Netanyahu says Jerusalem Mufti convinced Hitler to exterminate Jews

(ANSA) - Tel Aviv, October 21 - Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu sparked public uproar on Wednesday when he claimed that Adolf Hitler did not want to ''exterminate'' Jews but ''expel'' them while it was the Muftì of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al-Husseini who planted the idea of the 'final solution'.
    Netanyahu told the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem, that ''Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel them. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said 'if you expel them, they will come here'', to Palestine. The premier continued saying that Hitler then asked what he would ''do with them'' and the Muftì replied: ''Burn them''.
    The remarks have angered Palestinians.
    ''The State of Palestine denounces the statements (by Netanyahu on the Holocaust) as they are morally indefensible and incendiary'', said the secretary general of the PLO, Saeb Erekat. ''Palestinian efforts against the Nazi regime are deeply embedded in our history'', he stressed in a statement.
    ''Palestine will never forget, although it seems that Netanyahu's extremist government has''. ''In the name of thousands of Palestinians who fought together with allied troops in defense of international justice, the State of Palestine denounces these statements, which are morally indefensible and incendiary'', Erekat added.
    ''In the statements, the premier blamed the Palestinians for the Holocaust, completely absolving Adolf Hitler from the odious and unacceptable genocide of the Jewish people'', he continued.
    These words ''have the effect of further deepening divisions at a time when just and lasting peace is more necessary than ever''.
    Netanyahu's statements have also sparked strong reactions in Israel, where opposition leader Isaac Herzog called them a ''dangerous distortion'', urging Netanyahu to ''immediately correct them because they minimize the Holocaust and Hitler's responsibility in the terrible disaster for our people''. In a comment on Facebook, after talking about historical distortion, Herzog also said that as ''a historian's son, he should be accurate''. ''Netanyahu has forgotten that he isn't only the prime minister of Israel but the prime minister of the government of the Jewish people''.
    ''There is only one Hitler'', he concluded, after recalling how Muftì al-Husseini gave the order to kill his grandfather, Rabbi Herzog.
    ''Netanyahu's statement is totally groundless'', Efraim Zuroff, director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's office in Jerusalem, told ANSA. The fact that ''the Muftì pushed on the Nazis and wanted the invasion of Palestine is out of discussion, but Hitler didn't need to be convinced by anyone''.