Yasser Arafat, the world knows him by this name. History, however, calls him by his full name: “Mohammad Abd al-Rauf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Hosseini” kunya “Abu Omar”. Arafat has told many lies and contradictions about his birthplace, once claiming to be born in the historic neighborhood of Jerusalem, another time calling Gaza his birthplace, but history, without a doubt, identified his birthplace as Cairo. As soon as we explore the string of his name, a trace of blood is revealed in his lineage: Al-Hosseini.
Baghdad, Sunday, June 1, 1941:
“They were flooding the streets. Hoes, machetes and some also had guns. They attacked in waves. They besieged the city and then conquered it. Their screams filled everywhere. They accompanied the Muslims on their way. They had nothing to do with Christians. They were only looking for Jews. As they advanced, their number increased. The crowd was full of women and children and teenagers cheering for joy, as if it were a wedding.”
This is how an eyewitness describes a pogrom that happened on such a day in Baghdad eighty years ago. Another witness: “In Abu Sufyan neighborhood, one of the poorest neighborhoods, they would kick the doors in. There was a big furniture move going on. They destroyed everything they could not take with them. Behind this crowd, a second wave of people was pouring into the looted houses. There was nothing left to plunder. They took the men with them. Anyone who showed the slightest resistance was slaughtered on the spot and women were raped.” [1]
Farhud is the name of this historical tragedy, which took place in Baghdad on June 1-2, 1941, and some called it the “Arab Holocaust.” Hundreds of Jewish citizens, who made up more than a quarter of Baghdad’s population at the time, were killed in those two days. 180 Jewish victims were identified. More than 600 bodies were buried in mass graves, 586 Jewish businesses and 911 homes were destroyed. Their synagogues were set on fire, and on that day the Torah scrolls in Baghdad became the prey of Farhud. Muslims in Baghdad shouted, “Cutal al yehud”, which translates to “slaughter the Jews” and raped pregnant women. Children were thrown into the Tigris. In his book, In the Alleys of Baghdad, Salim Fattal recalls Farhud: “A murderous and aggressive group, which harms its victims in amass and cruel way. The group beheaded its victims, mutilated them with daggers, dismembered them and crack their skulls with sticks. Women, children and the elderly were no different. […] Infants and children were thrown into the Tigris that day. Some of them were mutilated with swords before being thrown into the water.”
“The Arabic word Farhud means violent confiscation of property,” writes American author and researcher Edwin Black. “It was a word that European Jews were never familiar with or heard of during World War II. The Holocaust, on the other hand, was a word that Iraqi Jews had never heard of during the war. But both groups were about to learn the meaning of the two words, no matter what their mother tongue was. After the events of June 1-2, 1941, the two words became one.”
Today, if you search in Arabic or Persian sources about this horrible crime, either nothing is found, it is very little or completely distorted and mixed with lies. One of the main reasons for this is the perpetrators of this historical crime; the names mentioned in the literature of “revolutionary Islam” and “the Palestinian matter” as the heroes and founders of the “Resistance Axis”: Mohammad Amin bin Muhammad Tahir al-Hosseini.
Al-Hosseini had called Adolf Hitler, “Abu Ali”, the father of Ali Ibn Abi Talib, and with this title introduced him in the Islamic world of those days, as the spiritual father of all Muslims, especially Shiites. He was so fascinated by the Nazi’s “Crystal Nights of the Reich” and “November Pogroms” that by imitating those crimes, he created their Islamic and localized versions into reality shortly afterwards in Baghdad in 1941. In 1933, the year of Hitler’s “power seizure” in Germany, Amin al-Hosseini sent a message to him through the German consulate in Jerusalem, declaring the Islamic Ummah’s support for the fascist movement and Nazi domination, and made battle against Judaism a top priority in the Islamic world. In January 1937, the New York Times quoted al-Hosseini saying: “Arabs and Nazi Germany are fighting side by side against Zionism in Palestine. Our common enemy is the British and Jews.” The night before Farhud, Amin al-Hosseini’s forces had marked Jewish homes and shops by drawing hamza over them, and for several weeks Radio Zeesen had been broadcasting Nazi propaganda in large volumes: “Kill the Jews. Kill those who have plundered all your wealth and are now plotting to attack your security and comfort. What are the Arabs of Syria, Iraq and Palestine waiting for? The Jews want to rape your wives, kill your children, and destroy you.”
Six months later, after fleeing Iraq to Iran and seeking refuge at the Japanese embassy and fleeing again to Berlin, al-Hosseini met with his “Führer,” “Abu Ali,” Adolf Hitler. He remained there until the end of the war, continuing his anti-Semitic activities and strongly supporting the Holocaust. After the defeat of the Nazis, he took refuge in Egypt, where he continued his criminal activities. He was a peer and a relative of Yasser Arafat, his teacher, role model and supporter.
Al-Hosseini is praised not only by the Palestine Liberation Movement but also by Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Islamic Republic as a hero. He is called “Sheikh al-Jihad”, “the great fighter of the Islamic world” and one of the leading figures of Islam. And if you read today in the seminary encyclopedia what has been written about his life and achievements, you will not find any trace or name from Farhud, the Arab Holocaust.
Farhud’s ideology, however, can be seen today in Palestine Square (in Tehran), in the countdown to the destruction of Israel, in the Tehran Holocaust Conference, in the Holocaust cartoon and painting competitions, on Quds Day, in the innermost core of the ideology of hatred and revolution, which the criminal and inhumane nature of the Islamic Republic is crystallized around it.
Translation of this article by Sahar.
1. Nathan Weinstock, Der zerrissene Faden. Wie die arabische Welt ihre Juden verlor 1947-1967