Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was accused of inciting violence against Palestinians and “trivialising” the Holocaust after he claimed it was the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem who convinced Hitler to exterminate the Jews.
Speaking at the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Mr Netanyahu said Haj Amin al-Husseini, who served as the grand mufti from 1921 to 1948, “had a central role in fomenting the final solution” by telling Hitler to kill the Jews.
“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews,” Mr Netanyahu said, speaking of a 1941 meeting between Husseini and Hitler in Germany. “And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’
‘So what should I do with them?’ he asked. He said, ‘Burn them.'”
The comments, which come amid a deepening outbreak of violence in Israel and the West Bank, drew an immediate backlash from both Palestinian and Israeli Arab leaders and Israeli Holocaust experts.
Ayman Odeh, the leader of the Arab Joint List faction in the Knesset, accused Mr Netanyahu of “rewriting history in order to incite against the Palestinian people”.
He denounced Mr Netanyahu as “dangerous” for both Israelis and Palestinians, adding: “The victims of the Nazi monster, among them millions of Jews, have become cheap propaganda in the service of peace rejectionism.”
Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, said the Israeli prime minister was absolving “the most notorious war criminal in history”.
Israeli historians said the claims were erroneous and tantamount to Holocaust denial.
Moshe Zimmermann, a prominent Holocaust and anti-Semitism researcher at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said the Israeli leader made a “far-reaching argument” that did not hold up.
“Any attempt to deflect the burden from Hitler to others is a form of Holocaust denial,” he told The Associated Press. “It cheapens the Holocaust.”
Others said that while the grand mufti was indeed a well-known and enthusiastic Nazi supporter, he had no real influence on Hitler, and noted that by the time of the 1941 meeting, Hitler’s mass killing of Jews was well underway.
“This is a dangerous distortion of history, and I demand that Netanyahu correct this immediately since he is trivialising the Holocaust,” Isaac Herzog, the leader of Israel’s opposition, wrote on Facebook.
Berlin also weighed in on the row, saying the responsibility for the holocaust laid with Germany.
“All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilisation that was the Holocaust,” Steffen Seibert, chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, said on Wednesday.
“And I see no reason to change our view of history in any way. We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own.”
“My intention was not to absolve Hitler of his responsibility,” said Mr Netanyahu, “but rather to show that the forefathers of the Palestinian nation, without a country and without the so-called ‘occupation’, without land and without settlements, even then aspired to systematic incitement to exterminate the Jews.”
The controversy unfolded as Mr Netanyahu boarded the plane for a state visit to Germany and for a meeting with John Kerry, US secretary of state, to discuss the mounting violence.
Early on Wednesday morning, a Palestinian teenager was shot and injured by Israeli security forces as she was approaching the settlement of Yitzar carrying a knife and refused to stop even after warning shots were fired in the air, the Israeli Defence Forces said.
The hardline settlement is notorious for the so-called ‘price tag’ attacks on Arab communities, and its residents have been repeatedly involved in violent confrontations with the Palestinians in recent weeks.
OK Nutinhoney…It’s time for the clown suit…
Is there no end to these psychopaths?
He’ll say anything, but what inspires his crazy lies is the gullibility of the public.
He says crazy things because he thinks everyone’s dumb enough to believe him, and he’s probably been right most of the time.
Remember his cartoon bomb drawing at the UN? He’s used to addressing idiots.
Believe it or not, Nutty Yahoo did NOT make this one up….some uber Zionist New Yorker with the website “Emperor’s Clothes” by the name of Jared Israel actually posted many years ago “proof” that this Grand Mufti of Jerusalem really did convince Hitler to “holocaust” the Jews in 1941–after, of course, Hitler had already started the Kristallnacht biz and other stuff…and this doofus actually claimed way before Benny boy that the Palestinians actually did cause whatever holocaust one thinks happened to the Jews.
He also posted 9-11 truth stuff, but even a broken clock is right twice a day…
Is there no end to this Holohoax crap? Is that all they got to work with? What’s next? John Kerry telling us that Global Warming Skeptics are going to create another Holohoax for Bennie and company? Give it a rest already! I’m so sick of the Holohoax propaganda and I’m also sick of Zionist Spielberg coming out and incorporating Nazi and Holohoax propaganda with EVERY single show or movie that he puts his name to. Most people try to challenge themselves and take risks in doing other genres or platforms, but this stooge just never gives it a rest. He’s obsessed. He practically owns Hollywood and the Zionist scumbags love him for it.