Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman ordered Israeli embassies abroad to use a photo of Adolf Hitler meeting a top Palestinian Authority (PA) cleric as a means to counter the recent international outcry over a Jewish construction project in Jerusalem, the AFP quoted a senior Israeli official as saying on Wednesday. The 1941 photo features a meeting between the Nazi dictator and the then grand mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini.
"The foreign minister ordered the distribution of the photo to all embassies abroad as a response to the Shepherd Hotel incident in order to prove a well-known point that the mufti collaborated with Hitler," the official said on condition of anonymity. The Shepherd Hotel is located on a site known to PA Arabs as Karm al-Mufti, and once belonged to Husseini. In 1985 it was bought by American Jewish millionaire and activist Irving Moskowitz.