Uproar over Benjamin Netanyahu’s Nazi remarks

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has sparked uproar after suggesting a Second World War-era Palestinian leader convinced the Nazis to adopt the “final solution” to exterminate European Jews.

Holocaust experts have criticised Mr Netanyahu’s comments as inaccurate and as serving the interests of Holocaust deniers by lessening the responsibility of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.

Critics said the statement was an incitement against Palestinians, amidst a wave of violent unrest and Israeli-Palestinian tensions.

Speaking to Jewish leaders on Tuesday, Mr Netanyahu used an historical anecdote to illustrate his point that Palestinian incitement regarding Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site goes back decades.

He said the Second World War-era Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Nazi sympathiser, Haj Amin al-Husseini, instigated Palestinian attacks on Jewish people with lies that they planned to destroy the Temple Mount, known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.

The hilltop compound in Jerusalem’s Old City, housing the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the gold-topped Dome of the Rock, lies at the heart of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Competing claims over it are the source of the current violence. It is the third-holiest site in Islam and the holiest site in Judaism, where the two Jewish biblical temples once stood. Mr Netanyahu said al-Husseini played a “central role in fomenting the final solution” by trying to convince Hitler, during a 1941 meeting in Berlin, to destroy the Jewish people.

“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time. He wanted to expel the Jews,” Mr Netanyahu told the group.

“And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’ ‘So what should I do with them?’ he asked. He said, ‘Burn them’.”

Historians say the Nazi “final solution” was well under way by 1941, with several concentration camps up and running. Hitler had previously, repeatedly declared his lethal intentions.

Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu made some egregious remarks about the Holocaust, and Germany isn't having it https://t.co/QqhuwNNU03

— Mic (@mic) October 21, 2015

Moshe Zimmermann, a prominent Holocaust and anti-Semitism researcher at the Hebrew University, in Jerusalem, said Mr Netanyahu made a “far-reaching argument” for political purposes that did not hold water. He said the comments made Mr Netanyahu a Holocaust denier.

“Any attempt to deflect the burden from Hitler to others is a form of Holocaust denial,” he told The Associated Press. Al-Husseini was an enthusiastic Nazi supporter.

But Mr Zimmermann called him a “lightweight”, who was pleading with Hitler for assistance in getting rid of the British Mandate and Jewish immigrants to the Holy Land. He said there was no evidence al-Husseini had any influence on Hitler.

Mr Netanyahu has been criticised for invoking the Holocaust when talking about current affairs, especially alluding to it when discussing Iran.