http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1102225.html
Last update - 23:44 22/07/2009
Israel circulates photo of Hitler greeting late Palestinian mufti
By Reuters
Tags: Hitler, Palestinian mufti
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has ordered diplomats to use an old
photograph of a former Palestinian religious leader meeting Adolf Hitler to
counter world criticism of a Jewish building plan for East Jerusalem.
Israeli officials said on Wednesday that Lieberman told Israeli
ambassadors to circulate the 1941 shot in Berlin of the Nazi leader seated next
to Haj Amin al-Husseini, the late mufti or top Muslim religious leader in
Jerusalem.
One official said Lieberman, an ultranationalist, hoped the photo would
"embarrass" Western countries into ceasing to demand that Israel halt the
project on land owned by the mufti's family in a predominantly Arab
neighbourhood in East Jerusalem.
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Israel captured East Jerusalem during the 1967 Six-Day War, annexing it
as part of its internationally unrecognised claim to Jerusalem as its
capital.
Some diplomats opposed Lieberman's move, arguing it could earn Israel
stiffer world criticism for seeming to sidestep the wider conflict it faces
with the Palestinians who want East Jerusalem as capital of a future state,
another official said.
Asked why Lieberman issued the order, a spokesman said: "because it's
important for the world to know the facts" and would not elaborate.
The United States and Europe this week protested the plan by private
Israeli developers to build 20 apartments on the land which Israel says was
bought by an American-Jewish millionaire as well as Israel's threats to
demolish Palestinian homes that could leave thousands homeless.
The controversy has complicated an Israeli rift with the U.S. over its
refusal to meet President Barack Obama's demands to halt settlement building
throughout the West Bank so that stalled peace talks may resume.
About half a million Israelis live in the settlements built in the West
Bank and East Jerusalem, areas that are home to some three million
Palestinians.
An official in Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's government accused
Lieberman of "political bankruptcy" in ordering the distribution of the
Husseini-Hitler photograph.
"It's an old story that has its own circumstances and doesn't apply to
the present," said Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian Authority-appointed
governor of Jerusalem, and a relative of the late mufti.
The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem said said Husseini
supported Nazi Germany to try to win backing for Arab nationalistic goals and
that he lobbied for the extermination of Jews in North Africa and Palestine.
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