Yet another unneeded obstacle to peace:
Hamas condemned the United Nations Sunday, saying it planned to teach Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip about the Holocaust -- but the U.N. agency which runs schools in the enclave would not confirm any change.
Branding the Nazi genocide of the Jews "a lie invented by the Zionists," the Islamist movement which runs the Gaza Strip wrote in an open letter to a senior U.N. official that he should withdraw plans for a new history book in U.N. schools.
The Holocaust, a tragedy that has been mourned for decades, denied only by the most disgusting elements of human existence, is just a "Zionist lie" to Hamas. Simply another Jewish conspiracy that their children must not be indoctrinated to believe:
In an open letter to local UNRWA chief John Ging, the movement's Popular Committees for Refugees said: "We refuse to let our children study a lie invented by the Zionists."
Exactly how many in my extended family were lost to this "Zionist lie" I may never know, but if Hamas is trying to gain inroads and acceptance into the international community, they're not doing about it the right way.
How could anyone blame Israel for being overly careful when it comes to dealing with Holocaust deniers. We here in the United States have seen what they are capable of:
An 88-year-old gunman with a virulently anti-Semitic past fatally shot a security guard inside the crowded U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on Wednesday before being shot himself by other officers, authorities said.
The fact is that no one who denies the Holocaust wouldn't want every Jew dead, and many would obviously give their lives to kill. Because to them, facts don't matter, only hatred.
We all (save for a minuscule few) want the occupation to end and for Palestinians to have their own state, but that will only come through good faith negotiations. And no one who denies the Holocaust can have good faith negotiations with the only Jewish state.
Something needs to change.