Considering the paragraph that claims to quote the Mufti from 1944 and and claims that it had some importance to the topic of this article, the following comments are in order:
And so to the veracity of the quotation. After looking unsuccessfully in a large number of places for this quotation, I was surprised to find it on page 444 ofRobert Fisk's new book "The Great War for Civilisation" along with another standard "quotation". More interestingly, Fisk gives a source for them:
As it happens, my library has a copy of the BCC transcripts. During the period 1942-1947 they were called the "Daily digest of world broadcasts", and are a standard primary source used by historians of this period. There are hundreds of reels of microfilm with no index, but they are organized according to country and date so checking specific claims such as Fisk's is not very difficult. The German transcripts run to 10-30 pages per day and cover about a dozen radio stations. Some broadcasts are copied in full, but mostly there is a partial transcript and a summary of the remainder. Everything is in English regardless of the original language. (SeeBBC Monitoring and[1].)
Here is the complete report on the Balfour Day speech given by al-Husayni (German Telegraph Service 2.11.43, 18:05, in German) scan:
So we see that the words "Germans know how to get rid of their Jews" simply do not appear in this source and Fisk is mistaken to claim that they do. In fact there are no words even similar to Fisk's words. It appears that Fisk has been taken in by some other source which misrepresents the facts. al-Husayni made some strongly anti-Jewish remarks but in the end proposed to expel the Jews, not to kill them. We should also note that this was not a direct broadcast of the Mufti's speech but a report by the tightly-controlled German radio (thinkJoseph Goebbels), so we should be careful about believing it at all.
Now we turn to the second quotation. In this case there is a short report only (German Overseas Service, 1.3.44, 17:30, in Arabic) scan:
Note a number of things. First, the monitor did not identify this as al-Husayni. This is very odd since al-Husayni was very well known and would have been even more well known to an Arabic speaker. Describing a broadcast by Al-Husayni as by "a distinguished Arab personality" would be like describing a broadcast by George Bush as by "a leading American politician". Perhaps this was al-Husayni, but there is reason to doubt it. Second, the words used by Fisk (and by people here) are clearly related to the actual words but they are not a quotation. The omission of Anglo-Saxons as amongst the "enemies" is a serious distortion, as is the omission of the context of the ongoing war. At this moment in history, all leaders were urging their followers to kill their enemies wherever they could be found, and al-Husayni's choice of enemies "Jews and Anglo-Saxons" is what a radical Palestinian nationalist would be likely to choose. Again, we see that Fisk is not reporting what his alleged source actually says, but is most likely reporting a distorted version written by someone else.
I am writing to Fisk about his error and will report the answer if I get one. --Zero 09:34, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Zero, this is interesting stuff you write, but, as Zeq says, there is no way for anyone here to check that you didn't miss anything, or got it wrong in some other way. This is not intended as an accusation of any sort, but for what we know, you may even have done so intentionally. After all, are we supposed to trust you or Pearlman and Schechtman? I make no presumption as to who is right and who isn't, just that it is impossible to verify.
When you say that you personally have a large collection of historic documents on Middle East, I presume you hold an academic position of some kind? Your findings are certainly interesting enough to be published. Why don't you submit it to some historical journal, so we can see what kind of response it gets?
Heptortalk 13:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Zero, I wrote you a note: To prove that he did not say it we will need to go over hours and hours and days of broadcast services recording. So please stop this nonsense and find an acepatble verifiable academic source that can be trusted. Why don'y you write a "peer reviwed" article about it ? Are you afraid that your peers will know what you are up to on Wikipedia ?Zeq 13:45, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Zero, this is getting laughable, no wonder why you don't publish it in a peer reviwed paper This is 100 words out of 18 Mints long speech:[3] and what was said in the rest ? It clearly says "very bad reception" - I trust the verifyable sources. let's move on.Zeq 13:49, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
To Heptor: Now I uploaded scans so you see what I can see. Yes, I have an academic position but this is not my specialty. All I have done here is to extract information from a published source. It is not original research and a historical journal would reject it as uninteresting. Academic historians do not regard books like Pearlman's (or Fisk's) as serious history books so there is no credit to be won by refuting them. To Zeq: You are so pathetic I can't believe it. --Zero 14:04, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Again, I can see the scans, but this is what I can't see that worries me. But even from those scans:"Inflict heavy damages on his war effort and kill as many as you can of your enemies - Jews and Anglo-Saxons - and Allah is with you!" This is does look very similar to the quote we are currently discusing, though the later goes somewhat more far:"Arabs, arise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."
Given this, it does sound quite probable that he used the second wording somewhere too. --Heptortalk 14:28, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Zero, We have sources saying he said that. Unless you have sources that proove he did not say it I suggest you move on. As far as I can see even Fisk admit that on one occation he said that and your "rulling out" on one specific broadcast based on partial transcript (done in bad reception condition) froman unkown "my library" does not count as refutal of the sources we provided. as you can see here[4] even others fell for even better looking scans of old documents. WE have academic sources saying he did and that's is good enough for every othjer Wikipedia article. you will not be able to use new standrads here just because the sourced info does not fit your POVZeq 15:21, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Disputed information should be placed on the article's talk page. Editors should then find sources to support it (if possible) and re-instate it into the article proper, otherwise the information should remain out of the article.[5] The content and sources of the following section are disputed
Meanwhile, from exile in Egypt where he was avoiding trial for war crimes due to his collaboration with the Nazis, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem was involved in much of the high level negotiations between the Arab leaders in the 1948 War. A segment of the Palestinian forces were loyal to him and were commanded by his cousin. The Mufti, one of the few identified leaders of the Palestinian Arabs[6],[7],[8],[9] had spent the second half of WWII in Germany making radio broadcasts exhorting Muslims to ally with the Nazis in war against their common enemies. In one of these broadcasts, he said, "Arabs, arise as one man and fight for your sacred rights. Kill Jews wherever you find them. This pleases God, history, and religion. This saves your honor. God is with you."[10][11] In the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust, such statements[12] by Arab leaders (along with the Mufti's violently antisemitic history) led to a widespread belief that the Israelis were facing a genocidal enemy.[13],[14],http://www.think-israel.org/eder.naqbah.html]
Additionally, the information in the first two sentences already appearshere and doesn't need to be repeated and the whole section is also included under the section "Third phase: May 15, 1948 - June 11, 1948", although none of it is relevant to this period. I propose that we apply Wikipedia policy unless or until we find a source by a reputable historian for this information. --Ian Pitchford 17:19, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Ian: It is sourced. You may not like the sources but they are sources non the less. The info will stay. As I said all along I will be interested to see what compromise you suggest, moving the info to another paragraph or what ?Zeq 17:51, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Hello, everyone. If I'm understanding corectly, the problem is that Ian doesn't believe that the sources arereliable? If so, then the best compromise is to come up with another source that Ian deems suitable. Does that seem reasonable?--Sean|Black 19:04, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
Hi, and welcome back, it looks like your services are needed after all. I agree that it would be ideal, but it is not like there is an infinite amount of sources easily available. And how can one guarantee that Ian wouldn't deem those sources unreliable as well? Could he at least point out what he thinks is wrong with Pearlman, Schechtman and Sachar?
There is a confirmation from Zero that Mufti did say something similiar:http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/22/BBCreel125.png
but it seems that he believes that Mufti never used the exact wording.
Heptortalk 19:20, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I want a reliable scholarly source for the claim inserted into this article by you, Heptor and Kriegman that in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War there was "a widespread belief that the Israelis were facing a genocidal enemy". In my view this is racist nonsense. --Ian Pitchford 20:02, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
No one has been cited for the claim that there was "a widespread belief that the Israelis were facing a genocidal enemy". --Ian Pitchford 20:11, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
If this is a major fact about the 1948 Arab-Israeli War you should be able to cite one reputable history of that war in support. --Ian Pitchford 20:25, 18 December 2005 (UTC)
I took the care to copy the policy in full at the beginning of this section. It says that disputed material should be removed to the talk page. It's here. Now please abide by policy and address the question above. --Ian Pitchford 03:33, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Please comply with the policy and answer the query above. --Ian Pitchford 05:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Please stop talking around the issue Zeq. I am insisting thatthis policy is implemented. Inserting disputed claims without sources is not acceptable; nor is inserting fifteen dubious web links into a single sentence. --Ian Pitchford 05:28, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
We have implemented this policy which clearly sais "Editors should then find sources to support it (if possible) and re-instate it into the article proper" You dispute the validity of the sources but that is not disputing the content. Nothing that you have shown shows that these sources are any different from sources used all over Wikipedia. We mediated this issue but now you are accepting the results of the mediation or not ?Zeq 08:06, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
Ian, if your interpretation of the dispute policy is to be taken seriously, it would mean that any editor may demand removal of any information he wish, simply by questioning the sources of that information. You still don't see that?
Heptortalk 11:14, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
We have implemented this policy which clearly sais "Editors should then find sources to support it (if possible) and re-instate it into the article proper" You dispute the validity of the sources but that is not disputing the content. Nothing that you have shown shows that these sources are any different from sources used all over Wikipedia. We mediated this issue but now you are accepting the results of the mediation or not ?Zeq 12:36, 19 December 2005 (UTC)
You asked for sources and you got them. You refused mediation still we allow you to come back to it. If you dispute this further go to Rfa. I am not planning to argue with you about sourced material any more.Zeq 19:23, 19 December 2005 (UTC)