Key figures in Israel and the Palestinian territories on Wednesday criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for saying in a speech that Adolf Hitler “didn’t want to exterminate the Jews” but was urged to do so by Haj Amin al-Husseini, a former grand mufti of Jerusalem.
Palestinian Liberation Organization Secretary General Saeb Erakat strongly refuted this claim, pointing to Palestinians who fought with the Allies during World War II in stating “Palestinian efforts against the Nazi regime are a deep-rooted part of our history.”
And Isaac Herzog, the Knesset opposition leader and head of the opposition Zionist Union party, called the comments “a dangerous distortion of history (that) trivializes the Holocaust, trivializes the Nazis and the share of the terrible dictator Adolf Hitler ‘s terrible tragedy of our people during the Holocaust.”
During a speech Tuesday at the 37th Zionist Congress, Netanyahu said, “Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. 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,” Netanyahu said of Hitler. “(Husseini) said, ‘Burn them.’ ”