🧵The horrific attack today on author Salman Rushdie has its ideological roots in radical Islamic fundamentalism. In the modern era, organized political movements aligning themselves with these ideas began in the late 1920s with the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood.
This was formed by Hassan al-Banna in Egypt in 1929. In Syria, Antoun Saadeh (the self styled ‘fuhrer’) founded the Syrian Social Nationalist Party in 1932. Meanwhile, Ahmed Hussein was preparing to found the Young Egypt Party in Egypt in 1933.
All cultivated strong links with the Nazis wikiwand.com/en/Relations_b…
The Nazis closest ally in the entire MENA was another political figure Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. He had already incited the murderous anti-Jewish riots of 1920 in Jerusalem and Hebron before he became leader of the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement.
al-Husseini would go on to support Hitler’s plan to exterminate the Jews and planned to establish concentration camps near Nablus vimeo.com/322604709
His nephew, the Egyptian Yasser Arafat, would become the leader of the PLO. Ion Pacepa, the highest ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc, described the relationship between Arafat and the Soviet Union webhome.weizmann.ac.il/home/comartin/…
The development of modern, radical Islamic fundamentalism was supported by both the Nazis and subsequently the post WWII Soviet Union, while today Putin continues to support the fundamentalist Iranian regime as he seeks control in the Middle East reuters.com/world/putin-vi…
Ayatollah Khomeini, architect of the 1979 fundamentalist Islamic Revolution in Iran, certainly played a part in the 1981 assassination of Anwar Sadat, Egypt’s president and peace maker with Israel arabnews.com/node/1826191/m…
‘Iran’s constitution even says the task of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is to spread the rule of God on earth and to build a unified global society based on the struggle to liberate the oppressed of the earth.'
The Iranian constitution continues that ‘the task of Iran’s foreign policy is to support “legitimate jihad.” ‘
These fundamentalist ideas distort more tolerant Islamic teachings but have taken hold within a number of violent groups ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/meria/zed0…
Many Nazi war criminals were also given refuge in Arab countries after WWII where they were allowed to influence radical fundamentalist groups through their work in government, military and propaganda roles …degruyter.com/document/doi/1
Previously unavailable archive material has now confirmed the true extent of Nazi collaboration with fundamentalist Arab Islamic organisations cambridge.org/core/journals/…
In summary, the Nazis supported & trained radical fundamentalist organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the Palestinian Arab nationalist movement, while the Soviet Union & KGB did the same for organisations such as Fatah, Islamic Jihad & Hezbollah
Sadly there are several other forms of ideological fundamentalism in the world that seek power through violence and oppression. The common thread is that they all attempt to remove legitimate questioning, discussion, difference of opinion, individuality and the right to choice.
Obviously the Middle East has also been of great importance to the British & The USA. After WWII, as Soviet Communism sought to gain influence in the Arab world, the British and Americans launched counter propaganda cambridge.org/core/journals/…
The MENA is obviously a geo-politically complex region, but the existence of violent fundamentalism anywhere is a concern for people everywhere.
The shifting tensions and allegiances relating to Sunni and Shia majority states in the Middle East only adds to the complexity of addressing this problem carnegieendowment.org/files/3-13_Bad…
And these pictures of Arafat and Nazi symbolism at a UNRWA school in Lebanon 1982 show the continued spread of extremist ideology 
While the modern far left continues to repeat Soviet anti-semitic ideology fathomjournal.org/soviet-anti-zi…
It is clear that ideologies from both the far right and far left have been employed in an attempt to destabilise & delegitimise the State of Israel tabletmag.com/sections/histo…
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