Yad Vashem to launch Arabic Holocaust website

[oberliner]

Israel's Yad Vashem memorial is to launch an Arabic-language website on the Holocaust in a bid to promote awareness in the Arab world of the wartime slaughter of Jews by the Nazis.

"In light of the Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism that we are witness to in Arabic countries we want to offer an alternative source of information to moderates in these countries to provide them with reliable information about the Shoah (Holocaust)," the memorial chairman Avner Shalev said in a statement.

Shalev recalled that Yad Vashem had already launched a Persian-language website last year.

Available through the memorial's main address www.yadvashem.org, the new site will offer a range of material specifically designed for an Arab audience, including information on Muslim Albanians and Turks who helped protect Jews from slaughter by the Nazis during World War II.

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gRgz0J0VTkbo1Kp2bc5ceYiDYf2Q

[wellst0nev0ter]

1. I Do Hope The Website Acknowledge The Role The Holocaust Had With The Nakba

Because that is the root of the Arab's problem with Israel: they believe that the country was imposed on them by colonialists who wanted to atone for the Holocaust. The Arabs feel that they were punished for something they didn't do.

[oberliner]

2. You've never checked out the Yad Vashem website?

It's been available in English for quite some time now.

Edit to add: I may have misunderstood your point. Are you suggesting that the Arabic language version of the site ought to include different (or additional) information from the English version?

[wellst0nev0ter]

3. Yes, I'm Saying They Should Honestly Confront The Legitimate Grievances Of The Arabs

But when I see the website in English, they just say Israel belongs to us because the Bible says so, and leaves it at that. Nothing about the role of colonialism and the poorly thought out and arbitrarily imposed partition plan comes up.

[oberliner]

5. Yad Vashem is about the holocaust

It is a source of documentation about that historical event.

I am not finding on the website where they say "Israel belongs to us because the Bible says so"

Can you provide a link?

[wellst0nev0ter]

7. They Say "3000 Year Connection Of Jews To The Land Of Israel"

trumps any Arab criticism of the controversy surrounding the creation of the modern state of Israel. It doesn't take a genius to figure out the biblical connection that statement makes.

[oberliner]

8. I respectfully dispute your assertion

I do not believe that making note of the fact that the Jews have a 3000 year old connection to the Land of Israel suggests that those running Yad Vashem are claiming that "Israel belongs to use because the Bible says so" as you asserted.

Yad Vashem is really about educating people regarding what took place during the Holocaust. Their focus is on recording testimonies of survivors, collecting pages of testimony memorializing Jewish victims of the Holocaust, and collecting photos, documents and resources regarding the Holocaust.

[Shaktimaan]

11. They never mention the bible.

The fact that they make a factual historical connection that happens to be supported in the Bible is hardly the same thing as citing the Bible itself. (Let alone the retarded nonsense that you wrongly accused them of saying.) It astounds me that some people hate Israel so much that they'll go to these absurd lengths, like posting misinformation smearing Yad Vashem's (of all places) credibility, in their attempts at criticizing all things Israeli.

You should really be ashamed of yourself.

[Vegasaurus]

4. We've already discussed this

Arab anti-semitism began long before there ever was a partition plan or the state of Israel.

It's convenient to blame all that anti-semitism on the formation of Israel, but I;m afraid it predates the state by at least a hundred years, and in some cases, more than that.

[wellst0nev0ter]

6. Yes, I Re-Read What I Wrote And I Did Blame All Anti-Semitism On Israel

What a boob I am :eyes:

[aranthus]

9. Nonsense

The Arabs may believe that Israel was "imposed" on them in atonement for the Holocaust, but then they believe a lie. Israel was created by the Israelis, not by the UN, the UK, or the US, and absolutely not because of the Holocaust (unless you want to count that the Holocaust strengthened Jewish resolve to a state of their own). ONe of the major reasons for the lack of peace between Israel and the Arabs is that the Arabs truly believe these kinds of lies. When people on the Left parrot them as well, it doesn't help.

[ProgressiveMuslim]

14. Do you believe that holocaust guilt

had no role in Western support for the creation of the State of Israel?

[Shaktimaan]

10. What makes you think that Yad Vashem is an appropriate venue to address that?

I think the Arab world desperately needs an Arabic language version of Yad Vashem's website to help counter the false propaganda and anti-semitic lies that are so prevalent in their societies. What no one needs is for Yad Vashem to acknowledge and lend credence to those ideas. Israel's creation began decades before the holocaust took place, as did the anti-zionist violence which eventually led to the Nakba. The Arabs were "punished" for their refusal to live peacefully with their new Jewish neighbors, (or their old Jewish neighbors who they initially attacked.)

If the Holocaust has any connection with the Nakba at all it would be that post-Shoa Jews were no longer willing to passively accept their fates while instilling within them a firm understanding of how high the stakes actually were. The fact that high ranking Palestinians like the Mufti of Jerusalem were both allied with the Nazis and were also the catalyst for the initial attacks on Jews in Palestine served to reinforce the notion that partition would be the only peaceful solution. Palestinian involvement with the Nazis played a larger role in the Nakba than the Holocaust did in this manner.

[Shaktimaan]

12. They did.

And you presumably saw it. They made a point of accurately refuting the claim that the Holocaust had anything to do with Israel's creation. What more could you possibly want? (I think I know what you want but thankfully Yad Vashem is not in the business of spreading anti-zionist or anti-semitic propaganda.)

Why is Holocaust denial a mainstream idea in much of the Arab and Moslem world today?
Holocaust denial has entered the mainstream in some of the Arab and Moslem countries, where a significant segment of the population opposes the existence of the State of Israel. For the most part this stems from the following thought process: If the basis for the legitimacy of the existence of the state of Israel is the Holocaust and if the Holocaust never happened, then there is no legitimate reason for the State of Israel to exist. In other words, Holocaust denial is invoked to prove that Israel is an illegitimate entity. Of course this logical construct is based on a mistaken understanding of the events that led to the creation of the State of Israel. The Holocaust did not ‘create’ Israel, and its establishment was not motivated by any feelings of guilt of the world’s nations at the time. The construct ignores the three thousand year connection of the Jews to the land of Israel, and it disregards the fact that the advent of modern Zionism predates the events of the Holocaust by more than half a century.

[Violet_Crumble]

13. That's a good move on the museum's part...

The website's an invaluable source of information, and I hope they're successful with it...