in Berlin, he was of course greeted by many Nazi officials, especially those who were in touch already with him and in charge of operations in the Middle East, the political and strategic operations of Nazi Germany in the Middle East.
32:03But he, of course, requested to meet the Fuhrer.
32:08He believed that his own stature meant that he had to meet in person the chief of the Nazis.
32:16Hitler was not very much enthused about this idea of meeting a person like that.
32:25Although reluctant to meet in person with the Grand Mufti, Hitler was told by his advisers that it might be useful in convincing him to help Germany win over the Arab population of the Middle East.
32:35So on November the 28th, 1941, the Grand Mufti was ushered into a private room in Hitler's Chancellery.
32:55Surrounded by Nazi dignitaries, he finally met the Fuhrer.
33:00It wasn't a long meeting, but Al Husseini appeared to get what he so desperately wanted.
33:15Hitler was saying, give me some time, let us develop our military strategy and when we'll be in the military position of dominating this part of the world, we will fulfill your desires of independence.
33:31But until then, I have political considerations, so you have to, you know, accept my pledge and that's it.
33:41And this was the only meeting Hitler ever gave the Mufti.
33:46The deal was pretty clear. While the Nazis stopped short of actually recognising an independent Palestine, Hitler was planning to deal with the Jews who'd settled in the country.
33:59And so began the Mufti's four-year-long relationship with the Nazis.
34:12Throughout his time in Germany during the Second World War, Al Husseini appeared to enjoy a close working relationship with some of the highest ranking Nazis.
34:19In the Grand Mufti's memoirs published in 1999, he freely discusses his close relationship with SS chief Heinrich Himmler, the man who was the architect of the extermination of the Jews.
34:37According to his own account, he often met Himmler for tea. On one such occasion, the Grand Mufti had his photograph taken with him.
34:46It contains a signed dedication from Himmler. To his eminence, the Grand Mufti. A memento.
34:56This wasn't the only exchange of gifts between Muhammad Al Husseini and the Nazi leaders.
35:00The Grand Mufti even went to such lengths as having a Persian rug specially made for the Führer himself.
35:18From his bureau in Berlin, he also planned a series of radio broadcasts to the Middle East.
35:23His first came in December 1941, and he continued to broadcast throughout the entire war.
35:34But then his involvement with the Nazis became deeper and darker.
35:39In 1942, Himmler's deputy, Reinhard Heydrich, convened a meeting of Nazi officials who met here, at Wannsee, near Berlin.
36:01At the meeting, the Nazi hierarchy launched their project to deal with the millions of Jews in Europe.
36:06They rubber-stamped the plan which became known as the final solution to the Jewish problem.
36:19It meant the systematic rounding up of Jews, and their extermination in death camps all over Europe.
36:25So what did the Grand Mufti really know of the Nazis' plans?
36:38The Mufti, as he himself acknowledged very clearly in his memoirs,
36:43was perfectly aware of the genocide.
36:50He was perfectly aware of the fact that the Nazis were conducting, perpetrating a genocide of European Jews.
36:59He tells himself in his memoir the story of his encounter in July 1943 with Himmler,
37:03during which Himmler told him that Germany was in the process of exterminating the Jews and had already killed three million of them.
37:18He himself recognizes that he knew.
37:29He was informed about that, at least in July 1943.
37:35Whilst there is no evidence of the Grand Mufti actively assisting Hitler's plans,
37:42he certainly did help the Nazi war effort.
37:44As the Second World War progressed and Germany began to suffer defeats, their troops became more and more stretched.
38:05One area of conflict where there was a desperate need for military support was the Balkans.
38:20There, the Communist Partisans were growing in strength.
38:24The Germans needed more resources urgently, especially soldiers.
38:28One possible solution was the drafting of Bosnian Muslims.
38:33But they had been strictly forbidden by Muslim leaders from collaborating with the Nazis.
38:43So the German authorities turned to their trusted Muslim voice, the Grand Mufti,
38:48to exert pressure on the power brokers in the region.
38:56In the spring of 1943, the Mufti successfully convinced Bosnian Muslims to ignore the clerics.
39:03By doing so, he played a major role in establishing a new unit of the SS,
39:09the most feared and fanatical part of the German armed forces.
39:13It was the SS that was responsible for some of the most brutal and horrendous crimes perpetrated in the whole of the war.
39:22The unit that the Grand Mufti helped set up became known as the 13th Waffen SS Mountain Division and consisted almost entirely of Muslims.
39:31However, again, there is no evidence that this unit was actively involved in any anti-Jewish atrocities.
39:41But the Grand Mufti went further.
39:43He wrote letters to European leaders urging them not only to stop sending their Jewish citizens to Palestine, but to actively redirect them to Poland.
39:57He knew that there were concentration camps that was publicly known.
40:12And therefore he was advocating that the Jews be sent to concentration camps instead of being sent to Palestine.
40:16So we can see here the qualitative difference between a Palestinian national leader who would say to any governments,
40:28don't send your Jews to Palestine.
40:31That's one thing.
40:33And a Palestinian leader would say, don't send your Jews to Palestine, but send them to Poland in concentration camps.
40:41Here you move from what could be seen as a legitimate national position or nationalist position into a criminal statement.
40:51And indeed the Mufti had a very abject role during those years.
40:57There's no way therefore one can excuse him for that or find any justification.
41:04The Mufti's justification was probably to get help in his efforts to attack the British in his homeland.
41:12He asked the Nazi hierarchy to organize sabotage missions against the Allies in the Middle East.
41:18His requests met with some success.
41:24Teams of saboteurs were parachuted into Iraq, Jordan and Palestine, where they targeted Allied facilities such as telephone lines, pipelines, bridges and railways.
41:35But when he asked the German air command to carry out bigger raids along the Palestine coast and on Tel Aviv, he was less successful.
41:44Hermann Goering, the head of the Luftwaffe, rejected the plan saying he simply didn't have enough men and machines to divert from Europe.
41:56But despite being let down by the Nazi hierarchy that he had come to trust, he continued to throw his support behind them.
42:10On March the 1st 1944, during one of his many broadcasts, he said,
42:16Arabs, rise as one man and fight for your sacred rights.
42:24Kill the Jews wherever you find them.
42:27This pleases God, history and religion.
42:30This saves your honour.
42:33God is with you.
42:41We are not here dealing with, let's say, a kind of average nationalist leader fighting for the independence of his nation, for the liberation of his nation.
42:54And willing to make some tactical compromises or alliances for that purpose.
43:03No, we are dealing with somebody who believed in a real convergence between himself, what he represented, and the Nazis on the terrain of anti-Semitism.
43:15And the drive goes on. Hanover is captured, and civilians wave white handkerchiefs and line the streets to watch a victorious army rumble through to the east.
43:30As the Second World War drew to its conclusion in the spring of 1945, it became clear to the Grand Mufti that defeat for Hitler and the Nazis was only a matter of time.
43:40Al-Husseini had escaped capture before, and he was about to do it again.
43:49This is the defeat of Germany.
43:54This is the defeat of Germany.
44:03Facing Air Chief Marshal Tedder and Marshal Zhukov is a conquered German general.
44:09Keitel signs the surrender.
44:10Just a day after Germany surrendered to the Allies, Al-Husseini boarded a plane for neutral Switzerland.
44:27But he was denied political asylum and moved swiftly on to Paris.
44:31A year later, in the spring of 1946, the Grand Mufti's actions during the war were examined at the Nuremberg trials.
44:48The Mufti was not indicted as part of the Nuremberg Tribunal and all that.
44:54There wasn't enough evidence accumulated against him, despite the efforts of, of course, the Zionist movement.
45:03The fact is that, of course, Hussseini did everything I mentioned in terms of propaganda, contribution to the propaganda.
45:10He was a close collaborator of the Nazis.
45:13But he was not himself directly involved in war crimes.
45:17Now the Grand Mufti beat one more hasty retreat.
45:29This time to the Egyptian capital Cairo, where he was finally given political asylum and a hero's welcome.
45:36So what is one to make of the Grand Mufti of Palestine?
45:49To some, he was simply a committed nationalist religious leader.
45:54One who was driven into the arms of the Germans by an unsympathetic British government,
46:00which repeatedly let him and his people down.
46:02They see him as a man faced with losing everything he'd promised his people he would protect.
46:10A man who would go to any lengths to see his Palestine remain solely in the hands of the Arabs.
46:17Some people in the Arab world had tried to, if not justify, at least to find attenuating circumstances
46:30for the Mufti's collaboration with Nazism through the famous saying that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
46:43But to others, his relationship with the Nazis is damning.
46:48When you know about the nature of the force with which you are allying, and this force is committing such a huge crime against humanity,
47:04then this enemy of my enemy does not really hold water as an argument.
47:14The abjection, the abomination of collaborating with such a regime is clear.
47:20Muhammad Amin al-Husseini never returned to Jerusalem after his escape in 1937.
47:38The grand Mufti of Palestine eventually died in exile in Beirut in 1974, aged 79.
47:59His place as leader of the Palestinian Arabs was eventually taken by a relative, Muhammad Yasser Abdul Rahman al-Husseini,
48:13better known as Yasser Arafat.
48:19In August 2002, Arafat gave an interview in which he referred to Muhammad al-Husseini
48:24as a symbol of Palestinian Arab resistance.
48:29He called him simply a hero.
48:33But it's not a view shared by many.
48:35It's not a view shared by many.
48:39.
48:45.
48:56.
48:57Transcription by CastingWords