and totally independent. Me and my HD videocamera are currently based
in Jerusalem, and HolyLandTV will hunt for unforgettable stories, in a
land of unforgettable stories.
Khaled Mahamid is a Palestinian-Israeli (20% of the citizens of the
state of Israel are Arab) living in Nazareth, about two hours north of
Jerusalem. Khaled told me that, when he was 18, he was studying at
Hebrew University. He asked his (Jewish) tutor to study the Jewish
people during the time of Hitler. "What does an Arab have to do with
the Holocaust?" was the tutor's reaction.
Two years ago, Khaled founded the first Holocaust Museum designed
especially for Arab visitors, "The Arab Institute for Holocaust
Research and Education." The 1-room museum is located in the building
where he has his law office.
Here's Khaled's website: http://www.alkaritha.org
If Arabic is your thing, you can post threats (which he's gotten
plenty of, from fundamentalist-leaning Arabs) or compliments—that
Khaled will definitely respond to.
Khaled's got balls—last December, he tried to get invited to the
recent Holocaust Conference in Tehran, Iran. He wanted to debunk the
holocaust deniers, like Iranian President Ahmadinejad. Check out
http://www.ynetnews.com
and
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen
for details.
By the way, I'm Jewish (check out my Aleph tattoo sometime). I believe
that us Jews should have a secure state of Israel. I've walked past
stores on Jaffa Street here that only hours before were destroyed by a
suicide bomber.
But I also think the Palestinians should have a secure, independent
state of their own too--not just a ghettoized collection of towns
patrolled constantly by Israeli soldiers.
Both sides are right, both sides have blood on their hands. What do
you want me to ask Khaled when I interview him again next week? Is he
on the right track for peace? Or is he just saying the Nakba (the
"disaster" in 1948, when thousands of Palestinians became refugees,
kicked out of their houses by the victorious Israeli soldiers) and the
Jewish Holocaust are equivalent!?
No comments:
Post a Comment