Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is getting roundly criticized for allegations he made Tuesday that it was the Palestinian mufti who convinced Adolf Hitler to exterminate Jews.
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“Netanyahu’s comments trivialise Hitler; he didn’t need an Arab from the Middle East to tell him what to do”.
Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly claimed that the recent wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis is the result of decades of incitement by Palestinian leaders, and not connected to Israel’s 48-year occupation of the West Bank, or the Jewish settlements that have been built within it – both of which are regarded as illegal by the worldwide community.
“Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: Burn them”. “And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they will all come here”.
The poll also asked respondents if they felt that Netanyahu’s claim diminished Hitler’s responsibility for the Holocaust – 37% accepted the claim and 53% rejected it. The sample size and margins of error for the poll were not publicized. “He [Husseini] said, “Burn them”.
Netanyahu, in a statement issued by his office, did not name the aide, but he seemed to be referring to Eichmann assistant Dieter Wisliceny, who has been quoted in news reports dating back to the late 1940s as having told the war crimes court that Husseini repeatedly suggested the extermination of European Jews to Nazi leaders.
Germany, meanwhile, stressed its “inherent responsibility” in the Holocaust.
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One of these historians questioning Netanyahu’s interpretation of history is Professor Dan Michman, a world-renowned expert who serves on the head of the Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar-Ilan University and Head of the worldwide Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem.
With his remarks about Hitler, Der Spiegel says, Netanyahu echoed a few of the sentiments of historical revisionists and Holocaust deniers who have said Hitler’s main intention had been to expel Jews from Germany.
Holocaust scholars have not confirmed al-Husseini’s role in Hitler’s motivation to exterminate Europe’s Jewish population rather than expel them.
“This is taught in German schools for good reason”, Seibert continued.
In the 1920s and 30s, Haj Amin al-Husseini was the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, a Palestinian religious leader.
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On top of that, the controversy erupted just before Netanyahu left for a visit to Germany to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Secretary of State John Kerry. Hundreds of thousands of Jews had already been massacred by the Nazis and other fascist collaborators by the time the two met on November 28, 1941; a systematic mass-murder operation began at Chelmno in Poland on December 8, while a systematic “euthanasia” program (not specifically targeted towards Jews, but whose methods were later applied to death camps) had been operating since 1939.
