(Jewish Political Studies Review) Matthias Kuntzel - An Arab war against the UN decision in favor of the partition of Mandatory Palestine was not inevitable. Even though the Arab world rejected the Partition Plan, there was at the same time a general reluctance to go to war, not only among the Arabs in Palestine but also among the governments of major Arab League states such as Egypt. It was the mobilization of the Muslim Brotherhood that caused the Arab League to embrace the Mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin el-Husseini, a Nazi-collaborator and war criminal, as leader of the Palestinian Arabs. By staging destabilizing mass demonstrations and a murderous campaign of intimidation, el-Husseini and the Muslim Brotherhood dragged Egypt and other Arab states into a full-scale war against the Jews of Mandatory Palestine. The inability of key Arab actors to stand their ground, combined with the cowardice of the Western powers who tacitly anticipated a Jewish defeat, paved the way for the 1948 war. The writer is a German political scientist.
2016-04-01 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive