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Israeli Arab to fight Holocaust deniers in Iran

Updated: 10/Dec/2006 14:48

Israeli-Arab lawyer Khaled Kasab Mahameed smokes a cigarette at his Office 7 December 2006 in the northern Israeli city of Nazareth. With a clear vision on how to end the century-old Middle East conflict, the 44-year-old lawyer heads for Iran today to warn fellow Muslims at a Holocaust conference not to deny the Nazi genocide of the Jews during WW II.

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NAZARETH (AFP)--- With a clear vision on how to end the century-old Middle East conflict, Israeli Arab Khaled Kasab Mahameed heads for Iran Sunday to warn fellow Muslims not to deny the Nazi Holocaust.

"I have ideas on how to bring peace within months. There is nothing more powerful than the Holocaust to bring about peace," he says.

The 44-year-old lawyer is unique among fellow Israeli Arabs -- he has created a small memorial to the Holocaust in his office in Nazareth, drawing the ire of both Palestinians and Jews.

Rows of black and white photographs hang from his office walls, showing images of the Nazis’ slaughter of six million Jews during World War II.

Mahameed inaugurated the mini-museum in March 2005 with pictures he bought from the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem. He then translated the captions into Arabic.

He says he did so to counter increasing calls in the Arab and Muslim world denying the existence or scale of the Holocaust -- calls led by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

When Iran announced last month that it would hold an international conference in Tehran, due to begin on Monday, to examine the Holocaust without any "preconceived ideas", Mahameed knew he had to be there.

"The Holocaust denials by Muslims justify the denial of the rights of the Palestinian people. I want to tell them they should recognise the Holocaust,"
he says.

Mahameed is steadfast in his conviction that if Palestinians were to appreciate the meaning of the Nazi genocide of the Jews, they would understand what led to their misfortune and so ultimately could bring about the yearning for peace.

"When you talk about the pain the Holocaust involves, you unite people together. But you must make the Palestinians understand how important the Holocaust is and what it symbolises for the Jews."

During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Mahameed’s father had to leave his village of Ilajoun, or Armageddon, which today stands ruined in the Jazreel valley.

He points at a black and white picture showing a starved concentration camp Jewish prisoner sitting exhausted near a barbed wire fence.

"The suffering of this guy is a yoke on Palestinian shoulders. This symbol has become the narrative the Palestinians are fighting against."

He then turns to what is considered one of the most famous pictures symbolising the Nazi atrocities -- a Jewish child holding his hands in the air while wearing a Star of David with ’Juden’ written on his jacket.

Mahameed says that so far he has been snubbed by most Palestinians. Arab schools are reluctant to take students to his museum, and most Israeli Arab MPs refuse to make any comment on his ideas.

Yad Vashem, too, is cautious on the initiative.

"From what we have seen, the place needs more work, to be better organised and made more coherent," it said in a statement to AFP. "Yad Vashem believes that the Holocaust should not be politicized and we hope and urge that he will not do so."

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