(CNN) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reversed controversial comments he made about the Holocaust, saying he never meant to claim that an Islamic leader persuaded Adolf Hitler to adopt the Final Solution to kill European Jews.

In a Facebook post Friday, Netanyahu made the latest in a serious of clarifications to remarks he had made in which he gave an account of a meeting between Hitler and Jerusalem's then-grand mufti, Haj Amin al-Husseini.

"Contrary to the impression that was created, I did not mean to claim that in his conversation with Hitler in November 1941 the Mufti convinced him to adopt the Final Solution. The Nazis decided on that by themselves," the post on Netanyahu's Facebook page reads.

At issue are remarks that Netanyahu made in a speech earlier this month suggesting that the Holocaust wasn't Hitler's idea.

Rather, Netanyahu pointed to Husseini, who met with the Nazi leader in Germany in 1941.

Husseini was then and remains a revered figure in Palestinian circles.

Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz A doctor, center, with the 322nd Rifle Division of the Red Army, walks with a group of survivors at the entrance to the newly liberated Auschwitz I concentration camp in January 1945. The Red Army liberated the camp on January 27, 1945. Above the gate is the motto "Arbeit macht frei," which translates to "Work sets you free." Hide Caption 1 of 9 Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz Children are seen just after the liberation by the Soviets. About 7,000 prisoners were in the camp when the Soviets arrived. Those left behind were too weak or sick to move when Nazi SS officers forced nearly 60,000 prisoners to march west as the Soviets approached. Hide Caption 2 of 9 Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz Ivan Dudnik, a 15-year-old Russian, is rescued. The teen was described as insane from the treatment at the camp. Hide Caption 3 of 9 Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz Civilians and soldiers recover corpses from common graves shortly after the liberation. Historians estimate more than 1 million Jews, Gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war and Poles were murdered at the camp. Hide Caption 4 of 9 Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz Three prisoners talk with Soviet soldiers who liberated them. Hide Caption 5 of 9 Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz Female survivors in the barracks at the camp. Hundreds of prisoners were housed in the crowded quarters. Hide Caption 6 of 9 Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz Survivors of Auschwitz stand behind a barbed wire fence. Some of the children are seen wearing adult clothing they were dressed in by Soviet soldiers. Hide Caption 7 of 9 Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz Soviet soldiers are seen with liberated prisoners. Hide Caption 8 of 9 Photos: Liberation of Auschwitz Prosthetic limbs taken from executed prisoners are seen in a pile at the camp. Hide Caption 9 of 9

"Hitler didn't want to exterminate the Jews at the time, he wanted to expel the Jews," Netanyahu said October 20 at the 37th Zionist Congress, according to a transcript on his website. "And Haj Amin al-Husseini went to Hitler and said, 'If you expel them, they'll all come here.'

"'So what should I do with them?' (Hitler) asked. (Husseini) said, 'Burn them.'"

Netanyahu's remarks about the late grand mufti spurred criticism in Israel and the Palestinian territories, with some claiming that Netanyahu had effectively absolved Hitler of the Holocaust's most gruesome, deplorable aspect and instead blamed Husseini for the systematic killing of more than 6 million Jews using gas chambers and firing squads.

Netanyahu's reversal

In the Facebook post Friday, Netanyahu said Nazi Germany regarded Husseini as "a collaborator," but it was Hitler and the Nazis who were "responsible for the murder of 6 million Jews."

"In no way did I intend to absolve Hitler of his responsibility for the Holocaust," Netanyahu said. "The decision to move from a policy of deporting Jews to the Final Solution was made by the Nazis and was not dependent on outside influence. The Nazis saw in the Mufti a collaborator, but they did not need him to decide on the systematic destruction of European Jewry, which began in June 1941."

Netanyahu said Husseini supported "the Nazi goal of destroying the Jews."

"He conducted his activities from Berlin during the war, disseminated virulent anti-Semitic propaganda on behalf the Nazis, recruited Muslims to the SS, demanded that after conquering the Middle East the Nazis destroy the Jewish national home and vigorously opposed the emigration of Jews -- even children -- from the Nazi inferno, knowing full well that this would seal their fate," Netanyahu said.

Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Former Nazi officer Oskar Groening , known as "the bookkeeper of Auschwitz," was sentenced this week to four years in prison. Groening, who's in his 90s, was found guilty by a court in Lueneburg, Germany, of being an accessory to the murder of 300,000 people at the Auschwitz death camp in Nazi-occupied Poland during World War II. His was the latest in a long string of prosecutions for crimes committed under Adolf Hitler's regime during World War II. Hide Caption 1 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Onetime Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk spent decades in and out of courts fighting to prove he was not a guard known to inmates at the Sobibor death camp as "Ivan the Terrible." An Israeli court sentenced him to death in 1988, but that conviction was later overturned. In the end, a German court found him guilty of assisting in mass murder as a guard at the Nazi-run Sobibor death camp in German-occupied Poland. He was sentenced to five years in prison, and died in 2012 in a home for the elderly where he was living pending appeal. Hide Caption 2 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Perhaps the most famous Nazi war crimes trial was that of Adolf Eichmann, who was hiding in Argentina when he was seized by Israeli agents. He was brought to Jerusalem and tried in a protective glass booth flanked by Israeli police. Responsible for helping to organize the deportation of about 1.5 million Jews to concentration camps, Eichmann was found guilty of crimes against the Jewish people. He was hanged in 1962. Hide Caption 3 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Trials of major war criminals, including the upper echelon of surviving Nazi officials, took place in Nuremberg, Germany, on the heels of World War II. The Nuremberg Trials resulted in 12 death sentences, three life imprisonments, four shorter prison terms and three acquittals. Among those sentenced to death at Nuremberg was Hans Frank, former governor general of occupied Poland. Frank was found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. He was executed by hanging in 1946. Hide Caption 4 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Hermann Goering was the highest-ranking Nazi tried at Nuremberg. He issued the order for Hitler's security police to carry out a "Final Solution" to the "Jewish question" -- resulting in the Holocaust. He was sentenced to death but committed suicide before he could be executed. Hide Caption 5 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher was a key voice of anti-Semitism in pre-war Germany as the founder and publisher of Der Stürmer newspaper. He was tried at Nuremberg, convicted of crimes against humanity and executed in 1946. Hide Caption 6 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Rudolf Hess (center) was a longtime personal aide to Adolf Hitler. At the Nuremberg trials, he was sentenced to life in prison and ultimately committed suicide behind bars in 1987, at age 93. With him were Goering (left), Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop and Armed Forces Chief of Staff Wilhelm Keitel. All but Hess were sentenced to death. Hide Caption 7 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? A key early supporter of Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg went on to become the minister responsible for eastern territories occupied by the Nazis -- where most of the death camps were located. Tried at Nuremberg, he was found guilty of conspiracy to commit aggressive warfare, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity in 1946. He was sentenced to death and hanged. Hide Caption 8 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Albert Speer, Hitler's architect, was minister of armaments under the Nazi regime. He used forced labor to keep the German economy going during the war, and was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Speer was sentenced to 20 years in prison and was released in 1966. He went on to write two autobiographical books, "Inside the Third Reich" and "Spandau: The Secret Diaries." Hide Caption 9 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? Ilse Koch was the wife of Buchenwald camp commander Karl Koch. Known as "The Witch of Buchenwald" by the inmates because of her cruelty and lasciviousness toward prisoners, she was sentenced in 1951 to life in prison. Hide Caption 10 of 11 Photos: Nazi war criminals: Justice done? One of the Nazi regime's top military doctors was Karl Genzken, a leading defendant at the second round of Nuremberg Trials, which took place from 1946 to 1949 and resulted in scores of convictions of bureaucrats, soldiers, physicians, judges and industrialists for crimes committed under the Third Reich. Genzken was found guilty of experimenting on people using poisons and incendiary bombs and was sentenced to life in prison. Other doctors, such as the notorious Josef Mengele, committed inhumane medical experiments on Auschwitz prisoners. Mengele was never caught or tried. Hide Caption 11 of 11

"My remarks were intended to illustrate the murderous approach of the Mufti to the Jews in his lengthy contacts with the Nazi leadership. Contrary to the impression that was created, I did not mean to claim that in his conversation with Hitler in November 1941 the Mufti convinced him to adopt the Final Solution. The Nazis decided on that by themselves.

"The interpretation of my remarks as though I absolved the Nazis of even one ounce of responsibility for the Holocaust is absurd," Netanyahu said.

Criticism of Netanyahu's initial remarks

At the time, Palestine Liberation Organization Secretary-General Saeb Erakat strongly rejected Netanyahu's initial remarks. He pointed to Palestinians who fought with the Allies during World War II and said, "Palestinian efforts against the Nazi regime are a deep-rooted part of our history."

Even worse, according to Erakat, Netanyahu's earlier comments came at a time of increased violence in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

"(Netanyahu's) regrettable statements have deepened the divide during a time when a just and lasting peace is needed most," Erakat said. "(They are) further fueling the political issue into a religious one, and underscoring his commitment to the continued occupation and violence against Palestinians."

Also in Israel, Isaac Herzog, the head of the opposition Zionist Union party, said Netanyahu, through his earlier comments, "has forgotten that he is not only the Israeli Prime Minister but also the Prime Minister of the Jewish people."

"This is a dangerous distortion of history and I demand that Netanyahu fix it immediately, because it trivializes the Holocaust, trivializes the Nazis and the share of the terrible dictator Adolf Hitler's terrible tragedy of our people during the Holocaust," Herzog wrote on his Facebook page then. "It falls like a ripe fruit straight into the hands of Holocaust deniers and puts them in conflict with the Palestinians."

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel also took exception with Netanyahu's earlier remarks.

"We don't see any reason to change our view of history, particularly on this issue," Merkel said. "We abide by our responsibility, in Germany, for the Holocaust."

Historical accounts

Hitler's anti-Semitism began long before he and Husseini met in the early 1940s.

"The final goal must be the removal of Jews," Hitler wrote, according to the letter found in the Nazi Archives in Nuremberg and now at the Simon Wiesenthal Center. "To accomplish these goals, only a government of national power is capable."

Hitler would eventually head such a government, overseeing policies that -- through legislation, deportation into ghettos, killing squads and ultimately death camps -- targeted Jews.

That repression began well before any meeting with the grand mufti.

As Erakat noted, it's a fact that many Muslims sided with the Allies and fought against Hitler. But Hitler did have at least one notable Muslim ally, according to a U.S. National Archives publication citing U.S. documents and officials: Husseini.

That same U.S. report noted that Husseini had led anti-Jewish revolts in what was then Palestine and run by the British in 1929 and 1936.

In a 1952 interview with Life magazine, the grand mufti said he ended up in Germany during World War II because first the English, then the French attempted to capture him and he unsuccessfully sought refuge in Iraq, then Iran, then Turkey.

"I had to go to Europe. Where in Europe could I go? England? France?" Husseini said. "The only place was Germany."

Once there, according to the National Archives report, Husseini appeared on pro-Nazi propaganda broadcasts aimed at the Arab world, helped recruit Muslims in Croatia to fight for the Axis, and was bankrolled by the German state. He also had interactions with SS leader Heinrich Himmler and key Nazi figure Adolf Eichmann, according to testimony at the latter's 1961 trial in Israel.

The grand mufti ended up bouncing around from Switzerland to France to Syria to Egypt before eventually settling in Lebanon. "The Allies knew enough about Husseini's wartime activities to consider him a war criminal," the U.S. report says, citing declassified CIA and Army files. Yet he never was charged with war crimes.

In his Life interview, Husseini challenged claims that he was ever a Hitlerite. In fact, he insisted that he and fellow Muslims "don't mean to eliminate the Jews. Not at all."

"No, the elimination of the Jews is not in our program," said Husseini. "We have no idea of wiping them out. The Jews lived among us for 13 centuries as a minority, and we protected them."