Israel uses Hitler picture to sell its settlement expansion…
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, has triggered fresh controversy by urging diplomats abroad to use a 1941 photograph of a Palestinian religious leader meeting Hitler to counter protests against a planned Jewish settlement in Arab East Jerusalem.
The hard right Mr Lieberman ordered the circulation to Israeli embassies of copies of the notorious wartime photograph of Hitler meeting the then Mufti of Jerusalem, an overt sympathiser with the Nazis who helped them raise an SS division in Bosnia. The move has alarmed some experienced Israeli diplomats who believe it will be counterproductive. It came after the US State Department expressed its disapproval to Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador in Washington, over plans to build at least 20 apartments for Jewish settlers at the site of the old Shepherd’s Hotel building in the inner East Jerusalem district of Sheikh Jarrah.
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