Why Palestinians Should Learn About the Holocaust

[groovedaddy]

Should Palestinian and other Arab schools teach their students about the Holocaust?

This is not an academic question. Many Palestinian and Arab political organizations recently pounced on reports that a new human rights curriculum being prepared for use in Gaza schools operated by Unrwa, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinian refugees, might include historical references to the Holocaust. Their reaction underscores the urgency of answering this fundamental question: Should Palestinians (and other Arabs) learn about the Holocaust? Should this historical tragedy be included in the Arab curriculum?

We — a Muslim-Palestinian social scientist, and a Jewish-American historian — believe the answer is yes. Indeed, there are many reasons why it’s important, even essential, that Arabs learn about the Holocaust. And much of this has nothing to do with Jews at all.

One of the sad realities of many modern Arab societies is that Arab students have been denied history, their own and the world’s. For decades, millions of Arabs have lived under autocrats resentful of the legacy of the leader they replaced and fearful of the leader-to-come. Although Arabs revere the study, writing and teaching of history, and have produced many famous historians, their rulers often tend to view history as a threat. The result is that many historians in Arab countries are more like the court chroniclers of long-dead dynasties, and entire chapters of history have been expunged from the curricula that Arab governments teach their students.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/30/opinion/30iht-edsatloff30.html?src=recg

[Ken Burch]

1. They should teach about it, of course.

And they should teach their kids something along the lines of "it happened, it was inexcusable, but WE didn't do it and none of us should have had to suffer as a result of it".

Would anyone object to them teaching it with that interpretation? If so, why?

The Holocaust, after all, was solely the work of Europeans.

[aranthus]

2. Close, but not quite.

More like, "It happened, it was inexcuseable, it was done mostly by Europeans, and we didn't suffer because of it." The claim that the Palestinians, or any other Arabs suffered because of the Holocaust is just a myth.

[Ken Burch]

3. It was done SOLELY by Europeans

No Arab had anything whatsoever to do with setting up the death camps or sending anyone to them. In fact, if you were Jewish, the safest place for you to spend World War II(if you were, as most were, barred from emigrating to English-speaking countries, was the Arab/Muslim world. It would have been perfectly simple for the Mediterranean Arab countries, in particular, to put their Jewish residents on boats to the Vichy French port of Marseilles, or to any Italian port after Mussolini stopped his half-hearted protection of Italian Jews, and consign them to their deaths. Yet none of those countries did.

Also, some Arabs DIED in those camps. This is only now being discovered, since they were generally listed as "French", due to their status as French colonials.

Where European "Christians" sent their Jewish neighbors off to be slaughtered without a peep, Muslim countries protected theirs.

And, yes, the Holocaust was used, again, to justify what the Israeli government did to Palestinians in the name of "security". Netanyahu STILL invokes it in his speeches, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with the I/P dispute.

It's completely unjust to invoke Hitler's crimes against any non-European. Only people with pale skin and blue eyes bear the shame of what that monster and his enablers did.

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[oberliner]

6. Actually, there wasn't

There is nothing in the article you linked to that suggests otherwise.

You might as well claim that there was "significant collusion" between Nazi Germany and the the Jews in Europe who were sent to the gas chambers.

After all, the leadership of the Jewish communities in many case coordinated with Nazi authorities in the period 1933-1937, and in many cases, Jews who were later murdered in the death camps, were first put in administrative positions in the ghettos established during that period.

The Nazis manipulated any group who they thought could assist them in their ever-evolving goals through the time that they were in power.

[Douglas Carpenter]

7. people should read the WHOLE article and decide for themselves

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395105

snip: In the summer of 1933, soon after assuming power, Hitler's government signed the Haavara Transfer Agreement with Zionist representatives.

snip:

the Nazis, even the SS, aided the illegal immigration of Jews into Palestine, and that Hitler so feared British displeasure that he absolutely prohibited German support for the Arabs of the Palestine mandate.

"snip:

Nicosia examines the role of the SS, and it is noteworthy that there was some cooperation between the SS and the Revisionist Zionists in the period 1933-1937. There is of course some logic to this, since the SS recognized that the Revisionists were vigorously pursuing Jewish emigration from Germany to Palestine. This too was the rationale behind the German government's support of the Zionists' agricultural retraining program; incidentally, Nicosia thoughtfully provides a map showing the distribution of the retraining centers (Appendix 11, p. 217). In retrospect, it is difficult for us to imagine that the Nazis encouraged Zionists from Palestine to enter Germany, teach Hebrew, educate German Jews about Palestine, and even display the blue and white Jewish national flag; the Revisionist Zionists even wore uniforms . Clearly this was all done for the promotion of purely German domestic and economic ends, with no concern for the Palestine situation itself."

snip: "Between 1933 and 1940, German policy encouraged and actively promoted Jewish emigration to Palestine, recognized and respected Britain's imperial interests throughout the Middle East and remained largely indifferent to the ideals and aims of Arab nationalism.


but one should read the whole article:

http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/site/pp.asp?c=gvKVLcMVIuG&b=395105

.

[Ken Burch]

8. Then we could say that all that happened with the "Grand" Mufti

Was that he was manipulated. We do not have a case that his actions implicate the Palestinians as a whole. Or even that they implicate any Palestinians other than himself(the troops he had in Bosnia were Bosnians...EUROPEANS...not Arabs. There were essentially no Arab recruits to Al-Husseini's "Arab Legion").

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[aranthus]

11. Not exactly.

KB>Also, some Arabs DIED in those camps. This is only now being discovered, since they were generally listed as "French", due to their status as French colonials.

Do you have a source for this? I'm not doubting you. It's just that, as you say, it's only now being discovered, and I would like to read about it. I had not heard of it before. Given that they were listed as French, do you know if they were in a prison camp or a concentration camp? Did they succumb to disease or were they murdered?

KB>And, yes, the Holocaust was used, again, to justify what the Israeli government did to Palestinians in the name of "security". Netanyahu STILL invokes it in his speeches, even though it has nothing whatsoever to do with the I/P dispute.

First, the Holocaust symbolizes more than the Holocaust. It means that the immediately preceding three thousand years of Jewish history were not a fluke. It is the visceral reminder that after all that time and all that persecution (including persecution in Arab lands), that nothing had changed. It has become the short hand for the relationship between the Jews and the non-Jewish world, including the Arab/Muslim world, which made the creation of Israel necessary years before the Holocaust ever happened. So when Netanyahu mentions the Holocaust, he's really referencing all of Jewish history, which includes persecution in the Arab/Muslim world. Second, there is a big difference between invoking the Holocaust to justify action which the state is taking for multiple reasons of security or whatever, and the Arab claim that they were harmed because of the Holocaust; which I think you know, but if not here's what they're about. The Arab claim is that Israel was created because of the Holocaust, and that they were harmed directly by the creation of Israel (by being made refugees). Neither prong of that claim is true. Israel was not created because of the Holocaust, and the creation of Israel did not cause the refugee problem. So the Holocaust does have something to do with the I/P conflict.