In the aftermath of October 7, 2023—the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust—anti-Semitism exploded across the Western world, with pro-Hamas activists proudly dismissing, justifying, or even celebrating the hellish crimes of the terrorists they call resistance fighters. These extremists condemn Israel for their refusal to be raped, mutilated, tortured, kidnapped, and murdered for the crime of being Jewish.

The ignorance of Western activists on this point has been made possible by a depressingly-successful propaganda campaign of projection, in which Israel is accused of committing crimes actually committed by Palestinians.

Genocide? Check. Ethnic cleansing? Check. Apartheid? Check.

But there’s one form of projection that sits buried so deep in the pro-Hamas rhetoric it’s almost been forgotten. In much pro-Palestinian propaganda, you’ll notice swastikas merged with Stars of David, cries of an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza, and images of Benjamin Netanyahu’s face with Adolf Hitler’s infamous mustache.

Setting aside the false accusation of genocide, it’s important to understand that this comparison with Nazi Germany—rather than Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, Chairman Mao’s China, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia—is far from an accident.

Yes, there’s sheer shock value, rather like using Holocaust-era “Jude” stars to protest COVID-era mask mandates. And yes, there’s the common weapon of hypocrisy, leveraging “Never Again” to recast the victims of the Holocaust as the villains of today.

But the real reason Nazi Germany is used as the ultimate insult against Israelis? To hide the darkest Palestinian secret: a shared genocidal history and bloodthirsty obsession with anti-Semitism that festered long after the fall of Hitler.

It began with Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, the British-installed Grand Mufti of Jerusalem in what was then Mandatory Palestine. Husseini happily became the face of Nazi/Arab collaboration during World War II, creating a legacy of Hitler-adoration among Palestinians that still exists today.

In 1941, eight days after meeting with the Nazi foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (who accelerated the Holocaust), Husseini proceeded to meet with Adolf Hitler for the first time. He was welcomed with the ultimate Nazi compliment: that he must have had “more than one Ayran among his ancestors and one who may be descended from the best Roman stock.”

And while Hitler refused any public declaration of support for overt Arab independence and liberation—though Husseini called in 1940 and 1941 for Axis powers to “recognize the right of the Arab countries to solve the question of the Jewish elements” in the Middle East “as the Jewish question was solved in Germany and Italy”—Hitler and Husseini did bond over their shared hatred of the Jews. The Führer asked Husseini to lock “deep in his heart” his single goal of destroying the “Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power.”

In 1942, Husseini visited a concentration camp. In the summer of 1943, he met with Heinrich Himmler—the mastermind of the Final Solution—claiming in his memoir to be “astonished” after Himmler explained that the Nazis had “already exterminated more than three million Jews.”

If Husseini was indeed surprised by Himmler’s admission, it’s hard to argue he was upset. He himself called for a “definitive solution for the Jewish danger that will eliminate the scourge that Jews represent in the world” months after learning of these extermination efforts.

During this time, Husseini also lobbied for Nazi support with the ethnic cleansing of Jews in the Middle East, recruited Muslims for Nazi armed forces (including three SS divisions of Bosnian Muslims), and contributed heavily to Nazi propaganda efforts, accepting vast wealth to further indoctrinate Arabs. He called for them to “rise as one man” and “kill the Jews wherever you find them” on Radio Berlin in 1944.

He even wrote a pamphlet for an SS division, in which he declared that “The Day of Judgement will come, when the Muslims will crush the Jews completely: And when every tree behind which a Jew hides will say: ‘There is a Jew behind me, Kill him!’”

It’s not a coincidence that this same passage can be found in the Hamas charter.

It’s also not a coincidence that in response to mounting evidence that he was both aware of the Final Solution and enabled it through his intervention efforts to prevent Jews from escaping Europe to Palestine, Husseini’s excuse is still repeated today: this, he insisted, is all Jewish propaganda.

Even after Nazi Germany was defeated, Husseini laid the groundwork for an adoration of Hitler—and his ruthless anti-Semitism—that thrived within the Palestinian movement.

In 1946, Hassan al-Banna—founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, the terrorist group that gave birth to Hamas—celebrated Husseini as a “hero” and a “miracle of a man” for fighting Zionism “with the help of Hitler and Germany.”

“Germany and Hitler are gone, but Amin Al-Husseini will continue the struggle,” he said.

Husseini’s hand-picked successor, Yasser Arafat (a former Muslim Brotherhood activist), continued his legacy. Members of his Palestinian Liberation Organization idolized “Abu Hitler” as an inspiration for decades of terrorism. Mirroring the Nazi propaganda strategy, Arafat deliberately hijacked religion and education as tools of an anti-Semitism “unmatched in virulence since Nazi Germany.”

“Have no mercy on the Jews, no matter where they are, in any country. Fight them, wherever you are. Wherever you meet them, kill them,” announced one cleric appointed and funded by Arafat during one sermon at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

Even Mahmoud Abbas, the head of supposedly moderate Palestinian Authority—whose pay-for-slay program still rewards terrorists for murdering Jews—channeled Hitler during his doctoral dissertation, saying that a Jewish “declaration of war” on Germany, along with Jewish “social function” such as “usury and banking,” was to blame for the Holocaust. In much the same way, Israel is blamed today for being the targets of Palestinian barbarism.

And in 2022, this particular story of Nazi/Palestinian collaboration came full circle.

Following the footsteps of Husseini almost a century ago, Abbas traveled to Berlin and declared that Israel was guilty of carrying out “50 Holocausts” against the Palestinians, proving that while Hitler and Nazism may be long-dead in Europe, its Palestinian branch is alive and well.

And what’s the best way to hide what should be a devastating truth? Drag Nazi propaganda from the 20th century into the 21st century and blame those targeted for annihilation for their own persecution: the Jews.