Even Germany was shocked when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared on Tuesday that the Holocaust, the mass slaughter of 6 million Jews during World War II, was instigated not by German Führer Adolf Hitler but by a Palestinian religious leader named Haj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem at that time who was a known Nazi sympathiser.
Through her spokesman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a statement on Wednesday denying the Israeli prime minister's claim, according to The Atlantic.
Steffen Seibert, the German government spokesman, said there is no denying German culpability for the Holocaust, and that Hitler and his Nazi allies alone were to blame for the massacre of the Jews.
"All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilisation that was the Holocaust. This is taught in German schools for good reason, it must never be forgotten. And I see no reason to change our view of history in any way. We know that responsibility for this crime against humanity is German and very much our own," Seibert said.
However, Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic stated that Netanyahu was right when he described Haj Amin al-Husseini as an important ally of Hitler and a vicious anti-Semite.
Netanyahu earlier made the astounding assertion during a conference of global Jewish activists before he proceeded to Berlin to meet with Merkel and other German leaders..
In his speech, the Israeli leader claimed that in 1941, Al-Husseini travelled to Berlin to meet Hitler, various news sources said.
"Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews," Netanyahu said.
"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 [Hitler] asked. He [Al-Husseini] said, 'Burn them'," said Netanyahu, who was trying to make a historical link to the current upsurge in Palestinian attacks.
But Netanyahu's attempt to demonise the Palestinians appeared to have backfired as his assertion was quickly denounced by his own countrymen, not to mention the Palestinians. Israeli politicians and historians accused their own prime minister of exaggerating the mufti's role in the Holocaust and trying to rewrite history, according to News Max.
"It's ludicrous, this claim," Yehuda Bauer, a professor emeritus of Holocaust studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told Army Radio. "Netanyahu's comments trivialise Hitler; he didn't need an Arab from the Middle East to tell him what to do."
For his part, Isaac Herzog, leader of Israel's opposition Zionist Union party, said Netanyahu's words "fall like ripe fruit into the hands of Holocaust-deniers and inject them into the conflict with the Palestinians."
Palestinian politicians blasted Netanyahu for trying to soften Hitler's image as an evil dictator. "It is a sad day in history when the leader of the Israeli government hates his neighbour so much he is willing to absolve the most notorious war criminal in history, Adolf Hitler," said Saeb Erekat, a senior Palestinian official and long-time negotiator in peace talks with Israel.
