There is no Israeli orator tougher and more pugnacious than Benjamin Netanyahu, but even his allies expressed bewilderment — and shock — Wednesday after the prime minister asserted that a Palestinian religious leader gave Adolf Hitler the idea to annihilate the Jews.
In a speech here Tuesday evening, Netanyahu sought to explain the surge in violence in Israel and the West Bank by reaching for historical antecedents. He said that Jews living in what was then British Palestine faced many attacks in 1920, 1921 and 1929 — all instigated by the grand mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, who allied himself with the Nazis during World War II.
