MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Palestinian authority, Jewish historians and the opposition all joined together on Wednesday to lash out at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his claim that the Nazis only started killing Jews after a Palestinian cleric urged them to.
Speaking at Tuesday’s World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said Adolf Hitler initially wanted to send Jews away, but opted for a final solution after a meeting with Palestinian Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin Husseini, in 1941.
"Mr. Netanyahu blamed the Palestinians for the Holocaust and completely absolved Adolf Hitler’s heinous and reprehensible genocide of the Jewish people," he wrote, warning the premier that his "regrettable statements" deepened the divide between the nations at a time when a peace was needed the most.
Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzod said on his Facebook page that Netanyahu’s claims were a "dangerous historic distortion" that apportioned the blame for Holocaust to Palestinians and played into the hands of Holocaust deniers.
Israel’s national newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth cited Prof. Dan Michman, head of Bar-Ilan University’s Institute of Holocaust Research and head of the International Institute for Holocaust Research at Yad Vashem, who said Husseini indeed met with Hitler – but it was after the Jewish massacre had begun.
A new wave of Israeli-Palestinian violence swept Jerusalem in the past weeks, in which dozens have been killed and injured.
