Icon of Evil
Encyclopedia
Icon of Evil: Hitler's Mufti and the Rise of Radical Islam is a 2008 book by David G. Dalin
and John F. Rothmann
initially published by Random House
; the 2009 version of the book by Transaction Publishers
has an introduction by Alan Dershowitz
. It is a biography of Haj Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974), who was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
during the British Mandate period. Some reviewers were critical of its "overtly propagandistic" style, citing numerous factual errors and criticizing its thesis that a direct line can be drawn from the Mufti to modern-day Islamic leaders as unconvincing and lacking evidence. Other reviewers praised the book, describing it as "the first serious biography of the mufti to appear in 14 years".
for virtually all modern Middle Eastern terrorism - "an unbroken chain of terror from Adolf Hitler
, Haj Amin al-Husseini, Sayyid Qutb
, and Yasser Arafat
to Hamas
' founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman, and Ramzi Yousef
, who planned the World Trade Center bombings of 1993
, to Osama bin Laden
and Mohamed Atta
, to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
, the Pakistani Muslim terrorist who planned the kidnapping and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl
, and to Iranian president
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
, describes the book as "cursory and apparently hastily written" and "bereft of any nuance or counterargument" for its insistence on blaming the mufti for "anything and everything Islamist
". Acknowledging that Husseini had indeed played an important role in inciting anti-Jewish violence, Apter concludes that Icon of Evil presents a distorted simplification of history: "To claim that Icon of Evil paints a black-and-white view of history does the book too much justice; it's an entirely black - or entirely white - story told here."
The Israeli historian Tom Segev
, writing in the New York Times, criticized the book as "of little scholarly value, and [it] may be potentially harmful to Middle East peace prospects." Segev highlights the authors' consistent failure to provide solid evidence, for instance asserting on the basis of rumors that Husseini owed his position to a "passionate homosexual relationship" with a senior British official, and the degree to which the authors "blur the terms radical Islam, anti-Semitism and Nazism" and group together numerous Arabs and Muslims as "disciples of the mufti." He concludes: "[T]he book is worth noticing, as it belongs to a genre of popular Arab-bashing that is often believed to be 'good for Israel.' It is not. The suggestion that Israel's enemies are Nazis, or the Nazis' heirs, is apt to discourage any fair compromise with the Palestinians, and that is bad for Israel."
Benny Morris
, an Israeli historian, commends the authors for "putting their finger on important affinities" but criticises the quality of their work, describing 'Icon of Evil" as a "bad book": "they decidedly over-reach, and, given the poverty of their scholarship, they often fail to persuade, leaving the reader with the bad taste of propaganda." He comments that they "suffer not from pedantry but from overtly propagandistic aims. They are constantly beating an ideological drum. Their adjectives are a giveaway. Every anti-Semite or anti-Semitic text is 'virulent' or 'notorious.'" The book "abounds with errors of fact", and Morris describes as "obscene" the authors' digression into a counterfactual history in which the Nazis won the Second World War and exterminated the Jews of Palestine with Husseini's assistance. Despite this, Morris allows that "much of what [the book] says is soberingly truthful and to the point"
James Srodes of The Washington Times
describes Icon of Evil, as "another attempt to take a valid avenue for historical exploration and hype its sales" by drawing questionable links between Islamism and Hitler. Srodes comments that Husseini's story "is important enough without embroidering it with swastikas", noting the role that Husseini played in fomenting anti-Jewish riots and murders in British-ruled Palestine. However, he criticizes the authors' rendering of the story as "shameful hype" that "merely confuses the larger story ... [by] try[ing] to draw a direct line from Adolf Hitler to al-Husseini and then to his distant cousin Yasser Arafat, let alone to Saddam Hussein."
Kirkus Reviews
is similarly critical, noting that although the authors had done extensive archival research "their book is not a piece of sophisticated scholarship" and takes "reflexively pro-Israel positions". The book starts out as "[a]n insightful examination of a rarely studied aspect of World War II — the collaboration of Islamic political parties and Middle East regimes with the Nazis — [but] quickly evolves into a brief for the neoconservative worldview." The authors present "questionable broad-brush analysis" and "more speculation than is usually found in history books".
Book News notes that the book's discussion of Husseini's fascist activities is "relatively uncontroversial". It criticizes the authors for choosing interpretations that paint the mufti in a bad light whenever multiple interpretations are possible, and states that the thesis that Husseini can be connected to modern day opponents of Israel and the US in the Middle East is "significantly weaker".
Other reviewers viewed the book favorably. Martin Sieff of The Washington Times
write that 'the authors tell this story soberly and well", and describes the book as "valuable" and "the first serious biography of the mufti to appear in 14 years". His main criticism is that the book is too short, and does not include materiel from German archives, which he proposes that the authors be encouraged to remedy with an expanded 2nd edition.
Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Jonathan Schanzer
takes a more positive view, describing Icon of Evil as an "exceptional" history that "paints a stark picture of Husseini's ties to the Nazis and his dangerous role in the Third Reich" and identifies "numerous parallels between the murderous Nazi ideology of the 1940s and the murderous jihadist ideology that dominates headlines today." However, like Morris he criticises the authors' detour into counterfactual history, calling it "an unnecessary tangent."
Jonathan S. Tobin
of The Jewish Exponent
also commends the authors for seeking to shine "a spotlight on a figure who deserves far greater attention than he has received in recent decades", but is critical of their "lack of original research", "sometimes uninformed guesses" and "egregious speculation that adds little of value to the existing literature on the subject", in particular the "especially annoying" use of counterfactual history. Nonetheless, he concludes: "Despite its flaws, Dalin and Rothman's book is on target when it concludes that Husseini was a seminal figure not only in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but in the culture of the Muslim world."
The British writer David Pryce-Jones
notes that Icon of Evil relies entirely on English sources, "ignoring the extensive literature in German and Arabic" including Husseini's own memoirs. The book is "long on indignation, more a brisk polemic than anything else." It engages in speculation, with "the tell-tale phrases 'one can imagine,' 'there can be little doubt' and 'it is not implausible to speculate' all appear[ing] on the same page."
John R. Bradley, a writer on Middle Eastern affairs, comments in The Straits Times
that the book "makes a convincing case that Al-Husseini even had knowledge of and encouraged the Final Solution
and should have been tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg
." However, the second half of the book is "an absurd and self-contradictory effort" that is "undermined still more by truly shoddy scholarship." He suggests that the authors' motivation is "to link all criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism, and so implicitly damn all criticism of Zionism
as effectively offering support for Al-Qaeda
and its affiliates" and concludes that Icon of Evil is "most useful as an example of how history is distorted by those who use it only to promote a crude ideological agenda."
Marvin Olasky
, editor of the American magazine WORLD
, interviewed authors Dalin and Rothmann with specific questions concerning their research expressed in Icon of Evil. In particular Olasky’s interview discusses the book’s evidence for al-Husseini’s lifelong sponsorship of terrorism, both in his own spiritual role as the Mufti of Jerusalem and through his well-known relationships with Yassar Arafat and Adolf Hitler
. Arafat was Al-Husseini’s nephew and it was he who initiated Arafat’s terrorist training at age 17 in Cairo by a Nazi commando. Olasky’s interview shows the book is clear in its documentation of how Al-Husseini was in league with Hitler, having spent the years of WWII in Berlin at Hitler’s invitation. Olasky quotes the authors’ claim that in Berlin Al-Husseini became part of Hitler’s “inner circle, working closely with the top Nazi leaders, including von Ribbentrop, Himmler, and Eichmann.” He concludes that Al-Husseini’s life has markedly inspired and modelled the Islamic terrorism which continues today.
David G. Dalin
David G. Dalin is an American Conservative rabbi and historian, is the author, co-author, or editor of ten books on American Jewish history and politics, and Jewish-Christian relations. He is currently a professor of history and politics at Ave Maria University, in Florida...
and John F. Rothmann
John Rothmann
John Rothmann is a radio talk show host on KGO 810 AM in the San Francisco Bay Area in California, United States.According to his biography posted by KGO 810 AM, Rothmann is a frequent lecturer on American politics and the Presidency, and has spoken at over 150 campuses throughout the United...
initially published by Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
; the 2009 version of the book by Transaction Publishers
Transaction Publishers
Transaction Publishers is a New Jersey-based publishing house that specializes in social sciences books. Some of its books have been published with the imprint "Transactions Publishers".-Overview:...
has an introduction by Alan Dershowitz
Alan Dershowitz
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer, jurist, and political commentator. He has spent most of his career at Harvard Law School where in 1967, at the age of 28, he became the youngest full professor of law in its history...
. It is a biography of Haj Amin al-Husseini (1895-1974), who was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
Grand Mufti of Jerusalem
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem is the Sunni Muslim cleric in charge of Jerusalem's Islamic holy places, including the Al-Aqsa Mosque.-Ottoman era:...
during the British Mandate period. Some reviewers were critical of its "overtly propagandistic" style, citing numerous factual errors and criticizing its thesis that a direct line can be drawn from the Mufti to modern-day Islamic leaders as unconvincing and lacking evidence. Other reviewers praised the book, describing it as "the first serious biography of the mufti to appear in 14 years".
Summary
The book portrays Husseini, a member of an important Jerusalem Arab family, as an anti-Semite and a key figure in infusing the modern Arab world with anti-Semitic attitudes. It asserts that Husseini's views were the casus belliCasus belli
is a Latin expression meaning the justification for acts of war. means "incident", "rupture" or indeed "case", while means bellic...
for virtually all modern Middle Eastern terrorism - "an unbroken chain of terror from Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, Haj Amin al-Husseini, Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb
Sayyid Qutb was an Egyptian author, educator, Islamist theorist, poet, and the leading member of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s and '60s....
, and Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
to Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
' founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Sheikh Omar Abd al-Rahman, and Ramzi Yousef
Ramzi Yousef
Ramzi Yousef was one of the main perpetrators of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and a co-conspirator in the Bojinka plot. In 1995, he was arrested at a guest house in Islamabad, by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence and United States Diplomatic Security Service, then extradited to the...
, who planned the World Trade Center bombings of 1993
1993 World Trade Center bombing
The 1993 World Trade Center bombing occurred on February 26, 1993, when a truck bomb was detonated below the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. The 1,336 lb urea nitrate–hydrogen gas enhanced device was intended to knock the North Tower into the South Tower , bringing...
, to Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
and Mohamed Atta
Mohamed Atta
Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta was one of the masterminds and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks who served as the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11, crashing the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the coordinated attacks.Born in 1968...
, to Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is a British-born militant of Pakistani descent with links to various Islamist militant organisations, including Jaish-e-Mohammed, al-Qaeda, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Taliban.He was arrested and served time in prison for...
, the Pakistani Muslim terrorist who planned the kidnapping and murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl was an American journalist who was kidnapped and killed by Al-Qaeda.At the time of his kidnapping, Pearl served as the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, and was based in Mumbai, India. He went to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between...
, and to Iranian president
President of Iran
The President of Iran is the highest popularly elected official in, and the head of government of the Islamic Republic of Iran; although subordinate to the Supreme Leader of Iran, who functions as the country's head of state...
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."
Reviews
Icon of Evil received a strongly critical response from some reviewers. Simon Maxwell Apter, writing in the San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, describes the book as "cursory and apparently hastily written" and "bereft of any nuance or counterargument" for its insistence on blaming the mufti for "anything and everything Islamist
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
". Acknowledging that Husseini had indeed played an important role in inciting anti-Jewish violence, Apter concludes that Icon of Evil presents a distorted simplification of history: "To claim that Icon of Evil paints a black-and-white view of history does the book too much justice; it's an entirely black - or entirely white - story told here."
The Israeli historian Tom Segev
Tom Segev
Tom Segev is an Israeli historian, author and journalist. He is associated with Israel's so-called New Historians, a group challenging many of the country's traditional narratives.-Early life:Segev was born in Jerusalem in 1945...
, writing in the New York Times, criticized the book as "of little scholarly value, and [it] may be potentially harmful to Middle East peace prospects." Segev highlights the authors' consistent failure to provide solid evidence, for instance asserting on the basis of rumors that Husseini owed his position to a "passionate homosexual relationship" with a senior British official, and the degree to which the authors "blur the terms radical Islam, anti-Semitism and Nazism" and group together numerous Arabs and Muslims as "disciples of the mufti." He concludes: "[T]he book is worth noticing, as it belongs to a genre of popular Arab-bashing that is often believed to be 'good for Israel.' It is not. The suggestion that Israel's enemies are Nazis, or the Nazis' heirs, is apt to discourage any fair compromise with the Palestinians, and that is bad for Israel."
Benny Morris
Benny Morris
Benny Morris is professor of History in the Middle East Studies department of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in the city of Be'er Sheva, Israel...
, an Israeli historian, commends the authors for "putting their finger on important affinities" but criticises the quality of their work, describing 'Icon of Evil" as a "bad book": "they decidedly over-reach, and, given the poverty of their scholarship, they often fail to persuade, leaving the reader with the bad taste of propaganda." He comments that they "suffer not from pedantry but from overtly propagandistic aims. They are constantly beating an ideological drum. Their adjectives are a giveaway. Every anti-Semite or anti-Semitic text is 'virulent' or 'notorious.'" The book "abounds with errors of fact", and Morris describes as "obscene" the authors' digression into a counterfactual history in which the Nazis won the Second World War and exterminated the Jews of Palestine with Husseini's assistance. Despite this, Morris allows that "much of what [the book] says is soberingly truthful and to the point"
James Srodes of The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
describes Icon of Evil, as "another attempt to take a valid avenue for historical exploration and hype its sales" by drawing questionable links between Islamism and Hitler. Srodes comments that Husseini's story "is important enough without embroidering it with swastikas", noting the role that Husseini played in fomenting anti-Jewish riots and murders in British-ruled Palestine. However, he criticizes the authors' rendering of the story as "shameful hype" that "merely confuses the larger story ... [by] try[ing] to draw a direct line from Adolf Hitler to al-Husseini and then to his distant cousin Yasser Arafat, let alone to Saddam Hussein."
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews
Kirkus Reviews is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus . Kirkus serves the book and literary trade sector, including libraries, publishers, literary and film agents, film and TV producers and booksellers. Kirkus Reviews is published on the first and 15th of each month...
is similarly critical, noting that although the authors had done extensive archival research "their book is not a piece of sophisticated scholarship" and takes "reflexively pro-Israel positions". The book starts out as "[a]n insightful examination of a rarely studied aspect of World War II — the collaboration of Islamic political parties and Middle East regimes with the Nazis — [but] quickly evolves into a brief for the neoconservative worldview." The authors present "questionable broad-brush analysis" and "more speculation than is usually found in history books".
Book News notes that the book's discussion of Husseini's fascist activities is "relatively uncontroversial". It criticizes the authors for choosing interpretations that paint the mufti in a bad light whenever multiple interpretations are possible, and states that the thesis that Husseini can be connected to modern day opponents of Israel and the US in the Middle East is "significantly weaker".
Other reviewers viewed the book favorably. Martin Sieff of The Washington Times
The Washington Times
The Washington Times is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. It was founded in 1982 by Unification Church founder Sun Myung Moon, and until 2010 was owned by News World Communications, an international media conglomerate associated with the...
write that 'the authors tell this story soberly and well", and describes the book as "valuable" and "the first serious biography of the mufti to appear in 14 years". His main criticism is that the book is too short, and does not include materiel from German archives, which he proposes that the authors be encouraged to remedy with an expanded 2nd edition.
Writing in the Jerusalem Post, Jonathan Schanzer
Jonathan Schanzer
Jonathan Schanzer is an American author & scholar in Middle Eastern studies, and vice president of research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.-Professional overview:...
takes a more positive view, describing Icon of Evil as an "exceptional" history that "paints a stark picture of Husseini's ties to the Nazis and his dangerous role in the Third Reich" and identifies "numerous parallels between the murderous Nazi ideology of the 1940s and the murderous jihadist ideology that dominates headlines today." However, like Morris he criticises the authors' detour into counterfactual history, calling it "an unnecessary tangent."
Jonathan S. Tobin
Jonathan S. Tobin
Jonathan S. Tobin is the senior online editor of Commentary magazine, a neo-Conservative monthly magazine covering politics, international affairs, Judaism and social, cultural and literary issues....
of The Jewish Exponent
The Jewish Exponent
The Jewish Exponent is a weekly community newspaper serving the Jewish community of Philadelphia. Published continuously since 1887, its circulation was over 55,000 in 2006....
also commends the authors for seeking to shine "a spotlight on a figure who deserves far greater attention than he has received in recent decades", but is critical of their "lack of original research", "sometimes uninformed guesses" and "egregious speculation that adds little of value to the existing literature on the subject", in particular the "especially annoying" use of counterfactual history. Nonetheless, he concludes: "Despite its flaws, Dalin and Rothman's book is on target when it concludes that Husseini was a seminal figure not only in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but in the culture of the Muslim world."
The British writer David Pryce-Jones
David Pryce-Jones
David Eugene Henry Pryce-Jones FRSL is a conservative British author and commentator.- Career :He was educated at Eton and read History at Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied under A.J.P...
notes that Icon of Evil relies entirely on English sources, "ignoring the extensive literature in German and Arabic" including Husseini's own memoirs. The book is "long on indignation, more a brisk polemic than anything else." It engages in speculation, with "the tell-tale phrases 'one can imagine,' 'there can be little doubt' and 'it is not implausible to speculate' all appear[ing] on the same page."
John R. Bradley, a writer on Middle Eastern affairs, comments in The Straits Times
The Straits Times
The Straits Times is an English language daily broadsheet newspaper based in Singapore currently owned by Singapore Press Holdings . It is the country's highest-selling paper, with a current daily circulation of nearly 400,000...
that the book "makes a convincing case that Al-Husseini even had knowledge of and encouraged the Final Solution
Final Solution
The Final Solution was Nazi Germany's plan and execution of the systematic genocide of European Jews during World War II, resulting in the most deadly phase of the Holocaust...
and should have been tried as a war criminal at Nuremberg
Nuremberg Trials
The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the victorious Allied forces of World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany....
." However, the second half of the book is "an absurd and self-contradictory effort" that is "undermined still more by truly shoddy scholarship." He suggests that the authors' motivation is "to link all criticism of Israel to anti-Semitism, and so implicitly damn all criticism of Zionism
Zionism
Zionism is a Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, has supported the self-determination of the Jewish people in a sovereign Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to advocate on behalf of the Jewish state...
as effectively offering support for Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
and its affiliates" and concludes that Icon of Evil is "most useful as an example of how history is distorted by those who use it only to promote a crude ideological agenda."
Marvin Olasky
Marvin Olasky
Marvin Olasky is editor-in-chief of WORLD Magazine, the author of more than 20 books, including The Tragedy of American Compassion, and Distinguished Chair in Journalism and Public Policy at Patrick Henry College...
, editor of the American magazine WORLD
World (magazine)
WORLD Magazine is a biweekly Christian news magazine, published in the United States of America by God's World Publications, a non-profit 501 organization based in Asheville, North Carolina. WORLD differs from most other news magazines in that its declared perspective is one of conservative...
, interviewed authors Dalin and Rothmann with specific questions concerning their research expressed in Icon of Evil. In particular Olasky’s interview discusses the book’s evidence for al-Husseini’s lifelong sponsorship of terrorism, both in his own spiritual role as the Mufti of Jerusalem and through his well-known relationships with Yassar Arafat and Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. Arafat was Al-Husseini’s nephew and it was he who initiated Arafat’s terrorist training at age 17 in Cairo by a Nazi commando. Olasky’s interview shows the book is clear in its documentation of how Al-Husseini was in league with Hitler, having spent the years of WWII in Berlin at Hitler’s invitation. Olasky quotes the authors’ claim that in Berlin Al-Husseini became part of Hitler’s “inner circle, working closely with the top Nazi leaders, including von Ribbentrop, Himmler, and Eichmann.” He concludes that Al-Husseini’s life has markedly inspired and modelled the Islamic terrorism which continues today.