Netanyahu, corrupt Israeli

[fraurosena]

I.. I.. have no words.

 

[front hugs > duggs]

WTAF. THIS IS NOT OKAY.

[formergothardite]

I don't even know what to say.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I feel like we are living a never ending Twilight Zone episode.

[formergothardite]

My prediction, Trump is going to hear of this and say something even worse. He will go full Holocaust denial and his supporters will keep on supporting. 

[fraurosena]

I need to put things into perspective. It turns out that although Jennifer Rubin's tweet I posted above was posted today, Netanyahu actually said this in 2015, and not recently, as far as I can gather. 

Here's the WaPo article from 2015 reporting on Netanyahu's conspiracy theory about Hitler:

Netanyahu says Palestinian gave Hitler idea for the Holocaust

Quote

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave a speech to the World Zionist Congress on Tuesday. His subject was “the 10 big lies.”

Referring to the current cycle of violence, Netanyahu said Jews in Israel had faced attacks in the past — in 1920, 1921, 1929 — instigated by the “Mufti of Jerusalem,” Haj Amin al-Husseini, who allied himself with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis during World War II.

Then Netanyahu delivered this jaw-dropping assertion:

“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.’

Netanyahu said the Mufti of Jerusalem had “a central role in fomenting the Final Solution.”

Reaction in Israel — and around the Jewish world — came hard and fast. First politicians were agog. Then historians of the Holocaust piled on. Then Netanyahu was mocked in social media memes and parodies.

Isaac Herzog, the leader of the opposition in the Israeli parliament, wrote: “This is a dangerous historical distortion and I demand Netanyahu correct it immediately as it minimizes the Holocaust, Nazism and … Hitler's part in our people's terrible disaster."

Herzog pointed out that the Holocaust had already begun by the time the Grand Mufti met Hitler in November 1941. Zionist Union parliamentarian Itzik Shmuli demanded Netanyahu apologize to Holocaust victims, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

"This is a great shame, a prime minister of the Jewish State at the service of Holocaust-deniers — this is a first," Shmuli said. "This isn't the first time Netanyahu distorts historical facts, but a lie of this magnitude is the first."

"This wasn't a speech by Jorg Haider," the late leader of the far-right Freedom Party in Austria, wrote Zehava Galon of the left-wing Meretz party on her Facebook page. "This wasn't a snippet of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ doctoral thesis,” which questions that 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. “This was an actual quote by the prime minister of the State of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, before the World Zionist Congress. It has to be seen to be believed."

"Perhaps we should exhume the corpses of the 33,771 Jews murdered in Babi Yar in September 1941, two months before the Mufti and Hitler met, and bring them up to speed on the fact that the Nazis had no intention of destroying them," Galon wrote.

Babi Yar was the ravine outside the Ukrainian capital of Kiev where the mass killing of Jews by German troops and local collaborators took place.

The Palestinian leader and former peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said, “Netanyahu hates Palestinians so much that he is willing to absolve Hitler of the murder of 6 million Jews.”

The Mufti of Jerusalem, Husseini, was a religious and political leader of the Arab population in Palestine during the British Mandatory period between the two world wars. He fomented deadly riots against the Zionists coming to Palestine; opposed mass migration of Jews; and allied with Hitler and the Nazis during World War II, in part because of his opposition to British colonial rule. The pan-Arabist Mufti spent the war in Berlin, broadcasting Arabic language propaganda and incitement against Jews and the allies.

The chief historian of the Yad Vashem, the World Center for Holocaust Research, Documentation, Education and Commemoration in Jerusalem, Dina Porat, told the Israeli news Web site Ynet that Netanyahu's statements were factually incorrect.

"You cannot say that it was the mufti who gave Hitler the idea to kill or burn Jews," she said. "It's not true. Their meeting occurred after a series of events that point to this."

Meir Litvak, who teaches at Tel Aviv University's Department of Middle Eastern History, told the Web site: "Husseini supported the extermination of the Jews, he tried to prevent rescuing of Jews, he recruited Arabs for the SS. He was an abominable person, but this must not minimize the scale of Hitler's guilt."

In Israel the tweets went back and forth.

David Bedein, director of the Center for Near East Policy Research and Israel Resource News Agency, in Jerusalem circulated his 2012 speech on the Mufti’s WW II activities:

“No one denies the Mufti’s Arabic language radio broadcasts, his recruitment of the Islamic SS unit, and his active involvement in SS round ups of Jews in Yugosolvia. And there is no doubt that Mufti was aware of the Final Solution, fully supported it, and sought to extend it to the Arab world. In 1961, when Eichmann was brought to justice in Jerusalem, Israel’s then foreign minister, Golda Meir, called for the Mossad to apprehend the Mufti and to sit him alongside Eichmann on trial in Jerusalem.”

As he boarded a plane to Germany on Wednesday, Netanyahu responded to the storm about his comments on Hitler and the Mufti: “I did not intend to absolve Hitler of responsibility for his diabolical destruction of European Jewry. Hitler was responsible for the Final Solution extermination of 6 million Jews. He made the decision.”

He continued, however, to press his point: “The Mufti was instrumental in the decision to exterminate the Jews. We must not ignore the importance of his role. The Mufti repeatedly suggested that the Jews should be exterminated. He considered it an appropriate solution to the Palestinian question.”

Even the Germans pointed out to Netanyahu that fault for the Holocaust was theirs.

"All Germans know the history of the murderous race mania of the Nazis that led to the break with civilization that was the Holocaust," Chancellor Angela Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert said when asked about Netanyahu's remarks, the Reuters news agency reported.

The Mufti died of cancer in Beirut in 1974.

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Personally, I am sick and tired of Bibi  behaving like a bully. That speech was part of Israeli far right propaganda aimed at creating an apartheid state where Palestinians are second class citizens with limited rights.

And to be clear, criticism of Israeli politics isn't anti-Semitism, it drives me mad when people confuse the two. ETA even IHRA when giving a working definition of anti-Semitism warns that "criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic".

American mainstream press seems wary of criticising Israel, that's maybe why so many Americans that should know better seem to have a rosy coloured view of Israeli politics.

Edited August 22, 2019 by laPapessaGiovanna

[fraurosena]

This is his fourth cabinet position, in addition to his premiership.

Netanyahu names himself welfare minister after Katz resigned over graft charges

Quote

The government officially informed the Knesset Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has appointed himself welfare minister following the resignation of Haim Katz last month over looming graft charges.

Choosing not to name another member of his Likud party to the position, Netanyahu now holds four portfolios in addition to the premiership: defense, health, welfare and Diaspora.

Netanyahu named Israel Katz to replace him as foreign minister in May in response to a petition filed at the High Court of Justice over the number of ministerial portfolios he holds.  He initially justified keeping the Foreign Ministry for himself after the 2015 election by claiming he was saving the position for then-Zionist Union head Isaac Herzog, in an attempt to entice him into joining the government. That did not transpire.

In November, Netanyahu announced he would keep the defense portfolio for himself following Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman’s resignation from the government, saying Israel was in the “midst of a military campaign.”

Haim Katz resigned as welfare minister last month after Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit announced that he plans to indict him on fraud and breach of trust charges.

Following Katz’s resignation, Likud MK Tzipi Hotovely, who currently serves as deputy foreign minister, said she expected to be appointed to the post. She added that she hoped Katz would be acquitted of any wrongdoing.

The attorney general informed Katz he would have to resign over the pending indictment, a practice established in the 1990s with the court-upheld resignations of indicted cabinet members Aryeh Deri and Raphael Pinhasi.

Katz, who will remain an MK, is expected to seek parliamentary immunity from the Knesset ahead of the September 17 election, but it’s not clear if he will succeed. The current 21st Knesset, elected on April 9, never staffed its committees, and so doesn’t have a standing House Committee to which Katz can appeal for immunity, as the law requires.

Katz is one of four cabinet members known to be facing possible criminal charges, along with Netanyahu, Deputy Health Minister Yaakov Litzman and Interior Minister Aryeh Deri. Likud MK David Bitan is also being investigated on possible bribery charges.

 

[fraurosena]

It looks like Netanyahu is in trouble. Good.

 

[fraurosena]

Meanwhile, in Israel:

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

It was about fucking time! The man and his cronies have poisoned the Israeli policies for long enough. I'd like that more Western news underlined that he's a far right extremist and that in all these years as PM he has done his best to ruin any chance at peace between Israel and Palestine.

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

How strange:

 

[Pecansforeveryone]

I also remember his wife Sarah had faced charges at some point. Did she ever go to trial?

[47of74]

Looks like Nutnyahoo will soon be out of a job

Quote

A coalition of Israeli political parties announced Wednesday night they had agreed to a deal to form a new government, paving the way for the exit of Israel's longest serving prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Yair Lapid, leader of the centrist Yesh Atid party, notified Israeli President Reuven Rivlin that he had managed to cobble together a coalition just 38 minutes before the midnight deadline.

Though Lapid holds the mandate to form the government under the agreement, it is Naftali Bennett -- leader of the small right-wing party Yamina and the kingmaker in coalition talks -- who is set to become prime minister for the first two years of a four-year term. Lapid will serve as foreign minister until the two men swap roles halfway through the term.

In a statement, Lapid said the "government will work to serve all the citizens of Israel including those who aren't members of it, will respect those who oppose it, and do everything in its power to unite all parts of Israeli society."

 

[Becky]

Bumping this one up, in light of what is happening in Israel.  Netanyahu is back, of course, making moves that threaten the independence of the judiciary, and his government has passed a law that makes it more difficult to oust him.  Israel is lurching toward autocracy.  I am sure TFG is taking notes.  

[Smash!]

Looks like I finally should start reading Madeleine Albright‘s book „Fascism“. I need to understand why democracy is endangered in so many  places.