Israel's Netanyahu Admits Palestinian Didn't Cause Holocaust

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conceded on Friday that a 20^th Century Palestinian religious leader did not persuade Adolf Hitler to undertake the “systematic destruction” of Europe's Jewish population.

“The decision to move from a policy of deporting Jews to the Final Solution was made by the Nazis and was not dependent on outside influence,” Netanyahu admitted in a Facebook post. The Final Solution refers to Hitler's planned genocide of European Jews.

In a lengthy post in both Hebrew and English, Netanyahu claimed he never intended to “absolve” Nazi leaders, including Hitler, of responsibility for the holocaust.

“I did not mean to claim that in his conversation with Hitler in November 1941 the Mufti convinced him to adopt the Final Solution. The Nazis decided on that by themselves,” he said.

The statement contradicted previous claims from Netanyahu, made on Oct. 20 at the 37^th Zionist Congress, where the Israeli leader appeared to blame Jerusalem's former late grand mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini for the Jewish Holocaust.

"Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews," Netanyahu told the congress, according to an official transcript.

"And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here.'”

Netanyahu continued by stating, “'So what should I do with them?' (Hitler) asked. (Husseini) said, 'Burn them.'"

Netanyahu's original claims have been largely dismissed by historians as inaccurate, and were ridiculed in both the German and Israeli media.

Der Spiegel said in a report that several months before Hitler met with al-Husseini in 1941, the German army had already killed tens of thousands of Jews in Lithuania and Ukraine. The newspaper also cited two Israeli history professors who disagree with Netanyahu, including Meir Litvak, who said Hitler was already planning a genocide as early as 1939.

With his remarks about Hitler, Netanyahu ironically echoed some Holocaust deniers who have said Hitler's main intention had been to expel Jews from Germany, Spiegel noted.

During the years of the Holocaust, Nazi Germany killed some 6 million Jews along with millions of others. Today in Germany, denying the events of the Holocaust is a criminal offense punishable by jail.