Some Jews refuse to believe that Israel is capable of those crimes of which it is being accused. Some do so out of good will, while others are purely extremists, such as the current government of war criminals in Israel. Today, I shan't tag philosopher Bernard-Henri Lévy as being on this or the other side. I will rather discuss the speech he delivered in commemoration of the Holocaust in Geneva, which also hosted the United Nations anti-racism conference. Generally speaking, the philosopher's job is to "philosophize," and Lévy did a good job as he explained why the crime committed 65 years ago should still be commemorated today, overlooking Israel's still ongoing crimes. He demanded that an anti-racism conference be held, one grouping all victims, as if talking about the Cambodians, the Tutsi or even Darfur wipes out or alleviates Israel's Nazi crimes against Palestinians. This is expected. But I strongly disagree with what he said next. He said that Israel was not created because of the Holocaust though the latter has definitely accelerated its establishment in my opinion. He added that people asked why the Jewish state was not established in Germany instead of the Arab world, which had nothing to do with the Holocaust. In his response, he evoked the relation between the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al-Husseini and Hitler, as well as an alleged Arab SS legion waiting, at the rear guard of the Rommel's army, for the order to descend on the Yishuv in order to exterminate the 500,000 Jews who settled there. The word Yishuv in Hebrew means colony or settlement, and that's the name also used by Palestinians. As such, Lévy believes that the whole world wanted to exterminate the Jews. I do not know from where to begin. Bernard-Henri Lévy is not Norman Finkelstein, Henry Siegman, James Wolfensohn or George Soros. But I never imagined that he was not of the same breed of men as David Ben-Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister; the latter told Nahum Goldman that the Jews stole Palestine from its people who had nothing to do with Nazism or anti-Semitism. I quoted this in yesterday's column, while Lévy cited Ben-Gurion in his speech. In addition, I want to rise to the defense of Haj Amin, whom I have known in Lebanon and met with and spoke to many times. He went to Germany before World War II in order to win Hitler's support against British colonial rule, with the old slogan "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" in mind. Back then, the Holocaust had not yet started or been heard of. As for those collaborating with Rommel's army, I find the charge null and void because the French collaborators with the Nazis outdid all other collaborators. However, I am with the other team as much as Lévy finds himself in the same trench as Israel. I want to use a testimony against the philosopher and the state of occupation, murder and destruction, coming from a witness of their own skin. Robert Satloff is neither an Arab nor a supporter of Arabs. I heard about him through the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which was founded by Martin Indyk to support Israel. However, I found the man to be a moderate, and one with whom we may discuss things. He published a new book entitled: "AMONG THE RIGHTEOUS - Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands." The book's material has really surprised me. It was all new to me even though I am a fan of history. But it seems that my knowledge did not encompass North Africa. In short, Satloff says that Nazi Germany and the Vichy government as well as Italian Fascists exported anti-Semitism to North Africa, where Arabs participated in the persecution of Jews and worked as guards, clerks and others. However, Satloff discovered that many Arab nobles carried out humane acts to protect the Jews. In 1941, Algerian Sheikhs called upon Muslims from mosques to refrain from the theft of Jewish property. Not a single Arab collaborated with the Vichy government, which found no difficulty in mobilizing French collaborators. The French collaborators with the Nazis were followed by the current collaborators with Israeli crimes and the apologists for the ongoing Nazi occupation of Palestine. Satloff presented many stories about Arabs hiding Jews from Nazis and collaborators. The truth is that the least number of Jewish deaths was reported in North Africa. In Lebanon and Egypt which I know well, I do not recall that Jews were persecuted or that they lost anything. Robert Satloff visited 11 countries in four years, from the Sahara to Paris, where Muslims hid hundreds of Jews in a mosque. Then, someone like Bernard-Henri Lévy comes with his nonsense. Since I do not know any of his philosophy, I hope that it does not resemble his incomplete political knowledge about issues ranging from Afghanistan to Darfur, passing by Israel's war on Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Al-Hayat 08-05-2009
