Word: holocaustal
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...Mahameed's epiphany on the Holocaust occurred three years ago, when he took his two children to see the massive 20-foot high concrete wall that Israel has erected around parts of Jerusalem to keep out Palestinians. It is so high in places that it seems to slice in half the blue sky. "I told my son to break off a piece of the wall as a souvenir. It was very difficult, and while he was trying, I asked myself, what would drive the Israelis to do such a thing to us, build such a monstrosity as this wall...
...Touring the somber museum, it occurred to Mahameed that "we Palestinians are the victims of the terrible things that were inflicted on the Jews by the Holocaust." The images of the crimes perpetrated against the Jews of Europe also made him understand international support for Israel. "If an Israeli child dies from a Gaza rocket, the Israelis can take a photo of that child to America and remind Bush of the 1.5 million Jewish children who died in the death camps, and Bush will give the Israelis more money and weapons to use against us," he says. And Israelis experience...
...Vashem and images from the Naqba - the "Catastrophe," which is how Palestinians refer to the events surrounding Israel's independence, which left thousands of Palestinians in exile and in refugee camps - the lawyer set up a one-room museum in his hometown of Nazareth, called the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education. Every week, he travels to towns, villages and refugee camps in the West Bank trying to enlighten his fellow Palestinians. Says Mahameed, "Even with the militants, when I explain to them that Israel's brutal policies in the Palestinian territories stem from the Holocaust, they tell...
...Sometimes, his message is greeted with hostility - even in his own family. Mahameed has been ostracized by his brothers, who say that his obsession with the Holocaust is tantamount to sympathizing with Israel. Last week, one of his lectures in a refugee camp was canceled because a militant group spread the false rumor that he was secretly on Israeli payroll. On the Israeli side, there is incomprehension, too. Only last January did Yad Vashem put up an Arabic language website on the Holocaust, and when asked about Mahameed's activities, one staffer replied warily: "We have doubts about his agenda...
...Mahameed is an avid believer in Mahatma Gandhi's dictum that truth leads to non-violence, and he sees himself practicing a kind of ju-jitsu, using Israel's own moral superiority over the Holocaust as a way to shame the Israeli occupiers in the West Bank into treating the Palestinians more humanely. "If the Israelis believe that the Holocaust justifies this kind of brutal discrimination, then they're wrong." He travels through army checkpoints showing his ID card and a photo from Auschwitz. At first he's met with suspicion. "I tell the soldiers that this could...