Ah, the New Middle East. Where wonders never cease. Where there is magic all about. Where Feisel Husseini was only yesterday a fascist terrorist, yet today the world media are gushing forth with his praise as a "man of peace" and as a true moderate statesmen.

Long known in these pages as Feisel the Rat, supposedly to make readers think of Feivel the Mouse in the Spielberg cartoon movie of the same name.

Like so many Palestinian leaders, Husseini wasn’t. Palestinian that is. He was born in Iraq and spent his youth in Egypt, active there in the Islamic fascist movements that gave birth to the Moslem Brotherhood, to the Fat’h and the PLO. His Uncle was the Grand Mufti, Hajj Amin al-Husseini, Hitler’s agent in the Middle East. His father was a fascist pogormchik who led anti-Jewish riots and was eventually killed in the battle for the "Kastel" in 1948, where he was trying to enforce a stranglehold and starvation siege of West Jerusalem.

Feisel Husseini was a leader in the PLO who was about as moderate as is bin Laden. He was a pro-violence anti-Semite, dedicated to seeing Israel erased. His job in the PLO was to operate illegal offices within Jerusalem as the PLO’s "Minister for Jerusalem Affairs". As such, he operated "Orient House" illegally as the PLO’s command center, right under the noses of every Israeli government down to and including that of the Sheriff of Oslo, Mr. Unilateral Ceasefire, Ariel Sharon. Each Israeli Prime Minister, including Sharon, has been too pusillanimous to shut down Husseini’s operations, even after Husseini was organizing and leading the pogroms after the "Tunnel Affair" under Netanyahu. No one seriously expects the government to commemorate Husseini’s career now that he is in Hades with a large bulldozer.

Husseini was last week in Teheran, participating in an Iran-sponsored conference calling for the destruction of Israel. On the way back he stopped in Kuwait, where he croaked of a heart attack. The PLO of course announced that - in fact - Israel had killed him by making him breath tear gas, and I would give a month’s salary to make that story be true. In fact, there are reasons to suspect that, if indeed there was some foul play, the Kuwaitis might have been involved. No media are mentioning it, but Husseini was a cheerleader for Saddam Hussein, especially when Saddam gobbled up Kuwait, so one should not rule out any possibilities here.

In any case, Feisel Husseini was a man of peace and moderation in exactly the same sense that I am the Pope and Michael Lerner is a Rabbi. This has not stopped the brain-dead Israeli Left from gushing forth with bereavement announcements. Yossi Beilin, the godmother of Oslo, was on TV last night, barely controlling his tears. Peace Now and Gush Shalom (the splinter run by Israel’s Lord Haw-Haw Uri Avnery) have large mourning notices in the paper today, although neither has ever run a notice mourning a Jew murdered by the PLO. The world media, led by CNN and BBC, are painting the Rodent as the Palestinian Mahatma. Israel not only failed to block the importing of the carcass of Husseini, but is even allowing the PLO to bury him in a State Ceremony next to the Temple Mount. The same Temple Mount which never ever had any Jewish religious institutions on it and on which Jews are prohibited from praying lest it upset the Palestinians. The Temple Mount, whose PLO-appointed Mufti last week called for more suicide bombers to murder Jews.

For now, I think we need to develop a better mousetrap.

Say CHEESE.......

Copyright © 2001 by Steven Plaut.
All Rights Reserved.

-Published with permission