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Israeli’s Netanyahu claims Palestinians incited holocaust

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (AFP)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is under fire from all sides for claiming Palestine’s grand mufti during WWII convinced Adolf Hitler to start the holocaust.

Netanyahu claimed that Hitler’s campaign to exterminate the Jews was incited during a meeting with Palestine’s grand mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini in Berlin in 1941.

"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,'” said Netanyahu during a meeting in al-Quds (Jerusalem) on Tuesday.

According to Bibi's version of the story, the then leader of Germany had asked al-Husseini what to do with the Jews, and the grand mufti had replied, “Burn them.”  

Bibi made the comments just hours before traveling to the German capital Berlin for a meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry.

The incendiary claims have sparked a storm of criticism and anger from around the world, including Germany, which has accepted direct responsibility for the WWII incident.

"All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust," said German Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert.

"This is taught in German schools for good reason, it must never be forgotten. And I see no reason to change our view of history in any way. We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own," he added.

Professor Dan Michman, the head of the Institute of Holocaust Research at Bar-Ilan University and head of the Yad Vashem International Institute for Holocaust, said that the mufti did meet with Hitler but it was well after his decision to start the holocaust.

“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,” said Yad Vashem’s chief historian, Professor Dina Porat.

Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog also condemned Netanyahu’s speech, saying that ringed of Holocaust denial.

Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that such remarks only seem to absolve Hitler. “It is a sad day in history when the leader of Israeli regime hates his neighbor so much so that he is willing to absolve the most notorious war criminal in history, Adolf Hitler, of the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust."


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