it. that is it. .. [applauding] with the other story does have a point to it. this is something maybe some of you know. something had discovered while i was researching the atlantic. it's 100% true. i find it completely fascinating. a little bit of background. this is also in the north atlantic. somewhat further south. there were these battles in both the first and second world wars that were known generically as the battles of the lentic. they were fought -- there were what were known as tonnage wars. u-boats' would >> and to sink eastbound cargo bringing from you people and canada and supplies we needed during the war but there was a technical difference between the two battles in the second world war. the german technology allowed them to fire their torpedos while they were submerged which

made them particularly dangerous. but in the first world war they couldn't do this. they had to fire their torpedo from the surface. this made the german ships vulnerable to gunfire from the royal navy escort ships, the friggits and the destroyers and the corvettes that were with the convoy and our guns would be sufficiently good that w we wou hit and sink these predator u boats but that began to change in the summer of 1916 and it did so for a very simple reason that the royal navy was running out of cordite which is the propellent to throw a shell out of a gun and we don't have a key chemical compound of cordite

which is a chemical called acetone which most ladies in the audience will know it's nail polish removers and the germans were unlikely to sell the germans making the cordite to sink their retched submarines and the guardian which is the paper i used to work for and a legendary british editor the man who came up with the phrase that is did mantra of all responsible journalists which is comment is free but facts are sacred. he would have lunch every tuesday with someone he found interesting and the person on this particular -- i think it was early august, 1916, the chaffee had lunch with the professor of biology at the university of manchester who was a white russian called hyam

weitzman and they were talking about all sorts of things but towards the end of lunch weitzman became very excited and said oh, incidentally mr. scott i have invented a new next week for producing very large quantities ofc acetone. he had no interest and he had never heard the word before, no interest in it and he was courteous and he filed awayed ts nugget in his mind and next tuesday happened to be in london where he was having lunch with the -- with david lloyd george, who was the minister of munitions in the british war cabinet and lloyd george went on about their desperate state of things in the atlantic and how we couldn't fireg our countries because we didn't have any cordite because we run out of acetone and it was the second time this week he heard a word and his light won't in his head and he said this funny chap claims to produce acetone in

large quantities and lord george came alive. is this true. does this man seem to be a crackpot, no he was a sensible gentleman and it was determined that he was not a nut case and so they said well, what do you need to make this acetone? and he said well, i need two things the first i need a large factory a with something like vs or stills or hoppers in it and they said, well, we think we can help you because the nicholson gin factory has gone bankrupt and we've taken control of the site and he said a gin factory and he said he needed something like cellulose and something like some, aize and he said what about chestnut well, as some of youas may know in the autumn ti

in britain there is a game played by children. i played it when i was a small boy called conquers where you pick up on the ground fallen horste chestnut fruit and you ae boring from your mother a secure and you tie a string and knot it and it was like a plum bob and nasty boys would break yours and the rules are arcane and complicated. every autumn all british childrenh are hard-wired to collect chestnuts so the word went out in the youth of britain in the autumn of britain collect chestnuts and don't play the game and instead give them to your mothers and so their mothers hoarded these chestnuts anesd lauries from the ministerf war came to villages all over town in london and they brought them down to the england and

tipped the bins into the hopper and using weitzman's magic a trickle, a stream and a gush and torrent of pure acetone that put spiggets and taken down to it poole and doorset and turned into cordite and the guns started firing again and by the latef autumn of 1916, the whole calculus of war began slowly to change in britain's favor. submarines started to sink and we could rightly say at the end of winter, in february, march, april 1917 that far from losing the battle of atlantic, britain was winning theoo battle of the atlantic. so come april, may, the government feeling sort of somewhat smug and pleased with itself said, you know, the person that was the key to all of this was this strange gentleman up in manchester, professor -- odd name haim or

chaim, we should give him a present. they said, a night night hood. we'll give him a knighthood. the only problem was that he was not british. he was a white russian immigrant. so they talked to the british secretary to make the offer of a knighthood so down comes from weitzman from london. and he sat in the great ambassadorial waiting room at the foreign office and then the officer sat down and said i'm really pleased to say that on behalf of hi os majesty's government you can be a knighthood and you can be sir weitzman and he said it's nice to you andh i'm glad to help in your war effort but i don't want a knighthood for myself.

i don't want any award for' myself. but as you know, i'm secretary of the english league of scientists. and what i would likeh is a fu declaration from the britisha government that you would look with favor upon the homeland for of a the jewish people in palestine. and he said, that sounds something we could probably talk about and so throughout the summer, they discussed this very complex issue but it was formally decided and on the 17th of december, 1917, the declaration was written with a formal copy sent to the president of the world federation who was lord rothchild with ade copy out of gratitude to the man who began the process, the head of the english league of zionists that his majesty's government looks on favor for the establishment of a homeland of the jewish people in palestine and that is the bedrock document which soar 30 yearsw later the creation of the state of israel. so israel owes it's technical

existence toel chemistry, a qui of chemistry, a want of acetone in the north atlantic ocean. [applause] >> my point was as it were from soup to nuts, from sheep to israel, the atlantic ocean has got it all. and i'd be delighted if i can to answer any questions you may have but thank you very much indeed for coming along. [applause]ery >> i believe so, there's microphone over there. super. >> thank you. i read your books and listened to them on tape and i'm hoping that this one will also be narrator by you. >> it is, yes.

>> i'm looking forward to that. i think it really touched our souls with those stories. i wonder as you travel around the globen we all live these mundane lives day-to-day and you pick up on extraordinary stories and i'm wondering what first propelled youpr in that -- in tt direction to move from the natural sciences over to really, you know, one of our greatest popular historians? >> well, it's a very nice question. thank you. i think i got -- my initial thought was i wanted to be a sailor. as a schoolboy, my image of myself -- i'm now 66 years old is that i would be wearing crisp, white newly laundered sorts andcr be an admiral and putting down small wars in the corner of our empire. however, that was not to be. not least because we don't have an empire anymore.

but the main reason -- the naval college in britain is called dartmouth and i went there for all the exams and everything and happily passed full-time and i went for medical and so forth examinations and everything went swimmingly until what turned out to be the last day they gave me a big ringed back binder with a series of colored circles in which were dots and they said, what number do you see and i said 47 and the doctor said 47 i beg your pardon?eg 47 and what do you see the next page 23 and he slammed the book, you may not know this but you're red ring colorblind and her majesty takes a dim view who are red ringed colorblind driving her very expensive warships around the world and you better do something and i ended up as a geologist which allowed me wander about and i became a journalist but remained determined to wander around the

world. and i've done ever since. so it's not a life that has brought me great fortune but it's brought me great interest. thank you very much. [laughter] [applause] >> i had read -- i belong to a book club. and one of the books we read was the professor and the madman. and i thought it was just so marvelous and we have the most wonderful discussion and when i realized you were the author, i'm in awe. and i enjoyed your talk, but i must tello you i'm very involve with the weitzman science institute and been to his home and never heard this story. i think it's incredible. the book and find out more. >> well, super. if you go to the weitzman website and indeed the whole story of acetone -- i first heard it in a book which many of you may have read, richard rose, the making of the atomic bomb.

and it appears there's a short kind of little -- almost a footno footnote which made me think, wow that's a wonderful story and it allt checks out. so i think it's quite remarkable. i'm very glad you a student of weitzman didn't know about it. thank you very much, ma'am. [applause] >> sir? >> yes, i've read most of your books and i read the most recent one a and it's succeedingly bes. the question i have is about leaf ericson and if you could share a little bit aa brief stoy there and a question in terms of textbooks in america in terms of children learning more and if you foresee in the changes of the textbook because they are practicing and preaching about christopher columbus and leaf ericson gets forgotten.

>> i'mll sure i will never get reservations in italian reservations in this country. one of the things i try not in a kind way to dethrone christopher columbus to be the first. we know he was not the first to know but we don't tend to honor ino any serious the person who did and the person who did did so 491 years before christopher columbus and he was this norseman called leaf ericson and they discovered the settlements they built. there was obviously no settlement built by columbus because he didn't get here as all. he just get to the island of hispaniola but there's a settlement in newfoundland that's looked after extremely well in parks, canada. the bay of the jellyfish in that northern tip of newfoundland and so it's not easy to get to. but when do you get there, to me it's an extremely moving place.

it's the foothold of europe on a country that ultimately was to receive all the benefit of european immigration six or seven centuries later. in this settlement there's evidence they kept castles and there's iron ware that they used and made and all kinds of things cutlery and vegetable gardens and so forth. but best of all i think they had time there to both conceive and bear a child, a first european child ever to be born in north america. and they gave him a name which we know how -- and i think it's the most delightful name. he was called snorry. i love the idea the first american was a man called snorry. that's thedo name i want to giv to my dog. in the end, they were defeated by the weather. they had come essentially to the wrong place. and the wind and the rain and the gale and the ice was -- they

thought why don't we experience that back in norway so we can experiencead it with our friend instead of living in a mud hut in newfoundland. so they only stayed here until 1010 and they went back and, of course, the difference 490 years later when columbus and his gang came, they came to a place which because of the latitude was much more benign and things would grow. people stayed. so climate defeated them but they were the first. and every 12th of october when people celebrate columbus day and, of course, in cities like the district of columbia and columbus, ohio, and columbia, missouri, the fans of leaf ericson kind of grind their teeth why have we forgotten that only in minnesota and wisconsin do a few shopkeepers sort of close their shops for the day in honor of the man that i would like to see him given a great deal more honor and indeed in textbooks. the children know who leaf ericson is.

thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] >> good afternoon. i'm a very, very huge fan of all of your works. the first book was given to me by my mother, professor and the madman and i red it -- read it literally in two days. what my question is, do you agree historical text and what have you and you just find interesting stories that have not been fully explored or do youju just say, oh, this might interesting to write about? o do you have a little file cabinet and say, oh, i'm going to --he this is what i'm going write my next book about? w >> i mean, to give you an example. one from the past and one from the future. the professor and the madman was a well-known story and i came

across it when i was reading book by a man called jonathan green called chasing the sun dictionaries and the man who made it and there was a tiny footnote lexographers would be familiar with the story of w.c. miner who was a murderer who was a prolific writer in the led and he was reading it in the bath and i sat up and said, i just don't believe this. has there ever been a book written about it. i mean, it's a moment that completely changed my life. and so i will remember it for the rest of my days. it was 7:15 in the morning in new york where i was having my bath and, therefore, 12:15 in the afternoon in oxford where i knew one lexographer, a woman called elizabeth nulls. the phone happened to be beside the bath so i picked it up and i remembered her number. i mean, if i hadn't this whole story would have changed but i

remember. [laughter] >> i'll never forget it. and i dialed it and it didn't answer and i was about to hang up when she answered. puffing and panting and slightly grumpy i was just going out to lunch and who it is. i'm simon winchester and i'm reading in my bath in america, have you ever heard of a chap called w.c. miner and she said you're in look because i probably know more about him than anyone in creation because i wrote a paper about him, about 10 years ago for a lex graph cal journal dictionaries in wisconsin. if you do me an honor and toweling yourself dry i'll fax it to you. there was no mention of a book and i can write a book and that's the kind of cesarean dip it is moment and if i can just very briefly tell you from the future i'm embarking on a big book about america now and one

of the people that figures in the book is a chap called clarence king who was the first director of the united states geological survey. and he organized an expedition in 1863 called the 40th parallel survey in which he and a bunch of geologists walked in a straight line for six years from just north of san francisco due east to cheyenne essentially seeing what america was made of. i mean, this is part of a much larger book than i'm doing but there will be a chapter on this survey. so clarence king was a white yale-educated geologist, but he also had a fondness for black ladies. and he created an alternative personality for himself james todd who is a light-skinned poolman porter and using that persona metrr and married a bla woman and had five children. so that's the kind of -- you readal the papers, the geologic

papers thinking quite honestly i'm just going to do a book about clarence king, and then what? [laughter] >> and that's the kind of thing that seems to happen. so thank you very much indeed. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. [applause] >> i just wanted to say i very much enjoyed the book having spent some time i on java. and i guess you kind of answered the question, but obviously my question would be, do you intend to do a sequel called the pacific? >> well, no and i can give you a very good reason. i've written a book about the pacific which none of will have read because it y died a very early death. i was living in hong kong and everyone said to me oh, the pacific is the ocean of the future. you've got to write a book about the pacific and so i drank the kool-aid and spent two years traveling everywhere from chile from t alaska and australia and wrote the book and it was a

dismal failure and believe you me i know failure because one of my books published in 1976 about the midwest sold 12 copies. [laughter] >> so it wasn't as much of a disaster as that but it was a disaster and the reason was -- i don't think it was particularly badly written, i hope it wasn't anyway. while the pacific may be the owes of the future, what it isn't is an ocean of a past because you had magellan and captain cook a and the battle o midway and the polynesian navigation but it's not the mediterranean which is obviously the inland sea of classical civilization and i would the atlantic is the inland of eastern civilization so, no, there will be no sequel. [laughter] >> there was another book written about how important codfish wasab to the developmen of western civilization. and i wondered if you have any good fish stories in your book.

>> i have a very sad fish story. there's a lot about fish in chapter -- i think it's chapter 6. the overfishing. newfoundland in cod we trust used to be their official motto. but they used to say -- there was so many cod t in that part the north atlantic in the grand banks that you could walk from iceland to newfoundland on the backs of these thousands of silvery fish and if you saw the movie, you know, with freddie and others they are all gone. no fish in the grand newfoundland and that's from the canadian government, a stupid, decisions in the 1990s that destroyed one of the greatest fisheries in the world. i imagine the next six days in

canada i'll a have a lot of argumentative government officials but basically there's no doubt about it. yet in the other end of the north atlantic there's an extremely unattractive fish, a huge thingth called the pat gonn tooth fish which is the ugliest fish but you all eat it but it's chilean bass it's either chilean nor a bass. it has a connection with the sea. [laughter] >> that was in danger. that was in danger but it is no more because we've learned our lessons and now i think we're running our fisheries in a much more sensible fashion but the tragedy of newfoundland cod, yes, there's a lot about fish stories a lot of good and a lot not bad. >> marjorie, the author of the everglades river glass used to remoanas the fact that there's definitive book on the gulf of mexico and with your very unique qualifications in geology and

storytelling would you ever consider doing a book on the gulf of mexico. >> it's a very nice thought technically in thete people in e monte carlo who determine where the oceans begin and end, the gulf of mexico is technically a part of the atlantic ocean and so the deepwater horizon accident is an atlantic accident so it, write quite a lot in thi book about the gulf of mexico and make a point of including places like the north sea and the bay of r biscayne and the river and the gulf of guinea that we perhaps might think aren't part of the atlantic but the gulf is. i don't know that i could write a separate book about it but believe you me i've done, i hope, a fairly decent service to the ocean in this f book. thank you very much. [applause] >> this event was part of the 2010 miami book fair international. to find out more, visit miamibookfair.com.

>> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see here online. type the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also share anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. booktv streams live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> this is booktv's coverage of the 61st annual national book awards in new york city and now we're joined by megan stack, who is a finalist in the nonfiction category, her book "every man in this village is a liar, an education in war." ms. stack, what was your experience in baghdad and afghanistan?

>> well, i was in baghdad and afghanistan covering the stories for the los angeles times. in afghanistan i was there in 2001, it was actually my first foreign assignment. i was a younger reporter and i sort of got thrown into it. and it was dramatic and exciting and amazing and completely memorable. i went to iraq later on on and off for years after the invasion in 2003. just covering the events and watching everything more or less fall apart has been sort of the arc of my experience in afghanistan and iraq. >> so this book has been about nine years invite making? -- in the making? >> that book is drawn from reporting in 2001, 2006, 2007. and it took a few years to write and get out in the market. so yeah, it's about a decade of my life. >> where did you come up with the title "every man in this village is a liar"? >> it comes from afghanistan. there is a phrase that somebody had said to me just before i

went into afghanistan. every man in this village is a liar. it derives from an old greek paradox where the person who says it -- i think it's actually all the concretans are liars but the person who says it is actually a creten. it's a logical impossibility if he's lying, he's telling the truth, if he's lying, he's telling the truth. i used to as a title because it seemed to me an apt description of the elusive description of truth and war and the difficulty of reporting in a war zone. "village" is the global village as well. there wasn't really anyone who came away with their hands clean from these wars. everybody was lying to some extent. >> where did this picture on the cover come from? >> you'll have to ask my publishers. i actually don't know about it and they showed it to me and i believe it was beautiful and i believe it's afghanistan just judging but i don't know.

>> if everyone reads this books will they learn about the daily lives about the enemy afghanistan and iraq? >> as well as other other countries. it takes place in three years of reporting. it's about libya, it's about saudi arabia, it's about israel, it's about jordan, egypt. it's really tried to take in the totality of the regional experience of the so-called war on terror. it's not necessarily focused on combat zones exclusively. it's also about the war for ideas, the war for democracy versus islamism. so there are a lot of scenes that are kind of woven into it. >> you're still with the "los angeles times" as a daily reporter and so now in beijing. did you fly to new york for this ceremony? >> i did. although i was coming for thanksgiving anyway. so i came a bit early. >> megan stack, "los angeles times" reporter beijing bureau "every man in this virginia is a liar, an education in war" is

her nominated book. >> up next, edwin black looks at the dispossession of the jews of baghdad in 1941 and the alliance in jerusalem and hitler. this is in new york city. this is about an hour and a half. [inaudible] [inaudible]

>> just questions so we can get as many questions as we can answered that are pressing and important to you on any topic that we can. then after the event, i'll be in the back if anyone needs a book. so the topic we're discussing today is the farhud, the roots of the arab/nazi alliance in the holocaust. what is the farhud? it's against the jews of baghdad on june 1st and june 2nd 1941. this was an attempt to exterminate completely the jews of baghdad and of iraq. it didn't quite go off the way they had planned it and it was just a terrible bagram. and i will explain exactly what happened. the words of farhud is actually an iconic symbol for the

arab/nazi alliance in the holocaust because how is it that a group of people that were dwelling in a land for 2600 years, the jews of mesopotamia and iraq, came to be vermin and subhuman and were expelled from their own homes and subject to efforts to -- to perpetrate a genocide. how did this occur? how is it that the nazis who were anti-semitic made an alliance with the arabs who are semites? what's a semite? a semite is the children of the descendents of noah. noah had three sons. one of them was shem and those

are of different stems of the abraham-mixed tree. how is it that the nazis who hated arabs, who hated semites were able to make an alliance against the british and the jews? what was the purpose? well, the purpose was oil. what was the reason? the reason was oil. now, we'll get into all -- all of that. i'd also like to say that the farhud, this one pagram in one city and after that, the alliance went into the battlefield from paris to palestine. from intelligence operations to parachutes, platoons to artillery brigades.

this was a mass movement of tens of thousands of muslims and these tens of thousands of muslims were in a direct alliance of genocide against the jews. now, i have to explain something. we're going to be talking about very sensitive stuff. my information is completely historical. it's the 20th century. not the 21st century. so nothing in what i say, as unhappy as it is to hear, should be used as a pretext have a negative reaction against any of our neighbors. but i do feel that unless a legacy of hate can be confronted, we will never have a future of peace. and we have to understand that the legacy of hate that created the farhud, created the holocaust, created the middle

east that grew out of the holocaust is in many ways with us today. once again, it's important to keep this discussion completely historic. if anyone tries to draw me in to a contemporary discussion, i'm not going to be drawn into it because i'm here only talking about the academic history. i should say that there were more than a dozen volunteers in five countries who helped to research this book. there's a website for the book called farhudbook.com. i have my own website. it's edwinblack.com and there are probably more than a thousand footnotes as we reviewed thousands of archives. we reviewed the yiddish press, the german press, the arabic press, the nazi press, the nazi diplomatic papers, the arab diplomatic papers and we tried

to do as thorough a job and some of people who helped me provide the book to you are in the audience today. with that, i'll start reading. and i'd like to get copy of the book. can we have a copy brought up? so when did the hatred for the jews begin in the museum world? -- muslim world? and why did it last as long as it did? and the history shows us -- the history shows us, just a moment -- the history shows us that the beginning of the arab hatred and the muslim hatred for the jews began in 627, when the

jews of medina were exterminated by mohammed. you've heard of mecca and medina. medina was largely a jewish city. in fact, the word comes from hebrew. there was no, in fact, arabic at the time of the koran. it was written in a combination of hebrew and syriac. >> the original prayers, bough down were to jerusalem. and after the the jews of medina refused to convert, they turned to mecca they had their heads severed. then came the islamic conquest of all the arabian peninsula into the middle east into north

africa. this is a well documented muslim conquest and that is how the muslim world became -- became established. now, i'm going to remind -- i'm going to remind people that this was a sensitive topic and i want to talk history only. not -- not contemporary affairs. [inaudible] >> my job is history. you will determine the present tense, not the -- and you will determine the future, okay? the jews of -- of the arabian

peninsula and the middle east -- when the muslims took it over became dimmis, not just the jews and also the christian and this meant they were a protected group within the islamic world but they were second class citizenship or third class citizenship. they weren't allowed to have complete religious freedom, and this is important because this issue comes right to the question of the farhud. right to the question of the arab/nazi alliance and right to the question of our status today, right in jerusalem. that would be completely incorrect to say that the jews as dimmis in the muslim world were always kept as subhumans or as a discriminated class. many jews in many areas thrived greatly in the muslim world. they were protected in the muslim world. they became great merchants in

the muslim world. when the muslims exposed -- excuse me, when the catholic church of spain expelled the jews in 1492, it was the muslim world. it was the sultan who took them in and who allowed them to thrive, and he took them in not to carry the stones to build a pair mid -- pyramid and they were great emanslaughter dated in the context of the dimmi world but whenever they excelled as dimmis.

now, the jews of mesopotamia were there for 2600 years. that's 1,000 years before islam came to the middle east. how is it that they were turned into a vile member of the citizenry? well, the answer is, this dimmi hood, this dimmitude, the nazis. how did the nazis come to make common cause with the arab? the answer is oil. there were never -- there were never any countries in the middle east. they were all created by british petroleum and anglo persian and by other oil imperialistic states in the west for the sole purpose of getting the oil.

prior to this there were just tribes. as a result of this, this bringing in of the west with the mesopotamia, as a result of this, it made the people of mesopotamia feel that they were being invaded. and guess what? they were being invaded. they were invaded by british petroleum. they were invaded by anglo persian petroleum company. i wrote a second book about this which is coming out next month. the original way i got into the farhud was by documenting the oil in the middle east. the question is, where did the jews fit into this? in 1933 -- excuse me, let me go back. in 1919, the jews were given a homeland under the ballford declaration. and i don't want you to think this was a strictly enterprise. the same type of ballford

declaration was repeated by the germans in the war. the same type of ballford declaration was by the ottomans who was owned by palestine. the same type of declaration was given by the united states. this was a worldwide phenomenon. in fact, no one knew where palestine was in 1919 when the ballford declaration was made. what was palestine? well, palestine was actually renamed israel by the romans in 70 a.d. when the jews were expelled. this was to wipe away the identity of the jews in israel. eventually, during the 20th century, they didn't know if palestine was a southern part of syria, was a northern part of africa -- they still don't know. there are no -- there were no boundary lines at that time.

even today, we see that there are disputes about who -- there were disputes about who owned the bottom of the peninsula where tabo was. we see there are disputes up in lebanon. so in 1919 when the jews -- when the area was in split two states, a jewish state and an arab state. the arabs failed to develop their own state. why? because they would not coexist with jews in palestine as equals. now, when i say jews, i don't mean european jews. i don't mean polish jews or russian jews although many were behind the settlement. even yemenite jews. any jew could not come up and settle in palestine from about 1898. those who say that arabs and jews have always lived in peace

in palestine are, unfortunately, mistaken. in the last 150 years, from about 1898, maybe a little bit before, there was never a single day of peace between jews and the arabs and palestine. there were laws against the jews coming into palestine, into palestine. there were laws against jews owning property in palestine. and these were under the control of the sultan. when the jews got a homeland from the league of nations, the arabs rebelled and there were terrible riots against the jews. now, when i say a riot against the jews in 1920 and 1921, what am i talking about? i am not talking about people running up and down the street

with large placards saying, palestine for the palestinians. i'm talking people running into synagogu synagogues, burning torahs, babies being killed, people being beheaded and these are the facts. 1920s, 1921. the british mortuaryial never saw so many head injuries because people were bashed and bashed just because they were jewish. in 1928, this came to a head. in 1928, the jews decided to sit down at the wailing wall while they were praying for yom kippur. everybody knows what the wailing

wall is. this is a remnant of the saul's temple and because they tried to sit down, it violated shari'a. now, you remember i told you that jews were considered second and third class citizens within the muslim mindset. you will recall that i said that they were second and third class religious right or those rights given. the feeling was that if jews sat down at the wailing wall, they were demonstrating the right to sit down. and sit down without permission. the british were obligated to enforce the preexisting status quo and when little old ladies tried to sit down in 1928, the british policemen pulled the chairs out from under them to make them stand. now, why were the arabs so opposed to the jews sitting when

they prayed at the wailing wall? because according to arab tradition, the wailing wall is a place where mohammed hitched his horse and his -- his winged horse on the way to heaven. you've heard of the mosque which means the furthest mosque. and when mohammed was going to heaven, on a winged horse, he stopped at the furthest mosque and the furthest mosque was in jerusalem because there were very, very few muslims there at the time during these early years of the seventh century and that made this wall holy to the muslim world. there were many decrees under the ottoman court.

as you know, the ottomans owned it and there were many decrees stated that jews would not be allowed to sit and jews did sit. what was the reaction. and in 1929 the jews did it again. and in 1929 the jews decided to sit down in the middle of the summer heat when they prayed, and the arab reacted by going on a horrible riot. they not only rioted the city at the wailing wall by pulling out the papers from the wall that jews put in to make a supplication of god. they stabbed people, they shot people but then while the police were busy in jerusalem, they went up to hebron which is then a jewish city for -- since the days of abraham. they went up to hebron and

undertook a horrible massacre of the jews. now, what do i say by a massacre? well, i mean -- and i'm going to have to talk about some very bad things here. but i'm going to do as i did in -- in my book. i'm going to apologize in advance for the history that i must give you. in fact, i'm going to read -- i'm going to do some reading from my book which is something i almost never do. i'm going to say, as i said in my introduction, this book is a nightmare. i regret anyone must read it. i regret it was necessary to write. the scholar had his head brain

extricated and had his head removed. a visitor was executed by a door, babies were cut in half, people were stabbed. the police in many instances joined the muslims. now, i want to make it clear, there were many muslims who saved their neighbors and hid them from further further and mass destruction, but it did occur. a state of siege declared. the british brought in airplanes with machine guns. they actually shot into the streets to suppress the riots. and this was the condition of the arab jewish existence in palestine in 1929 before hitler ever came to power.

and this particular monstrous massacre in a long line of massacres in which this was not an anomaly. this was a high point of many high points. this occurred because jews tried to sit down when they prayed. now comes january 30th, 1933. hitler comes to power. and the arabs say, we want hitler. they're not just a fascist leaning. this occurred in baghdad, this occurred in cairo. >> this occurred in beirut. this occurred in syria.

they ran -- they translated mein kompf and turned it into anti-jew hatred into antisemittic hatred. they wore arm bands and there's a place in the book where the arabs with a huge nazi flag -- the syrian national socialist party, national socialists, the german social nazi party with the swastika, you can still see this on the internet. their flag has not changed. it still has the swastika. [inaudible] >> pardon me? syrian national socialist party.

and the nazis said, we don't want you. you're semite. on top of that, we're talking to the republic -- we're talking about the republic, we're talking about the nazi era, we will never put you in the nazi because you must be pure. okay, if you don't adopt us we'll make our own nazi party and that's exactly what they made. they made many nazi parties. and they made them all over the middle east. they ran nazi publication and they serialized in arabic henry ford's protocols of the elders of zion which was a fundamental turning point for adolph hitler in his war against the jews. and this treatise today, this fake protocol, this forgery is still the bestselling book in

the arab world. in addition the nazis did one up. upset the apple cart with the british. the british had the mandate with palestine. the british had the control over german debt and the nazis wanted to keep palestine open for jews. now you remember i wrote the book about the transfer agreement. the deal between the zionists and the nazis that brought some 60,000 jews to palestine and millions and millions of their money. well, that was actually based upon the herculean deal in 1903 in which the czar, which was actually based on the mosaic deal with the farel to let my people go with the cat and will sheep and goats to come with.

the nazis wanted palestine to remain a jewish settlement so they could force the jews out of europe, force the jews out of germany and into this one place and then when they were all in this one tiny tract of land, they would execute the final solution to the jews which would be extermination. and this was something that the arab were deeply involved in and when i say arab, i mean, tens of thousands of arabs. and i'll give more information about that as i go along. i want to remember -- i want to remind everybody in the middle of my speech that this is about history. nor do i wish to say that every arab in palestine was unwilling to coexist with their jewish neighbors but i have to tell you something, i'll give you an example. the family was the strongest

family in the jerusalem but those who tried to coexist with the jews just like today are marginalized. they're intimidated. they're murdered. they're ostracized. and eventually the forces of hate -- the forces of hate take over. now, i talked in the beginning about -- the beginning of this, the exterminations of jews in medina in 627. why did i do that? just to define some historic problem? no. that is what the arabs themselves constantly smoke about in narrtheir newspapers, the radio and they talk about the jews on setting the path of course for them. for them this was the iconic moment. for the christians it would be the sermon on the mountain. for the jews it was the parking

lot of the red sea and in for me not to decide and for you to decide it was the extermination of the jews in medina and when they spoke -- when they recalled this information, when they recalled it, they were called not only in their private circles they said it to adolph hitler eyeball to eyeball. they said it on german radio, we must exterminate the jews. now, i'm going to read something. [inaudible conversations] >> our hatred from the jews -- i'm going to read this. our hatred for the jews dates from god's condemnation of them for their persecution and

rejection of jesus christ and their rejection of their chosen prophet. the word of god teaches us and we implicitly believe this for a muslim to kill a jew ensures him an immediate entry into heaven and into the august presence of god almighty. what more can a muslim want in this hard world? now, who said this? this is not an arab agitator in the old city. this was the king of saudi arabia. and who is he saying it to? no. this was the king of saudi arabia saying it to the british foreign ministry in official protest of 90 minutes which i quote complet