Hajj Amin al-Husayni-- Arafat's uncle? Base of Arafat's position?
Reader comment on item: Pretending There's a Country Called "Palestine"

Submitted by Jennie Blaine Watson (United States), Mar 14, 2008 at 11:57

Dear Daniel Pipes:

Can you confirm for me that Hajj Amin al-Husayni, mufti of Jerusalem, was Arafat's uncle? Doesn't every Palestian know this, and is it not essentially the reason he was a recognized leader?

Sorry to bother you with this. I have tried to research this but I was hoping you could provide a shortcut. I am mystified at how unsalient this fact, and many others relating to Muslims abetting Hitler's anti-Jewish policies, are. It enables editors to let pass statements like one I read recently that the Middle East had nothing to do with the atrocities of World War II.

Thanks for any help you have time to give me.

Sincerely,

Jennie Blaine Watson, Ph.D.

PS: I agree with most everything you say about the threats poised by Islam. I was using your writings on Islamism to teach Third World politics and International Relations before 9/11. [Actually, I've been warning about political Islam since at least 1973. As an educated female-- Ph.D. from Penn, in fact-- it is hard to miss Islam's inherent repressiveness and reliance on terror.] I couldn't believe, however, that you supported that idiot, Bush. He knows nothing about religion, the Middle East [kissing Saudi royalty shows a lack of understanding], democracy, governing. He and his backers were going for the oil, as Greenspan said [I think after the coup in Venezuela failed in 2002, the Iraq invasion became not just a priority, but an imperative.] Bush is not fighting terror. He is using terror--Shock and Awe and torture- to obtain surrender to America's imperial designs. The people have little to fall back on as a group except Islamism-- and this, unfortunately, is no weak reed.

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Daniel Pipes replies:

From the forthcoming study, Icon of Evil, by David G. Dalin and John F. Rothmann: "Arafat's mother was the daughter of the mufti's first cousin." By my reckoning, they are first cousins, twice removed. The two first met at a family gathering in Cairo in 1946, at which time al-Husseini took on the role of Arafat's mentor.