I find the following story very depressing.
According to reports, Hamas is concerned that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is considering teaching Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip about the Holocaust. According to the report, there is currently nothing in the current UNRWA curriculum about it.
Hamas has condemned this plan. Why? Because Hamas "refuses to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists".
The relationship between the Holocaust and the Palestinian - Israeli conflict was also on the mind of Archbishop Desmond Tutu this week. He stated that the Palestinians and the Arabs are paying the "penance" for the Holocaust.
A few thoughts.
It is frequently argued that all criticism directed at the State of Israel and its policies should not be equated with anti-Semitism. One can be critical of Israeli policies without being anti-Semitic. I agree - one can be. Hamas, however, leaves one with no doubt about where it stands in relation to the Jewish state and the Jewish people. It is one thing to argue, as does Tutu, that world guilt over the Holocaust has played a role in the creation and support of the State of Israel. Hamas might have a political/strategic concern over anyone being reminded of the Holocaust. It is quite another for it to allege that the Holocaust is "a lie".
When outsiders (and I include myself in that category) lecture to Israel about how it should conduct itself, it would be useful for us to remember who Hamas is and what it stands for. Israel turned over the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians and completely left it. It is now in the control of Hamas - the group that thinks that Zionists invented "the lie" of the Holocaust. This is Israel's neigbour. Israel is a country home to those few who were able to survive the Holocaust, and whose families and friends by the millions were lost. I am sure that they take very little comfort from the knowledge that their neighbour thinks that their experience was all "a lie".
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Lewis,
ReplyDeleteWhile I share your concern, you perhaps are overlooking the evidence that Hamas does not speak with one voice -- as you imply. Re-read the report that you cited; Hamas's official spokesman has affirmed an anti-Israel position but explicitly has not echoed the "lie" statement.
Hi Ron:
ReplyDeleteI do not think I implied that Hamas speaks with one voice. Nor do I think there is "evidence", at least in the report, that it does not speak with one voice on its Holocaust denial theory.
Let's review the story to which I referred.
It is entitled: "Hamas accuses UN of plan to teach Holocaust 'lies'.
It refers to Hamas condemning the plan.
It states that "the Islamist movement that runs the Gaza strip wrote an open letter to a senior UN official etc."
It states that an open letter written by "the movement's Popular Committee for Refugees" stated: "We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists".
Now, in reference to your "evidence that Hamas does not speak with one voice" we have a comment by Hamas' official spokesmen in Gaza that "he did not want to discuss the history of the Holocaust", and he is opposed to force the issue of the "so-called Holocaust" study onto the syllabus.
Ron, that is hardly evidence that Hamas does not speak with one voice re Holocaust denial. Only that the spokesman didn't want to discuss it. Refusing to echo the lie statement, by refusing to discuss it, is a far cry from expressing a different point of view on it. Do you really think that the "official spokesman" position on this ( whatever it may be since he doesn't want to discuss it",) differs greatly from that expressed in the movement's open letter? Is this your "evidence" that Hamas speaks with two voices on Holocaust denial?
Lewis,
ReplyDelete1) How should I know what the official spokesman's position is? If we simply presumed to know it, a priori, then the published report would not be news.
2) I never claimed any "evidence" that Hamas speaks with two voices. I characterized the one voice and the one no-comment as not a single voice.
Ron
With respect Ron, you first stated that I "overlooked the evidence that Hamas does not speak with one voice".
ReplyDeleteYou now state that you "never claimed any "evidence" that Hamas speaks with two voices".
But you go on to suggest that "the one voice" (ie the open letter) and the "one no-comment" is "not a single voice".
Well.. if the two comments are "not a single voice" would that not make them "two voices"?
I think we are nit picking here. We both agree that the Hamas "open letter" position that the Holocaust is a Zionist lie is a despicable display of anti-Semitism, which comes from Hamas (or at least "one voice" in Hamas).
Yes, it is a minor quibble.
ReplyDelete(But I am sticking by my mathematics. When one person speaks on an issue, and another is silent,
they are not all speaking with a single voice.)
R
The Washington Post does a pretty horrifying job of reporting on this story today, as they try to insert a bit of moral equivalency:
ReplyDelete"On both sides, "there is really no mention of the other story -- of how the other side sees it," said Gershon Baskin, co-chief executive of the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information, a think tank that has examined textbooks. Baskin is on an advisory panel for a U.S.-funded study, announced on Tuesday, in which Israelis and Palestinians will review each other's textbooks, while U.S. experts perform a computer analysis of the language used in them.
Although both Palestinian and Israeli schools could do a better job, Baskin said, Hamas's outright denial of the Holocaust, as well as opposition to its mention in Gaza schools, is "a step beyond."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/01/AR2009090102496.html?hpid=topnews