Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: lezioncina di storia

Strange bedfellows
SETH J. FRANTZMAN , THE JERUSALEM POST 	May. 7, 2008
On a pleasant Thursday in December 1948, Emilio Traubner, a
correspondent for The Palestine Post, found himself near Abu Kabir,
not far from Jaffa. Trenches and expended cartridges were strewn
about, reminders of the fighting between units of the Irgun and local
Arab forces that had taken place there seven months previously. There
was a large Arab villa from where Traubner recovered a diary. It
turned out to be the daily record of Yusuf Begovic of Pale, a town
near Sarajevo in modern-day Bosnia-Herzegovina. In it Begovic had
described his activities as a cook for the "Arab Army of Liberation."
Traubner described who Begovic had been serving: "35 Yugoslav Muslims
who had a good reason to expect to be among the first to occupy and
loot Tel Aviv, were part of a group of some thousands who came to the
Middle East to join the jihad against Israel."
What were Yugoslav Muslims doing in Jaffa in 1948? How had they
managed to get themselves all the way to the Holy Land? What had
motivated them? Who had recruited them? What was the Bosnian or
Albanian connection to the Palestinians, if there was one?
There was a Bosnian connection: Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of
Jerusalem, had been in Bosnia in the 1940s. Had he recruited these
men? What had become of them?
It turned out that in 2005 a Bosnian had given an interview in Lebanon
to a Croatian newspaper and claimed to have fought in the 1948 war.
The story began to crystallize.
The Long Shadow of Haj Amin
In October 1937, Haj Amin al-Husseini, mufti of Jerusalem and leader
of the Arab Higher Committee, was hiding from the British authorities
in the Haram al-Sharif, the holy sanctuary atop the Temple Mount in
Jerusalem. On October 13, disguised as a Beduin, he fled to Lebanon
via Jaffa. In Lebanon he received sanctuary from the French mandatory
authorities but he fled again with the outbreak of war in 1939. This
time he made his way to Baghdad disguised as a woman. In Baghdad in
1940 and 1941 he increased his contacts with Germany, offering to aid
the Nazis in return for their help in gaining independence for the
Arab states. The Italians helped him enter Turkey, and then he made
his way to Rome on October 11. He met with Mussolini and then with
Hitler on November 28. After the failure of various schemes to create
an Arab military unit he eventually settled for recruiting Muslim
volunteers to aid the Nazis from the Balkans, Bosnia and eventually
Kosovo.
In speaking to potential recruits, Husseini stressed the connections
they had to the Muslim nation fighting the British throughout the
world: "The hearts of all Muslims must today go out to our Islamic
brothers in Bosnia, who are forced to endure a tragic fate. They are
being persecuted by the Serbian and communist bandits, who receive
support from England and the Soviet Union... They are being murdered,
their possessions are robbed and their villages are burned. England
and its allies bear a great accountability before history for
mishandling and murdering Europe's Muslims, just as they have done in
the Arabic lands and in India."
Three divisions of Muslim soldiers were recruited: The Waffen SS 13th
Handschar ("Knife") and the 23rd Kama ("Dagger") and the 21st
Skenderbeg. The Skenderbeg was an Albanian unit of around 4,000 men,
and the Kama was composed of Muslims from Bosnia, containing 3,793 men
at its peak. The Handschar was the largest unit, around 20,000 Bosnian
Muslim volunteers. According to the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust,
"These Muslim volunteer units, called Handschar, were put in Waffen SS
units, fought Yugoslav partisans in Bosnia and carried out police and
security duties in Hungary. They participated in the massacre of
civilians in Bosnia and volunteered to join in the hunt for Jews in
Croatia." Part of the division also escorted Hungarian Jews from the
forced labor in mine in Bor on their way back to Hungary. The division
was also employed against Serbs, who as Orthodox Christians were seen
by the Bosnian Muslims as enemies.
The Handschar division surrendered to the British army on May 8, 1945.
As many as 70,000 Bosnian Muslim POWs and their families were moved by
the British army to Taranto in Italy. The creation of Marshal Tito's
Yugoslavia at the end of the war meant that former Bosnian Muslim
volunteers in the German SS units could not return home for fear of
prosecution or internment. George Lepre, a scholar on the history of
the Handschar and author of Himmler's Bosnian Division: The Waffen-SS
Handschar Division 1943-1945 describes their fate: "Those Bosnians who
elected to remain in the camps eventually found asylum in countries
throughout the Western and Arab worlds. Many of those who settled in
the Middle East later fought in Palestine against the new Israeli
state."
But first they had to get to the Middle East.
The formation of the Bosnian unit in 1947
The Bosnian Muslims, usually referred to as "Yugoslavs" in period
newspaper accounts as well as in intelligence reports, remained in DP
camps in Italy until 1947, when it was reported in The Palestine Post
on April 18 that there was a "request from the Syrian government for
the transfer of 8,000 Bosnian Moslem refugees at present in Italy.
Yugoslav quarters here say that the Arab League has written to all
Arab states, urging them to assist these Moslem DPs, and that some
financial help has already been received. Yugoslav officials say that
they too want these 8,000 Moslems back, as they are the Handschar
Division of the German Wehrmacht which surrendered to the British...
The Yugoslavs state that they view with the gravest concern the
possibility of the transfer of this group to the Middle East."
By December 1947 a nucleus of former Handschar officers had made their
way to Syria and were beginning to reconstitute their unit in
Damascus. A report by Israel Baer in the Post noted that "the latest
recruits to the Syrian army are members of the Bosnian Waffen SS... It
is reported that they are directing a school for commando tactics for
the Syrian Army."
No doubt the fledgling Syrian army which had been born in 1946 was in
need of officers and trainers with experience. Emilio Traubner,
writing on December 3, 1947, noted that the International Refugee
Organization (IRO) was even convinced to fund the travel of Bosnian
Muslims from Italy to the Middle East so that they could find homes
since they refused to be repatriated to Yugoslavia.
In January 1948 Arab agents were working to recruit Bosnians for the
fight in Palestine. On February 2, it was reported that 25 Bosnian
Muslims had arrived in Beirut and were moving to Damascus to join 40
other Bosnians already there. A report by Jon Kimche on February 4
further noted that up to 3,500 were being transferred to Syria to
fight alongside Fawzi Kaukji's Arab Liberation Army (ALA) in its
invasion of Palestine. On March 14 a party of 67 Albanians, 20
Yugoslavs and 21 Croats led by an Albanian named Derwish Bashaco
arrived by boat in Beirut from Italy. They were hosted by the
Palestine Arab Bureau and made their way to Damascus to join the ALA.
In the first week of April another 200 Bosnians arrived in Beirut.
A lengthy report by Claire Neikind on March 2 described the procedure
by which Arab agents were recruiting volunteers among the DPs in
Italy. Men between 22 and 32 were sought and in return they would
receive free passage to Beirut and their families would receive
maintenance. According to Neikind, 300 men had already arrived and 90
Croatian Ustashi were also making there way. Fifty-seven were sent to
Amman. Between December 1 and February 20 a total of 106 were sent to
Syria. Neikind noted that "as soon as their families are settled, they
enter Arab military service."
If one accepts merely the low totals from newspaper accounts it
appears that there were at least 520 Bosnians, 67 Albanians and 111
Croatians in Syria or Beirut, as well as 135 Bosnians on their way to
Egypt and 57 Bosnians in Jordan. Thus 890 volunteers from Yugoslavia
and Albania were in the Middle East by April 1948, before Israel's
declaration of independence on May 15, 1948.
Upon arrival the volunteers found their way to a camp at Katana, a
military base west of Damascus that the Syrian army had provided for
use by the Arab Liberation Army being assembled to invade Palestine.
Here they met their commander, Fawzi Kaukji for the first time.
Kaukji, 58, was a former Ottoman soldier who had fought in the Arab
Revolt. Hagana intelligence estimated as many as 4,000 volunteers had
joined his army.
In December of 2005, Hassan Haidar Diab, a journalist in Bosnia, was
able to locate Kemal Rustomovic, a Bosnian who had served with the
Yugoslav volunteers. He claimed to have been a member of the Arab
Salvation Army where 150 of his fellow Bosnians served under a Bosnian
officer named Fuad Sefkobegovic.
The Role of the Bosnians in the War of Independence
Since the fall of 1947 Arab forces under Abdel Khader Husseini and
other locals had harassed Jewish traffic and supplies moving from Tel
Aviv to Jerusalem. A mixed Bosnian-Arab unit of the ALA had been
dispatched to aid in the siege of Jerusalem and this unit found itself
embroiled in the battle for Castel between April 3 and 8, 1948. This
battle was part of the Hagana's Operation Nahshon which was intended
to relieve the siege of Jerusalem. It is not clear what became of the
Bosnians who fought at Castel. Some may have retired to Ramallah,
where it was reported on April 16 that Muslim foreigners including
Yugoslavs had taken over the best hotels and "molested" the local
population.
The next battle that the Bosnian units participated in was at Jaffa
between April 25 and May 5. Jaffa had been allotted to the Arab state
in the UN partition plan, but it was surrounded by territory allotted
to the Jewish state. The battle began when the Irgun launched an
attack on the city. According to the Hagana, there were 400
"Yugoslavs" and 200 Iraqis defending Jaffa. On April 28, Michel Issa,
the Christian Arab commander of the Ajnadin Battalion, received orders
from Kaukji to move from the Jerusalem foothills to relieve the siege
of Jaffa. On the same day, Hagana intelligence noted that there were
60 "Yugoslavs" among the defenders of Jaffa. Issa arrived in Jaffa on
April 29 ; the commander of Jaffa, Maj. Adil Najmuddin, deserted the
city on May 1, leaving Issa and his Yugoslavs. According to Issa's
telegram to Kaukji, "Adil left [the] city by sea with all [the] Iraqis
and Yugoslavs." Prior to their departure the Yugoslavs had been
billeted at local homes and their unit even included a cook.
Kemal Rustomovic recalled in his interview that he had first been at
Nablus, then Jaffa and finally at Jenin. Between the evacuation of the
Yugoslavs by sea from Jaffa and their reunion with the ALA, the State
of Israel was born on May 15, 1948. On the same day five Arab armies
invaded Israel and the war became much wider.
The ALA became a disorganized and largely spent force by the time it
saw fighting again around Nazareth again in July. During the fighting
in the North, Kaukji's army of 2,500 men was reduced to only 800 and
it was driven from Nazareth into northern Galilee. Rustomovic was one
of these men according to his interview. The Post reported that the
ALA still included "Yugoslavs." On July 18 the Post reported that the
British government's intelligence had acted to "systematically
sabotage [the] Palestine partition scheme" and provided as evidence
the fact that England was aware of the presence of Bosnian volunteers
in Syria.
During the fighting in October the IDF conquered the entire Galilee
and parts of Southern Lebanon. A report on November 1, detailing the
capture of the Galilee, noted that some "Yugoslavs" had been captured
during the fighting that had driven the ALA and the Lebanese army from
Palestine and actually found the IDF in Lebanon.
The Bosnians and the 1948 war, strange bedfellows?
It is not known what became of the Bosnians who served with the Arab
forces in the 1948 war. Rustomovic, who was born in the village of
Kuti in central Bosnia in 1928, joined the Lebanese army in 1950. He
served his adopted country for 30 years, married a local woman and had
seven daughters and five sons with her. He was granted Lebanese
citizenship, unlike the Palestine refugees who fled to Lebanon, and
retired from the army in 1980. According to him, none of the Bosnians
who had served in the SS ever returned to Yugoslavia. Some ended up in
the US, Australia and Canada. It is assumed that some also settled in
Syria or elsewhere in the Middle East. Today many would be in their
80s and 90s and it is doubtful that many of them survive.
In the 1990s during the Balkan wars, Arabs would journey to the
Balkans to participate in war between Bosnians and Serbs. In a strange
twist they would be repaying the debt incurred when 900 or more
Bosnian Muslims gave up their homes and past to come to the Middle
East to serve the Muslim Arab cause. The involvement of these Bosnians
may be seen as an early version of the linkage of Muslim conflicts
throughout the world. This has gained increased exposure lately due to
the involvement of foreign Muslim volunteers in the Algerian,
Lebanese, Kashmiri, Sudanese and Afghani conflicts among others. n
The writer is in a doctoral program at the Hebrew University of
Jerusalem and his MA thesis was on the Christian Arabs in the 1948 war.

 The Bosnians and the 1948 war, strange bedfellows?
si, la faccenda è conosciuta, anche se immaginavo che numericamente
fosse cosa ben poco consistente (per fortuna).. anche se bisogna dire
che Amin al-husseini sperava di reclutarne almeno il triplo (*)
Alla fine della guerra evidentemente il muftì tirò fuori le "vecchie
conoscenze" .
Bisogna però ricordare, altrimenti sembra che tu abbia una fissa a
senso unico, che MOLTI palestinesi non erano affatto delle idee di
questo orrendo personaggio - ivi compresi molti suoi familiari, e
alcune migliaia di loro combatterono onorevolmente contro i nazisti
entrando nelle schiere alleate.
(*) La tristemente famosa Handschar Division (scimitarra) , chiamata
anche la "Himmler Bosnian Division"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_(1st_Croatian)
operò contro i partigiani slavi e nei rastrellamenti del
'44....avevano l'Imam e i Mullah di divisione, reggimento e
battaglione:
http://www.vojska.net/eng/world-war-2/germany/ss/division/13/
Per fondare questa unità i gerarchi nazi dovettero far salti mortali
sull'arianesimo, sostenendo che i muslim reclutati discendevano da
Goti e addirittura Persiani (sic).
http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/yugoslavia_collaboration.htm

 entrando nelle schiere alleate.
eh già. Ma è difficile che il fallito ricercatore che a credibilità è pari
a quella di arduino d'ivrea e artamano prenda atto di quel che gli hai
scritto.
 
-- 
visitate 
http://www.comunisti-italiani.it/frames/index.htm
 
http://www.larinascita.org
http://www.italia-cuba.it/associazione/associazione.htm
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

 SETH J. FRANTZMAN , THE JERUSALEM POST  May. 7, 2008
Un simpaticone.  Sopratutto con profonde osservazioni politico-
sociali.
http://frantzman.blogspot.com/2005/05/meir-amar-and-arab-mentality.html
 Meir Amar and the Arab mentality
Why did Meir Amar abuse his wife verbally and perhaps physically? Why
did he abuse verbally his lady friend and partner in Takoa? Is it
becuase he was Sephardie? Was it his personality? More probably it was
the Arab mentality he learned from years of living with Bedouins and
Palestinians.
-------------------------------------------
Tua moglie e' caduta dalle scale, recentemente?
GT

 sull'arianesimo,
quei salti mortali li portavano persino sull'Himalaia...

 Un simpaticone.
e giorgino cambia discorso. Che novità.

 
http://frantzman.blogspot.com/2005/05/meir-amar-and-arab-mentality.html



lol
-- 


 Tua moglie e' caduta dalle scale, recentemente?
Torrieri, sei sulfureo, e infatti nahum scantona....