Binyamin Netanyahu has met US secretary of state John Kerry in Berlin amid a continuing storm of criticism over remarks by the Israeli prime minister claiming that the Palestinian grand mufti of Jerusalem had suggested the genocide of the Jews to Adolf Hitler.
Although Mr Netanyahu tried to row back on his remarks that Hitler had been persuaded to initiate the Holocaust by the second World War Palestinian leader – a claim made in a speech on Tuesday to the World Zionist Congress – historians and media commentators continued to weigh in, accusing him of everything from fabrication to helping the cause of Holocaust deniers.
The continuing row came as Mr Kerry and Mr Netanyahu called for an immediate end to incitement, blamed for a recent deadly wave of Palestinian attacks against Israelis, ahead of their meeting on Thursday.
In his speech on Tuesday, Mr Netanyahu described an alleged meeting between Haj Amin al-Husseini and Hitler in November 1941.
“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews,” he said. “And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here [to Palestine].’ ” According to Mr Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.”
In reality al-Husseini did not meet Hitler until November 28th, 1941, months after mass killings of Jews had begun.
Controversial timing
However, the focus has not only been on Mr Netanyahu’s presumed intellectual arrogance. He was criticised for his timing in making the remarks ahead of his visit to
Germany
to meet chancellor
Angela Merkel
, who herself publicly reiterated German responsibility for the Holocaust in a press conference .
For some columnists it was an opening to remind readers of Mr Netanyahu's habit of making explicit and controversial statements and then insisting he had not meant what he had said. Most damning of the commentators was Moshe Zimmerman, director of the Minerva centre for German history at Hebrew University. He accused Mr Netanyahu, in his "desire to slander the Palestinians", of having managed "to relatively whitewash Nazi Germany", while providing fuel for the far right and Holocaust deniers.
Mr Netanyahu, he said, “will have a very hard time fixing what he broke no matter how much he says that it was not his intent. His statement will be quoted again and again in all the extreme rightwing websites in Europe and America.”
Questions continued over where exactly Mr Netanyahu found the alleged quote. Asked by Haaretz whether Mr Netanyahu had fabricated the dialogue, Dina Porat, chief historian at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial centre, said: "He grew up in a home full of Jewish history. But what he said is not in the minutes of the meeting. That should be clear." – (Guardian service)