Hatred through the Holocaust

A new exhibit in Gaza portrays the Jewish state burning Palestinian children in ovens.

A group called the National Committee for Defense of Children from the Holocaust unveiled its premier exhibit last week, entitled "Gaza: An exhibit describing the suffering of the children of the Holocaust."

Rather than teach about the Nazi genocide of European Jewry, the exhibit portrays Israel as the perpetrators of the holocaust; Palestinian children are "burned" in a model crematorium by "Israelis."

According to the Ramallah-based Al-Ayyam daily, "The exhibit includes a large oven and inside it small children are being burned. The picture speaks for itself."

The Zionist Organization of America condemned the exhibit, saying in a statement that "there seems to be no limit to the depravity of Palestinian hate education and incitement."

"We have seen over the years every sort of perversity, including educating children to become suicide bombers and honoring mass murderers. Here, the Palestinians, both Hamas and Fatah, depict Israelis as exterminating-Nazis, while teaching nothing about the actual Holocaust in which the wartime Palestinian leadership of Haj Amin el-Husseini was in fact very active. Husseini not only orchestrated campaigns of murder against Jews in the British Mandate, but also became an ally of the Nazis and worked hard to speed up the work of deportation and murder," said ZOA President Morton Klein.

"The depiction of Israelis as exterminating-Nazis essentially sends the message that Jews are evil people who should, like the Nazi regime, be destroyed. It is a travesty that many nations, including the US, continue to fund the PA and thereby work to keep this conflict alive while speaking endlessly of working hard to end it. Until and unless the Palestinians are held to their commitments to end terrorism and the incitement to hatred and murder that feeds it, no peace can be expected to become even feasible," he said.

"This is different than anything else," said Palestinian Media Watch director Itamar Marcus. "In the past, Palestinians would compare what Israel is doing to them to the Holocaust."

Over the last few years, Palestinian Media Watch has documented a "tremendous increase" in the usage of the word "holocaust" in the Palestinian media. Marcus said it was now being used "regularly, a few times per week or per article," versus once a month, as it had been prior, causing concern on multiple levels.

"The use of the term 'Shoah' has no doubt permeated society," Marcus said. "It has been adopted as their term."

Once adopted, it serves to delegitimize Israelis, making them out to be liars and aggressors, he said.

Furthermore, the perversion of Shoah language is incitement to hatred that, though not a direct incitement to violence, is equally as dangerous, he said. Marcus compares the current dialogue and hatred promotion to that of 1996-2000, where "incessant hatred was pumped into [Palestinian] society." Once "hatred, fear and a feeling that revenge is legitimate" are instilled in the population, an eruption into violence is the next step in a terrorist cycle, he said.

"Our greatest danger for peace in the long term is promotion of hatred," said Marcus. "This is the worst kind. It will imprint hatred on those kids forever."