More on UNRWA, Hamas and Holocaust denial
Credit J Street with being first out of the gate in condemning Hamas for seeking to suppress Holocaust education at UNRWA schools in the Gaza Strip.
A day later, three other groups have weighed in with appeals to the United Nations to ignore Hamas and press ahead with the course.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center calls for the firing of two top UNRWA officials, presuming (I'm not sure on what evidence) that the relief agency has already caved:
The Simon Wiesenthal Center called on United Nations Secretary General Ban ki Moon to fire two senior United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) officials for refusing to teach the UN curriculum on the Nazi Holocaust and for denying that the Holocaust is a human rights issue. The Center also called on the U.S. and Canada to suspend funding to UNRWA and Gaza until the UN Holocaust curriculum is implemented in UNRWA schools.
The Abu Zayd and Ging quotes SWC cites in its release (below the jump) are weaselly, it is true, but do not conclusively imply an UNRWA decision to pull Holocaust education. (I've got a call into UNRWA for clarification.) Additionally, I've covered the U.N., and it is a formidable bureacuracy with lots and lots of protections for staff : I'm not at all sure Ban ki Moon is able to fire himself, never mind officials in a separate bureacracy.
The American Jewish Congress seems to presume similar powers to Ban, calling for a change in UNRWA's leadership, but stops short of naming names:
The Secretary General should immediately direct UNRWA to include the Holocaust at appropriate places in the curriculum in the schools it operates. This latest failure on UNRWA’s part makes it too plain for argument that it is time for new leadership at UNWRA, one that fosters peace and understanding, not nurtures “bigotry and hatred.”
B'nai B'rith International frames has the most careful appeal, simply calling for the education plan to be implemented, without attributing to Ban the power to fire, to shame, and to launch into Gazan skies a flock of black helicopters packed with editions of Anne Frank's diary attached to tiny little parachutes:
We call upon the United Nations to continue with its educational plans for its schools in Gaza. Only after the next generations are taught, and take the lessons of the Holocaust to heart, can we have any hope for true and lasting peace in the region.
Full statements after the jump.
B’NAI B’RITH URGES UNITED NATIONS TO STAND FIRM ON HOLOCAUST EDUCATION IN THE GAZA STRIP
(Washington, D.C., September 2, 2009)—The United Nations is reportedly considering a Holocaust education curriculum for its schools in the Gaza Strip. The plan is meeting fierce resistance from Palestinian Hamas leaders. The very vehemence of the objection, Hamas’ rejection of Israel, and Hamas’ ongoing anti-Jewish rhetoric, continue to block any real progress for peace.
B’nai B’rith International President Moishe Smith and Executive Vice President Daniel S. Mariaschin have issued the following statement:
It is outrageous that the Palestinian Hamas leaders are so vehemently opposed to teaching the children of Gaza about the Holocaust. According to a statement from Hamas, "Talk about the holocaust and the execution of the Jews contradicts and is against our culture, our principles, our traditions, values, heritage and religion.”
The Holocaust is an indisputable fact. For Hamas to so adamantly oppose the teaching of it is further proof that the main obstacle for the peace that has eluded the region for far too long lies on the Palestinian side.
We call upon the United Nations to continue with its educational plans for its schools in Gaza. Only after the next generations are taught, and take the lessons of the Holocaust to heart, can we have any hope for true and lasting peace in the region.
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WIESENTHAL CENTER URGES BAN TO FIRE TWO SENIOR UN OFFICIALS FOR REFUSING TO TEACH HOLOCAUST CURRICULUM AT UN GAZA SCHOOLS UNWRA OFFICIAL DENIES HOLOCAUST 'IS A HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUE'
SWC Urges Washington and Ottawa to Suspend UNRWA Funding
The Simon Wiesenthal Center called on United Nations Secretary General Ban ki Moon to fire two senior United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) officials for refusing to teach the UN curriculum on the Nazi Holocaust and for denying that the Holocaust is a human rights issue. The Center also called on the US and Canada to suspend funding to UNRWA and Gaza until the UN Holocaust curriculum is implemented in UNRWA schools.
“The Holocaust - the most profound example of man’s inhumanity to man in history - is universally accepted as the heart and soul of any human rights agenda," said Rabbis Marvin Hier and Abraham Cooper, Founder and Dean, and Associate Dean (respectively) of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. “But even as the world gathered in Poland to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II in which fifty million human beings lost their lives, officials of the UN Relief and Works Agency in Gaza were unilaterally deciding to eradicate any references to WWII’s Nazi Holocaust,” they continued.
“UNRWA must not act as if it is a subsidiary of Hamas,” they said. “But Karen Abu Zayd, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, sounded very much like a Hamas official when she declared at a press conference, ‘I can refute allegations that the UN school curriculum includes anything about the Holocaust… we focus on human rights in curriculum…and the murder of six million Jews and five million other undesirables…is not a human rights issue.’ And John Ging, UNRWA’s Gaza Director, mocked UN policy when he said, ‘There is no intention to integrate materials and topics [on the Holocaust] that are inconsistent with the desire of Palestinian society.’”
Both UNRWA officials were responding to protests from Gaza groups demanding that UNRWA drop the curriculum because, “The refugee camps committees categorically refuse to let our children be taught this lie created by the Jews and intensified by their media.”
“On behalf of the 400,000 members of the SWC, we urge UN Secretary Ban Ki Moon to dismiss these senior officials immediately. The role of UNRWA must be to help set the stage for peace and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis, not as agents for the agenda of terrorist groups,” Rabbis Hier and Cooper concluded.
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AJCongress Calls on UNRWA To Teach Holocaust, Defy Hamas
It is bad enough that Hamas dismisses the Holocaust as a “lie invented by the Zionists.” What is far more discouraging is that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) did not criticize Hamas for denying the children of Gaza knowledge of one of the central events of the twentieth century. Instead, it rushed to deny that the Holocaust was being taught in its schools or that it was contemplating teaching it in the future.
On the occasion of International Holocaust Victims Remembrance Day earlier this year, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said: “We must continue to teach our children the lessons of history’s darkest chapters. That will help them do a better job than their elders in building a world of peaceful coexistence. We must combat Holocaust denial, and speak out in the face of bigotry and hatred.
Perhaps the place to begin this solemn task is in the Secretary General’s own backyard: UNRWA. The Secretary General should immediately direct UNRWA to include the Holocaust at appropriate places in the curriculum in the schools it operates. This latest failure on UNRWA’s part makes it too plain for argument that it is time for new leadership at UNWRA, one that fosters peace and understanding, not nurtures “bigotry and hatred.”
As for Hamas, its dismissal of the Holocaust as a Zionist lie could not be more at odds with President Barak Obama’s assertion this past April in Cairo that denying the Holocaust is “baseless, ignorant and hateful” and “prevent[s] the peace that the people of the region deserve.” This latest Hamas tirade about the Holocaust is just one more reason why insisting on its participation in Middle East peace negotiations is to condemn those efforts to failure.
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Echo David Ehrens.
It’s easy to criticize Hamas for it’s biased educational meddling. But the reality is that what Hamas did here is not fundamentally any different than Israeli bans on Nakba education.
It never ceases to amaze me how some things must be repeated, over and over again, before it sinks in. There seems to be this pervasive perception that Israel and Zionism are a direct consequence of the Holocaust. Along with that perception is this image of an Arabic “Palestine” that was suddenly inundated with Jewish refugees that survived the Holocaust. Both are patently false. Zionism began in earnest before the 20th century driven by pervasive anti-Semitism in Europe. By the time of the Holocaust onset, Tel-Aviv already existed and the number of Jews in many parts of the former Turkish-ruled area was far greater than that of Muslims or Christians. There was already an effort to create an Israel in 1937 - before World War II and the Holocaust. The Holocaust just heightened the urgency for having a safe haven for Jews. And the guilt of the world in the aftermath of the Holocaust helped to hasten the UN’s partition declaration in 1947. Prior to the establishment of Israel, there was a League of Nations mandate establishing British responsibility and control of the former Turkish-ruled area. There was no country of Palestine, and all the inhabitants, Jews, Muslims and Christians could have been described as “Palestinians.” To equate the creation of Israel with the occurence of the Holocaust - as Obama seemed to intimate - is simply incorrect. Had there been no Holocaust, but just continued pervasive anti-Semitism, the Zionist movement would have continued. The end result may have happened later than 1948, but the pressure to establish a Jewish homeland - in an area already largely populated by Jews - would have continued. The Holocaust just changed the timing. Had there been an Israel established in 1937, there would have been a place for Europes Jews to escape to. Nowhere else in the world was willing to take them in. Unfortunately, there was not. So, 6 million innocents paid with their lives for the sin of bigotry and hatred. That Israel arose from the ashes of Auschwitz, Bergen Belsen, Belzec, Majdanek, Treblinka, and other death camps was certainly more than incidental but far from the whole story.
The only “Nakba” (catastrophe) we see here is the unholy alliance between DE and KK (proud J Street puppet). Anyone who agrees with the genocidal Hamas terrorists (i.e Israel is a “Nakba") should forfeit the privilege of calling themselves a Jew, and be deported to live with the bottomfeeding Palis.
Nice job, blackie. I see you’ve been reading your cue cards from frontpagemad. Don’t forget to look on the fridge for the reminder to take your clozapine.
You Jew haters are puke. We’ve got Israel and you pukes will never get her. What are you going to do about that, chickensh**???
Rob Brownstein,
Your comment here implies that Israel was createn in a near “empty land”, the myth that zionists use to justify the building of a Jewish State. This lie is patently false, as hundreds of thousands of “others” lived on the land that Israel now occupies. Even just before 1948, after decades of immigration of Jewish people into Palestine (You are correct that Jews and others of this land were referred to as Palestinians), Jews accounted for less than 1/3 of the population of what became Israel. Jews have ALWAYS been a minority population in the “Holy Lands”. So what right do Zionists have in forcing the majority of people out of their way to build the State of Israel? This practice is ongoing today, as accellerated settlement-building in East Jerusalem and other parts of the West Bank continues. The reason for any anti-Semitism in the Middle East, indeed around the World, is because of Israel’s aggressive expansion and nation-building at the expense of other indigenous people. Immigration and expansion preceeded anti-Semitism, as Jews, Muslims, Christians and others lived in harmony for centuries before Zionists upset the tranquility between the various groups of Palestine.
David Evans,
You are off in your claim. The Holy Land was quite desolate prior to the arrival of the Jews. Read Churchill, Twain, and Marx for insight. sure there were Arabs living there, but similar to many indiginous groups, the land did not contain a “civilization” of any sort. It was a backwater, and ignored by the intolerant Arab World until Zionists started to settle. Try perusing the photographs of the land prior to Jews building a civilization there.
Additionally, you fail to mention that the Zionists purchased the land, from the Ottoman Empire, with Rothchilde’s money.
More than 650,000 Jews were expelled from Arab lands during the 1950’s, after the Arab had the asses kicked by Israel. Tiny Israel absorbed its brethren. Why won’t the vase Arab World absorb their brethren? Because they hope to annihilate Israel, and are using their brethren as cannon fodder against Israel.
A Deist, Feminist, Goy, Zionist.
Kerry Winn, You are spouting nonsense and myths. The land that became Israel was thriving and teeming with modern towns before the arrival of Jews in large numbers. Check out some of the pre-Nakba photos on this site:
http://www.palestineremembered.com/OldNewPictures.html
Tiny Israel was all too happy “absorbing” any people who could breathe and claim they were Jewish, as the intent was to fill up the new state (which overran the boundaries allotted to it in 1948) with as many non-Arab Palestinians as possible. That process is still ongoing as the Wall is encroaching into Palestinian lands, and people are still being thrown out of their homes to make way for more Jewish immigrants.
Very little land was purchased legally. Most of what became Israel was stolen.
http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/photos/maps/landloss.html
In 1945, on the 26.4 million dunams of land in Palestine, 12.8 million was owned by Arabs, 1.5 million by Jews, 1.5 million was public and 10.6 millions constituted the desertic Beersheba district (Negev). In terms of arable land, 7.8 million was owned by Arabs, 1.2 million by Jews and 0.2 million by public.[1][2] By 1949, some 700,000 Palestinians had fled or been expelled from their lands and villages. Israel was now in control of some 20.5 million dunams (approx. 20 500 km²) of lands in what had been Mandate Palestine : 8 percent (approx. 1,650 km²) were privately controlled by Jews, 6% (approx. 1,300 km²) by Arabs, with the remaining 86 percent under the control of the government.[3]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_and_Property_Laws_in_Israel
All of what you say in your post is false. It may be what you believe to be true, but, like most of the myths of Israel, it is false.
For some of the other myths that many of us believe to be true:
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David
09/03/09 02:23 AM
Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Every one of these organizations came down on Hamas like a ton of bricks for opposing Holocaust education. Now that THAT business is concluded, I’d like to see ALL of them condemn the Israeli government for banning Nakba education. Of course there’s a difference between genocide and “mere” ethnic cleansing (plus maybe a bit of murder and mayhem thrown in), but both are worthy of condemnation.