The current successor to Hajj Amin al-Husseini – the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem who allied with Hitler in World War II – was recently detained by Israeli police. The reason had to do with attacks on tourists.
To read the AP’s account of the incident, the concerns of the Palestinian President and Secretary of State John Kerry seemed to received far more focus than the reasons for Israel’s detention of the mufti.
Via the AP:
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the mufti’s detention and called on Israel to release him. “Arresting the mufti is a stark challenge to the freedom of worship,” Abbas said in a statement released by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa.
The arrest threatened to complicate Kerry’s efforts to restart peace talks, which have been stalled since late 2008. The Palestinians have refused to negotiate while Israel builds settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The Palestinians claim both areas, captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, as parts of a future independent state and say settlement construction must halt.
So if we’re to believe Abbas, the modern day successor to Hitler’s favorite Arab, is a beacon of religious freedom and the detention of such an individual is an obstacle to peace. Is that it?
Perhaps, in the interest of objectivity and journalistic well-roundedness, the AP could have linked to this video of Jerusalem’s current mufti in which he predicts that the Muslims will Kill the Jews before Judgment Day.
Via MEMRI from January, 2012:
Fortunately for Abbas’ cause of religious freedom and Kerry’s cause for peace, the Mufti was released by Israel without charge after several hours.
Whew. That was close. Imagine if Israel had charged the Mufti.