Nazis and the Mufti

Apparently Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's far-right foreign minister, is throwing out all the stops in trying to distract the world as Israel tears down more Palestinian homes and builds Israeli homes in their place.

According to Haaretz, "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."   

Daniel Luban writes on Jim Lobe's Blog that the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, a powerful Washington lobby, has taken Lieberman's advice  and in a recent statement included the Mufti's Nazi ties (which certainly do exist) as a "disturbing" reason  why there should be no opposition to further Israeli colonies being built in East Jerusalem.