The Farhud

The Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance in the Holocaust by Edwin Black, Dialog Press, 2012. 

The Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire of Sultan Abdulhamid II included the oil-rich province of Mosul in present-day Iraq. The Ottoman Empire was an ally of Germany in World War I. To develop their oil wealth, the Turks first turned to Germany’s Deutsche Bank. Great Britain and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company tried to steal these oil rights away from Deutsche Bank. 

Sykes-Picot Agreement

During World War I, the British and French negotiated with each other on how to divide up the Ottoman Empire if they won the war against Germany and Turkey. This produced the 1916 Sykes-Picot Agreement. Under it, the Baghdad and Basra provinces would go to Great Britain, while Mosul and Syria would go to France.

Chaim Weizmann and the Balfour Declaration

One of Europe’s main Zionists was Chaim Weizmann, who was born in 1874 in Russia. Weizmann studied chemistry in Germany and afterwards moved to Manchester, England. He lobbied James Arthur Balfour, for whom the 1917 Balfour Declaration was named. Other British leaders who supported a Jewish State in Palestine included David Lloyd George, Leo Amery, and Herbert Samuel. The Jews had supported Great Britain during World War I when the Zion Mule Corps fought at Gallipoli. Chaim Weizmann also won British goodwill when during the war he developed a fermentation process to make acetone for weapons.

Johann Gottlieb Fichte

Arab nationalist writer Sati al-Husri studied the ideas of German Idealist philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte.  Fichte believed in basing nationalism upon a common language. Fichte’s ideas also influenced the Young Turks, who replaced the Islamic Caliphate with Turkish nationalism. 

Dhimmitude

The Arab Muslims, Arab Christians, and Arab Jews had long lived in peace in the Middle East, as long as the Muslims were on top, and the non-Muslims accepted a second-class citizenship called dhimmitude. But during the twentieth century the Arab Muslims became less tolerant of Jews for several reasons: (a) the influx of Ashkenazi Jews from Czarist Russia, (b) the influx of Ashkenazi Jews from Nazi Germany, (c) Ashkenazi Jews refused to accept dhimmitude, and (d) the fear of a possible Jewish state.

Peel Commission

In fact, in July 1937 the British Peel Commission produced a white paper which called for the partition of Palestine into a Jewish State and an Arab State.

Arab Clans

The two main Arab clans in Palestine were the (a) Nashashibi, who were willing to do business with the Jews, and (b) the Husseini, who boycotted Jewish businesses and instigated pogroms against the Jews

Assyrian Christians

Mosul province was mostly Kurdish, but also included Arabs, Yazidis, Jews, and Assyrian Christians. The Assyrian Christians in Mosul province sought self-determination from the League of Nations, but were unsuccessful. In August 1933, the Iraqi army suppressed the Assyrian separatist insurrection against Baghdad. The Iraqi Motor Machine Gun Unit killed about 500-1000 men in about 60 Assyrian villages near the city of Simele. Afterwards, Kurdish tribesmen looted the villages. 

Oil

Germany got much of its oil from Olex, which was a wholly owned subsidiary of Britain’s Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. Olex continued doing business with Germany, even after Hitler and the Nazis gained control of Germany. Standard Oil of New Jersey and Shell Oil also supplied the Nazis with oil during the 1930s. Even after the war began in 1939, Olex continued to distribute oil for the Nazis in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Croatia.

Grand Mufti of Jerusalem

In 1921 British High Commissioner Herbert Samuel appointed al-Hajj Muhammad Amin al-Husseini to be the Mufti of Jerusalem, despite the fact that Husseini came in fourth in the election. The British had convinced the winner of the election, Sheik Jar-Alla, of the Nashashibi family and mayor of Jerusalem, to withdraw. Husseini had persuaded the British that he would be loyal to Britain and quell the Arab riots against the British and the Jews. In fact, Husseini was actually one of the main instigators of these riots! The British added Grand to his title, to increase his influence to stop the Arab riots. The British supported Husseini financially. Husseini had studied at Cairo’s al-Azhar University and opposed Zionism. In October 1937 the British became fed up with Grand Mufti Husseini and had the French place him under house arrest in Beirut, Lebanon. In October 1939, Husseini escaped house arrest in Beirut by dressing as a veiled woman, and then went to Baghdad. After arriving in Baghdad, Husseini told the Germans that they and the Arabs had three common enemies: the British, the Communists, and the Jews. Husseini offered to promote an anti-British Arab rebellion in the Middle East, provided that Germany came out against a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

Opposition to Rescuing Jews

In 1943, when the British proposed to rescue four thousand Jewish children in Bulgaria by transporting them to Palestine, Husseini contacted both Bulgaria and German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop. He said that he opposed such a rescue, and suggested that instead the children be sent to Poland, where they would be under the strict supervision of the Nazis. Husseini similarly opposed the rescue of nine hundred Jewish children from Hungary, and 1800 Jewish children in Romania. Husseini also asked the German Luftwaffe to bomb a Zionist conference in Jerusalem on November 2, 1943, which was celebrating the anniversary of the 1917 British Balfour Declaration. 

Anti-Semitism in Iraq

In 1934, a medical doctor named Sami Shawkat founded the al-Futuwwa youth brigades, which distributed antisemitic literature. In 1938, Sami Shawkat became Iraq’s Minister of Education. In 1938 Sami Shawkat sent some of his al-Futuwwa youth brigades to Nuremberg, Germany to attend a Nazi Party rally. One of the leaders of al-Futuwwa was Yunus al-Sabawi, who had translated Hitler’s Mein Kampf into Arabic. Sami’s physician brother, Saib Shawkat, the director of the Royal Hospital in Baghdad, lead a pro-Nazi society called al-Muthanna, which had been founded in 1935.

Fritz Grobba

Dr. Fritz Grobba was at various times the German envoy to Iran, to Saudi Arabia, and Germany’s chargé d’affaires in Baghdad. Grobba was a liaison between Nazi Germany and Grand Mufti Husseini. Grobba succeeded in convincing Iraq to close its borders to Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. Grobba published Hitler’s Mein Kampf in installments in the Christian Iraqi newspaper al-Alem al Arabi. Grobba told the Iraqi people that Iraqi Jews were not true Iraqis, despite the fact that they had lived there for thousands of years.

Rashid Ali

In April 1941 there was a coup by the Golden Square army officers, who opposed being ruled by Great Britain. The coup removed Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Pasha al-Said, and installed Rashid Ali Galiani as the new Prime Minister. Rashid Ali threatened to give the Germans access to Iraqi oil fields unless the British blocked a Jewish State in Palestine. In May 1941 the British Royal Air Force base near Lake Habbaniya in southern Iraq found itself under siege by Rashid Ali and the Iraqi army. The German Luftwaffe out of Rayak airbase in Vichy Syria supported the Iraqi army by bombing the British Habbaniya base.

British Army, Including Gurkhas and Sikh

Eventually, the men in Habbaniya received British reinforcements from Palestine and Transjordan, including the 7th Gurkha Rifles and the 11th Sikh Regiment. Major Henry Glubb then lead the British forces from Habbaniya to Baghdad.

The Farhud

The Farhud was a pogrom against the Jews which took place during the Jewish holiday of Shavuot in June 1-2, 1941 in Baghdad, Iraq. It occurred during a chaotic time after the collapse of the government of Rashid Ali, but before the British established control of Baghdad. Two hundred Jews, including many Jewish children, were murdered. Hundreds of Jewish women were raped, and many Jewish homes were plundered and burned.