Netanyahu blames Palestinians for the Holocaust
The photos illustrate what Netanyahu claims a little-known Palestinian cleric and nationalist brought about.
Jews from the Lublin ghetto line up for ‘resettlement’.
Abbas slams Netanyahu Holocaust comments as UN urges calm
By Ma’an news
October 21, 2015
RAMALLAH — President Mahmoud Abbas on Wednesday condemned comments by the Israeli Prime Minister which blamed the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem for actions taken by Nazi Germany under leader Adolf Hitler, calling the speech an attempt to “evade Palestinian rights.”
During a joint press conference with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki moon, Abbas urged the Jewish people to “respond to Netanyahu’s lies about Nazism and the Holocaust.”
The Israeli PM had earlier said that Haj Amin al-Husseini, who famously met with Hitler in 1941, played a central role in “fomenting the final solution,” referring to the genocide of European Jewry.
President Abbas also spoke about the current upsurge in violence, stressing that Palestine needs a “system of international protection” against the ongoing occupation, settler violence and “collective punishment,” such as home demolitions.
He warned that the “ongoing violations by the occupation of the holy Muslim and Christian places in East Jerusalem, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque, will open the doors to a bitter religious conflict.”
Abbas said he appreciated the efforts of the UN in trying to keep peace and order in “our region, and in the whole world,” and asked for those efforts to be escalated.
He affirmed that the Palestinian people view the UN as the main body that supervises the implementation of international law, which he said “will enable us to end the Israeli occupation and [Israeli] settlement of Palestinian land.”
“Hopefully Palestine will soon become a full member of the UN,” he added.
Ban Ki moon called for both sides to “choose peace,” saying the most urgent challenge was to stop the current violence and avoid further loss of life.
The UN chief said that a political solution, including the end to Israel’s occupation, is the only way to end the violence.
Jews on the selection ramp at Auschwitz
Netanyahu causes uproar by blaming Palestinians for Holocaust
Israeli prime minister under fire for suggesting that a World War II-era Palestinian leader convinced the Nazis to adopt their Final Solution to exterminate European Jews
By AP
October 21, 2015
Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, was accused of inciting violence against Palestinians and “trivialising” the Holocaust after he claimed it was the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem who convinced Hitler to exterminate the Jews.
Speaking at the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Mr Netanyahu said Haj Amin al-Husseini, who served as the grand mufti from 1921 to 1948, “had a central role in fomenting the final solution” by telling Hitler to kill the Jews.
“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews,” Mr Netanyahu said, speaking of a 1941 meeting between Husseini and Hitler in Germany.
“And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler [L} and said, ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here.’
‘So what should I do with them?’ he asked. He said, ‘Burn them.'”
The comments, which come amid a deepening outbreak of violence in Israel and the West Bank, drew an immediate backlash from both Palestinian and Israeli Arab leaders and Israeli Holocaust experts.
The comments, which come amid a deepening outbreak of violence in Israel and the West Bank, drew an immediate backlash from both Palestinian and Israeli Arab leaders and Israeli Holocaust experts.
Ayman Odeh, the leader of the Arab Joint List faction in the Knesset, accused Mr Netanyahu of “rewriting history in order to incite against the Palestinian people”.
He denounced Mr Netanyahu as “dangerous” for both Israelis and Palestinians, adding: “The victims of the Nazi monster, among them millions of Jews, have become cheap propaganda in the service of peace rejectionism.”
Saeb Erekat, the secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, said the Israeli prime minister was absolving “the most notorious war criminal in history”.
Israeli historians said the claims were erroneous and tantamount to Holocaust denial.
Moshe Zimmermann, a prominent Holocaust and anti-Semitism researcher at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, said the Israeli leader made a “far-reaching argument” that did not hold up.
Germans and Lithuanians watch the synagogue they have set light to, 9 July 1941, burn to the ground. Photo from Federal Archives, Bild 183-L19427 / customs / CC-BY-SA 3.0
“Any attempt to deflect the burden from Hitler to others is a form of Holocaust denial,” he told The Associated Press. “It cheapens the Holocaust.”
Others said that while the grand mufti was indeed a well-known and enthusiastic Nazi supporter, he had no real influence on Hitler, and noted that by the time of the 1941 meeting, Hitler’s mass killing of Jews was well underway.
“This is a dangerous distortion of history, and I demand that Netanyahu correct this immediately since he is trivialising the Holocaust,” Isaac Herzog, the leader of Israel’s opposition, wrote on Facebook.
Berlin also weighed in on the row, saying the responsibility for the holocaust lay with Germany.
“All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilisation that was the Holocaust,” Steffen Seibert, chancellor Angela Merkel’s spokesman, said on Wednesday.
“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.”
“My intention was not to absolve Hitler of his responsibility,” said Mr Netanyahu, “but rather to show that the forefathers of the Palestinian nation, without a country and without the so-called ‘occupation’, without land and without settlements, even then aspired to systematic incitement to exterminate the Jews.”
The controversy unfolded as Mr Netanyahu boarded the plane for a state visit to Germany and for a meeting with John Kerry, US secretary of state, to discuss the mounting violence.
Early on Wednesday morning, a Palestinian teenager was shot and injured by Israeli security forces as she was approaching the settlement of Yitzar carrying a knife and refused to stop even after warning shots were fired in the air, the Israeli Defence Forces said.
The hardline settlement is notorious for the so-called ‘price tag’ attacks on Arab communities, and its residents have been repeatedly involved in violent confrontations with the Palestinians in recent weeks.
A few hours later, a policeman was lightly wounded when a driver refused to stop and rammed his car into a checkpoint near the West Bank settlement of Ofra. The driver fled the scene.
The incident was followed by a stabbing attack near the Hizme checkpoint, just outside Jerusalem. A 19-year-old soldier was left severely wounded after she was attacked. The perpetrator was shot dead on the spot and an accomplice arrested, the police said.
A rocket fired from Gaza landed in southern Israel but no injuries or damage were reported on Wednesday evening while at least four people were wounded, one seriously, after a driver crashed his car into a crowd of people.
Initial reports suggested it was another car ramming attack, which took place near Beit Ummar, West Bank. The perpetrator was subsequently shot and injured, police said.
Notes and links
The ‘Grand Mufti’ is a creation of the Ottoman empire as a means of bringing the Muslim population into order. There are now several Grand Muftis, Muslim religious scholars who issue influential legal opinions (fatwas) interpreting Sharia law). The Ottoman Empire began the practice of giving official recognition and status to a single mufti, above all others, as the Grand Mufti.…This practice was subsequently borrowed and adapted by Egypt from the mid-19th century. From there, the concept spread to other Muslim states, so that today there are approximately 16 countries with sizeable Muslim populations which have a Grand Mufti. from Wikipedia