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Polish media and politicians have sharply criticized this week's SPIEGEL cover story about Hitler's European helpers outside of Germany. They believe the article is part of an attempt by Germans to foist guilt for its own Nazi crimes off on others.

"DER SPIEGEL is accusing Poland and other nations of having assisted in the Holocaust," claims the daily Polska. In the future, the polemic continues, SPIEGEL could come to the conclusion that the Jews, too, assisted -- after all, there were Jewish police in the ghettos who were forced by the Nazis to round up men, women and children for the transports to the concentration camps.

t is particularly hurtful to Poles that SPIEGEL also reported about the so-called "Szmalcownicy," Poles who revealed their Jewish neighbors to the Nazis or extorted money from Jewish families in hiding in exchange for silence. Sometimes they even did both.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal denounced on Thursday an Israeli offer of a demilitarized Palestinian state as a "big prison" and said only armed struggle could restore Palestinian rights.

"Dealing with Hamas and Palestinian resistance movements must be based on respecting the will of the Palestinian people and its democratic choice, not through putting conditions, such as those of the quartet," he said.

He was referring to the demands of the United States, Russia the United Nations and the European Union for Hamas to renounce armed struggle, as well as accept past peace agreements.

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal has dismissed the terms for a demilitarised state laid out by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Mr Netanyahu offered "merely self-governance under the name of a country," Mr Meshaal said. Speaking in Damascus, he described the demand that the Palestinians recognise Israel as a Jewish state as "racist".

Mr Meshaal also welcomed Mr Obama's recent comments. "We value Obama's new language towards Hamas. It is a first step in the right direction toward direct talks with no conditions," he said.

Mr Netanyahu offered "merely self-governance under the name of a country," Mr Meshaal said.