Ms. Deborah Howell, ombudsman
The Washington Post
1150 W. 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20071
Dear Ms. Howell:
There is a glaring omission in
Robert Satloff’s Outlook article, "The Holocaust’s Arab Heroes,"
(October 9).Satloff correctly notes that "virtually alone among peoples of
the world, Arabs appear to have won a free pass when it comes to denying or
minimizing the Holocaust." He also usefully notes that "the Arabs in
these lands [Axis-occupied North Africa] were not too different from Europeans:
With war waging around them, most stood by and did nothing; many participated
fully and willingly in the persecution of Jews; and a brave few even helped
save Jews."
But after observing that
"the Holocaust was an Arab story, too," he goes silent on the main
reason why: With Adolf Hitler in power, the Nuremberg laws newly codifying
persecution of Germany Jewry, and Nazi anti-Semitism spreading through the
continent, European Jews could not find refuge in Palestine. Though Great
Britain held the League of Nations’ Palestine Mandate in part to see to the
creation of a Jewish national home there, the Palestinian Arab revolt of 1936 -
1939 — a series of anti-Jewish massacres — induced British authorities to
virtually close Palestine to further Jewish immigration.In addition, British
officials cited large-scale Arab migration, much of it illegal, into Palestine
as a pretext for claiming that the economy (largely the result of Zionist
development) could not sustain many additional Jews.
Many Arab leaders sympathized
with the Nazis -- Hitler received numerous congratulations from the Middle East
for the Nuremberg laws. But the Palestinian Arab leader, Haj Amin al-Husseini,
Mufti of Jerusalem, did more than sympathize. He spent World War II in Berlin
as Hitler’s guest. In addition to telling a Berlin rally in 1943 that "the
Germans know how to get rid of the Jews," he helped recruit 20,000
Balkan Muslims to fight under German command.
Just before and during World War
II, Palestinian Arabs helped ensure that Jews would be trapped in Europe, and
their leadership did all it could to incite and strengthen the Axis. As
executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Satloff
surely knows this history. Its omission from "The Holocaust’s Arab Heroes"
amounts to a most unwarranted free pass.
Sincerely,
Carol Greenwald, chairman
Holocaust Museum Watch
Chevy Chase, Md.
301-657-2072