As if things in Palestine are not bad enough, with summary executions by trigger happy Israeli security forces of Palestinians suspected of violence against Israeli Jews and even of a migrant worker whose identity was mistaken for Palestinian, and with Israelis fearful of acts of violence to which, I believe, Palestinians are fully entitled in resisting occupation and siege – Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has on October 20 managed to further fan the flames.
Not known to mince his words, Netanyahu distorted historical facts when he claimed in a speech to Jewish leaders last week that it was not the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler who was responsible for the extermination of six million Jewish Europeans. Rather, Netanyahu insisted, it was actually the Palestinian religious Mufti Haj Amin Al-Husseini who should be charged with the responsibility for the Final Solution. Netanyahu’s speech presented a simplified version of events, arguing that Hitler merely wanted to expel the Jews, not annihilate them. By contrast to this benevolent portrayal, Al-Husseini, who was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, and having instigated attacks on Zionist settler colonials in Palestine, suggested to Hitler to ‘burn the Jews’ rather than expel them. Continue reading “Holocaust denial and Israel’s ongoing war against the Palestinians”