Godwin’s Law Has Taken a Beating Lately

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Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday:

Referring to the current cycle of violence, Netanyahu said Jews in Israel have 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.’

Ben Carson thinks the Holocaust was partly the fault of the Jews for meekly giving up their guns and not fighting back hard enough. Netanyahu thinks it’s partly the fault of the Palestinians because Hitler met with one of them a couple of years after he started exterminating Jews.

Can we all just go back to obeying Godwin’s Law and blaming Hitler for everything? Thanks.

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In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

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