Icon of evil: Hitler's Mufti and the rise of radical Islam
A political biography of Haj Amin al-Husaini (1895-1974), the Palestinian Arab nationalist leader and one-time Mufti of Jerusalem. Husaini adopted aggressive antisemitism in his youth, while studying in Cairo. He bears responsibility for the bloody anti-Jewish riots in the Land of Israel in 1920, 1921, and 1929, and was an instigator of the Arab revolt of 1936-39 in the country. In the 1930s he was close with Nazi leaders, with whom he shared extreme antisemitism and the goal of annihilation of the Jews. In the 1940s Husaini was instrumental in the establishment of pro-Nazi Muslim military formations in Europe, among them the Bosnian SS division "Handschar", which killed 12,600 Bosnian Jews. Argues that Husaini's legacy is alive in the modern Muslim world. He was the link between World War II antisemitism and the modern Islamic one, as well as a founding father of radical Islamic antisemitism. Dwells on the latter, which adopted from the West belief in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", blood libels, Holocaust denial, etc.