JOURNALfor the STUDYof ANTISEMITISM

2011] CONFLUENT IDEOLOGIES—NAZISM AND ISLAMISM 303
story of a significant threat to the world reflected in the relevance of Nazi
ideology and Nazi values to many Arabs. We hear in modern voices rising
from Palestine and the Middle East repetitions of those genocidal threats
that seem to have been coined in the 1930s and 40s. There should be room
to defend against a blanket condemnation of a whole people as “Nazis.” At
the same time, there should be the awareness of a legacy of Nazi sympathizers
that exists in the Middle East.
It would be interesting to see this subject followed up by a study using
Arabic sources researched from the same time period. René Wildangel does
attempt to counter Mallmann and Cüppers, but his book, Between the Axis
and the Mandate Power, 18 published in German, is unavailable in English.
This reviewer cannot read German, but from commentary, Wildangel
believes Mallmann and Cüpper’s position is overstated.
Another book, by Esther Webman and Meir Litvak, 19 is primarily
about post-Holocaust Arab opinion. This work, which helps the Western
reader understand Arab thinking on the Nazis, uses many Arabic sources as
it takes a look at the complexity of Arab opinion after the war of the treatment
of Jews by Nazis.
What makes this book extraordinarily relevant today is not that Arabs
collaborated with Nazis; French, Polish, and other peoples did as well.
What is different is that today we hear the same hateful and genocidal rants
tolerated, not from Europe, but from the Middle East. It is imperative to
determine the roots of this criminal speech and intent so that it can be
overcome.
The public has the tendency to keep their eyes shut tight and not see
the uncomfortable even if it is obvious. It is the role of the researcher to pry
those eyes open through well-researched material, allowing scholars and the
public to see the facts. The authors of Nazi Palestine have done just that
with good scholarship and potent writing.
*David Sokol, MA, is a writer, psychologist, and visual artist living in Vermont.
He wrote and produced the video Mufti and writes about antisemitism.
18. René Wildangel, Between the Axis and the Mandate Power (Berlin: Klaus
Schwarz Verlag, 2007).
19. Esther Webman and Meir Litvak, From Empathy to Denial: Arab Reponses
to the Holocaust (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).