Mick Hartley

Former Jordanian Health Minister Dr. Zaid Hamzeh: Yes, we Arabs supported Hitler during WW2:

Interviewer: Did you support Hitler, like all the Arabs?

Zaid Hamzeh: Yes. The first demonstration I participated in… They took us out of fourth grade. I was exactly nine years old. I asked: “What’s the demonstration for?” [The slogan was:] “Down with X, but long live Abu Ali!” Abu Ali was a reference to Hitler, but we didn’t know that. They didn’t tell us. We took to the streets to support him when the Rashid Ali Al-Gailani revolution broke out in Iraq. We supported the revolution, and, of course, [we supported] Hitler, because he hated the Jews, and we have been mad at the Jews ever since those days.

Interviewer: Was that really the reason, or was it because we Arabs, by nature – and I don’t have time to give a historical review… We love dictators.

Zaid Hamzeh: No.

Interviewer: Really?

Zaid Hamzeh: Nobody loves dictators, except for people who have been led astray, and I don’t want to use…

Interviewer: We love people who kill and slaughter. We consider this to be a sign of manliness.

Zaid Hamzeh: Unfortunately, many people do, but we shouldn’t generalize.

Interviewer: Right, not everybody…

Zaid Hamzeh: But with regard to dictators, you are right. We laud the dictator and wish he would come back. We want him to come riding in on a white horse and to liberate the land, while the people here are in a slumber or watching from the sideline.

The 1941 overthrow of the pro-Nazi Rashid Ali in Iraq was the occasion for the Farhud, when some 200 Jews were killed and many more injured in rioting. It marked what's generally regarded as the beginning of the end of the Jewish community of Iraq. Rashid Ali fled to Berlin, along with other Arab luminaries such as Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.