Israeli prime minister faces barrage of criticism after blaming Palestinians

The comments arose during weeks of spiraling violence in which Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have repeatedly accused Palestinian leaders, including President Mahmoud Abbas, of lying, principally about Israel’s actions at a holy site in the Old City.

The Palestinian leader and former peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said, as quoted in the Washington Post: “Netanyahu hates Palestinians so much that he is willing to absolve Hitler of the murder of 6 million Jews”.

“Hitler started exterminating Jews before the meeting with the Jerusalem Mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, which took place November 1941”.

“He told the Nazis to prevent the fleeing of Jews from Europe and he supported the final solution”, insisted Netanyahu.

The argument concerning Husseini’s role was also mentioned in a book by Barry Rubin and Wolfgang G Schwanitz, “Nazis, Islamists, and the Making of the Modern Middle East”.

The real history as it relates to the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. “I had no intention to absolve Hitler of responsibility for his diabolical destruction of European Jewry”.

He cited as evidence the testimony of “Eichmann’s deputy”, by which sources say he means testimony allegedly made at Nuremburg by SS officer Dieter Wisliceny, often described as Adolf Eichmann’s deputy.

Netanyahu traveled to Berlin on Wednesday for meetings with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. He said, “Burn them”.

The hilltop compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, housing the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the gold-topped Dome of the Rock, lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and competing claims over it are the source of the current round of violence. While the German side responded harshly stating this this story is taught to children in school, and Netanyahu shouldn’t try to change it according to his views.

Even Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon, a senior member of Mr. Netanyahu’s Likud Party, said on Israel Radio that “history is actually very, very clear”.

Mr Netanyahu, whose father was an eminent historian, was quickly criticised by opposition politicians and experts on the Holocaust who said he was distorting the historical record.

Gavriel Rosenfeld, author of “Hi Hitler: How the Nazi Past Is being Normalized in Contemporary Culture” and professor of history at Fairfield University, says we lose historical truth-and perspective on our present-in these misdirected comparisons.

The Times of Israel leads with Germany’s insistence that it was responsible for the Holocaust and continues by saying Mr Netanyahu has been “roundly denounced”. “At the same time, it is absurd to ignore the role the mufti played”.

“We stand by German responsibility for the Holocaust”, she told reporters.

“The Mufti was a criminal accomplice of [SS head Heinrich] Himmler and [Holocaust organizer Adolf] Eichmann in carrying out the Holocaust”, the Israeli leader said.

The Israeli leader made his Holocaust claim while arguing that Palestinians have a long history of inciting Jews.