The Muslim Nazis IV: Farhud

Explicit content warning

05/31/21 • 216 min

What do you get when all of your best laid plans seem to be falling apart around you with nothing but the suffering of your people to show for it?
Bitterness.
As the 1920s turned into the 1930s, Hajj Amin al-Husseini's power started to look increasingly fragile and precarious, largely thanks to the effects of the violence that rocked Palestine in the summer of 1929 that only served to raise the temperature across the nation. The nationalist movement would continue to splinter and many different factions would take much more strident, even recognizably jihadist measures against the British Mandate which only served to incentivize the colonizers to redouble their suppression efforts, culminating in the second great Arab Revolt of the 20th century, from 1936-1939.
In this episode of the Muslim Nazis we see the power Hajj Amin al-Husseini accumulated during the 1920s start to slip through his fingers until he is yet again on the run from the British. This part of our story takes us from Palestine to Syria to Iraq. It is Iraq where al-Husseini manages to get himself deeply involved in the coup that brought the British down to bear on Iraq's new government, a government supported by another imperial power beginning to make its moves in Europe. And what ultimately follows such a dramatic confrontation is so devastating that the only word that can sufficiently describe it is in Arabized Kurdish.
That word is farhud, translated as “violent dispossession”, though it could also reasonably be simplified into one word: disaster.
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Final note: If you want to skip the opening housekeeping, jump ahead to 11:30.
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Previous Episode

The Muslim Nazis III: 1929

1929 was, in a lot of ways, the year the world began its final descent into hell. The stock market crash in the United States would lead to untold misery in much of the Western world and allow for the rise and spread of particularly noxious ideologies across the whole of Europe. However, on the other side of the world, another "beginning of the end" was taking place, this time between the Jews and Arabs of Palestine, with the events that rocked this tiny nation setting the groundwork for suspicions, resentments, and hatreds for the decades to come. In the third episode of the tale of the Muslim Nazis, we follow Hajj Amin al-Husseini into his diplomatic battle with the British Mandate of Palestine and his role (or lack thereof?) in this explosion of violence and destruction in his homeland. We see events slipping out of his control that he believed he possessed, all while he fights every battle everywhere in his mind. We see him struggle to maintain his status and play both sides of the conflict as best as he can in order to secure his place at the power broker table. And above all, we see him make his full transformation into the phase of his life that was defined by his thirst for more power. Music credit first goes to Alex Mason for his song "Beginning". Music credit also goes to Ernesto Schnack for his rendition of "The Light of the Seven"; check out his YouTube channel and subscribe (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz1PeIEiNkKRwWDKFA6RkzQ). History Impossible has been made possible by the following generous supporters on Patreon and PayPal:

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Next Episode

Escaping Farhud: The Joseph Samuels Story

Sometimes the best way to convey the weight of history is to read the words of just one person who lived it.
In this special episode of History Impossible, we'll be looking at the life of Joseph Samuels, whose incredible journey and profound resilience throughout his 90 plus years on this planet deserved examination. From the dusty streets of Baghdad, where he escaped the first and worst massacre of Iraqi Jewish history as a boy, to his dangerous flight to the new Jewish home of Israel, to his search for meaning in his life and his discovery of love and success that took him from Jerusalem to Montreal and finally to Los Angeles. And despite all the horror that haunted his childhood as he escaped the Farhud, he never once took life for granted and was always grateful for his good fortune.
As Samuels himself wrote in his memoir, "Make your life your own chain of miracles."
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Trevor Lindborg
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