THE MIDDLE EAST: L 'Affaire Mufti

When a news sensation lasts longer than one day, the Paris press calls it an affaire. By last week the disappearance from France of Haj Amin El-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, was firmly established as I'affaire Mufti. The man himself was a character straight out of a cloak-&-dagger novel.

The 53-year-old Mufti (whose claim to the aristocratic "El-Husseini" is dubious) is revered as a spiritual leader by Palestine's Arabs. He has been a fanatical anti-Zionist ever since the British appointed him as Mufti in 1921. In 1937, after a murder, he was wafted...

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