Tel-Chai Nation

Here's a report about someone in the Muslim community, of all places, who's running a Holocaust memorial center aimed at the local population, though as expected, it doesn't seem to get any visitors:

Khaled Kasab Mahameed, the Arab Israeli lawyer who founded an Arab Holocaust museum, said that for there to be a chance for peace, his compatriots need to learn about the terrible history.

“This is the first thing that is needed – to teach the Holocaust to Arabs. All the other things are less important, this is stronger than anything else that can be done, including actions by the army,” he said.

Mahameed is a Muslim lawyer from Umm el-Fahm.

He runs a Holocaust museum called the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education out of his office in Nazareth.

Mahameed told The Jerusalem Post in an interview for Holocaust Remembrance Day that he lectures in the Israeli Arab sector as well as in the West Bank.

But, he adds, “nobody wants to come.”

The institute has raised the ire of fellow Arabs who ask him why he does not create an institute in the memory of Palestinian victims.

That's simple. As Newt Gingrich said, there's no such thing as a palestinian Arabic people, and they weren't victims during 1948 either. They were aggressors who couldn't come to terms with defeat by Israel.

It is necessary for Palestinians to understand how people in the West and Jewish Israelis view the Holocaust and how it affects their opinions about the peace process. However, the Palestinian side denies it, he said.

Asked if the Israeli government is interested in cooperating with him to teach Arabs about the Holocaust, Mahameed reacted dismissively, saying it had no interest in such an endeavor.

If he's being honest, then it's dismay the Israeli government's not investing in efforts to get local Arabs/Muslims to learn about the Holocaust for real.

Regarding the remarks by Palestinian President Mahoud Abbas on Sunday, in which he called the Holocaust “the most heinous crime” against humanity in modern times, Mahameed said it is because of his work that Palestinian politicians have begun to speak out in such a way about the Holocaust.

United Arab List-Ta’al MK Ahmed Tibi, gave a speech in 2010 in the Knesset on Holocaust Remembrance Day where he criticized those who deny the Holocaust and showed empathy for its victims. Then Knesset speaker Reuven Rivlin had said it was one of the best speeches ever in the Knesset.

Tibi told the Post that he participates in the Holocaust ceremony in the Knesset every year. “I definitely support and agree with what Abbas said and I scorn some of the reactions in Israel, including the unfair words of [Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu.”

I'm afraid Mahameed's being naive here, or maybe he's trying to take credit when there's nothing to help make it so. Abbas was only using a ploy to midlead the west, and so is Tibi. They should not be taken at face value.

Labels: anti-semitism, Europe, germany, islam, Israel, Israeli Arabs