Adding fuel to the ever-present Israeli-Palestinian flame, Benjamin Netanyahu is now accusing a Palestinian of "inspiring the Holocaust." While speaking to the World Zionist Congress about Palestinians' alleged use of holy sites to commit violent acts against Jews, the Israeli PM said Hitler wanted to expel rather than exterminate the Jews in 1941. But the Palestinian grand mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini, "went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come (to Palestine),'" Netanyahu said, per the Guardian. He added when Hitler asked what he should do with them instead, the mufti said, "Burn them." Netanyahu has since been hit with a barrage from the West Bank and beyond. Historians slam his comments as inaccurate—one goes as far as to call him a Holocaust denier, per the New York Times—and Israel's opposition leader says they minimize the horrific event.
"It is a sad day in history when the leader of the Israeli government hates his neighbor so much so that he is willing to absolve the most notorious war criminal in history," a Palestinian peace negotiator adds. "I didn't mean to absolve Hitler of responsibility, but to show that the father of the Palestinian nation wanted to destroy Jews," Netanyahu later clarified. He "was a war criminal and encouraged Hitler to exterminate European Jewry." Though a few historians support his stance, most reject it, per the Guardian. Husseini was a supporter of Hitler and did meet with him, but only after the Final Solution began, says one. "You cannot say that it was the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to kill or burn Jews. It's not true," she says. Ten Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks over the last month, along with 46 Palestinians killed by Israeli fire. (More Benjamin Netanyahu stories.)
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