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By
Ray
Hanania

Arab Media Syndicate
Sept. 24, 1998

By Ray Hanania

The subject of the Holocaust raises emotions of unparalleled heights among some Palestinians and Arabs.

Still, many other Palestinians who recognize the injustice of "Holocaust denial" turn away from this debate, preferring the safer ground of other, less emotional controversies.

But the debate that is raging on the Internet, backed by neo-Nazi apologists and many misguided Palestinian and Arab protagonists, is reflective of a larger problem that plagues the just cause of the Palestinian people in their quest of statehood and independence.

I don't know if statistics on the number of Jews murdered by the Nazis during World War II is exaggerated or not. But the fact is that the Nazis orchestrated a campaign called the Final Solution headed by Adolph Eichmann to murder people who were of the Jewish faith. The Nazis delighted in their anti-Semitism and hatred of the Jewish people, almost as much as they advocated similar hatreds of other non-Aryan peoples, including the Arabs and Muslims.

Concentration camps did exist. Oftentimes, Palestinians point to the Jewish outcry against Nazi policies when they equate unjust Israeli policies against the Palestinian people, policies often based upon race and religion.

The question most often asked by Arabs is, how can someone who is Jewish whose people have suffered so brutally under the hands of the Nazis, then turn around and embrace policies of discrimination against Palestinians?

That is a proper question to raise. The policies of some Israeli settlers and rightwing conservatives in Israel are founded upon policies of racial discrimination against Arab Muslims and Christians.

On the otherhand, individuals have the right to question the Holocaust. Some academic work is being done in reviewing the Holocaust and analyzing statistics, events and data. These researchers are being attacked as being anti-Semitic, and in some cases, those attacks are unfair.

But Holocaust Revisionism is not necessarily a real concern to Palestinians, nor should it be. It should, instead, be the focus of a larger debate.

In simple language, some Palestinians have a difficult time understanding their own frustrations and suffering, just as many Jews have a problem distinguishing between criticism of Israel and true anti-Semitism. Many Arabs look at Israel not as a political state founded on a religion, but the very embodiment of Judaism. In their minds, they do not distinguish between Jews and Zionists, although their rhetoric claims to acknowledge a distinction.

These misguided Arab critics often target the religion of the dispossessors rather than on the politics of dispossession. So, they attack people of the "Jewish faith" rather than framing the debate in non-sectarian, non-religious terms.

As a Palestinian, I was raised on the belief that we are driven by the idealistic goal of creating a Palestinian State where Christians, Muslims and Jews would live side by side with equal rights and protections, and where no religion would be held up higher than another.

That's what some of us say. And while it is idealism, many, like myself, have accepted the notion of compromise based on land-for-peace in which a Palestinian State is established in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Arab East Jerusalem. For me, that is an important goal to stand by and defend.

But some in my community have forgotten that pledge, which is a part of the moral foundation of the righteousness of the Palestinian cause. Our Palestinian cause is NOT anti-Jewish, but instead is founded on anti-discrimination, anti-racism, anti-injustice. Those who try to make this an anti-Jewish cause are wrong.

The creation of the concept of a "Jewish National homeland" has raised two issues, one of which has been forgotten by the turbulent events of the past half-century. There are two very distinct issues here where the line is being blurred by a recent debate on the Internet: The first issue is the concept of a government that identifies a single religion declaring it as the "official" or defacto "state religion"; The second issue is that of the creation of a single-religion state where members of other religions are discriminated against based on, as the late Mayor of Nazareth once told me, "policy, practice and reality."

In principle, the Arab World is hard pressed to argue that it opposes the "concept" of a state where one religion is given special prominence or status, since nearly every Arab country is founded on the recognition of Islam as the "State religion."

Is there a double standard, therefore, in thus denying the right of Jews to establish a state where Judaism is recognized as the "State religion" in much the same way as Islam is officially recognized as the State religion in Arab countries? We don't deny the right of Jews to seek to establish a state where their religion is given special status, because we don't deny that in our own countries. If we do deny the right of Jews to seek to establish a state where Judaism is given special status, then are we denying the right of Arab countries to declare Islam the official state religion?

It is a "double standard."

By no means is this issue solely a problem among Jews and Muslims. In fact, the same problem exists in the United States. This country does not officially recognize Christianity as the "State religion" by dictate, but it does by practice. Christian holidays are recognized as "official" holidays while Jewish and Muslim holidays are not given the same status. And, of course, there is the Vatican, a semi-state where the government is based on Catholicism. So, too, is England, which recognizes the Monarchy as the head of the "Church of England" (Protestant).

It is unfair for people to criticize Muslim nations because Islam is the official religion of state in most Arab countries. But, it is also unfair to then turn around and say that Jews do not have a right to establish a Jewish State. They do. The issue should center on the non-religious question of, "should that country be Palestine?"

This issue is only a part of the bigger question where many Palestinians allow their frustrations and emotions to become confused.

The injustice of Israel -- from the eyes of a Palestinian -- is the imposition of a Jewish based State on a non-Jewish majority, and then the subsequent official state policy of forcefully evicting non-Jewish Palestinian Arabs from Palestine. That is a legitimate debate on politics.

That injustice does not contradict the notion that people can aspire toward states that protect their single-focus rights. Jews may desire a Jewish state as much as Muslims desire an Islamic State.

And this brings us to the bigger issue at hand here.

Palestinians criticize Israel's policies of racism and discrimination. Racism and discrimination are founded on policies of distortions of morality, society and government that are based on double standards.

We should not criticize Israel because its people are Jewish, even if some of those Jewish people wish to merge religion and politics or engage in practices that we feel are wrong.

In otherwords, it is simple, isn't it? You disagree with a person's actions, not the person's religious, racial or ethnic background.

Palestinians have a right to criticize Israel. We have a right to question the Holocaust. What we should not do, though, is to demand one standard for ourselves, and then deny that same standard to others.

Our morality and justice is founded on the principle that we will neither embrace nor apply these double standards of justice and morality.

Those Palestinians who see issues otherwise -- by denying the Holocaust and attacking Israelis as "Jews" rather than attacking Israeli policies -- are doing a great disservice not just to themselves, but to their own people, too.

(Ray Hanania is a Palestinian American author and journalist.)

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