Netanyahu’s Claim That A Palestinian Inspired The Holocaust Sparks Outrage

Germany has insisted it was responsible for the Holocaust, after Israel’s prime minister claimed a Palestinian leader told the Nazis to kill Europe’s Jews. Mr Netanyahu responded to the storm of criticism over his remarks… “Hitler initiated it, Haj Amin al-Husseini joined him and unfortunately the jihadist movements promote anti-Semitism to this day, including incitement in the Palestinian Authority that is based on the legacy of the Nazis”.

My goal was not to absolve Hitler from the responsibility that he bears, but rather to show that the father of the Palestinian nation at that time, without a state and without what they call “the occupation”, without Palestinian territories and without settlements, already aspired to destroy the Jews through systematic incitement.

“We stand behind our responsibility and I don’t see any need to change our relation to history”, said Ms. Merkel. Al-Husseini was a severe anti-Semite and supporter of Hitler, but that doesn’t mean he gave Hitler the idea for the Holocaust.

Dina Porat, a professor at Tel Aviv University and the chief historian of Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum, told Israel Radio on Wednesday, “The idea to rid the world of the Jews was a central theme in Hitler’s ideology a long, long time before he met the mufti”.

“This is a risky historical distortion and I demand Netanyahu correct it immediately as it minimises the Holocaust, Nazism and…”

When we are talking about six million victims and 50 million other victims of the Second World War, 60 million people who died during the Second World War, we should be very careful about whatever we say and whatever connections we make to the reality today.

Israeli journalist Harvey Stein said that opposition leaders had condemned Netanyahu but his comments would not have significant repercussions among his supporters.

Mr. Netanyahu, however, defended his claims just before boarding a flight to Berlin, citing accounts from Nazi memoirs that the Mufti had played an influential role. He put the blame on Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem at the time. The authors, like Netanyahu, draw a straight line between the mufti’s support of Hitler and the policy of the Palestinian Liberation Organization under Yasser Arafat.

Netanyahu had made a similar claim during a Knesset speech in 2012, where he described Husseini as one of the leading architects of the final solution. The destruction of the European Jews, Netanyahu suggested, came from a suggestion by the Arab nationalist Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was the Mufti of Jerusalem.

“That they have been made by the Prime Minister of Israel simply illustrates the rogue nature of the Israeli state”, she said.

Kerry, who will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Saturday in Jordan, has said he wants clarity about the status quo about the site, but officials say he doesn’t believe that needs to be in writing.

Though the worldwide community does not deny that al-Husseini played this role in Hitler’s final solution, German Chancellor Angela Merkel didn’t agree with Netanyahu’s comments, notes BBC News.