Germany stresses Holocaust responsibility after Israel PM's claim

epaselect epa04987466 Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks during a prss conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (not picture) following their meeting in Berlin, Germany, 21 October 2015. The visit was overshadowed by Netanyahu's claims that a Palestinian religious leader gave Hitler the idea for the Holocaust. Netanyahu's comments claiming that the controversial Palestinian Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini had encouraged Hitler to embark on the Holocaust has already set off a storm of criticism in the Middle East. EPA/MICHAEL KAPPELERShow less

JERUSALEM // Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday backtracked on his claim that a Palestinian leader gave Hitler the idea to exterminate Jews after his comments sparked widespread controversy.

During a speech on Tuesday, the Israeli leader suggested Hitler was not planning to exterminate the Jews until he met Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin Al Husseini, a Palestinian nationalist, in 1941.

“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time. He wanted to expel the Jews,” Mr Netanyahu told the World Zionist Congress.

“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. He said: ‘Burn them.’”

The comments – which came after weeks of unrest in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories – were widely criticised, with Palestinian leaders and the Israeli opposition accusing him of distorting history, while historians called them inaccurate.

“It is a sad day in history when the leader of the Israeli government hates his neighbour so much that he is willing to absolve the most notorious war criminal in history, Adolf Hitler, of the murder of six million Jews during the Holocaust,” said Saeb Erekat, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said the comments showed “how history is distorted and used against us”.

The leader of the Israeli opposition, Isaac Herzog, said on his Facebook page that “even the son of a historian must be precise when it comes to history,” referring to the premier’s late father, Benzion, who specialised in Jewish history.

The chief historian at Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and research centre said Mr Netanyahu’s comments were inaccurate.

“Though he had very extreme anti-Jewish positions, it wasn’t the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to exterminate the Jews,” said Dina Porat.

“The idea far predates their meeting in November 1941. In a speech to the Reichstag on January 30, 1939, Hitler evoked ‘an extermination of the Jewish race’,” she said.

The controversy erupted just before Mr Netanyahu left for a visit to Germany to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and US Secretary of State John Kerry.

On Wednesday, Mr Netanyahu said accusations that his comments exonerated Hitler were “absurd” but stood by his claim that the Muslim leader who sympathised with the Nazis had an influence.

“I had no intention of exonerating Hitler from his diabolical responsibility for the extermination of European Jews,” he said shortly before boarding his flight to Germany.

“Hitler was responsible for the final solution of the extermination of six million. It was he who took the decision.”

“[But] it is equally absurd to ignore the role played by the mufti ... who encouraged Hitler, Ribbentrop, Himmler and others to exterminate European Jewry.”

The Israeli prime minister sought to tie his historical reference to current debates over the Al Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem, arguing that the mufti had also falsely claimed at the time that Jews were seeking to destroy it.

Germany, meanwhile, stressed its “inherent responsibility” in the Holocaust.

Asked to comment on Mr Netanyahu’s allegation, government spokesman Steffen Seibert said on Wednesday he would not speak directly on the claim.

But he added: “I can speak for the federal government, that we Germans recognise that the murderous racial fanaticism of the Nazis was the historical origin of ... the Shoah.

“I see no reason to change our view of history in any way. We know of the inherent German responsibility in these crimes against humanity,” he said.

* Agence France-Presse