Talk:1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Relations between the rebels and Nazi Germany

Rubin & Schwanitz

The book of Rubin and Schwanitz is a complete load of drivel. It has to be weeded out. Schwanitz is on a personal crusade to prove that the Holocaust was inspired by al-Husseini. This by itself proves he can't be considered reliable. If you want an example from his book with Rubin, don't go past page 164 where he gives this response to the claim that al-Husseini visited Auschwitz: "The story seems credible, especially after the discovery of pages in Himmler's office calendar that prove beyond reasonable doubt that the two men met in the Ukranian town of Zhitomyr, near Auschwitz" (my emphasis). Actually Zhitomyr is 800 km in a straight line from Auschwitz and even with today's fast trains it takes at least 15 hours. Calling it "near Auschwitz" is a lie, but he knows that many readers will take it in without checking. Zero^talk 12:43, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East raises enough red flags to warrant caution. Selfstudier (talk) 12:46, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The book, in particular some its theories regarding al-Husayni, is certainly problematic and has generally received mixed reviews. Yet I only quote it in four instances. Second the authors provide a reference in all four of them. I could easily replace the reference concerning Canaris being al-Husayni's contact man, tho I will need to keep looking for the US' study of captured German records, the Abwehr sending 4k rifles in 1939 as well as al-Banna receiving 1k Pounds per month. In the cases of the US' and al-Banna Rubin & Schwanitz directly quote archival documents. Better to keep Rubin & Schwanitz until we find an alternative secondary source. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LeGabrie (talk • contribs)

In Wikipedia we keep things out until we find better sources. Otherwise the encyclopedia would be full of arrant nonsense waiting for someone to find a source. Al-Banna was an Egyptian with his own agenda in Egypt, not a Palestian. (And sign your posts.) Zero^talk 11:26, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Al-Banna's ideology was based on the events in Palestine, plus he was a personal fried of Husayni, plus he received German money funneled to him via al-Husayni. I will replace Rubin & Schwanitz with Martyn Frampton's "The Muslim Brotherhood and the West. A History of Enmity and Engagement".— Preceding unsigned comment added by LeGabrie (talk • contribs)

Frampton says that the Muslim Brotherhood sent weapons to the Palestinian rebels (p40). This is perfectly plausible and I don't mind if it is mentioned. However, Frampton does not tie this support to Germany, so it can't go in a section about German support. Zero^talk 06:13, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Problematic passages

Some of the new material should be kept, but the cherry-picking and side snipes must be dramatically reduced. Examples:

• Some of the funding was also funneled via Saudi Arabia,[210] its king Ibn Saud expressing his sympathy for Germany due to its "battle" against "the Jews, the archenemy of the Arabs."[211] — The second part comes from a different source than the first part and is transparently intended to impute a motive to the funding without evidence. SYNTH of the worst kind. Also [210] does not indicate Ibn Saud was involved, and places it in May 1939 rather than the 1938 setting here.

• "transparently intended to impute a motive to the funding without evidence" What a far-fetched idea to propose that a Jew-hating, Germany-sympathizing king would aid Germany against the Jews. In any case, perhaps one could still slightly rephrase the sentence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LeGabrie (talk • contribs)

The funding, if any, was to Palestinians not Germans. Read your own source. You imputed an antisemitic motivation without any source. You aren't allowed to do that. Zero^talk 11:26, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia "aided" Germany in funding the Palestinian rebels by smuggling the money. Don't try too hard to nitpick. LeGabrie (talk) 20:05, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

• "Also [210] does not indicate Ibn Saud was involved" Saudi Arabia was and is an absolute monarchy, of course he was involved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by LeGabrie (talk • contribs)

That's what Original Research looks like. Anyway, not even despots micromanage every little thing that their government does. And this was little. Zero^talk 11:26, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

• By summer 1939 the British too were aware of the German funding of the revolt. — The source says they suspected it, not that they were aware of it.

Right.

• Relations between the Arabs and the Palestine-Germans, many being members of NSDAP and proudly displaying Nazi emblems and pennants, were described as warm, with the latter reportedly teaching their anti-Semitic ideas to the Arabs. Some rebels also displayed German swastika flags and Hitler portraits or performed the Nazi salute. — The source attributes these to reports by Nazis, but why spoil a good story?

Except that Mallmann & Cüppers also quote the New York Times in one occasion. But yes, most accounts are by Nazis, this fact should be considered.

• I don't have access to Küntzel's "Nazis und der Nahe Osten", but I have "Jihad and Jew-Hatred". It is a low-quality Arabs=Nazis polemic based only on secondary sources. So Küntzel's reliability must be questioned. One issue is the pamphlet "Islam und Judentum" which is best known from the photo of the Bosnian soldiers posing with it. Küntzel apparently claims al-Husseini wrote it. (The National Library of Croatia agrees that his name is on it.) In any case, what does it have to do with the topic of this page?

"I have "Jihad and Jew-Hatred". It is a low-quality Arabs=Nazis polemic based only on secondary sources." Is that so? Küntzel is certainly biased in "Nazis und der Nahe Osten", but he does not equate Arabs with Nazis, like you claimed, nor does he rely only on secondary sources, but quotes various archival documents.

"In any case, what does it have to do with the topic of this page?" It is remarkable because the booklet was translated into German just a year after, so still during the revolt. Küntzel even speculates that Germany was involved in its creation.— Preceding unsigned comment added by LeGabrie (talk • contribs)

Even if it was written in 1937, which I'd like to see the evidence for, that doesn't establish a relevance to the revolt. The revolt didn't equal al-Husseini. Zero^talk 11:26, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

"Even if it was written in 1937, which I'd like to see the evidence for" Küntzel refers to Edy Cohen, who apparently "discovered" the Arabic original published in Cairo and personally shared a translation with him.

"The revolt didn't equal al-Husseini." He was the political and ideological head of the revolt, if you like it or not. LeGabrie (talk) 20:05, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

• There is more but I have to sleep sometimes.

Zero^talk 14:51, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Deleted content

Let us also take a look at what you deleted.

1) "delete attempt to tie the Arab revolt to the Holocaust" The deleted paragraph:

"Relations between al-Husayni, the eventual president of the Arab Higher Committee, and Nazi Germany are attested as early as March 1933, right after the election of the NSDAP. The German counsel of Jerusalem Heinrich Wolff reported in March 31 that al-Husayni expressed his approval of the Nazi's seizure of power. He also hoped "for the spread of Fascist and anti-democratic state authority to other lands" and warned that the "Jewish influence on the economy and on politics" must be resisted. In April Wolff, al-Husayni and some of his associates met again, with the latter again stressing their admiration for Germany and its anti-Jewish policies, but also expressing their concern for the increasing flow of Jewish refugees to Palestine. The Nazis attempted to make Germany Judenfrei by expelling its Jews to Palestine until adopting the Final Solution in 1941, a policy which conflicted directly with Arab national interests. While the Nazis vehemently opposed the notion of a Jewish state on ideological grounds they wanted to avoid an Arab state as well, as it would mean an end to the stream of Jewish refugees into Palestine. They preferred the continuation of British rule instead."

Summary: al-Husayni approached the Germans in 1933 and expressed his sympathy. He also decried the flow of Jewish refugees into Palestine due to Germany forcing out its Jews. A description of Germany's policy of expelling the Jews as well as its interest in avoiding both a Jewish and an Arab state follows. So where the hell do you see me tying the Arab revolt to the Holocaust? Why do you delete the entire paragraph? Vandalism IMO.

@Zero0000: Still waiting for your explanation. LeGabrie (talk) 20:05, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

@Zero0000: Third and last time: explain yourself or I will issue a complaint in the admins' noticeboard. LeGabrie (talk) 17:26, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I would read WP:BOOMERANG before doing anything hasty. Note that the boards are not interested in content issues. If you have a complaint about editor conduct then the place to raise that initially is on the editors talk page and not as threats on an article talk page. Selfstudier (talk) 17:43, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

It's not about the content itself, which is now deleted for good anyway, but the fact that he deleted large amounts of content with an at best dubious justification and staunchly refuses to elaborate. So yes, it's about his conduct. I will consider to discuss the issue on his talk page, thanks. LeGabrie (talk) 19:17, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

In any case, don't expect an answer, since (a) Zero is probably punching out zeds at the mo, and the reasons are amply documented in the thread that followed. The German material introduced (familiar to all readers who look at any number of wiki pages) unduly highlights a German/Nazi connection with Palestine that was exiguous, despite the heatedly polemical books you brought to bear on the issue. Germany had almost no bearing on the revolt, financially, militarily or otherwise.Nishidani (talk) 17:52, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

It seems that you do not understand what this particular issue is about. Leave this to Zero and me. LeGabrie (talk) 19:17, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

By now I have written more than enough on this talk page for you to understand my position on the subject. Repeatedly demanding an answer to a question is called badgering and you need to read WP:BADGER. As well as being against the rules, it is a good way to get your question ignored. However, I will clarify that my edit summary was not intended to charge you personally with any motive, but rather was a comment on the majority of the sources you brought, which in my opinion (and plenty of other peoples' opinions, see my quote from Richard Levy on this page) have the motive of associating the Arabs with the Nazis, and therefore with the Holocaust, to the benefit of Israel. Because I am very familiar with that literature and its transparent motivation, I am adamantly opposed to Wikipedia becoming an echo chamber for it. Zero^talk 01:13, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

"Repeatedly demanding an answer to a question is called badgering and you need to read WP:BADGER."

You made a major edit (-1350 bytes) and refused to discuss it. Which is against the rules and would otherwise lead to the restoration of the text. LeGabrie (talk) 11:12, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

"I will clarify that my edit summary was not intended to charge you personally with any motive, but rather was a comment on the majority of the sources you brought, which in my opinion (and plenty of other peoples' opinions, see my quote from Richard Levy on this page) have the motive of associating the Arabs with the Nazis, and therefore with the Holocaust, to the benefit of Israel."

You removed a very particular paragraph and gave an edit summary that read "delete attempt to tie the Arab revolt to the Holocaust", clearly implying that that particular paragraph (because why you didn't you delete the other text while you were at it?) you removed was me tying the revolt to the Holocaust, which is not true. Your sources talk doesn't make any sense either, since the text in question was exclusively referenced by Nicosia, which everyone here agrees is legit. You also didn't mention any sources in the edit summary, you just spoke of an "attempt", which, again, implies that you were talking about my text. So again: You deleted a major, well-referenced text on completely arbitrary grounds. Here's what I think what actually happened: you skimmed the text until reaching this passage:

"until adopting the Final Solution in 1941, a policy which conflicted directly with Arab national interests."

You misread it like the Final Solution actually was in Arab national interests. You didn't bother to read again and immediately deleted the entire paragraph. LeGabrie (talk) 11:12, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I made an editing mistake in my haste to go to bed. If I had thought about it a bit more I would have moved the whole new section to this talk page for discussion rather than trying to pick at it piecemeal. Zero^talk 12:20, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The offending edit summary is now gone; you can check. Zero^talk 14:33, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Good, thank you. LeGabrie (talk) 21:07, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

2) You removed Germany from the "Financial Support" area of the infobox, claiming that there is "no proven financial support from Germany". Yet this is directly contradicted by Nicosia and Mallmann & Cüppers as well as the primary source I directly quoted in the text. It should be re-added with references.

So add "substantial" to the sentence. The infobox is not for listing trivia. Zero^talk 01:13, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

3) "delete anecdote about a single anonymous individual" I included this quote because it perfectly illustrates all previously mentioned reasons why there were Arab sympathies for Nazi Germany: anti-semitism, aversion to the British and a certain association with Hitler. I don't know if the name of the insurgent is known, perhaps it was mentioned in the original publication, "Mord und Brand im ‚heiligen‘ Land" by Karl Kossak. LeGabrie (talk) 19:03, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

Zero can reply here but I think you should dial it back on the uses of the word vandalism. WP:VANDALISM means something specific and if you cannot prove it, don't make the accusation. Selfstudier (talk) 19:11, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

I fail to see how deleting an entire referenced paragraph can be justified by good faith, but we will see his explanation soon. LeGabrie (talk) 19:21, 20 December 2022 (UTC)

The amount of German influence on the revolt

All of this newly recycled lowbrow citation from mediocre scholars and writers is primarily WP:Undue when not WP:Fringe. We are dealing with historical events and people which have been the object of intense scholarship for several decades, which has deconstructed the early post-war propaganda war waged by agencies and militants to assert in the fragile early years of Israel's struggle to achieve and sustain statehood, that the opposition to Zionism was directly linked to Nazism. I.e., what was happening in the MIddle East was a rerun or continuation of WW2, with a second Holocaust in the wings.

There is no doubt that links between Germany and the Palestinian opposition existed through 1933-1939. They are noway near the number of similar contacts over roughly the same period between Zionists and Nazi and Fascists. We do not, apropos the latter, tout the view by showcasing every jot and tittle of collaboration between them, to conclude that Zionism is essentially the outcome of German and Italian geopolitical assistance. Even less so should we make the mirror case for the notion that the Palestinian revolt was deeply influenced by German/Fascist ideology, money and influence. In both cases, the old dictum 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' was the overwhelming consideration, the contacts instrumental and cynical, to the respective ends, which were identical: achieving statehood in a country ruled and administered by Great Britain. The trivia cited by Schwanitz and co., restarted after the Al-Aqsa intifada and recycled the early postwar Zionist propaganda. It was 'instrumental' and struggled to make the casual incidentalia of history the hidden core of events. It has been carefully reviewed, scrutinized and assessed in the context of the best recent specialist scholarship and found glaringly wanting or quesrtion-begging. One summary of it we have on the al-Husayni page runs as follows:-

It has often been stated that the Nazis inspired and financed the Arab Revolt. According to Philip Mattar, there is no reliable evidence to support such a claim. In 1933, within weeks of Hitler's rise to power in Germany, the German Consul-General in Jerusalem for Palestine, Heinrich Wolff, an open supporter of Zionism, sent a telegram to Berlin reporting al-Husseini's belief that Palestinian Muslims were enthusiastic about the new regime and looked forward to the spread of Fascism throughout the region. Wolff met al-Husseini and many sheikhs again, a month later, at Nabi Musa. They expressed their approval of the anti-Jewish boycott in Germany and asked Wolff not to send any Jews to Palestine. Wolff subsequently wrote in his annual report for that year that the Arabs' political naïvety led them to fail to recognize the link between German Jewish policy and their problems in Palestine, and that their enthusiasm for Nazi Germany was devoid of any real understanding of the phenomenon. The various proposals by Palestinian Arab notables like al-Husseini were rejected consistently over the years out of concern to avoid disrupting Anglo-German relations, in line with Germany's policy of not imperiling their economic and cultural interests in the region by a change in their policy of neutrality, and respect for British interests. Hitler's Englandpolitik essentially precluded significant assistance to Arab leaders. This care for treating with respect English colonial initiatives (like the promotion of Zionist immigration) was also linked to Nazi ambitions to drive Jews out of Europe.

Italy also made the nature of its assistance to the Palestinian contingent on the outcome of its own negotiations with Britain, and cut off aid when it appeared that the British were ready to admit the failure of their pro-Zionist policy in Palestine. Al-Husseini's adversary, Ze'ev Jabotinsky had at the same time cut off Irgun ties with Italy after the passage of antisemitic racial legislation.

Though Italy did offer substantial aid, some German assistance also trickled through. After asking the new German Consul-General, Hans Döhle on 21 July 1937 for support, the Abwehr briefly made an exception to its policy and gave some limited aid. But this was aimed to exert pressure on Britain over Czechoslovakia. Promised arms shipments never eventuated. This was not the only diplomatic front on which al-Husseini was active. A month after his visit to Döhle, he wrote to the American Consul George Wadsworth (August 1937), to whom he professed his belief that America was remote from imperialist ambitions and therefore able to understand that Zionism "represented a hostile and imperialist aggression directed against an inhabited country". In a meeting with Wadsworth on 31 August, he expressed his fears that Jewish influence in the United States might persuade the country to side with Zionists. In the same period he courted the French government by expressing a willingness to assist them in the region.

Note the importance we accord Nicosia, whom you use. There is no cover-up. It is up to historians who specialize in the Arab Revolt (Hughes, Laurens etc.,) to make such a case of important linkage, and when they do so, we will report with proportionality their conclusions. Just sweeping around to come up with polemical tidbits by minor one-night-wonders in the industrial hyping of history for simpleton visions of the reality and making out the scattered archival disiecta membra they fish up is proof of such an intrinsic connection is POV-tainted because it lacks any sense of relative weight in historical overviews like this.Nishidani (talk) 10:30, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Richard S. Levy wrote about books of the genre we are dealing with:

Although varying greatly in worth, most have as their major message (or at least as a transparent subtext) the proposition that "the Arabs" of today are the spiritual heirs of National Socialism's genocidal mission targeting the Jews. (Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 26, Issue 1, Spring 2012, Page 154)

This is the underlying reason for the intense focus on al-Husseini. Interestingly, Levy explicitly excludes Nicosia's work from this description, as anyone who has read Nicosia's careful polemic-free research can understand. A dispassionate look at the evidence shows that German interest in helping the Arab rebels came very late, as the revolt was on its last legs, and the support they provided was peanuts. Yet this negligible relationship is supposedly worth a large section and an infobox mention. As Nishidani pointed out, the Haavara agreement between the Nazis and the Palestinian Zionists meanwhile proved a very large source of income, but nobody wants that in the infobox. Zero^talk 11:49, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

" A dispassionate look at the evidence shows that German interest in helping the Arab rebels came very late, as the revolt was on its last legs, and the support they provided was peanuts.

But previously you claimed that there is no "no proven financial support from Germany". So what is it?

"As Nishidani pointed out, the Haavara agreement between the Nazis and the Palestinian Zionists meanwhile proved a very large source of income, but nobody wants that in the infobox."

A comparison that doesn't even make sense. How is a transfer agreement intended to lure Jews into Palestine comparable to the literal funding of the rebels by Germany? Here's the deal: Germany funded the rebels, Italy funded the rebels (and many Arab countries did so too, but I leave that to others). Both should be included, even if most historians agree that Germany's funding was limited (albeit this contradicts the account of Hans Pieckenbrock: "It was only through the funds provided by us that he [al-Husayni] was able to carry out the revolt in Palestine.", which, of course, could have been an exaggeration). Otherwise we might as well delete Italy while we are at it. LeGabrie (talk) 20:05, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Who is Hans Pieckenbrock? The dickhead boast by a presumably Nazi non-entity fails a simple test: Hughes, the reigning expert, states clearly that the Revolt was funded mainly by Arabs.Nishidani (talk) 20:45, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Hans Piekenbrock (Mallmann and Cüppers, at least in the English translation, called him "Pieckenbrock") was a colonel of the Abwehr. The quoted note dates to June 1939 and was directed to Canaris. LeGabrie (talk) 21:52, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Note that Mallman and Cüppers do not show the memo to be written by Piekenbrock. They say it is unsigned and conjecture it was written by Piekenbrock. Zero^talk 13:18, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I am going to restore the long standing well sourced content. The removal is questionable at best. Infinity Knight (talk) 13:53, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Don't waste your, or our time. Nishidani (talk) 15:23, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Not long standing, either. What we are discussing is very recent. Zero^talk 13:07, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

What appears questionable is the direct link between this material and the Arab Revolt. Peripheral information on foreign relations is tangential synth. Iskandar323 (talk) 14:33, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I would propose to keep the part discussing the initiation of the contact between Husayni and the Nazis, but to shorten the second half about Germany's Palestine policy. LeGabrie (talk) 14:39, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

You must (a) address the objections above (2) show some quality sources that link the Uprising significantly to Nazi policy and assistance (You won't find any consolation for your thesis in Matthew Hughes's, Britain’s Pacification of Palestine:The British Army, the Colonial State, and the Arab Revolt, 1936– 1939, Cambridge University Press 2019 pp.104-106, where the source of these rumours is noted, and the claims of notable influence dismissed). You've done neither.Nishidani (talk) 15:23, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

"You must" Sorry, who are you again? LeGabrie (talk) 20:05, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Someone who is familiar with policy on consensus building, i.e.WP:Consensus. You are welcome to think that you need not answer objections by other editors, but that only means your proposals won't be taken seriously, per policy.Nishidani (talk) 20:38, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

There is no direct link between this deleted material and the Arab Revolt. It should remain deleted. Pngeditor (talk) 18:34, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

I object. The entire chapter, around 1000 words, is about the relationship between Husayni / the Arab Higher Comittee and Nazi Germany. Writing two or three sentences about the initiation of that relationship, even if it pre-dates the revolt, is pretty much mandatory. It IS important to know that al-Husayni, the very leader of the revolt, approached Germany even before 1936. Or should we also delete the "Economic background", "Political and socio-cultural background" and "Prelude" chapters just because they deal with events before the revolt? Furthermore, the second half of the deleted text deals with Germany's Palestine policy even in the timeframe of the revolt, from 1933-1941. LeGabrie (talk) 19:05, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

You've ignored the points raised. I cited Hughes' standard history, where this kind of speculation is marginalized in historical terms, and shown to be a talking point used by Yishuv and Jewish Agency operatives as a hasbara just-so story blown up to influence British official opinion. Germany's assistance to the Revolt was negligible. Italy was the Axis power that actually tried to lend substantial aid (unsuccessfully), just as it did to Revisionist Zionists, Husayni's adversaries. The selective pushing of minor irrelevancies you are negaged in is just 'spin'. By the way, it's not a 'chapter' but a 'section' (2) 'initiation' in context is somewhat solecistic being a deverbal formation from 'initiate' i.e., 'begin' that only manages to create a different sense than the one you intended. 'The initiation of' anything implies a sacred ceremony, a formal ritual induction into something. Husayni wasn't 'initiated' into any relationship with Nazis that we know of. If you don't familiarize yourself with the topic'sextensive literature but promote fringe viewpoints, then arguing will be pointless.Nishidani (talk) 20:38, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

"You've ignored the points raised." The only major point you and user:Zero0000 raised is the amount of Germany's funding (though Zero0000 originally claimed that there was no funding at all, but seems that he changed his opinion). I never claimed that Germany's funding was substantial, just that it existed and therefore should be mentioned in the article and the infobox. Additionally, I am also willing to rework and shorten much of the text. Husayni contacting Germany in 1933, however, should remain in the article. And Zero0000 claiming that I was trying to tie the revolt to the Holocaust is still bullcrap. LeGabrie (talk) 21:52, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

"If you don't familiarize yourself with the topic'sextensive literature but promote fringe viewpoints, then arguing will be pointless."

Try to be a bit less complacent. LeGabrie (talk) 21:52, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Try to be a bit less complacent. Seriously?

I am also willing to rework and shorten much of the text. That would be the least that should be done. Selfstudier (talk) 21:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Writing a four sentences long lecture because I used "initiation" instead of "begin" and using that error to accuse me of promoting "fringe points", therefore rendering arguing with me "pointless", is what I would call "complacent", yes. Not to mention that it adds absolutely nothing to the discussion. LeGabrie (talk) 22:20, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

Section rework

The addition is bloat. But the edit reminds one that we need a section on funding to gather in this material under one heading. Hughes, the most recent authoritative source, states that the major source was Arab, internal and foreign. Second, Italy supplied some assistance, which ended in late 38, when by the way Husseini was no longer present on the scene. Germany took up the slack, and comes third and last, with minor funding for a period. Our text as it stands inverts this, splattering details in several sections, instead of under one heading. Arab funding scarcely gets a mention, Italian funding 80 words, German funding 157 words.

I'll create a funding section and invert this bias restoring proportionality, and greatly cutting back the bloat. Poorly reviewed pseuds' corner crap from Schwanitz, Mallmann –Cüppers and Küntzel hasa no place here, nor does the fatuous boast by the Abwehr colonel Hans Piekenbrock, which contradicts everything we know from numerous modern studies. Nishidani (talk) 23:19, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

"Poorly reviewed pseuds' corner crap from Schwanitz, Mallmann –Cüppers and Küntzel hasa no place here"

Right, every book you don't like or know is "corner crap" and must be disregarded entirely. Schwanitz I don't care about, but why should we leave out Mallmann & Cüppers? It's exceedingly well referenced, even if it primarily focuses on Nazi sources. Many of the sources they relied on have not been considered by other modern authors. Additionally, I doubt that you read Küntzel 2019 either.

"nor does the fatuous boast by the Abwehr colonel Hans Piekenbrock, which contradicts everything we know from numerous modern studies."

I disagree, it should be mentioned. It is one of the few, if not the only Nazi source that confirms the German funding of the rebels. It should be quoted, but with a clarification that in contrast to Piekenbrock's claim, modern historians consider the funding to be insignificant.

• May I propose that I rework my text, shorten it by approximately 33–50% by deleting unnecessary information and quotes while adding clarifications where they are due? Subsequently we can add it to your new "Funding" section, if everyone is happy. LeGabrie (talk) 23:55, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

When modern historians say something is insignificant it is a violation of WP:DUE to include it here as though it were. The fact that it is one of the only sources for this makes it less suitable for use, not more. nableezy - 23:58, 21 December 2022 (UTC)

How do I give the source "undue weigth" if I just quote it? Does that mean we can't quote primary sources on Wikipedia if modern authors disagree with them? Can't we quote Herodotus, for example, even if we doubt his reliability right after? LeGabrie (talk) 00:08, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, that is what that means. We dont use primary sources that secondary sources consider insignificant. You arent here to prove a thesis but to summarize the sources with the weight they give to each aspect of a topic. And in this case it is approximately nothing. nableezy - 04:56, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Just to be clear on my position, the bits I deleted are not the limit of what should be deleted. I think that the entire section on Nazis should be replaced by at most 2-3 sentences. Take out the cherry-picked rubbish from the Arabs-are-Nazis crowd and put in the careful summaries from authors like Nicosia and Hughes. Zero^talk 02:54, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I agree. The whole paragraph on Nazi ideology and viewing Arabs as sub-humans is also grossly off-topic (as a standalone paragraph) - some of this material could be due if reliable sources showed that these viewpoints specifically fed into decisions that the German government took with respect to the Arab revolt, but without this they are just tangential curios. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:19, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Also, after noticing the repetition of the point above that it was in fact Italy that was the more significant foreign backer of the revolt, I hunted down the material on Italy in the article and found it misplaced at the bottom of a section about Irgun. I've now moved that into the section on foreign relations - for which I've created a new header/subheader setup. Iskandar323 (talk) 09:22, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I did a major edit on all this, unaware of other edits today. If there are any reduplications, my apoloigies.Nishidani (talk) 16:44, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

By the way 'Financial support' in the infobox, Italy with no corresponding voice for example, Jewish Agency funding from abroad to assist the formation of the Haganah, and policing of areas, is unbalanced. Plenty of actors sent money, Iraq, Syria, etc. but the impact was nugatory as the sums were small. It should be removed.Nishidani (talk) 16:49, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

Yes, either we include all players, or none. Personally I would prefer to have them all. LeGabrie (talk) 19:54, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

I propose to add the following passage: "The volume of Germany's funding was intentionally limited, as its goal was neither the collpase of the British Mandate nor the establishment of an independent Arab state (which would have been counterproductive to Germany's policy of expelling the Jews to Palestine), but to cause additional nuisance to the British. LeGabrie (talk) 19:54, 22 December 2022 (UTC)

The Germans gave a little (what does "intentionally limited" mean? How much? To whom?) to the revolt to cause nuisance to the British. How is that at all significant for the Arab revolt? I have looked at 80-81 Nicosia 2014 (I also have Nicosia 1985 (The Third Reich and the Palestine Question)) and I am having trouble finding anything in there to support this claim, can you quote the passages that support this, please. Selfstudier (talk) 15:34, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The main part of what I wrote is from Nicosia 1980, Nicosia 2014 I used only for the part about how an independent Arab state would be counterproductive for Germany. The text goes like that:

"Thus, for a brief period in late 1938, a policy of limited German intervention in the Palestine conflict was undertaken, not to undermine and eliminate the British position in Palestine or to promote the cause of Arab independence, but simply to contribute to pressures which might dissuade Britain from intervening in Hitler's plan to destroy Czechoslovakia."LeGabrie (talk) 17:00, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

"limited German intervention" is not the same as funding? It's more usual to rely on later sourcing rather than the earlier if from the same author. let me see if I can get that article to see what else it says. Selfstudier (talk) 17:05, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

It's available on JSTOR. And "intervention" clearly refers to the funding of the rebels. LeGabrie (talk) 17:21, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

It's a waste of time discussing this. There are more urgent things demanding more work here. LeGabrie's points have been addressed in the text.Nishidani (talk) 17:32, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

I have it now, there is a very iffy description of this limited German intervention following the paragraph you quote. In regards to funding it says " It is possible that the Abwehr began to provide some money to the Mufti at that time [Summer of 38]" which can equally be read to say that they did not and then there is an anecdote based on the German ambassador saying he gave 800 pounds to the Mufti's assistant. This is virtually irrelevant in terms of the revolt and this article. Selfstudier (talk) 18:33, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

How is this unrelated to the article? And why do you delete the text without reaching consensus? LeGabrie (talk) 19:07, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

There is a consensus and it is against inclusion. I am still inclined to cut the section further but will leave that to others. Selfstudier (talk) 19:10, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

The consensus of this discussion is that Germany funded the rebels to a limited degree. Now you make it look like Germany didn't fund the rebels at all. The hell are you doing? LeGabrie (talk) 19:19, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

There is no evidence of German funding for the revolt in the sources provided (and which were also misrepresented). An anecdotal 800 pounds to the Mufti's assistant is not funding for the revolt. Selfstudier (talk) 19:26, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

A lie, Nicosia 2014, p. 109 literally talks about several instances of Germany funding the rebels. LeGabrie (talk) 19:37, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

You wrote above The main part of what I wrote is from Nicosia 1980, Nicosia 2014 I used only for the part about how an independent Arab state would be counterproductive for Germany. Are you now saying that this was an incorrect statement and that you now wish to rely on Nicosia 2014? Selfstudier (talk) 19:40, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

That obviously only refered to the note behind "limited". I will rephrase the text to spare us from more useless arguing.LeGabrie (talk) 19:41, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Seeking to make some limited inferences do too much work in the name of trying to tie Germany to the revolt is not going to work. p.109 I just read again, "Canaris..apparently provided some financial aid for the Mufti’s political activities in Beirut" is a) not the revolt and b) note the word "apparently" and then two more German ambassador anecdotes. Duh. This is just undue, there is a plethora of evidence that the German government did not want to assist the revolt and only meagre and gossipy evidence to the contrary, which even if it were conclusively demonstrated as true would not amount to a hill of beans. Selfstudier (talk) 19:52, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Interesting. LeGabrie (talk) 20:01, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

• Question: In "Funding" the following is said that "[s]ome funds were obtained from American sources.", quoting Hughes 2019, p. 107. Hughes doesn't mention any American sources though, at least not on that page, where he only focuses on internal rebel funding. LeGabrie (talk) 18:22, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

Ah right, found it now. Wondering what the motiviation for these donations was tho. LeGabrie (talk) 14:06, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

• Reworked the section about German funding. Made it more compact while using a lot of notes, which seems fitting for such a controversial issue. LeGabrie (talk) 22:06, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

  It's still all wrong and I have tagged it as such. Point me to where Hughes says Germany began to provide money to the insurgents. It is written "money" and buried the fact that it was 800 pounds supposedly given to a Mufti aide according to a German ambassador (if anyone believes that this happened or that if it did, this was for the revolt I will sell them a bridge). Then it says arms were shipped to Saudi and in the very next sentence that arms were not shipped to Saudi. Undue nonsense. And "The scarce evidence of German funding revolves around ambassador Fritz Grobba and Abwehr Admiral Canaris" is known as innuendo.Selfstudier (talk) 22:23, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

"Point me to where Hughes says Germany began to provide money to the insurgents."

"Italy [...] was keen, as was Germany, to support anti-British Arab nationalists and some Axis funding arrived for rebels but not sufficient to turn the course of the revolt."

"It is written "money" and buried the fact that it was 800 pounds supposedly given to a Mufti aide according to a German ambassador (if anyone believes that this happened or that if it did, this was for the revolt I will sell them a bridge)."

Nothing is buried, the 800 pounds are just an example, that's why I literally wrote "In an instance". Obviously must have been way more throughout the course of the rebellion if British and US intelligence caught on.

""Then it says arms were shipped to Saudi and in the very next sentence that arms were not shipped to Saudi."

I was pretty quite obviously talking about money, no clue how you can misread that. Just to quote Nicosia 2014:

"Indeed, in a note to Under State Secretary Ernst Woermann in the Foreign Office in Berlin in May 1939, Grobba did mention financial assitance that Germany had recently provided to Arab rebels in Palestine through Saudi Arabia."LeGabrie (talk) 22:47, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

This article is about Arab Revolt. We cover funding. Thanks for the figure from Fiore. That kind of datum is worth a million annotations re Germany, where as far as I know, no one has ever come up with any concrete details of that order or measure. I've read of al-Husayni getting $2,000, peanuts, particularly since he like so many middlemen, pocketed much of the money and it never reached the insurgents. I'll fix the page reference to Hughes tomorrow. A header like Axis Powers is anachronism.Nishidani (talk) 23:10, 23 December 2022 (UTC)

What would you think about an annotation that briefly summarizes all the evidence for German funding? LeGabrie (talk) 14:12, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

You should be able to fit that in a short sentence (or you could just write that there isn't any). The only number I see mentioned anywhere is 800 pounds which is a claim by Grobba. Your Obviously must have been way more throughout the course of the rebellion if British and US intelligence caught on is not in any source and is just your own opinion. Besides the UK only "suspected" it and I would be interested to see where the Americans got their (equally non specific) information from. Selfstudier (talk) 14:41, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

The problem is, the evidence so far leads nowhere, and therefore, being inconclusive, it seems pointless to highlight the minutiae of a desperately scoured paper-trail that has failed to turn up a trace of a smoking gun. As such it has, like a zillion things, no no intrinsic significance for this kind of page, which still needs a lot of work to get in a mass of ignored details of cogent relevance. Perhaps, to illustrate the principles people like Zero and I, to name just two here, have insisted on for almost two decades, I should make a broader reflection that would through some light on the strict criteria controversial articles require. A lot of the material brought to bear here has nothing to do with sound historiography (the past), and everything to do with spinning or influencing the politics of 'knowledge' concerning Israel and the Middle East. Nishidani (talk) 14:48, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Speaking only for my self, addressing my POV. There are some areas or specific articles in wiki which are periodically afflicted by intense editing efforts that, reflecting some ‘new sources’ with sensational news or insights, endeavor to reorient the sober, neutral coverage of the topic in terms of mainstream scholarship by highlighting a conspiracy, either historical or ideological. I and Tom Reedy found ourselves haplessly in an epic battle lasting some years with numerous monochromatic editors working the Shakespeare Authorship Question, They were all convinced that there was an academic cover-up of the ‘fact’ that Shakespeare was someone else. They could table a banquet of, well, bullshit, a small part of it even under respectable university press imprint, in favour of their alternative candidate. In one and a half centuries, over 4500 books have speculated on the identity of the putative 'real' author, as opposed to the Stratford yokel, who penned the works. Our premise was, we only cite reputable scholars who have the credentials to work Elizabethan history and who specialize in that topic, none of whom incidentally, thought these hypotheses anything other than inflated puffery by one-track minds, making theoretical mountains out of skerricky molehills of archival leads. Newspapers would run extravagantly titled reviews of such books for a few weeks, and then the flatulent hype would die on its feet.

A similar thing happens with the Khazars. The article was stuck neck deep in the slough of despond of obsessively conflicting editing because most contributors would come to it only to pursue one small tile in its vast historical mosaic, to take positions over whether the Khazars converted to Judaism, or whether the theory itself is anti-Semitic. It took some months to rewrite it from top to bottom, place the conversion and the anti-Semitic literature (fringe) in their proper dimensions within the whole, and get the whole story on a rigorously academic footing. Idem with Amin al-Husayni – always conflicted, always pestered year by year by editors who come up with some scrap of news or pseudo-scholarly insinuation that there was some defensive coverup by Arabists of the outrageous truth of links between Nazism and Arab nationalist movements. All these efforts came bouncing off recent issues of books by the likes of Schwanitz, Gensicke, Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, Künzel et al, which would then be carelessly picked up and given a varnish of respectability by scholars who should know better, like Jeffrey Herz and David Patterson (A Genealogy of Evil: Anti-Semitism from Nazism to Islamic Jihad,) both published by eminently reliable university presses, despite deep flaws and an evident political bias to reframe Middle Eastern discourse in terms of some judaeophobic taint at the heart of Arab nationalism, if not indeed Islamic civilisation. Palestinian attempts to secure their state were inextricably interwoven with some congenital inerasable hatred oif Jews.All this means, as with Shakespeare, Khazars etc, that the theme ‘Jews’ scants all real interest in the immense, intricate corridors of Jewish history unless one can come up with some material that underlines, emphatizises the world’s enmity, and the guilt incumbent on us all unless we daily reckon with it.

For a century, anyone who reads widely into the I/P conflict will come across many accounts of Jewish victims of terrorism. They will come across far more references to Palestinian victims of terrorism. As early as the 1920s for example, one gets stuff like this:

When one of the Nablus detachment produced an old cigarette tin containing the brains of a man whose skull he had splintered with his rifle butt … I felt physically sick … the sight of that grog- blossomed face of the gendarme with his can half- full of human brains proudly brandishing his smashed rifl e- butt as proof of his prowess, altered something inside of me.

If one makes an experiment replacing ‘Jew’ for every mention of what happened to Palestinians in the Arab revolt, in works like Hughes’, one’s reading would be unbearably painful, horrific. An old man trotting by on his donkey who gets his skull smashed in by some laughing trooper, in the 1930s, was a normative incident. A few years later, this hilarious savagery was redeployed on an ineluctable industrial scale on the Jewish populations of Europe. We memorialize the latter, with good cause, and ignore the former variety of evil’s banality. This continues, for Palestinians, down to the present day. A couple of hundred are murdered yearly – all ‘terrorists’ by units controlling crowds, demonstrations – shot in the head by snipers, or shot in the legs or arms to incapacite them for life. It’s normal. The difference is, the Jewish chronicles of suffering are the subject of numerous books and articles. Newspapers never miss a beat to give the details, as opposed to incidents where a far greater number of Palestinian suffer from state violence. Barely a name, a brief generic blip in the newscycle, if mentioned at all. One engages intense ‘scholarly’ notice, the other falls below the radar. Systemic bias. And one must live with that. We are not here to right a just cause. But to document what only RS pick up, and we cannot fill the silence of their ‘aktive Ignoranz’ as I think .Matthias Künzel once lamented (stating what Arabists do in covering up the threat to Jews, while ignoring his own application of the principle to what Arabs suffer).

For someone like myself, whose thinking on history was totally reorientated out of its complacies by reading Raul Hilberg’s seminal classic as a youth, together with Solzhenitzen’s trilogy on the gulags, what remains incomprehensible is the polemical reading of Middle Eastern history by people who are Holocaust scholars. Their professional intimacy, and close research on, the lives and deaths of the Jewish victims of Nazi genocide, has zero impact on their reading of the Middle East, except as a warrant to write books to defend Israel as the bulwark against the kind of brutality suffered by Jews. The Jews are the only real subject, while the other half of the equation, the Palestinians are shadowy cyphers embedded within an abstract discourse on Islamic judaeophobia. In a practical sense, this means that if you read of some tragic incident of a Jewish person killed by terrorism, you investigate and generalize. If you happen to read similar things about Palestinians, you, well, turn the page with a sign, and perhaps a Rumsfieldian murmur that ‘Yeah, shit happens’. What you certainly do not do is make programmatic research into Palestinian lives, their tragedies, and the century-long torment they huddle under. That is reserved exclusively for Jewish history by a tacit ethnic divide in the criteria of relevance. People who grasp this and write about it have a long history of hitting the wall academically, and having their careers truncated. The word antisemitism itself risks becoming hollowed out, because every incident minutely documented of that enmity can be mirrored by citing identical behaviour by Jewish soldiers and settlers against Palestinians. But only the former, even if statistically a minor phenomenon, places an inexorable claim upon our attention.

To get back to the present context. For over a decade, numerous attempts have been made to appeal to the works by Schwanitz, Gensicke, Mallmann- Cüppers, Künzel et al in order to fill out some presumed lacuna in the numerous articles on Palestinians. Their literature was examined, competent reviews assessed, numerous errors noted, and their reliability doubted. They have zero competence beyond their German archives, finding there extraordinary cogency for theory-building out of minutiae what great scholars either fail to detect or evaluate as inconclusive picayune details. It’s annoying, being distracted from the pleasure of serious reading as one finds it necessary to take up the burden of sloughing through middle-brow rubbish that rarely merits scholarly notice. At times the boredom is relieved by some competent scholarwho looks into the nonsense and sets things into perspective, as happened when Zero and I nearly a decade happened on several long articles in Die Welt des Islams (from memory 2012) which responded to a flurry of books screaming Islamophobically about the Arab-Nazi connection. This had been diagnosed somewhat earlier by Peter Wien (Note that the one serious book there, Rene Wildangel’s Zwischen Achse und Mandatsmacht: Palästina und der Nationalsozialismus, is ignored by wikipedian editors. It fails to make the scandalous connection the sexy polemical atmosphere of rumour-mongering publicists want. It fails the 'is this pro-Israeli' subtext test). That relieved the workload – to have a whole special edition by Arabists devoted to this polemical tsunami where the hysteria of insinuation or of broadbrush generalizations by popular scandal mongers was closely scrutinized and put in its place. None of these people have the slightest familiarity with the topic area or a competent grounding in Arabic, or Islamic studies, no mastery of the overall historical contexts and long political and cultural traditions of that world – all obsessed with fishing up evidence for a contemporary anti-Israeli Jew baiting pandemic, one more wave in the never-ending ‘new antisemitic’ tsunami we are regularly warned about: they are all scrap-metal foragers in German archives, rehashing material mostly scoured and burnished of its rusty weight by formidable scholars like Nicosia, and palming off as rare metal strikes what is the dud coinage of alluvial fool’s gold. Nishidani (talk) 16:40, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Some of the trot made its way into Relations between Nazi Germany and the Arab world, nothing about funding tho, just " Notable examples of these common-cause fights include the 1936–1939 Arab revolt in Palestine and other actions led by Amin al-Husseini" (unspecified but notable, bah!) Selfstudier (talk) 18:18, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

Oh, I forgot, have one (or several) for me. Selfstudier (talk) 18:18, 24 December 2022 (UTC)

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Cycle of violence

It states in the article that "Since 1920 Jews and Palestinians had been involved in a cycle of attacks and counter-attacks". the statement implies that since 1920 Arabs attacked Jews which led to Jews attacking Arabs which led to Arabs attacking Jews and so on. This statement is false. It's true that there were many rounds of violence and within the rounds of violence there were some small cycles of violence in which Jews attacked Arabs and vice versa. But all these rounds of violence always started by unprovoked attacks of Arabs on Jews and were completely unrelated to the previous round of violence. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavNahari (talk • contribs) 05:23, 12 May 2022 (UTC)

Intruders in the Arabs' native land seems provocative enough. Dimadick (talk) 11:17, 15 May 2022 (UTC)

Yeah colonizing a land under the armed watch of an occupying foreign power with the stated goal of creating a state for one religious group only (a minority of the indigenous population). No provocation there. 65.92.155.74 (talk) 19:54, 2 April 2023 (UTC)