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Where’s Waldo? The search for an Israeli politician
who will speak the truth to Israelis Historical and Investigative Research
– 2 Jan 2012 Israelis, and the world, are
badly in need of an Israeli politician that will explain to them the German
Nazi origins of PLO/Fatah—the
supposed ‘partner for peace’ to whom the Israeli government will soon bequeath
strategic Israeli territory. The consequences of such an Israeli politician
would be far reaching, not just for Israel, but for the entire West in its
fight against Islam. ___________________________________________________________ As a child, I enjoyed playing “Where’s Waldo?”,
which involves finding this weird-looking fellow, who hides in complicated
pictures:
I also enjoyed the “What’s missing?” game, where the
player must identify what is missing from a picture. All right, yes. I was (am) a geek. Be a geek with
me, for a second, and let’s see what these two games can teach us about
Israeli politics. What’s missing? In the summer of 2009, Avigdor
Lieberman, foreign minister in Benjamin Netanyahu’s administration, encouraged
the circulation of this photograph:
Hajj
Amin al Husseini with Adolf Hitler On the left we have prominent Palestinian Arab
religious leader Hajj Amin al Husseini, Mufti of Jerusalem in the first half
of the 20th c. On the right, everybody’s favorite: Adolf Hitler. They seem
friendly. They were. What’s missing? Nothing. This is not yet the game. Why did Lieberman have this photo circulated? “ ‘It
is important that the world know the facts,’ a spokesperson for Mr Lieberman told the BBC, without giving further
detail.”[1] At that very moment, the US government was leaning
hard on Israel not to build Jewish housing on the site of the Shepherd Hotel
in Jerusalem, which had once belonged to Husseini’s
family but had now been bought by American Jewish millionaire Irving Moskowitz. The media found “an Israeli official” who
explained that “the move by Mr Lieberman was linked
to the row over the Shepherd Hotel.” Now we are ready. What’s missing? The point! If the Israeli government wants to build Jewish
housing in East Jerusalem on a property formerly owned by Husseini’s
family, and if Husseini was friendly with Hitler, what does that have to do
with the price of tea in China? Lieberman didn’t explain, he just circulated
the photo “without giving further detail.” So the media had a field day. BBC News
painted Lieberman as the unreasonable “far-right Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman,” and repeated the complaints of
Palestinians who claim that Israel “uses settlement and demolition orders to
try to force them from the area” of East Jerusalem where “Palestinians hope
to establish their capital... as part of a two-state peace deal with the
Israelis.” The Independent wrote
that Moskowitz is “a major benefactor of right wing
settler groups,” and also that “the [Lieberman] move has alarmed some
experienced Israeli diplomats who believe it will be counterproductive.”
There was “one Israeli official in Jerusalem [who] said of Mr Lieberman’s move: ‘If the issue here is sovereignty
over Jerusalem then passing on a historical photograph like this completely
misses the point... It has nothing to do with it.’ ”[1a] The Australian added: “The order has been greeted inside the Israeli Foreign
Ministry with derision, with one source telling The Australian it was met with ‘laughter, skepticism and a sense of
misplaced communication that this doesn’t help one bit the real argument.’ ”[1b] So, thanks to no “further detail” from Lieberman,
this became the media-framed story of an ugly ‘right-winger’ Jew engaging in
ridiculous behavior: he published an entirely
meaningless photo of a Palestinian Arab cleric chatting with Hitler, the
better to assist other ‘right-winger’ Jews in their efforts to derail
‘peace-loving Palestinians.’ But what if Lieberman had given “further detail”
(you know, because “It is important that the world know the facts”)? Suppose, for example, that Lieberman had explained
that Hajj Amin al Husseini was no mere “top Palestinian cleric,” as BBC News would have it. He was the
scion of the most powerful Muslim family in Jerusalem, and became the founder
and leader—the ‘George Washington,’ as some have called him—of the
‘Palestinian movement’ itself. This movement was in fact created with the
help of the British, who made Husseini Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, conferred on
him enormous powers throughout British Mandate Palestine, and assisted his
early terrorist attacks against the Jews of said Mandate. From late 1941
onwards, Husseini spent the war in Nazi-occupied Europe functioning as a
top-ranked Nazi. He raised Bosnian Muslim SS troops for Hitler that carried
out unspeakable atrocities against Serbs, Roma, and Jews in Nazi-occupied
Yugoslavia, he directed a great deal of wartime Nazi propaganda, and he
worked closely with Adolf Eichmann in the organization of the Final Solution,
which is to say the bureaucratic and logistical apparatus responsible for
producing what Jews call Shoah (‘Catastrophe’) and the rest of the world calls ‘the
Holocaust’: the extermination of between 5 and 6 million European Jews. At
the meeting documented in the photograph, Hitler had promised to help
Husseini also to get rid of the “Jewish element” in the Middle East. After
the war, Husseini escaped the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal and took refuge
in Cairo, where, in the 1950s, he procured German Nazi training for Yasser
Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), and a few other
adolescents who became the nucleus of Al
Fatah, better known as ‘the PLO.’ HIR has documented Husseini’s
trajectory here: ► “How did the 'Palestinian movement' emerge?
The British sponsored it. Then the German Nazis, and the US.” In short, thanks to the Oslo ‘Peace’ Process, PLO/Fatah, created by one of the main
responsible figures in the German Nazi Final Solution against the European
Jews, was brought into the Jewish State—created
to protect Jews from Final Solutions—by
Israel’s own ‘leaders,’ was given power over the Arabs in the disputed
territories, and is now better known as the ‘Palestinian Authority.’ Is this
relevant? Naturally. 1)
The Palestinian Arabs complain all the
time that they supposedly had nothing to do with the Holocaust. 2)
Had Israeli leaders told the Israeli
public that they were going to bring the
German Nazis into the Jewish State all of Israel would have said: “No!” In fact, most Westerners would
have said “No!” And what does this mean? That the Oslo ‘Peace’ Process requires
total silence from Israeli leaders on PLO/Fatah
origins. (It requires silence from others, too.[2]) 3)
If Israeli leaders had spoken publicly
about PLO/Fatah origins in the
prelude to the Oslo Accords, we wouldn’t be discussing whether Jewish housing
can be built in the Jewish capital because there would be no Oslo ‘Peace’ Process and PLO/Fatah would not be inside the Jewish State. But Israeli leaders
kept silent about PLO/Fatah
origins, and helped clean up the prestige of PLO/Fatah. Now, because of Lieberman’s silence, because of his
refusal to give “further detail,” the anti-Israel media—essentially all of
the mainstream mass media—get to portray history any way they please: they
grant that Husseini was a Nazi, but
omit his role in the Holocaust, and omit his role in the creation of Yasser
Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and PLO/Fatah.[3] In
this way, they get to claim that the relationship between Husseini and Hitler
is meaningless to current issues and “completely misses the point.” In fact, Haaretz, always
rushing to defend the Palestinian Arab point of view, wrote: “An official
in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's government accused [Avigdor] Lieberman of ‘political bankruptcy’ in ordering
the distribution of the Husseini-Hitler photograph. ‘It’s an old
story that has its own circumstances and doesn’t apply to the present,’ said Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian Authority-appointed
governor of Jerusalem, and a relative of the late mufti.” [4] [my emphasis] An “old story” that “doesn’t apply to the present”?
Naturally. What relevance could this possibly have today? After all, it’s not
as if relatives of the genocidal Mufti—such as Adnan al-Husseini—are still
directing the Palestinian movement! Notice what was reported about another relative of
the Mufti, Faisal Husseini, in the Washington
Post: “What angers
the Israelis is that [Faisal] Husseini’s
well-endowed Arab Studies Society published literature that glorified some of Israel’s most brutal
enemies, including Nazi sympathizers,
and circulated ‘historical’ maps that show no place for Israel in the Middle
East.”[5] [my emphasis]
Faisal
Husseini (left) with Yasser Arafat Until his death, Faisal Husseini was Yasser Arafat
and Mahmoud Abbas’s right-hand man. Right before his death, “. . .Faisal Husseini, the top PLO official in Jerusalem…[was] quoted
as likening the Oslo accords to a ‘Trojan horse.’. . .[T]he weekly Al-Arabi,[6] quotes Husseini as calling the Oslo accords ‘just a
temporary procedure, or just a step towards something bigger. . .the
liberation of all historical Palestine from the (Jordan) river to the
(Mediterranean) sea, even if this means that the conflict will last for
another thousand years or for many generations.’ ”[7] For anybody unclear on the meaning of ‘Trojan
Horse,’ I explain. In Homer’s famous poem The
Iliad, the Greeks who besieged the city of Troy employed a deadly ruse.
They pretended to concede the war and left, but not before placing at the
gates of Troy an enormous wooden horse as a gesture of ‘peace.’ The horse was
hollow, and inside was hidden a crack team of Greek warriors, including
Odysseus and Achilles. The jubilant and naïve Trojans accepted the gift,
brought it into the city, and celebrated. At night, the Greek warriors crept
out of the horse, opened the gates of Troy for the rest of the Greek army,
and proceeded to exterminate the Trojans in their drunken
sleep. Didn’t PLO/Fatah promise
‘peace’ with Israel? Didn’t jubilant Israeli leaders bring PLO/Fatah into Israel? Aren’t the Israelis
asleep? Yes, yes, and yes. Now you see. And Yasser Arafat was not shy
about declaring his admiration for a leader of the Holocaust: in August of
2002 he referred to the Mufti as “our hero, Hajj Amin al Husseini,” and
boasted that he had been Husseini’s soldier in the
War of 1948 against the Israeli Jews.[8] And what was
Husseini’s objective in that war? This was clearly
explained by Azzam Pasha, Secretary General of the
Arab League, who, prior to opening hostilities, announced it would be “a war
of extermination and a momentous massacre, which will be spoken of like the
Mongolian massacres and the Crusades.”[9] So Arafat was naturally proud to have
been Husseini’s foot soldier in a war meant to
finish the German Nazi Final Solution just three years after its
interruption. So let’s play again. What’s missing from the Israeli
political scene? What is
missing is an Israeli politician who will explain that a top leader of the
German Nazi extermination of the European Jews was also the father of the
Palestinian movement, creator of PLO/Fatah, and mentor and leader to Yasser
Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas. Let’s call this Israeli politician ‘Waldo.’ What Waldo would achieve (if he could
be found) If Waldo could be found, Israelis would have
defeated PLO/Fatah already. It is
not difficult to see why, but this requires understanding the concepts of
‘honest signaling,’ and ‘political grammar.’ I shall explain each in turn. Honest
signaling In evolutionary game theory, the topic of ‘honest
signals’ has already generated a large literature. I will explain the basic
idea with an example familiar to us all: courtship. Boy likes girl; girl likes boy. But matters are
never this simple. The boy is often a crazed, hormone-guided fiend, whose
only interest is sex, and who will say
anything in order to ‘get some.’ The girl is also interested in sex, but
she worries about the consequences. If she gets pregnant, will the boy stick
around and provide for the offspring? Or will he ‘hit and run,’ leaving the
girl to bear the responsibility of raising the child all by herself? The boy
promises loyalty, fidelity, and all that good stuff, and begins to unbutton
the girl’s shirt. The girl stops him short. How can she know that his
promises are honest? Talk is cheap.
She’ll need something more..., ahem, expensive.
Enter: the diamond ring. An engagement ring, symbol of the promise of
marriage, tradition holds, should cost the suitor 2 months’ salary, so this
is an expensive way of saying “I love you and will stand by you.” A crazed,
hormone-guided fiend will not likely give a diamond ring just to get sex,
because there are cheaper ways to get sex. Every culture has found a way to
make a potential suitor pay a hefty
advance price in order to demonstrate that he really means business. A
sufficiently costly gift works as an honest signal of commitment. The above popularizes the game-theoretic reasoning,
but we also have empirical evidence to back this up. In the United States, “Until the
1930s, a woman jilted by her fiancé could sue for financial compensation for
‘damage’ to her reputation under what was known as the ‘Breach of Promise to
Marry’ action. As courts began to abolish such actions, diamond ring sales
rose in response to a need for a symbol of financial commitment from the
groom, argues the legal scholar Margaret Brinig...
To be marriageable at the time you needed to be a virgin, but, Brinig points out, a large percentage of women lost their
virginity while engaged. So some structure of commitment was necessary to
assure betrothed women that men weren’t just trying
to get them into bed. The ‘Breach of Promise’ action had helped prevent what
society feared would be rampant seduce-and-abandon scenarios; in its lieu,
the pricey engagement ring would do the same.”[10] The general lesson: when there is risk due to a
potential conflict of interest, the more costly a signal of commitment, the
more reliable it is likely to be. Electoral politics is courtship. The hopeful
candidate woos the voter with all sorts of campaign promises. The voter
worries, of course, that once in office the candidate will simply do as he
pleases. Voters are often betrayed. It would be nice if they could demand—and
get—costly signals of commitment. Take the Israeli case, for example. The first time around, Netanyahu campaigned on
promises to halt and even reverse the Oslo Process. Israelis voted for him.
Once in office Netanyahu advanced the Oslo process faster. Then
Ariel Sharon campaigned on promises to halt and even reverse the Oslo
Process. Israelis voted for him. Once in office Sharon advanced the Oslo process faster. Then Netanyahu
campaigned again on promises to halt and even reverse the Oslo Process.
Israelis voted for him. Once in office, Netanyahu
advanced the Oslo process faster.[11] To avoid crassness, let’s say that Israelis ‘have
been made love to’ over and over. But now imagine a national Israeli candidate—let’s
call him ‘Waldo’—who: 1)
campaigns against continued
negotiations with PLO/Fatah; 2)
who preaches defeat of PLO/Fatah;
and 3)
who, at the same time uses all the resources of his campaign to inform
Israelis about the German Nazi origins of PLO/Fatah. Point 3 would act as an honest signal of commitment. Why? Because the Jewish State simply
may not (openly) give strategic
land to German Nazis, and thus, if after informing the Israelis of
PLO/Fatah’s Nazi origins Waldo managed to assume office, he would be risking revolution if he went back on his
promises and instead advanced the Oslo process faster. But Waldo would not only be emitting an honest
signal of commitment if he campaigned this way. He would also transform the
Israeli political grammar. And the Western
political grammar to boot. Political
grammar A grammar is a system of rules that defines the
structure of a language. For example, one rule forces you to follow the word
“the” with a noun. An ‘ungrammatical’ sentence is one that breaks such rules. Politics also has a grammar. In Israeli politics,
today, it is completely grammatical to say, “The Jewish State will give
strategic land to PLO/Fatah.” By
way of demonstration, let us examine an exchange between journalist Larry
King and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: KING: Do you -- you absolutely
favor a Palestinian state though, right? NETANYAHU: I do. […] If it were not already clear what Netanyahu “absolutely
favor[s],” here is something else he said in the same interview: NETANYAHU: I think it's important to make peace
with the Palestinians. And I'm prepared to negotiate that peace right
away. … They should have their own independent country.[12] Now consider: 1)
The so-called ‘peace’ process is there
to negotiate an “independent country” ruled by PLO/Fatah. 2)
In a book authored by Netanyahu, he
reproduces as an appendix a US Pentagon study that determined Judea, Samaria
(‘West Bank’), Gaza, and the Golan to be strategic territories indispensable
to the survival of Israel.[13] So Netanyahu has told King: “I absolutely
favor giving strategic territory of the Jewish State to PLO/Fatah.” It’s grammatical. But if Waldo could be found in Israel, he would
change the grammar of Israeli politics, because Israelis would understand
Netanyahu to be saying this: “I absolutely
favor giving strategic land of the Jewish State to the German Nazis.” That’s ungrammatical.
It makes no sense. So, if Waldo could be found in Israel, even if he didn’t win office, but
merely by campaigning, he would make further negotiations with PLO/Fatah impossible. He would irrevocably
transform the entire grammar of Israeli politics. But not only that. Waldo would create a storm all over the worldwide
Jewish community, and pretty soon every Jew in the world would understand
that PLO/Fatah = German Nazis. The
transformation of the bleeding heart ‘leftist’ Jews would begin, and they
would discover the alternative: disgust with the ‘peace’ process, and pride
in being a Jew. The Jews of the world could then use their resources to
inform ordinary Westerners everywhere (mass media or no mass media), like
they did in 1933, defying their own ‘leaders,’ when they almost brought down
the brand new Third Reich.[14] (You didn’t
know about that? Read about it here).
And then Israel would have won the propaganda war.
This would happen with a vengeance if Waldo—as he
would, being Waldo—also informed
the Israelis that PLO/Fatah is a
close ally of Iran, which terror state in public calls for the extermination
of the Israeli Jews. We have documented that important link here: ► PLO/Fatah and Iran: The Special Relationship Oh, the things Waldo could achieve! (If only he
could be found...) If Waldo existed, he would single-handedly put the entire
Western citizenries on a war footing against the Islamic surge, and the West
might have a chance to defend itself in time. Because that is what will
follow an Israeli victory in the propaganda war. The defense of the West begins in Israel. And in Israel,
it begins with Waldo. Where’s Waldo?
_____________________________________________________ Footnotes and Further Reading [1] A golden
opportunity?; Islam and the Arab revolutions; The Economist, April 2, 2011,
FRONT BRIEFING, 2162 words. [1a] “Israel uses Hitler picture to
sell its settlement expansion; Foreign minister orders diplomats to circulate
photo ahead of discussions with President Obama's envoy”; The Independent
(London), July 25, 2009 Saturday, WORLD; Pg. 24, 912 words, Donald Macintyre
IN JERUSALEM [1b] “Israeli derision at mufti-Hitler link”; The
Australian, July 24, 2009 Friday, WORLD; Pg. 8, 386 words, John Lyons, Middle
East correspondent [2] When I connected the dots for my readers on Israel National News, Ian Lustick, a
political science professor who openly claims to work for US Intelligence,
had me fired from the University of Pennsylvania. And Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, is
not tolerated in Israel: it has been banned. SOURCES: “U. Penn Ass’t Prof. May Lose Job for Pro-Israel Views”; Israel
National News; 25 February 2004 Controversial
Professor Being Fired for Views, Fox News Network, SHOW: FOX HANNITY & CO
9:21 PM EST, February 17, 2005 Thursday, NEWS; Domestic, 1151 words, Sean
Hannity, Alan Colmes “On the
importance of Israel National Radio (Arutz Sheva); Followed by INR's Rabbi Tovia
Singer's interview of Francisco Gil-White”; Historical and Investigative
Research; 30 June 2006; by Francisco Gil-White [3] Here’s BBC News: “Haj Amin
al-Husseini was a Palestinian nationalist leader who led violent campaigns against
Jews and the British authorities in what was then British-ruled Palestine in
the 1920s and 1930s. He fled the
territory in 1937, but continued his campaign to oppose British plans to set
up a Jewish State in Palestine, allying himself with the Nazis during World
War II. He died in Lebanon in 1974. The meeting
with Hitler took place in November 1941 in Berlin, during which Husseini
asked Hitler unsuccessfully to back Arab independence and publicly oppose the
future creation of Israel.” Let’s play again. What’s missing? The truth. Husseini was not opposed to the British but working with them. The British were
not trying to “set up a Jewish State in Palestine” but working to sabotage
any possibility of that (notwithstanding their public claims to the contrary).
And Husseini was not unsuccessful
with Hitler (you may read the German Nazi record of their conversation here). Most
importantly: BBC News makes zero mention of Husseini’s
role in the Holocaust, and it makes zero
mention of Husseini’s role creating Yasser
Arafat, Mahmoud Abbas, and PLO/Fatah
(what most people now call the ‘Palestinian Authority’). SOURCE:
“Israel to use Hitler shot for PR: The Mufti allied himself with the Nazis:
Israeli embassies are being instructed to use for public relations purposes
an infamous photograph of Adolf Hitler meeting a top Palestinian cleric”;
BBC; 22 July 2009. [4] “Israel
circulates photo of Hitler greeting late Palestinian mufti; PA accuses
Lieberman of ‘political bankruptcy’ for using 1941 photo to deflect criticism
on East Jerusalem”; Haaretz; 22 July 2009; by
Reuters [5] The Washington
Post, January 31, 1989, Tuesday, Final
Edition, EDITORIAL; PAGE A17, 778 words,
A Palestinian Israel Needs,
Janet Wallach, John Wallach,
OPINION EDITORIAL [6] Al-Arabi’, 24 June, 2001 [7] The Baltimore
Sun, July 11, 2001 Wednesday, FINAL EDITION, Pg. 1A,
1574 words, Israelis taking
darker view of Palestinian intentions; Many see existence of Jewish state at
risk, Mark Matthews [8] Al-Quds (Palestinian daily newspaper) Aug, 2, 2002 [9] Sachar, H. 1982. A history
of Israel: From the rise of Zionism to our time. New York:
Knopf. (p.333) [10] “Diamonds Are a Girl's Worst
Friend: The trouble with engagement rings”; Slate; Monday, June 11, 2007; By
Meghan O'Rourke [11] For Benjamin
Netanyahu, see: “The Real
Netanyahu: Is he defending Israel?”; Historical and Investigative Research;
18 July, 2010; by Francisco Gil-White For Ariel Sharon, see: “Leaders Lied, Jews died. Why have Israeli leaders been lying to their
fellow citizens about the Fatah/PLO?” Historical and Investigative Research;
10 July 2007; by Francisco Gil-White [12] Interview With Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; CNN; July
7, 2010 Wednesday; NEWS; International; 5805 words; Larry King Full transcript at: [13]
Netanyahu, B. 2000. A durable peace: Israel and its place among the nations,
2 edition. New York: Warner Books. (APPENDIX: The Pentagon Plan, June 29,
1967; pp.433-437) [14] “The Crisis of 1933: In 1933, ordinary Jews
all over the world banded together and came within an inch of destroying the
Hitler regime. They did not fail. Their leaders failed them.” From THE PROBLEM OF JEWISH
SELF-DEFENSE: An HIR series; Historical and Investigative Research; 06 May
2006; by Francisco Gil-White |
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