Back in June 2024 former Israeli MK and a leading figure on the Israeli radical right Moshe Feiglin referenced an alleged quote from Adolf Hitler as a rhetorical justification for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip by Israel during an appearance on Israel’s Channel 12 news. (1)
The quote attributed to Hitler by Feiglin was:
‘I cannot live if one Jew is left.’ (2)
An alternative translation – the original comment was made in modern Hebrew – is given as:
‘I cannot live in this world if there is one Jew left in it.’ (3)
Feiglin didn’t cite where he got this alleged quote from Adolf Hitler and I cannot find anything like it in ‘Mein Kampf’ or any of Hitler’s numerous articles and speeches that are reproduced in Hitler’s collected works (aka Domarus).
Nor am I the only one. (4)
So, no this isn’t an actual Hitler quote at all, but rather what I think Feiglin was doing here was being rhetorical and he didn’t actually mean to imply Hitler actually said those words – to my knowledge and that of others Hitler never said anything of the kind – but rather he is simply being metaphorical and what he is trying to say was:
‘If you believe the traditional Holocaust narrative to be true then Hitler must have said this to himself and therefore we must say this to ourselves’.
References
(1) https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/former-israeli-mp-invokes-hitler-call-expel-gazas-islamo-nazi-population; https://www.palestinechronicle.com/hebrew-gaza-israeli-politician-quotes-hitler-while-discussing-war-video/
(2) https://www.middleeasteye.net/live-blog/live-blog-update/former-israeli-mp-invokes-hitler-call-expel-gazas-islamo-nazi-population; https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-06-16/ty-article/former-israeli-mk-quotes-hitler-while-discussing-gaza-war/00000190-224f-d231-a1b2-e65f76fe0000
(3) https://www.palestinechronicle.com/hebrew-gaza-israeli-politician-quotes-hitler-while-discussing-war-video/
(4) https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/57063/did-hitler-say-i-cannot-live-if-one-jew-is-left
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