Palestinians are already stabbing Israelis.
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“It is … absurd to ignore the role played by the Mufti, Haj Amin al -Husseini, a war criminal, for encouraging and urging Hitler, [Joachim von] Ribbentropp, [Heinrich] Himmler and others, to exterminate European Jewry”, Netanyahu said Wednesday. He replied: “Burn them”.
The problem with Prime Minister Netanyahu’s statement, as several Israeli historians and politicians have pointed out, is that there is no documented evidence that such a conversation between the Mufti of Jerusalem and Hitler ever took place. The Nazis released a grainy propaganda video showing the mufti making a Nazi salute before a warm handshake. The Mufti met with Hitler in November 1941, and the Wannsee Conference, where the “final solution” was officially decided on, was two months later.
Recent revelations have documented that the German government had specific plans, formulated in 1942, to build death camps, modeled after Auschwitz, in Tel Aviv and Jaffa in what they hoped to be “liberated Palestine”.
Netanyahu added that “the attempt by certain scholars and people to be apologists for the key and important role of Haj Amin al-Husseini is clear”. “It cheapens the Holocaust”.
The Israeli leader also claimed that the al-Husseini was sought during the Nuremberg trials but managed to evade them. But his accusations against al-Husseini stood. Records show that at the meeting, Hitler turned down a request to form a formal treaty.
“I had no intention of exonerating Hitler from his diabolical responsibility for the extermination of European Jews”, he said.
Schwanitz acknowledges that even if al-Husseini had not existed, “the Nazis would have done what they did anyway” and “perhaps would have relied on another person like the Mufti”-but they didn’t need to”.
According to historians such as Porat and the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s Dr. Efraim Zuroff, allegations such as those made by Netanyahu serve to obscure the actual role that the mufti played in the Holocaust and give ammunition to those who would whitewash his legacy.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressing the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem on Tuesday. Netanyahu tried to calm the uproar and clarify himself prior to his departure.
“The Palestinian incitement to kill Jews, which began with [Haj Amin al-Husseini], continues today… We know of the inherent German responsibility in these crimes against humanity”.
Merkel spokesman Seibert says there is a good reason the Holocaust is taught in German schools: “it must never be forgotten”.
Netanyahu’s speech knocked down lies that have been used by many, including Secretary of State John Kerry, to “explain” or excuse terror attacks on Israel.
Netanyahu has come under criticism at home and overseas before for invoking the Holocaust in connection with Israel’s present-day enemies, including Iran.
Opposition leader Isaac Herzog called Netanyahu’s remarks as “dangerous distortion of history” on his Facebook page.
It is outrageous because the Holocaust is far too bad a crime to be exploited for political ends, especially in the state linked so closely to the tragedy of the Jewish people.
“To what depths will this man stoop?”
Husseini, who died in 1974, was a Palestinian nationalist leader who led violent campaigns against Jews and the British authorities in what was then British Mandate Palestine in the 1920s and 1930s.
The Palestinians are now accusing Netanyahu of “incitement”.
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Saeb Erekat, secretary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said Wednesday that Netanyahu’s “regrettable statements have deepened the divide” and denounced them as “morally indefensible and inflammatory”.
