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Why Palestinians Should Learn about the Holocaust

(International Herald Tribune) Mohammed Dajani Daoudi and Robert Satloff - We - a Muslim-Palestinian social scientist, and a Jewish-American historian - believe there are many reasons why it's important, even essential, that Arabs learn about the Holocaust. Entire chapters of history have been expunged from the curricula that Arab governments teach their students. This is particularly true of the Holocaust. So methodical, so vicious and so exhaustive was the Nazi effort to exterminate the Jewish people that a new word was coined to describe it - "genocide." All genocides before and since are judged against the Holocaust. Without discussing the Holocaust, discussing genocide is meaningless. But what little Palestinians, and Arabs more generally, know about the Holocaust is often skewed by the perverted prism of Arab popular culture. If Arabs knew more about the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general, perhaps Arab voices would be more forceful in trying to stop similar atrocities. We urge Palestinians to learn about the Holocaust so they can be armed with knowledge to reject the comparison between the Holocaust and the Palestinian Nakba. With all the suffering Palestinians have endured, their struggle with Israel is still, at its core, a political conflict, one that can end through diplomacy and agreements. The Holocaust was not a political conflict: the very idea of a "Nazi-Jewish peace process" is absurd. Mohammed S. Dajani Daoudi is the founder of the Wasatia movement, which promotes moderation in Islam, and the director of the American Studies department at Al-Quds University. Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
2011-03-31 00:00:00
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