In October 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claimed that Hitler at the time was not thinking of exterminating the Jews, but only of expelling them, and that it was al-Husseini who inspired Hitler to embark on a programme of genocide to prevent them from coming to Palestine. Netanyahu's remarks were broadly criticized, and dismissed by Holocaust scholars from Israel and Germany. Christopher Browning called the claim a "blatantly mendacious attempt to exploit the Holocaust politically", "shameful and indecent" as well as fraudulent, aimed at stigmatizing and delegitimizing "any sympathy or concern for Palestinian rights and statehood".