Posted by david soori on October 8, 2009, 8:38:17 Link: http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/
Jews sans frontieres" - 2 new articles
Holocaust awareness and respecting "the Other"
Undermining the legitimacy of a racist regime
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Holocaust awareness and respecting "the Other"
A friend of mine has a letter in today's Independent about the origins of holocaust denial in the middle east:
Donald Macintyre reports on teaching Gaza children about the Holocaust (5 October). When I worked in Lebanon with Palestinian refugees over a decade ago, most were aware of the Holocaust. That didn't stop many of them thinking that it was an exaggerated or made-up story to justify the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland; or, worse, that the Jews in some way deserved what they got. This view was formed in the context of living in a refugee camp in Lebanon since 1948, and being refused their right of return for decades.
One senior Palestinian nurse working in the camp had studied abroad. In the US, he gave first aid to a passer-by who was suffering from a heart attack, only to find later that he was an Israeli. He commented: "I visited him in hospital, he was a really nice man, we got on well." This was a story he told to his junior colleagues to demonstrate the nursing code of practice; serving everyone irrespective of ethnicity and religion. He was a person who did not support violence in any form, and always tried to see the best side of everyone.
One day, we talked about the Holocaust. He believed Jews were powerful and persuasive, a view gained from his experiences of Israeli invasions of Lebanon, and as a refugee, and visiting the West where the Palestinian story was under-reported and misunderstood. He said that Hitler perhaps felt he had no choice, as he may have thought that it was the only way of protecting the Germans from a Jewish takeover of their land.
Relating to Gaza children, the Holocaust will always be seen within the context of their own experience. Many are refugees; all have experienced living under harsh conditions of Israeli occupation. Introducing one new educational topic will not change views, particularly as the Holocaust was the product of European anti-Semitism, for which Palestinians have paid a heavy price.
What might be more relevant would be teaching all the world's children how to respect "the Other" and treat him/her as an equal, thus ridding the next generation of notions of racism and bigotry that still is at the root of conflict throughout the world.
Dr Judith Brown
Farrington Gurney, Somerset
Very well put, Judith.
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Undermining the legitimacy of a racist regime
See this al Jazeera interview with Richard Falk. He says that the decision of Abbas's PA is so perverse it leaves the Palestinians bereft of representation and that NGOs and solidarity groups must step into the breach. He further claims that the global Palestine solidarity movement is the "sequel to the anti-apartheid campaign...that was so effective in finally undermining the legitimacy of the racist regime in Pretoria".
I notice that in referring to the struggle for Palestinian rights and his mention of "finally undermining the legitimacy of the racist regime in Pretoria" Richard Falk made no distinction between Israel and the occupied territories - but that's just me.
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