Netanyahu Reduced to Defending Hitler. Really ...
In a speech Tuesday, in an effort to make his case about Palestinian provocations and violence against Jews, the Israel Prime Minister actually found his way into defending Adolf Hitler.
. . . .
Here's the passage in question, from a transcript released by the Prime Minister's Office (emphasis added)...
This attack and other attacks on the Jewish community in 1920, 1921, 1929, were instigated by a call of the Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini, who was later sought for war crimes in the Nuremberg trials because he had a central role in fomenting the final solution.
He flew to Berlin.
Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews.
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."
Bibi may not have been right, and Marshal may be right in insisting, in effect, that Hitler never really considered mass expulsion, despite historical precedent, and favored genocide from the earliest days of his obsessive Jew hating.
But however that may be it is bizarre, offensive, and disappointing to find JM writing as if no one is allowed to believe or claim that there is something of which Hitler was not guilty, that some possible accusations against him would be false if actually made.
So far as I know, Hitler was not a pedophile, nor a serial rapist, nor a secret agent working to betray Germany for Stalin, for example.
But it is absurd to suppose he was born lusting to exterminate Jews.
And it is not absurd - though it may be false - to suppose he may have reached that extremity of Jew hating by degrees, first favoring expulsion in order to make Europe Judenrein, and only later settling on extermination.
No, not absurd.
But JM apparently finds it egregiously morally repulsive.
Interesting.
This writer in The Guardian reports Bibi, for these same remarks, has been accused of trivializing the Holocaust.
From the ludicrous to the ludicrous.
Defending his comments Netanyahu said: “I didn’t mean to absolve Hitler of responsibility, but to show that the father of the Palestinian nation wanted to destroy Jews even without occupation.”
But his remarks as quoted by Josh Marshall as well as Peter Beaumont indicate the Mufti advocated extermination in order to prevent occupation.
Here is the writer in The Guardian.
In his speech, Netanyahu purported to describe a meeting between Husseini and Hitler in November 1941.
“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here [to Palestine].’”
According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.”
Oh, well.
Perhaps someone will complain he was exonerating the Mufti!
But however that may be it is bizarre, offensive, and disappointing to find JM writing as if no one is allowed to believe or claim that there is something of which Hitler was not guilty, that some possible accusations against him would be false if actually made.
So far as I know, Hitler was not a pedophile, nor a serial rapist, nor a secret agent working to betray Germany for Stalin, for example.
But it is absurd to suppose he was born lusting to exterminate Jews.
And it is not absurd - though it may be false - to suppose he may have reached that extremity of Jew hating by degrees, first favoring expulsion in order to make Europe Judenrein, and only later settling on extermination.
No, not absurd.
But JM apparently finds it egregiously morally repulsive.
Interesting.
This writer in The Guardian reports Bibi, for these same remarks, has been accused of trivializing the Holocaust.
From the ludicrous to the ludicrous.
Defending his comments Netanyahu said: “I didn’t mean to absolve Hitler of responsibility, but to show that the father of the Palestinian nation wanted to destroy Jews even without occupation.”
But his remarks as quoted by Josh Marshall as well as Peter Beaumont indicate the Mufti advocated extermination in order to prevent occupation.
Here is the writer in The Guardian.
In his speech, Netanyahu purported to describe a meeting between Husseini and Hitler in November 1941.
“Hitler didn’t want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews. And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said: ‘If you expel them, they’ll all come here [to Palestine].’”
According to Netanyahu, Hitler then asked: “What should I do with them?” and the mufti replied: “Burn them.”
Oh, well.
Perhaps someone will complain he was exonerating the Mufti!
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