The Defense Ministry issued a statement on Thursday saying that Mr. Lieberman had excoriated the commander of the radio station over the show. Last year, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, set off a furor when he asserted that Mr. Husseini had given Hitler the idea of annihilating European Jews. PhotoJERUSALEM — Israel’s ultranationalist defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, managed to offend both Palestinians and free-speech advocates on Thursday, comparing the Palestinians’ national poet to Adolf Hitler and threatening the independence of Israel’s Army Radio station. Months after Israel’s conservative culture minister raised hackles by trying to adjust Army Radio’s playlist, Mr. Lieberman recently assigned a Defense Ministry official to make recommendations on whether the station should continue to operate. The Associated Press reported that in 2000, Israel’s education minister proposed including his poems in the curriculum of Jewish high schools, but the prime minister at the time, Ehud Barak, overruled him.

Source: International New York Times July 21, 2016 17:26 UTC