Re: Iran denies visa to Israeli Arab from Nazareth who believes and studies the Holocaust.


jgarbuz wrote:

Iran Denies Visa to an Arab Shoah Scholar

Orly Halpern | Fri. Dec 15, 2006

Khaled Kasab Mahameed waited until the very last moment, hoping that
his visa would come through. A Muslim lawyer from the Israeli Arab city
of Nazareth, he had reserved a seat on an afternoon flight December 10
from Amman to Tehran, expecting to address Iran's international
conference on the Holocaust. His bag was packed. His wife and two
children were ready to take him at 9:00 a.m. to the Jordanian border
crossing.
Article tools

But at 9:00 a.m., his hopes were dashed. In a phone call to the Iranian
Embassy in Amman, a clerk informed him that there was no visa waiting
for him. "I was so disappointed," he said. "I sat depressed, and
I waited an hour and called again. Then another hour and called again.
In the end, they said Israelis don't get visas."

Mahameed, 44, had been waiting for this day from the moment he received
his invitation to the conference from Iran's Foreign Ministry. In
2005, Mahameed opened the world's first Holocaust museum for Arabs,
called the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education. It
shares a floor with his law office.

In a way, the conference was his moment of truth. Not only would
Mahameed have an international platform to teach Muslims and Arabs
about the Holocaust - and possibly to get more financial support for
his work. More important, in his opinion, he finally would be listened
to. For the first time, he had been invited by Muslims to speak about
his views. And maybe, just maybe, he could convince some to open their
minds and hearts - to Jewish pain.

But it was not to be. "I thought about it," he said, "maybe they
invited me because they thought I live in the Palestinian Authority."

Then the phone rang, and the interviews began. BBC, CBC, French TV. For
the two days of the conference, December 11 and 12, Mahameed got more
exposure than he would have if he actually had attended the conference.
But not in the Arab media.

He called an Arab journalist who once had visited his office. "I
suggested writing a story about the conference and interviewing me,"
Mahameed said. "He said, 'Why should I give you a platform?'
That's exactly the problem that we're dealing with. The people who
need to know are in denial."

The story began last year, when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
began making statements denying the Holocaust. Mahameed sent him a copy
of his book, "The Palestinians and the State of the Holocaust." The
Iranian Foreign Ministry's Institute for Political and International
Studies invited him to speak at its planned Holocaust conference, which
was titled "Review of the Holocaust: Global Vision."

"I think they invited me because I always send them things," he
said.

It was clear from the outset that the conference would bring together
Holocaust deniers from around the world to advance Ahmadinejad's
outrageous notions. Mahameed was hoping to raise his voice, "to
convince them that the Holocaust did happen and that they shouldn't
talk about numbers or make light of it."

Unlike Western leaders who spoke out against dignifying the conference
by attending, Mahameed saw an opportunity. He believes that if Arabs
and Muslims don't study the Holocaust, if they continue to deny it,
then they will not be able to deal with the conflicts they face.

"It's very important that they begin to study the significance of
the Holocaust," Mahameed said. "It affects relations between East
and West, and it dictates policy regarding the Palestinians in
particular."

The secret to peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis,
according to Mahameed, depends on the Arabs and Muslims learning about
the Holocaust - the subject of his lecture - and the Jews, in turn,
getting over their fear.

"When you don't understand the Holocaust, it hinders the peace
process," he said. "I wanted to go tell the Iranians that when you
play down the Holocaust or deny it, you are directly hurting the
Palestinian refugees who are in camps. By denying it, they are making
the Jewish people feel persecuted - which doesn't allow options for
peace to develop."

"Ninety percent of the Israeli identity is based on the experience of
the Holocaust - the horrors of the Nazis," Mahameed said. "So when
[the Iranians] deny the Holocaust, they are actually saying
[Palestinians] are facing something that doesn't exist. But it does
exist."

Mahameed's knowledge is expansive, quoting from Heine and Clausewitz.
But his focus is very much at home - directed at the conflict that
affects his own life.

"I remember since I was 6, my father always said we are paying for
the horrors of the Holocaust."

His parents were internal refugees, Israeli Arabs who fled from the
village of Ilajoun. He was born in Umm al-Fahm, not far away. "My
father lived in Ilajoun until age 17, then the state was created and
they were expelled to Umm al-Fahm," he said, adding that his family
lost 40,000 dunams of land, or about 10,000 acres. "The kibbutzim
took it."

Mahameed sees a symbolism in his life. He senses that teaching his
people about the Holocaust is his calling.

"We are 13 children, and I am number six," he said. "Like 6
million." He paused, then added: "Not by chance I was born on the
sixth of May, the day the Nazis were defeated. I come to defeat the
remains of the teachings of the Nazis. I also want to neutralize the
feeling of persecution among the Jews."

Almost counter-intuitively, Mahameed argues that the Palestinians
cannot win by talking of Israeli atrocities, but rather by
acknowledging the atrocities perpetuated against the Jews.

"Palestinians talk about Israelis killing 1,000 or 2,000 in Sabra and
Shatila," he said, referring to a massacre that happened under
Israeli watch after the 1982 Lebanon War. "But the Israelis have 6
million. I say, Palestinians need to adopt the Holocaust. The result of
adopting the Holocaust is that then they don't need to be violent
against the Jews. That's the power of the Holocaust. So let's bring
information to the Palestinians about the Holocaust."

But he also believes that Jews need to make an effort: "I also
request from the Jews to overcome the Holocaust. Yes, it was a horror,
but why let Hitler continue to dictate our lives?"

He blames Israelis and Europeans for not teaching Arabs and Muslims
about the Holocaust. "Israelis always speak of the need to preserve
the security of the Jewish state. Why not explain why? Why not describe
what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust so the Arabs will understand
that the Holocaust is an important factor in shaping policies toward
the Arab world?"

Like all messengers, Mahameed has not had an easy time. He stood at
Kalandia checkpoint near Jerusalem on Auschwitz Remembrance Day last
January, and at a conference held by controversial Arab Israeli
lawmaker Azmi Bishara at which he distributed pamphlets about the
Holocaust that he printed with his own money.

"People get angry and say, 'No, I don't want it,'" he said.
He sometimes gets ugly comments on his Arabic-language Holocaust Web
site. Once, he said, a Hamas activist threatened his life. Mahameed
managed to convince him to give up firing Qassam rockets.

Mahameed remains optimistic. "Just give me two months, and I can make
peace here," he said. "You laugh. I'm serious."
Fri. Dec 15, 2006

He's a great man. And being banned by the Islamic Republic is a badge
of honour.

.