- ISBN13: 9780300145793
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Jeffrey Herf, a leading scholar in the field, offers the most extensive examination to date of Nazi propaganda activities targeting Arabs and Muslims in the Middle East during World War II and the Holocaust. He draws extensively on previously unused and little-known archival resources, including the shocking transcriptions of the “Axis Broadcasts in Arabic” radio programs, which convey a strongly anti-Semitic message.
Herf explores the intellectual, political, and cultural context in which German and European radical anti-Semitism was found to resonate with similar views rooted in a selective appropriation of the traditions of Islam. Pro-Nazi Arab exiles in wartime Berlin, including Haj el-Husseini and Rashid el-Kilani, collaborated with the Nazis in constructing their Middle East propaganda campaign. By integrating the political and military history of the war in the Middle East with the intellectual and cultural dimensions of the propagandistic diffusion of Nazi ideology, Herf offers the most thorough examination to date of this important chapter in the history of World War II. Importantly, he also shows how the anti-Semitism promoted by the Nazi propaganda effort contributed to the anti-Semitism exhibited by adherents of radical forms of Islam in the Middle East today.
(20100216)
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This look at Nazi propaganda in the Middle East is a good addition in overall understanding of the Third Reich’s ideological war. Herf shows how the Nazis were not above fudging Aryan master race theory for political gain, adapting Eurofascism to the cultural and political context of the Moslem world, seeking allies against France and Britain.
Where the book comes apart is Herf’s desire to show that lingering traces of Nazi propaganda account for anti-Semitic (ie, anti-Israeli) “Islamofascism.” While some residues of this brief propaganda interlude may linger, there’s no real evidence that they persist in any greater depth than the traces of Nazism in Germany or Europe. Rather, these attitudes stem from deeper cultural roots that gave rise to the temporary “alliance” and persist long after its demise.
Also ignored by Herf is the current political context which feeds anti-Jewish and anti-Israel violence. Herf’s attempt to tie Nazi propaganda to 9/11 era terrorism nicely ignores the role of the US (and Israel) in feeding reactionary Islam as a tool in the cold war; and bypasses Israel’s role in stoking hatred through its Palestinian policy. 1940s Nazism is a minor theme in this regard, and is no _more_ to be held against current generations in the Moslem world than Nazi collaboration in the Ukraine or Bosnia.
But as an addition to understanding Nazi-era propaganda it is quite useful, showing an unexpected depth in Nazi “outreach” tactics.
Rating: 3 / 5