Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday accused Muslims of instigating the extermination of six million Jews by German leader Adolf Hitler. Speaking to the Zionist Congress, Netanyahu specifically blamed former Muslim elder in Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, for the Holocaust.
“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews,” Netanyahu said in the speech. “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?'” Netanyahu said Hitler asked the mufti, who responded: “Burn them, Netanyahu stated. The Isreali prime minister referred to a series of attacks by Muslims against Jews in Palestine during the 1920s that he said were instigated by the then Mufti of Jerusalem. But, Netanyahu’s speech has sparked a furry in many, especially opposition politicians who accuse him of distorting the history of the Holocaust. “It is a sad day in history when the leader of the Israeli government hates his neighbor so much that he is willing to absolve the most notorious war criminal in history, Adolf Hitler, of the murder of six million Jews,” Saeb Erekat, the Palestine Liberation Organisation’s secretary general, said.
“Mr Netanyahu should stop using this human tragedy to score points for his political end,” said Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator with the Israelis.
