Jumblat: Holocaust biggest crime ever!
Surprise, surprise: Druze leader Walid Jumblat has described the holocaust as the biggest crime in the 20th century. That's refreshing to hear in this part of the world where holocaust denial is very much en vogue. Next step would be to start teaching the Lebanese children this fact and to clean up the Arabic newspapers from disgusting cartoons.
To give credit, though, where credit is due: Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, Lebanese writer Elias Khoury and others brought about the cancellation of a holocaust denial conference that was planned to take place in Beirut in 2001.
4 comments:
What many people in the west don't grasp is that the general point of view in the Arab world is not Holocaust denial.
Most Arabs feel that they have unjustly paid the price for the Holocaust. Most believe that Israel was created at the expense of the livelihood of millions of Palestinians and was supported by a West burdened by the Holocaust.
It's time for all those who do dig in the past to keep the memory of the indiscribable horrors of the Holocaust alive to look back at how Israel was created.
The expulsion of Palestinians from their land was also a crime. But very little has been done to at least record how that happened.
@El Matador,
Yup, couldn't agree more. That's why the statements of Jumblat are even more interesting: most Arabs won't call the Holocaust the biggest crime ever of the 20th century...
...until you realize that he was mostly rallying against Iran/Hezbollah and thus used the Holocaust for his political goals.
What both of you don't realize is that the Druze are neither Moslem nor Arabs. Outside the Druze community little is known about their religion beyond the fact that it is monotheistic. They are also believed by many scientists to be descendended from immigrants from India. The Druze people have historically had friendly relations with Jews of the region and so it should be of no surpise that Walid Jumblat is well aware of some of the most horrific catastrophy to befall the Jewish people and would speak in opposition to Holocaust deniers.
The misfortunes that occured to the Palestinian people was not that they were punished for crimes that occured in Europe, but that they suffered as a result of their leaders' decisions to ally themselves with a group of invading nations that intended to ethnically cleanse the former British Mandate of Jews.
Indeed, the Arab-Israeli conflict resulted in more Jewish refugees (about 900,000) than Palestinian refugees (estimated to be 711,000.)
Ian,
I live in lebanon and am in contact with a lot of Druze. So i do know how Druze people think. Anyhow, Jumblat was for years during the civil war an Arab nationalist! and Riemer's remark is straight to the point. He's just saying this for pure manichean political reasons.
As for your historical figures, whatever their accuracy is, they say nothing about history. Palestinians have been suffering for more than 50 years because of Israel's racist and cruel policies and this has to stop!
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