So let’s be clear: Netanyahu was wrong about Haj Amin al Hesseini’s role in the Holocaust; he did not plant the idea of the Final Solution in Hitler’s warped but calculating mind. By the time of his meeting with the Mufti, planning for the obliteration of European Jewry was already well underway. So why did al Husseini make the arduous trip to Germany to huddle with Hitler? He wanted to convince Hitler that the Final Solution ought to be carried out in the Middle East, too, and the he, Haj Amin al Husseni, would be Hitler’s ally in such an enterprise. Dina Porat, chief historian at Yad Vashem and professor at Tel Aviv University, pointed out that “Had Netanyahu added the words ‘in the Middle East’ to his speech, he wouldn’t be in this mess. But he didn’t add them,” Porat said: “That’s what the mufti wanted.” So all of you Palestinian fellow travelers ought to stop celebrating. When it comes to the Holocaust, the Palestinians’ hands are not clean; Haj Amin al Husseni may not have been the devil, but he was the devil’s right hand man. —Kerry Baker
