Two separate pieces of news this week show two organizations moving in opposite directions, one toward reconciliation and historical justice and the other toward hatred and endless conflict.
The two organizations are the Catholic Church and Iranian-backed Hamas. Let's take the good news first.
The Associated Press reports: "Pope Benedict XVI has made a sweeping exoneration of the Jewish people for the death of Jesus Christ, tackling one of the most controversial issues in Christianity in a new book."
After a detailed analysis of the accounts in the Gospels, Benedict asks, "How could the whole people have been present at this moment to clamor for Jesus' death?" It could not have happened that way, he concludes. Instead, he puts the blame on "a few Temple leaders and a small group of supporters."
This particular blood libel -- that the Jewish people bore collective responsibility, handed down through the generations for eternity, for the death of Jesus -- has caused untold suffering through almost 2,000 years. Ultimately, it helped create the conditions that produced the Holocaust.
Of course, Benedict knows all about the Holocaust. He grew up in Nazi Germany and was forced at age 14 to join the Hitler Youth. As Pope, he has prayed at the Auschwitz Nazi death camp in Poland and visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem.
His statement is a welcome step forward and goes a long way toward healing and reconciliation between Catholics and Jews.
Which brings me to the second headline of the week -- that Hamas has vowed to prevent Palestinian children being taught about the Holocaust in U.N.-funded schools in the Gaza Strip.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) runs 228 schools in Gaza, educating over 200,000 children. Its curriculum has included a unit on human rights since 2002 and the agency said in 2009 it would include references to Holocaust in its eighth grade curriculum.
Hamas, which runs the Gaza Strip and permits no opposition, has called the Holocaust "a lie made up by the Zionists." The fundamentalist Islamic Group's Charter calls for the destruction of Israel and urges supporters to kill Jews. The organization is in the strange position of denying one Holocaust while aspiring to create another.
Gaza Education Minister Mahammad Ashquol said this week his ministry "will never allow teaching Holocaust to Gazan refugee camp children. Messing up Gaza's education system is a red line which can't be ignored ... This is a flagrant intervention in the internal affairs of the Palestinians and a violation of regulations that have existed since the establishment of UNRWA."
Hamas is urging teachers to refuse to include the Holocaust in their lessons and has ordered children to leave the classroom if teachers tried to tell them about the Holocaust.
Hamas backs up words with action. Already this year, they and their various offshoot groups have fired 57 rockets and mortars at Israel. The international media has almost ignored this since there have fortunately not been any casualties - although one rocket demolished a building in Beersheba last week.
Such hatred is purely destructive. It cannot lead anywhere except to more suffering for Israelis and Palestinians alike. The leaders of Hamas should take a leaf from Pope Benedict's book. The truth will help set them free.
Follow Alan Elsner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/alanelsner
Rev. James Martin, S.J.: Who Killed Jesus? An Examination of the Evidence
Imam Abdullah Antepli: A Day of Deep Sorrow: An Imam's Reflections on Yom Hashoah
Alan Elsner is Senior Director, Communications and Research for The Israel Project, so his slant can scarcely be described as "surprising".
Are you saying, Israeli childern learn there grandparents from Europe caused teh Nakba?
Israel came into existence against the will of the majority of people living in Palestine. Settlers came from other continents and forced out the natives. Did that happen in Syria or Lebanon? No.
Israel was restored in 1948, not created.
This is like the uproar over the Lebanese resisting the introduction of Anne Frank's diary into their national curriculum.
I would imagine that both Palestinians and Lebanese - who have such incredible writers in their midst - should be able to choose to study human rights by examining books that cover their own recent and traumatic carnages. Massacres conducted by Israelis, as a matter of coincidence.
Forcing these children to study the Holocaust may have the sensitivity equivalence of having Japanese children - banned from reading about the nuclear holocausts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - being forced to read about the traumas suffered by chemical agents in Vietnam and Iraq by US soldiers.
The Holocaust is often used to provoke outrage and gain instant sympathy - no matter the situation. It has been so overused in the context of the poor occupied Palestinians, that it has lost all value with this reader.
This is a choice for Palestinians, not UN officials or Israelis.
However, I do agree with you that the Nakba should be taught in Israeli schools to all students. Livni required such teaching when she was PM, but Netanyahu ended that policy.
Two wrongs don't make a right. Neither party can justify it's action because the other is similarly wrong.
Having said that, I strongly contend that the Jewish state abuses the symbols of the Holocaust to further a wholly political agenda - and personally feel that this cynical exploitation is a betrayal of every single Jew who was callously exterminated based solely on their religion. You will find many Israelis and Jews who agree with me on this - google it.
Because of this politicization - and because of Israel's refusal to allow its own children from studying the Nakba - I find it entirely understandable that an oppressed population does not want to read about the political, cultural or humanistic narratives of its oppressor, however myopic that may be. I didn't say this was right - but it is absolutely understandable, and deeply ironic given Israel's rejection of the Nakba in its own schools.
But what is "right?" For the 100th time, there is no symmetry in this conflict. Israel is the Occupier, and Palestinians are the Occupied. Given this reality, the very idea that Palestinians have to march to someone else's rulebook is absurd and offensive.