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Monday, July 21, 2008

[This post continues the series of excerpts from John Roy Carlson's 1951 work, Cairo to Damascus (link to in-print paperback). All posts in the series will be collected on this page.]

In Jerusalem, still before the end of the Mandate. pp. 176-180:

Moustafa, Faris, and the others returned to Deir Aboutor late in the afternoon, grimy but exalted. I listened to their tales of triumph. One would think these two alone had captured Castel. Mohammed, one of the fighters, had a wrist watch and field glasses he did not have the day before.

"Where did you get them?"

"From the Jews."

"You told me once that Arabs buried dead Jews with their rings and watches."

Everybody laughed...Toward evening they were laughing no longer, but on the contrary were as glum as if their mothers had died. The Castel victory had been costly. Abdul Kader el Husseini, hero of the counterattack, and the only man with a personal following in the Jerusalem area, had been killed in the action. There was no one else to take his place. The funeral would be held tomorrow morning...

...I sensed the tenseness as Moustafa and a half dozen of us walked through the Old City to the Moslem quarter, where the dead chief's bier rested in his home. The crowd was heavily armed, and so thick that there was hardly elbow room. Not a single woman was visible.

We followed the mourners, walking in silence. When the crowd turned a corner to Husseini's house, I climbed aboard an armored car to take pictures. At that moment a volley of rifle shots suddenly crackled into the air. I head shouts: "Yahood! Yahood!" Mourning gave way to panic, as practically every Arab in the teeming mob of thousands simultaneously let go with pistol or rifle. The bullets hit live electric wires, which broke and swung on the road as Arabs tried to scramble out of their way. My position atop the car was, to say the least, highly untenable. I remember now that a bullet whistled past just as I jumped, crawling on all fours toward a space between two cars. Everyone was scrambling for safety. Within sixty seconds, the streets were completely cleared. Arabs were flat against anything that was handy: earth, streets, doors, walls. Some were still jumping over fences. It was all very undignified for a people who claimed that if they chose to spit, they could drown the Jews. Crouching between two cars, I managed to take a few pictures. Under each car were three Arabs, with others trying to crawl under. Of all the bizarre scenes I saw in the Arab world, perhaps this one of utter panic, hysteria, and fear was the most comic -- and significant.

What we had all thought was a Haganah attack turned out to be a rifle salute in honor of the dead commander. When they began shouting this intelligence, I saw Moustafa crawling from under the armored car dusting himself with an air of embarrassment. I showed him my scraped shinbone...

...Husseini's coffin, covered with a red, black, and green flag, was carried to the square below the Dome of the Rock, where Arab chiefs spoke their eulogies. All this took place within sight of the Wailing Wall...

...I was now before the entrance to the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam's holiest shrines. Standing near by was a short, plump, round-faced man with a magnificent spade-shaped white beard and an enormous white turban, who was the custodian, Sheikh Ismail el Ansary...

...Historically the rock was actually a jagged slice of Mount Moriah, the hill on which Abraham offered to sacrifice Isaac. The Jews prayed on it long before the Moslem dome covered it.

Solomon built his magnificent Temple here and housed in it the Jewish holy of holies, the Ark of the Covenant. The entire area of the mosque, and the spacious stone courtyard surrounding it, were built on the site of the ancient Israel courts, where Christ preached and drove away the money-changers. Hardly a square inch here was without some direct connection to ancient Hebraic or Christian history.

None of these Hebraic-Christian origins, however, could be mentioned to Sheikh Ansary...

...After I had gained his confidence, El Ansary proved unusually outspoken. "Look here" -- these were the only English words he knew -- "whenever I pray, I pray to Allah to destroy the Jews. I pray to Allah to punish President Truman because he has been on the Zionist side. I used to pray against President Roosevelt, a very bad man. Now I pray to Allah that he destroy Mrs. Roosevelt because she is behaving very badly toward the Arabs."

"You sound like a Moslem Republican," I said.

"Look here, I pray against them for different reasons. Against Balfour and his family I pray that Allah confine them all to hell. The English are like sarratan [cancer]. May Balfour and Roosevelt take first place in hell. Allah, Allah, may this be done."

Propriety demanded that I say: "Insh'allah."

Despite his sixty-eight years, the man was as vigorous as an ox. "Look here, I will fight for Palestine to the last minute of my life," he said, with eyes blazing. "No Moslem is afraid of death. If he dies for Palestine that is a satisfying way to die. His parents are happy he fell in the Jehad. If we cannot win any other way, all the sheikhs in all the mosques in all the Arab countries over all the world will climb the minarets, and call on every Moslem to join the Jehad against the Jew in Palestine."

I turned the conversation to the Mufti.

"Look here," said El Ansary, "he is of the same blood as Mohammed. He is respected for his many good deeds. I pray for the Mufti in all my prayers to Allah."

I thanked Sheikh el Ansary for his courtesy and according to decorum, wished him long life and the blessings of Allah on him, his family, and his heirs. Bowing, I salaamed by placing my fingertips first to my heart, then to my lips, my forehead. He did the same in token of his respect toward me. "I shall remember you in my prayers to Allah," he said.

Looks like not much has changed in the Muslim proprietors of the Temple Mount in all the intervening years.

3 Comments

Thank you for publishing these excerpts, Sol - they are invaluable historical documents.

For those whose taste runs more to the revisionist historians, writing decades after the event and often from a certain ideological position, even Tom Segev remarks on the huge popularity of the al Husseini clan, and the mourning that accompanied the death of the commander.

It's difficult, reading these accounts, to whitewash the sheer hatred permeating the Arab/Israeli conflict. It's also difficult to see it, then or now, as characteristic of the proverbial "small minority," though it's comforting to hope that this is so, to believe that most really do seek peace and reconciliation. But it's hard to continue believing this when so much evidence points to the contrary.

Such a lack of tolerance and compassion for "the other" would be rightly scorned were it to occur in the West - including Israel - but for some reason the very people who claim to be anti-racist don't have a problem with Palestinian and other Arab/Middle Eastern hatred of the Jews. Nor is there a firm grasp of the fact that this isn't a new phenomenon, the result of "occupation" or war.

Indeed, even when the most vile Iranian speeches are conveyed, reeking with hate and explicit threats, people try to claim that they are just "mistranslated" - this includes a few members of Congress even (shame on them).

Why is this?

Why is there a refusal even to look at facts of history? Worse - are we overlooking a growing tendency to condone this invective here at home, or in Europe?

The other day an anti-AIPAC article was published and enthusiastically received on DU - fortunately the admins disappeared the entire thread, once they figured out that the writer of the piece was a stone racist and anything but left, progressive, Democrat or liberal. But yet - since his target included American Jews, whom he essentially accused of dual loyalty, his verbiage was deemed not only acceptable to post on a Democratic website - but laudatory to several members of DU.

I find that appalling. And unfortunately it's but one example of the phenomenon. Shockingly it even permeates groups who should be fighting it tooth and nail, as they too belong to minorities and/or immigrant communities. I don't get it.

The one small hope I have is that people will read and study works like this, that with knowledge perhaps they will soften their hearts and open their minds.

The following quote states why "the very people who claim to be anti-racist don't have a problem with Palestinian and other Arab/Middle Eastern hatred of the Jews" are not shy about owning to the bias:

"To put the matter as starkly as possible: from the standpoint of Marxism and international socialism an illiterate, conservative, superstitious Muslim Palestinian peasant who supports Hamas is more progressive than an educated liberal atheist Israeli who supports Zionism (even critically)."

[link]http://www.isj.org.uk/index.php4?id=456&issue=119[/link]

I'm glad you enjoy these. I agree they are very valuable testimonials.

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