The Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, has attracted a storm of criticism for an incendiary speech in which he accused the second world war Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem of “inspiring the Holocaust”.
The comments in a speech to the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, in the context of the current violence between Israelis and Palestinians, were condemned as incorrect by historians and the Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog for trivialising the Holocaust.
On the Palestinian side, senior official Saeb Erekat described the remarks as absolving Adolf Hitler.
In his speech, Netanyahu purported to describe a meeting between Haj Amin al-Husseini and Hitler in November 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 [to Palestine].’” According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.” » | Peter Beaumont in Jerusalem | Wednesday, October 21, 2015
