Palestinian leader convinced Hitler to exterminate Jews: Israeli PM

Netanyahu says Hitler only wanted to expel Jews from Nazi Germany, not to exterminate them

In a controversial speech, Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu blamed the extermination of millions of Jewish people during World War II on the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al Husseini.

"Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jew. And Haj Amin al Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here (to Palestine),” Netanyahu alleged while speaking at the 37th World Zionist Congress this week.



According to Netanyahu, Hitler who met the Grand Mufti in November 1941, asked, “What should I do with them?" and the Mufti replied, "Burn them."

This isn’t the first time the Israeli PM has made such claims. In 2012, during a Knesset speech, he descrised Husseini, who died in 1974, as "one of the leading architects" of the final solution, Haaretz reported. Although many others have spoken about Husseini's influence on Hitler, yet the theory that he was the one to initiate the mass murder of European Jews has been widely rejected.



Netanyahu also described attacks on the Jewish community in Jerusalem in 1920, 1921 and 1929 as being "instigated by a call of the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al Husseini, who was later sought for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials because he had a central role in fomenting the final solution".

However, Netanyahu’s comments have been rejected by writers as well as social media users as ‘bizarre kind of Holocaust revisionism’.

Novelist Linda Grant accused Netanyahu of being "toxic" and of effectively "exonerating Hitler".

Netanyahu has said something so profoundly toxic he might have brought the whole Jewish world down on his head. He's exonerated Hitler.

— Linda Grant (@lindasgrant) October 21, 2015

Netanyahu was willing to whitewash Hitler to smear Palestinians. Just let that sink in to understand how low he has sunk.

— Yousef Munayyer (@YousefMunayyer) October 21, 2015

How long till Netanyahu has to apologise? Claim he 'misspoke' re Hitler and the Holocaust? Surely that comment can't be allowed to stand?

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 20, 2015

https://twitter.com/stopbeingfamous/status/656669320848801793



This article originally appeared on Independent