The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, a remnant of the Ottoman empire permitted to remain in Palestine as a religious adviser, was the founding father of the jihad plot to overtake Palestine which lead to a war that continues to this day.
When the hearing took place in 1937 the mandate had already been subject to sudden and aggressive mass immigration for ten years by Arabs from neighboring countries called to jihad, particularly from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The British government wanted to know why al-Husseini had such animosity to the Jewish people and why he wanted to block Jewish immigration.
Al-Husseini’s strategy was to fill the barren wasteland with a Muslim majority to try and get rid of the Jewish people by force. During that time the British had blocked Jewish people entry into Palestine to try and prevent an escalated conflict and only Muslims were pouring in illegally and occupying the region. In the hearing the British official states that 400,000 Jewish people were already living in the mandate in 1937 out of 700,000 people in total which included all the illegal Muslims who had forced their presence on the land.
In addition the Mufti admits that the barren wasteland was SOLD by Lebanese and non-Muslim land owners to the offspring of Jewish ancestors living in Palestine through the ages (no one wanted it and barely anyone was actually living on the land until the Mufti created a conflict over it) . The Jewish people already and legally owned a huge chunk of the land before the 1947 declaration that Muslims always use in their argument while fact is that Israel was returned to the Jewish people in 1917. The intentions here by al-Husseini was not that Jewish people were invading or illegal on Palestinian land – which was merely an excuse – but that the Mufti simply refused to accept that anyone else but a Muslim, an Arab, should be permitted to govern the area or have a presence in the area. For this purpose Jordan was created. But it still did not stop the Muslims from warring and invading their presence and demand of Israel.
Kenneth Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917-1939 (University of North Carolina Press, 1984).
Note: A dunam or dönüm, donum was a unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day. The unit is still in use in many areas previously under Ottoman influence. The legal definition was “forty standard paces in length and breadth”, but varied considerably from place to place, from 900–2500 m². In many formerly Ottoman regions, it is now defined as exactly one decare (1000 m²).
The map above shows what was the actual Jewish parcel of land in 1917 but later got divided into Jordan and Israel. Hundreds of thousands, of the Mufti’s deliberately created jihadis, poured into the barren Palestine from Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The ones from Egypt tied to sneak in through the unprotected section of the South West and ended up in Gaza while those from Saudi Arabia tried to enter through unprotected areas in the North East and ended in the West Bank.
Evidence of Haj Amin al-Husseini
Before the Royal Commission, January 12, 1937
The Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini was a Nazi who mixed Nazi propaganda and Islam and was wanted for war crimes in Yugoslavia. His mix of militant Islam was an inspiration for both Yasser Arafat and Saddam Hussein. He was also a close relative of Yasser Arafat: Arafat’s real name was Abd al-Rahman abd al-Bauf Arafat al-Qud al-Husseini. (Arafat was born, raised, and educated in Egypt and was a paid terrorist for Egypt.) Arafat himself tries to keep this a secret while Saddam Hussein was raised in the house of his uncle Khayrallah Tulfah, leader in the Mufti’s pro-Nazi coup in Iraq in May 1941.
My comments and clarifications appear in blue below. We’ll let Arafat’s Nazi uncle speak for himself. This runs along with other material I got hold of from the UN, etc.
Evidence of Haj Amin al-Husseini Before the Royal Commission.
LORD PEEL: … Just one question, then. You want completely to stop Jewish immigration. What do you want to do with the 400,000 Jews here at present?
MUFTI: They will live as they always did live previously in Arab countries, with complete freedom and liberty, as natives of the country. In fact Moslem rule has always been known for its tolerance, and as a matter of fact Jews used to come to Eastern countries under Arab rule to escape persecution in Europe. According to history, Jews had a most quiet and peaceful residence under Arab rule….
This region had not been under Arab rule for centuries but under Turkish rule. Turks were far more tolerant and fair with Jews then most Arabs ever were. They gave refuge to Jews and others fleeing Christian terror in Europe for centuries. In the mid 1800’s they gave formal legal protection to Jews (something Arabs refuse do even today) and encouraged Jewish immigration. They strongly approved of Zionism because the whole region was a depopulated wasteland and hoped to bring prosperity to a crumbling Ottoman Empire.
MUFTI: But I can say that the Jews, many thousands, are actually living in Iraq and Syria under Arab rule and have the same rights and the same position as the other inhabitants of the countries.
Here he admits the large Jewish communities of the Muslim world did exist. After 1948 these 870,000 Arab Jews had there property stolen, stripped of their citizenship, and forced to leave their homelands. Most settled in Israel and they and their children make up the majority of Jews there today. They are just as “Arab” as Arafat and his Nazi Uncle.
SIR L. HAMMOND: Would you give me the figures again for the land. I want to know how much land was held by the Jews before the Occupation.
MUFTI: First of all I would like to say that one of the members of our Committee will deal later with the land question, but nevertheless I will give you the figures. At the time of the Occupation the Jews held about 100,000 dunams.
SIR L. HAMMOND: What year?
MUFTI: At the date of the British Occupation.
SIR L. HAMMOND: And now they hold how much?
MUFTI: About 1,500,000 dunams: 1,200,000 dunams already registered in the name of the Jewish holders, but there are 300,000 dunams which are the subject of written agreements, and which have not yet been registered in the Land Registry. That does not, of course, include the land which was assigned, about 100,000 dunams.
SIR L. HAMMOND: What 100,000 dunams was assigned. Is that not included in, the 1,200,000 dunams? The point is this. He says that in 1920 at the time of the Occupation, the Jews only held 100,000 dunams, is that so? I asked the figures from the Land Registry, how much land the Jews owned at the time of the Occupation. Would he be surprised to hear that the figure is not 100,000 but 650,000 dunams?
MUFTI: It may be that the difference was due to the fact that many lands were bought by contract which were not registered.
SIR L. HAMMOND: There is a lot of difference between 100,000 and 650,000.
MUFTI: In one case they sold about 400,000 dunams in one lot.
SIR L. HAMMOND: Who? An Arab?
MUFTI: Sarsuk. An Arab of Beirut.
SIR L. HAMMOND: His Eminence gave us a picture of the Arabs being evicted from their land and villages being wiped out. What I want to know is, did the Government of Palestine, the Administration, acquire the land and then hand it over to the Jews?
MUFTI: In most cases the lands were acquired.
SIR L. HAMMOND: I mean forcibly acquired-compulsory acquisition as land would be acquired for public purposes?
MUFTI: No, it wasn’t.
SIR L. HAMMOND: Not taken by compulsory acquisition?
He admits the property was properly purchased, not stolen or seized.
SIR L. HAMMOND: But these lands amounting to some 700,000 dunams were actually sold?
MUFTI: Yes, they were sold, but the country was placed in such conditions as would facilitate such purchases.
SIR I HAMMOND: I don’t quite understand what you mean by that. They were sold. Who sold them?
MUFTI: Land owners.
SIR I HAMMOND: Arabs?
MUFTI: In most cases they were Arabs.
SIR L. HAMMOND: Was any compulsion put on them to sell? If so, by whom?
It was sold willingly by Arabs. He admits this, but…
MUFTI: As in other countries, there are people who by force of circumstances, economic forces, sell their land.
SIR L. HAMMOND: Is that all he said?
MUFTI: They were not prevented from selling the land, and mostly the country was in such economic condition as facilitated the sale. If the Government had the interest of these poor people at heart they should have prevented sales and these people would not have been evicted from their land. A large part of these lands belong to absentee landlords who sold the land over the heads of their tenants, who were forcibly evicted. The majority of these landlords were absentees who sold their land over the heads of their tenants. Not Palestinians but Lebanese.
On the one hand he tries to claim economic circumstances forced these property owners to sell but turns around and admits they are absentee landlords who happened to be rich (living in Lebanon just down the road) and the people there were tenants. But…
SIR L. HAMMOND: Is His Eminence in a position to give the Commission a list of the people, the Arabs who have sold lands, apart from those absentee landlords?
MUFTI: I am sure the Department of Lands can supply such a list.
SIR L. HAMMOND: I didn’t ask him to tell me where I could get the information from. I asked was he in a position to give it to me.
MUFTI: It is possible for me to supply such a list.
SIR L. HAMMOND: I ask him now this: does he think that as compared with the standard of life under the Turkish rule the position of the fellahin in the villages has improved or deteriorated?
MUFTI: Generally speaking I think their situation has got worse.
SIR L. HAMMOND: Is taxation heavier or lighter?
MUFTI: Taxation was much heavier then, but now there are additional burdens.
SIR L. HAMMOND: I am asking him if it is now, the present day, as we are sitting together here, is it a fact that the fellahin has a much lighter tax than he had under the Turkish rule? Or is he taxed more heavily?
MUFTI: The present taxation is lighter, but the Arabs nevertheless have now other taxation, for instance, customs. On this very point a member of the Arab Committee will deal.
LORD PEEL: On the burden of taxation?
LORD PEEL: And the condition of the fellahin as regards, for example, education. Are there more schools or fewer schools now?
MUFTI: They may have more schools, comparatively, but at the same time there has been an increase in their numbers.
The “increase in numbers” is the truth. The British while blocking Jewish immigration had allowed Arabs to pour in surrounding countries to swell the Arab population and appease people like this. In 1921 [after sudden Arab mass immigration] the whole region (see map above) only had 700,000 people. If this was so bad, why did so many move in?
SIR L. HAMMOND: Is there any conscription for the army now?
He admits the Arabs are not taxed, forcibly conscripted into the military, have schools, etc. out from under Muslim rule. But…
SIR L. HAMMOND: Would the people like to have that back?
MUFTI: Yes. Provided we have our own Government.
What he really means is the rule of him and his wealthy family. That way he can steal everything he can get. Palestine, a British creation from WWI was a wasteland and economic basket case as are Muslim lands today. The only wealth and development in the whole region was that done by Jews. He wanted it all and his family had never done anything for a single poor Arab even to this day. Arafat, according to Forbes, is worth over $300 million while his people starve. Who says stealing from one’s own people isn’t profitable?
SIR L. HAMMOND: Then am I to take it from his evidence that he thinks the Arab portion of the population would be more happy if they reverted to a Turkish rule than under the present Mandatory rule?
MUFTI: That is a fact.
Much of the above material (except the blue) was collected by Joseph E. Katz
Middle Eastern Political and Religious History Analyst
Brooklyn, New York I cross checked it, it’s correct.