Palestinian university students’ trip to Auschwitz causes uproar

Washington Post ^ | April 12, 2014 | William Booth

[reaganaut1]

JERUSALEM — Professor Mohammed S. Dajani took 27 Palestinian college students to visit the former Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp in Poland a few weeks ago as part of a project designed to teach empathy and tolerance. Upon his return, his university disowned the trip, his fellow Palestinians branded him a traitor and friends advised a quick vacation abroad.

Dajani said he expected criticism. “I believe a trip like this, for an organized group of Palestinian youth going to visit Auschwitz, is not only rare, but a first,” he said. “I thought there would be some complaints, then it would be forgotten.”

But the trip was explosive news to some, perhaps more so because it took place as U.S.-brokered peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians were in danger of collapse, and emotion surrounding the decades-old conflict is high.

Controversy was also heightened by rumors — untrue — that the trip was paid for by Jewish organizations. It was paid for by the German government.

Dajani said that many Palestinians think the Holocaust is used by Jews and Israelis as propaganda to justify the seizure of lands that Palestinians say are theirs and to create sympathy for Israel. Others, he said, think the Holocaust is exaggerated or just one of many massacres that occurred during World War II.

“They said, ‘Why go to Poland? Why not teach our young people about the Nakba?’ ” Dajani said.

The Nakba, or catastrophe, refers to the events of 1948 when the Arabs and Israelis fought a war. The Arabs lost, the state of Israel was born, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes and became a people of a diaspora, living even today as refugees here and across the Middle East.

[reaganaut1]

To state the obvious (except to John Kerry), Israel cannot make peace with those who don't want its citizens to exist.

[Responsibility2nd]

What’s next?

Radical muslim fanatics take a trip to the Vatican?

[Calvin Locke]

Actually, I was expecting the rabid Jewish wing to be the ones complaining, like they did when the RCC nuns were there praying a couple of decades ago.

[faithhopecharity]

It may have been a decent gesture, to the man’s credit.
But given the response it generated, it is clear that Israel still needs to move the enemy within, OUT, and stop delaying what is quite apparently the inevitable ...

[JimRed]

Most likely celebrating the murder of Jews by their surrogates, the Nazis.

[NonValueAdded]

I’m thinking Dajani is that moderate Muslim everyone keeps talking about. I give him a snowball’s chance ... of reaching old age.

[logic101.net]

This shows the tolerance of Muslims. They have the same amount of tolerance for different viewpoints as the dims do.

[elcid1970]

Cheering, grinning & waving their Arabic copies of Mein Kampf.

If that prof declares, “we went there to laugh at the slaughter of the Jews!!”, he’ll get off.

[Hugin]

He could say they were looking for tips for dealing with Jews when they take over Israel.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks reaganaut1.

Professor Mohammed S. Dajani took 27 Palestinian college students to visit the former Auschwitz Nazi concentration camp in Poland a few weeks ago as part of a project designed to teach empathy and tolerance. Upon his return, his university disowned the trip, his fellow Palestinians branded him a traitor and friends advised a quick vacation abroad.

And of course, the koranimal agitprop generator claimed that Jews, instead of the German gov't, paid for the trip. The slimy weasel words in the article spin the 1948 War of Independence by ignoring the fact that the ARABS rejected the more-than-fair division of the land -- the original two-state solution -- and furthermore still do.

[SJackson]

Middle East and terrorism, occasional political and Jewish issues Ping List. High Volume

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..................

Leaving aside that the Nakba referred to the refusal of France to allow South Syrians to return to Syria after the San Remo agreement which amongst other things established an Arab state, Jordan, in the Jewish Homeland, the professor should follow the advice to take a long trip abroad.

[justiceseeker93]

The Nakba, or catastrophe, refers to the events of 1948 when the Arabs and Israelis fought a war. The Arabs lost, the state of Israel was born, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes and became a people of a diaspora, living even today as refugees here and across the Middle East.

The WaPo writer of the posted article is engaging in some revisionist history here. Israel was born before "the Arabs and Israelis fought a war," being declared a new Jewish state by a UN resolution which partitioned the British mandate of Palestine into Israel and Transjordan. However, a group of Arab states, refusing to recognize the UN action, militarily attacked the newborn Israel, which resulted in the war referred to in the article (known as the War for Independence in Israeli history).

As for "hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes," those in that category were sworn enemies of the new state and could not have lived peacefully in coexistence. They should more properly be referred to as "Palestinian ARABS."

A Palestinian "diaspora"? I beg to differ. "Diaspora refers to a group of people of a particular ethnic grouping which has or had a natural homeland to which that people were once attached, now living outside that homeland for whatever reason. Since the Palestinian ARABS referred to never had a state nor a natural homeland throughout their relatively brief history, the term "diaspora" is inappropriate to their circumstances. (Historically, "Diaspora" has referred principally to Greeks, Jews, and perhaps Chinese.)

Now the million dollar question: What was the current German government possibly thinking when it paid for this Palestinian ARAB student trip to Auschwitz? There might be several possible ways to look at this from the German perspective.

[elhombrelibre]

The trip's intentions all seem reasonable. The fact that so many Palestinians reacted the way that they did shows how central the denial of the Holocaust and its outcome is to those Palestinians. We cannot force them to care about the truth, but we needn't pretend, as President Obama and his team do, that the chances of a real peace with between Israel and the Palestinians will only go up when the Palestinians change their outlook and accept Israel's right to exist.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I always heard that the official Pali position on the Holocaust was to be proud of it.

[elhombrelibre]

True. True. It reminds me of Pat Buchanan's loss during the Holocaust. He had an uncle fall out of a tower.

[Eleutheria5]

Teach tolerance? Empathy? Good luck.

[MarkL]

Just one other note of a fact usually left out is the fact that at least as many Jews were expelled from the arab countries as well. The difference being that Israel accepted the Jewish refugees, while NONE of the arab countries would accept those who fled the fledgling State of Israel, at the orders of the attacking countries, to allow the Jews to be pushed into the sea.

Mark

[MarkL]

President Obama and his team do, that the chances of a real peace with between Israel and the Palestinians will only go up when the Palestinians change their outlook and accept Israel's right to exist.

Let's not forget Kerry's recent statement that just because the arabs refuse to accept Israel's right to exist is no reason for Israel not to negotiate for peace with those who seek her destruction.

Mark