Sunday, February 22, 2015

Islam and the Holocaust? Why not Potatos and Buddhism, or Pencils and Hinduism

What on earth is the relationship between Islam and Holocaust?  How offensive is this title for a book, course, or research agenda? What does Islam have to do with the Holocaust? This is as offensive and crazy as talking about Christianity and the crimes of Genghis Khan.  But she knows what she is doing: she got a profile in the Times and her anti-Islam schitick will get her plenty of gigs and plenty of grants.  And look at this summation of her work: "“If a Muslim asks me why I’m not teaching about the Nakba, then I’ll say we already know about it, and what we need to learn about is the Holocaust,” she said. “And if a Jew tells me, ‘Muslims are Nazis,’ I’ll say, ‘Can we have lunch?’ These are the people we have to engage.”"  First, how unscholarly does she sound, but that does not bother anyone who will hire her because what she is doing reinformces the worst stereotypes.  So why would she only have lunch with one side but not the other? That is quite revealing. Also, so basically AnNakba is not worth knowing about because "we know about it" while the Holocaust should be learned about?  How silly is that? Jews and others learn about the Holocaust and there is always something to learn but for an educator to say: "we don't need to learn about this because we already know about the subject" is quite revealing about the qualifications and agenda of the teacher.