Was Netanyahu Spot-On with His Controversial Hitler Statement?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu recently made a controversial statement about the role of Haj Amin al-Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, in Hitler’s Holocaust of the Jews, beginning in 1939. 

Netayahu suggested that the idea of genocide against Europe’s Jews originated with al-Husseini, and not Hitler.

That was actually a misstatement, which Netanyahu quickly walked back. However, what got a little bit lost in the public outcry over his misstatement was the fact that al-Husseini was very involved with Hitler and with his “Final Solution,” the genocide of the Jews.

Al-Husseini and Hitler met many times during World War II, and al-Husseini even fled to Berlin in 1941, where he tried to persuade the Nazi leadership to extend their anti-Jewish campaign to the Arab world.

“Peoples had to make a choice in World War II. The Jews went with the free world. The Palestinian Arabs went with Hitler,” Seth Lipsky wrote in a New York Post editorial.

“Surely that is the prime minister’s intended point,” he continued. “No doubt he seeks awareness of the fact that Israel is still being attacked by the heirs to a devil’s pact between the Mufti and the Führer.”

Lipsky cites a New York Times editorial that calls Netanyahu’s comments outrageous.

“The only apparent purpose is to demonize the Palestinians and the current leader of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, and to give the impression that their resistance is based solely on a longstanding hatred of the Jews, and not on their occupation by Israel or any other grievance,” the Times editorial stated.

But Lipsky said the Mufti and other Arab leaders hated the Jews before Israel and they would hate the Jews even if Israel went away tomorrow.

“The Left must shout down and discredit Netanyahu because he’s highlighting the uncomfortable truth that, with respect to the Jews, the Arab ideology is the same as the Nazi one. And how can anyone defend that?” Lipsky asked.

Meanwhile, the upside of Netanyahu’s gaffe is that people are now taking to the Internet doing searches on the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem to find out who he was. Despite the fact that al-Husseini has been gone for decades, his legacy can be clearly seen in the Middle East today.

The current “Knife Intifada,” where Palestinians are holding their “days of rage” and terrorizing and killing Jews on the streets, has its roots in the hatred of Jews that dates back to the Mufti and the first half of the 20th century.