The Rise and Fall of a Palestinian Dynasty (57 page)

Jamal’s route was even less fortunate. He went straight into the British-occupied zone in southern Iran, was captured near the town of Ahwaz and was sent to a detention camp in Zimbabwe (then Rhodesia), where he remained until the end of the war. Al-Hajj Amin was luckier
–
he himself described how Malini came to the house where he was hiding in Tehran a few minutes ahead of the local police and spirited him away to the Japanese legation.

The British did all they could to capture the
mufti
. The anti-British
shah
fell in September, and a new
shah
, Muhammad Reza Pahlavi, took the throne, promising to favor the Allies in the war. This political reversal prompted the Reuters news agency to report that the
mufti
had been captured and would be brought to a swift trial in Baghdad.
¹⁴
So confident were the British that it would be a simple matter to capture him that they worried what they would do once he was in their hands. They discovered that it was doubtful his arrest would serve their purpose
–
he might become a martyr to his cause. Using him as hostage to pressure the Husayni leadership in Palestine, however, might be more productive. In the event, they failed to capture him.

Al-Hajj Amin remained in a small pavilion in the garden of the Japanese embassy for twenty days. He lost half his weight, which altered his appearance. In October he decided that this was insufficient and prepared for flight by shaving off his beard and moustache, dying his hair and putting on a Western suit. In this guise, he had a new passport photograph taken.
¹⁵

It was his third flight in October, an ill-omened month in his life. Again he disguised himself as a woman and set out with an Italian passport bearing a woman’s photograph. He mingled among the women of the Italian legation, who traveled on a local bus via Russian-occupied Iran to Turkey. He experienced some unpleasant moments at the border crossing, on the Iranian side, when the Russian officials became suspicious. But eventually he was allowed to proceed. He made the rest of the journey through Turkey in relative comfort on a train heading west to Istanbul.

Once again, the Azma brothers came to the
mufti
’s aid. Nabih, who was romantically involved with a certain lady in the Intelligence Department of the German Foreign Ministry, represented al-Hajj
Amin’s interests to the Germans. Even before the
mufti
’s flight, in July 1941, Nabih and Fawzi al-Qawuqji had been preparing a pan-Arab conference under Germany’s aegis, hoping to promote a new national authority and declare an alliance between the Arab nation and Germany. The memoirs of the Azma brothers reveal that they shared al-Hajj Amin’s hopes of reproducing the agreement Sharif Hussein had struck with Britain, but with a different power
–
an idea put forward by some senior figures in the German Foreign Ministry. Nabih’s brother Adil had been with Fawzi al-Qawuqji in Berlin since the beginning of 1941. Nabih wrote to his brother that before he and al-Hajj Amin headed for Germany, they wished to know ‘if the Arab nation would be supported’. If not, they would turn to the other side.
¹⁶

While in Istanbul, al-Hajj Amin and his Azma friends heard that British foreign secretary Anthony Eden, while answering questions in Parliament about al-Hajj Amin’s fate, had said that ‘the
mufti
, the empire’s great enemy, was almost captured in Tehran, and we are still pursuing him.’
¹⁷
Al-Hajj Amin did not stay long in Istanbul. His friends sent him on another long train journey
–
to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, and thence to Rome.

Once in Rome, al-Hajj Amin discarded all his disguises and put on his traditional robe and tarbush. It has been suggested that he put off meeting with Rome’s fascist leaders until his beard grew back. He was always very conscious of the connection between his external appearance and the message he wished to convey. Now he wanted to personify religious authority and tradition, as well as national leadership. In Rome he was described as one of the leaders of the ‘Arab nation’, and on his arrival he expressed the wish to collaborate with the government of Italy, provided it publicly recognized a unified Arab nation with a distinct national character.

A virtuoso stage director, Mussolini housed the
mufti
in the splendid Villa Scarlani near Rome, a residence fit for a visiting leader. It is possible that al-Hajj Amin was dazzled by the grandeur
–
servants, a car accompanied by a brace of motorcycles
–
and forgot for a moment that in Palestine, the place nearest to his heart, he had become a marginal figure.
¹⁸

Italian documents state that the
mufti
planned a fascist Arab state, but it is not known whether he said as much or whether this was an Italian paraphrase. Perhaps al-Hajj Amin said this to curry favor with his hosts, and if so he achieved his purpose. After a month in Rome, the Italian Foreign Ministry recommended that the government support
al-Hajj Amin and provide him with funds and a liaison officer.
¹⁹
Al-Hajj Amin stayed in the Italian capital until the end of November and was joined by his faithful aide, Izzat Darwaza.

The highlight of this visit was al-Hajj Amin’s meeting with Benito Mussolini at the dictator’s palace in Venice. He was met on the stairs by Il Duce’s personal secretary, who led him through one immense hall after another. In each hall sat a minor official behind a small desk who stood up and greeted the visitor with a fascist salute. Finally, in the doorway of the last hall, Mussolini awaited him, smiling broadly. Al-Hajj Amin would say later that he felt as if he was meeting Napoleon. Mussolini amazed him by his extensive knowledge of history and his manner of a Roman Caesar.
²⁰
To al-Hajj Amin’s dismay, however, their meeting was short. Al-Hajj Amin had expected a lengthy conference with a person he believed would soon be one of the rulers of the world, or at any rate the Middle East. Al-Hajj Amin conducted himself gravely as the leader of the Arab nation, which Mussolini’s reception of him seemed to affirm. He had prepared a long, well-reasoned survey of each region in the Arab world, and even wanted to air his view of the situation of the Muslim population in the Balkans. The farther he was from Palestine, the more he took on the role of a modern Arab caliph and shed that of Palestine’s national leader.
²¹

Though Mussolini was more interested in speaking than in listening, al-Hajj Amin managed to make his first statement. He had just enough time to request Italy’s support for an independent Arab state that would include Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Transjordan, as the best way to counter the threat of the Jewish national home. Not once since leaving Baghdad and heading to the Axis states had al-Hajj Amin mentioned the demand for an independent Palestinian state. All his appeals had been on behalf of the entire Arab nation, as though he were an Istiqlali, an associate of Awni Abd al-Hadi, rather than the head of the Party of the Arab Nation. Perhaps he thought that nothing less would interest the Axis governments or perhaps he was temporarily in despair about the prospects for an independent Palestine.

Il Duce, for his part, talked almost exclusively about Britain and about the blood pact he had made with Germany against it. He agreed with his guest that the Jews had no right to Palestine, but emphasized that he was not anti-Semitic. He asked the
mufti
to guarantee the rights of the Christian Maronites in Lebanon. Al-Hajj Amin gave him his solemn word to do so
–
as though he were about to be crowned king of the Arab world.

In fact, al-Hajj Amin obtained nothing. At the very least, he had expected the meeting to yield a joint declaration, thereby confirming his standing as the new leader of the Arab nation. But the pompous Mussolini, or at any rate his advisers, understood that the
mufti
was incapable of unleashing the Arab world against Britain. At best he might be able to help Italy when the campaign for the Middle East began
–
that is, in 1940. Using the pretext that the Germans had to be consulted about it, Count Malini informed al-Hajj Amin of Mussolini’s decision to postpone the joint statement for the time being. The only gains from the meeting were Il Duce’s promise to arrange for the
mufti
to meet Hitler, and the promise of the Italian foreign minister, Count Ciano, to provide him with a radio station.
²²

Al-Hajj Amin reached Berlin in November 1941. After his stay in Rome, his penchant for grandeur and ceremony reached unprecedented dimensions. His entourage had increased to include several personal secretaries and the Italian diplomat Malini. He was met at the railway station by senior officials of the German Foreign Ministry, who took him to the palatial residence reserved for the ministry’s important guests. Al-Hajj Amin at once began to polish the joint declaration that Mussolini had postponed, believing that he could persuade Hitler to endorse an Italo-German commitment to Arab unity and independence. He himself was convinced that such a declaration would rouse all Arabs, perhaps even all Muslims, to rebel. During their journey to Berlin, Malini had
–
ingratiatingly or sincerely
–
encouraged al-Hajj Amin to believe that such a prospect was feasible.
²³

Two days after his arrival in Berlin, al-Hajj Amin heard that his greatest rival in Palestine, Fakhri al-Nashashibi, had been murdered in Baghdad. It is possible that he knew that this would be Fakhri’s fate. The Germans, too, must have been pleased, as Fakhri had been energetically recruiting Palestinians to join the British forces. Though he was not very successful at that, he did recruit more men than al-Hajj Amin would do for the Axis (nearly 10,000 joined the British armed forces). When Fakhri went to Baghdad, where many of the leaders of the Palestinian uprising were still staying, a tribunal of rebels appointed itself a field court and sentenced him to death for organizing the ‘peace bands’, paramilitary groups that had fought for the opposition against the Palestinian guerrillas. He was shot and killed on 8 November 1941.
²⁴

Dr Musa Abdullah al-Husayni, then in his late thirties, informed al-Hajj Amin of the murder. In 1938, as has been said, Musa Abdullah had led the Husaynis’ abortive contacts with Zionist leaders in Britain.
He was still a socialist in 1938, when he went from London to Nazi Germany, and he was captivated by the Germans
–
or, at any rate, by the German Thea Maria, whom he later married. As soon as al-Hajj Amin arrived, Musa Abdullah became his guide and right-hand man.

But at this time al-Hajj Amin was not concerned with minor matters such as local politics in Palestine. He believed he was on the verge of international glory, and he eagerly anticipated his meeting with Hitler. First, though, he had a meeting with the Nazi foreign minister, von Ribbentrop. They conversed in French, and the talk was pointless. Finally, twenty days after his arrival in Berlin, he got his audience with the Führer.

Hitler’s interpreter recalled that the meeting began badly. Upon his arrival, al-Hajj Amin was invited by the
chef de protocol
to review a small guard of honor that awaited him in front of the Foreign Ministry. Then he was taken to see Hitler, where the mishaps began. Hitler ignored al-Hajj Amin’s outstretched hand and the interpreter’s suggestion to offer coffee to the guest. The photograph taken of the two men sitting on the edge of their armchairs as though about to rise would be useful to all the enemies of the Palestinian national movement, from London to Jerusalem, who wanted to harm the
mufti
’s reputation.

Al-Hajj Amin launched into a lengthy speech and, unlike his meeting with Mussolini, was given enough time to display his knowledge of conditions throughout the Arab world and to explain the importance of a joint statement. Hitler responded with pathos, referring to the Nazis’ commitment to Arab independence, but he spoke chiefly about the Jews. ‘My main struggle is against the Jews,’ he began. ‘The elimination of the Jewish people is part of my overall campaign. They want to establish a state that will be the basis for the destruction of all the nations in the world.’ It is possible that Hitler did not use the words ‘eliminate the Jews’, but this is how it was engraved in the memory of the
mufti
. After this there was no stopping Hitler. It is doubtful if the interpreter translated everything, but the message was plain enough.

In 1969 al-Hajj Amin tried to reconstruct his response to that speech. By then he was aware of the damage that his association with Hitler had inflicted on the Palestinian image. He claimed that he was slow to answer because he felt cornered. ‘I replied that I was convinced we had an ally in our struggle against Zionism and the British, and said nothing more.’
²⁵

At their second meeting, he recalled, he clarified his meaning. ‘We regard the Zionists, not the Jews, as the destroyers of the world.’ ‘You
are a sentimental people,’ said the Führer. ‘I invite you to visit my research center, and there I shall convince you of the global conspiracy.’ In 1942 al-Hajj Amin spent three days in such a center in Frankfurt. In retrospect, he sought to depict himself as having accepted some of the Nazi analysis of the Jewish problem but not its solution. He similarly described a chilling discussion he had with the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, whom al-Hajj Amin made no effort to persuade because ‘he was like a religious man on this subject’.