Palestinians learn about the Holocaust at Yad Vashem
'The Holocaust is a huge part of Israeli society. We live so close to them and we need to understand them better if we are ever to live in peace.'
Tags: Jewish World Holocaust Yad VashemGrowing up in the West Bank, Mujahid Sarsur knew next to nothing about the Holocaust and saw little ground to sympathize with a people he saw as his occupier.
But thanks to an Israeli roommate overseas, the 21-year-old Palestinian student learned about the Nazi murder of 6 million Jews during World War II and discovered a new understanding of his Israeli neighbors.
Now he wants other Arabs to do the same. Sarsur heads one of a handful of Palestinian grass-roots groups seeking knowledge about the Holocaust.
On Wednesday, he led a delegation of 22 students to Israel's official Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem. The students, fasting for Ramadan, listened closely to their Arabic-speaking guide's explanations, and were left wide-eyed by the gruesome images of the death camps.
Girls in Muslim head scarves turned away in horror at the sight of Jewish corpses being shoveled into pits. They huddled together as they watched film from Auschwitz, where about 1 million Jews were put to death.
"The Holocaust is a huge part of Israeli society. We live so close to them and we need to understand them better if we are ever to live in peace," said Sarsur, a junior at Bard College in New York. "If we change the way we think about the Holocaust, we can create bridges."
Arab sentiment toward the Holocaust ranges from ignorance about its details to outright denial. Some hold a more complex belief system, acknowledging that the Holocaust did happen, but that they are paying the price by the loss of their land with the creation of the State of Israel after World War II.
Last year, in an incident that got international attention, a Palestinian youth orchestra performed a concert for Holocaust survivors in Israel and caused such uproar among Palestinians that it was shut down. Its conductor was banished and blocked from entering a West Bank refugee camp out of concern for her safety.
Two years ago, Yad Vashem launched an Arabic version of its website to combat Holocaust denial in the Arab world and provide credible historic material to those who seek it. A similar version in Farsi was aimed at Iran, whose president has called the Holocaust a "myth."
Noor Amer, a 15-year-old Palestinian who attends high school in Jordan, said he compares Jewish suffering in the Holocaust to Palestinian suffering in the West Bank and Gaza. While he still rejects Zionism, he said the Yad Vashem visit helped him understand that "the Jews had nowhere else to go" after the Holocaust.
He said Palestinians have trouble seeing their enemies as victims to be sympathized with.
"The conflict is so complicated that people cannot forget it or put it aside," he said. "If we say that the Holocaust happened, if we accept it, then we accept that Israelis are human just like us and I think that here is the twist - we do not want to consider Jews as humans because of all the suffering that we go through we cannot believe that human beings can do such a thing."
Palestinians maintain that Israelis generally have failed to come to grips with responsibility for the Palestinians' six decades of dispossession and exile, though a new generation of Israeli historians has challenged their country's widely held narrative of blamelessness.
Surveys show that Holocaust denial is common even among the 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are Arab and grew up under the Israeli educational curriculum.
Aumamah Sarsur, 22, an Israeli Arab and cousin of Mujahid Sarsur, said the Yad Vashem visit taught her that Jews were tortured and killed by the Nazis.
"I am not giving them legitimacy to come here and make their own country, but I get their point of view," she said.
Dorit Novak, the director of Yad Vashem's international school for Holocaust studies, called the visit a "blessed initiative" and hoped for continued dialogue to break down the stereotypes on both sides.
"I appreciate their principles, their courage, their curiosity and their willingness to come, listen and learn," she said. "The Arab world is exposed to the Holocaust in a very distorted way. I know this is limited outreach, but I am willing to suffice with something limited in the reality in which we live."
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One gets the impression under the weight of the propaganda and the brain washing to which we are subjected on a daily basis that only Jews suffered during the war, that their suffering erases what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians who had NOTHING to do with the Holocaust. Of course WWII was horrendous but as Burg wrote"The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise From its Ashes". Building museums all over the world will not prevent anything. Starting to behave like human beings is the best hasbara you can get.
What a wonderful article. Making an effort to understand each other is 90% of the battle. If we'd all do this, maybe we'll have peace instead of continuing the same fight that's been going on for centuries. Peace means compromise. At least if we try, the world would look at us differently. US support is waning for us. If we get global support then we'll have backing when we need it. At this rate, we're going to have to fight our battles alone and understandably.
Most people know about the Holocaust and sympathize with the jews, but the holocaust isnt an excuse to kill and occupy people. and what about the 62 year long Holocaust of the Palestinians by the Zionists?!
Is that palestinians don't understand, that there suffering stems from not recognising our Jewis state, our right to exist in peace, from eternal desire to wipe us from the map of the Middle East. It has nothing to do with Holocoust. And when Israeli arab makes a statement :"I am not giving them legitimacy to come here and make their own country," This is coming from the citizen of the state .
I hate how Israel is trying to brainwash people into caring The Arab leader in Jerusalem at the time had a plan with Hitler to kill all the Jews in the middle east when they were done with Europe Hitler is widely admired in the Muslim world Israel stop trying to brainwash people into caring
Jews only count Jews in the Holocaust when in fact only 1 in 10 killed were Jews. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II#Impact
this is good, no one should be ignorant of another populations suffering. BUT do not let the Palestinians compare their lot in life to that of the Jews suffering at the hands of Hitler. THERE IS NO COMPARISON!
the whole point of going there is to show the israelis that we are willing to take the first step, but that doesn't mean that we agree or in any way changed our minds about what is happening to the palestinians.
The Yad Vashem is hallowed ground. Not everyone should be allowed in.
It is good to understand that no one has first claim to victimhood. However, and I have said this before, the Israeli Jews should stop using the Holocaust as an excuse to brutalize the Palestinians.
Most of the people, including majority of Israeli citizen like myself do not deny the fact that many of the Palestinian Arabs live in very bad conditions. However mostly this is due to their leaders unwillingness or inability to recognize not just Israel's fact of existence, but Israel's right to exist as a Jewish State. In 1948 the Arabs launched a war against Israel, who went along with UN resolution 181 and also agreed to have an Arab State beside Israel. In 1967, in response to former Israel's PM Levi Eshkol's calls for peace after the 6 days war, their response was famous "Three Nos" in Khartoum declaration. In the beginning of 90-s the palestinians had launched a wave of suicide bombings in response to PM Itzhak Rabin's peaceful gestures. In 2000 they launched Intifadah #2 in response to PM Ehud Barak willingness to compromize and give them 95% they wanted. So who is at fault?
A lot of people of the democratic movement of Bangladesh (islam) have visited the concentration camp of Bergen Belsen in Germany in the last fifteen years, when they had their regular meetings about Bangladesh. They wanted ás well understand the Holocaust and the totalitarism of the nazi-system in Germany. They were impressed like the arab students. House of King David, family of Avicenna, Maimonides, Hegel, T. Jefferson
what a farce. every time Israelis celebrate a visit by a Palestinian or Muslim to Holocaust site I I want to throw up. not because people should not recognize the tragedy, but because you exploit it in an offensive manner as to say what Jews have done to Palestinians is not worthy of being called suffering. Guess what, only those who died in the Holocaust can claim that, not those who abuse their memory to advance a racist hateful and violent Zionist agenda.
By understanding and acknowledging the Holocaust, you can more effectively counter its political exploitation.
this is the only way to "recognize the tragedy" - like you said, something people should do. How can they do that with false information or apathy? I don't think people are trying to justify the suffering of palestinians. On the contrary, jewish/israeli understanding of palestinian suffering can also open our eyes to their problems. You just sound angry
"Kol Hakavod" at last a positive step proving that education is the key to any solution. Now bring the Haredim to the Museum of Archeology and Paleontology !
You are right. Very astute remark!
Lets show that we are as willing to understand them as they just showed us. I see youth groups around the country with mixed Jews/Muslims trying to get along. Now the questions is, what is taking us so long?
...to Jerusalem's L.A. Mayer Museum for Islamic Art