Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the ex-mufti of Jerusalem, was in exile and his image permanently tainted in the West. The ex-mufti had taken up with the Nazis in Berlin, where he tried to mobilize Arab support for the Axis. To many Arabs in Palestine, the ex-mufti was still a nationalist hero fighting against the British and the Zionists, and they looked to him to deliver an independent state across the whole of Palestine and to defend them in the event of war. These would be extremely difficult tasks to perform, especially from exile.
