Fatah official says Hitler was ‘daring, not morally corrupt’

A senior official in Mahmoud Abbas’s Fatah movement told Palestinian TV that Adolf Hitler “was not morally corrupt, he was daring,” before he was cut off by his host.

“There is a difference between an officer’s discipline and loyalty to a leader. The leader could be morally corrupt,” said Tawfik Tirawi, a member of the Fatah Central Committee, according to the Palestinian Media Watch (PMW) organization.

When the host asked him how he knew, Tirawi answered: “You have to know. Is there anyone who does not know his leader?”

When the host insisted that the German people did not know that “Hitler was morally corrupt,” Tirawi replied: “Let us talk logically. Hitler was not morally corrupt. He was daring.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQ81RnxznB4#t=16

The host at this point told Tirawi, “It would be a pity to be put in jail because of this interview. We will drink tea and take a break. Let’s leave Hitler.”

The interview took place last week, and was highlighted and translated on Wednesday by the watchdog group Palestinian Media Watch.

This is not the first time that Tirawi has made controversial comments on television.

In an interview in November, he proudly recounted how his toddler son had sung, “Escort the martyr to ‎his wedding.”

“Today his mother told me that he sang: ‘Daddy, buy me a machine gun and a rifle, so that I will defeat Israel and the Zionists,’” Tirawi said, boasting that his son was “not yet three!”

While Tirawi admitted that his toddler did not know the meaning of the song, he said such sentiments were a natural expression of Palestinian nationalism.

“The Palestinian by nature and education feels a sense of belonging to the land and the homeland,” he explained.

Last month, after terrorist Samir Kuntar died in a Damascus bombing attributed to Israel, Tirawi called the killing “a heinous crime” and extended his “warm condolences” to Kuntar’s family, according to a report in al-Hayat al-Jadida newspaper.