Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has courted controversy by claiming that the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al-Husseini persuaded Adolf Hitler to exterminate Europe's Jews. Speaking to the Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said, "Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they’ll all come here (to Palestine).'"
Netanyahu continued, "Hitler then asked, 'What should I do with them?' and the mufti replied, 'Burn them.'"
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog wrote on his Facebook page, "This is a dangerous historical distortion and I demand Netanyahu correct it immediately as it minimizes the Holocaust, Nazism and Adolf Hitler’s role in our people’s terrible disaster. A historian’s son must be accurate about history. Netanyahu has forgotten that he’s not only the prime minister of Israel but the prime minister of the Jewish people’s government.”
Herzog added, "You don't have to teach me how the mufti hated Israel. The grand mufti gave the order to kill my grandfather, Rabbi Herzog, and actively supported Hitler. But Hitler alone was the one who wrote Mein Kampf and implemented the final solution."
Holocaust victims, historians and Palestinians were enraged by Netanyahu's comments.
Yad Vashem chief historian Prof Dina Porat told "Y-Net", “You cannot say that it was the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to kill or burn Jews. It’s not true. Their meeting occurred after a series of events that point to this.”
Other historians stressed that Netanyahu's comments are not only historically inaccurate but also play into the hands of Holocaust deniers.
PLO Secretary General Saeb Erekat told "Newsweek," "Netanyahu hates Palestinians so much that he is willing to absolve Hitler of the murder of six million Jews."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on October 21, 2015
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