The Courage to Confront Hate
By Cathy Young | Monday, December 25, 2006 | The Boston Globe
One is struck by the power of hate, and by the alarming way hate is being fed by “opposing” religions around the world as an excuse for violent extremist persecution. How different and splintered this “Balkanized” 21st Century is from the visions of unity that gave birth to the United Nations after the devastation of World War II and the genocide perpretrated then.
As always, in dark times, stories of individual courage glimmer through. Here Cathy Young tells a very appropriate Christmas story. The odious “scientific” conference recently held in Tehran to refute the historical accuracy of the Holocaust included such famous scholars as David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the KKK.
Invited but eventually barred from attending was a real scholar, a man named Khaled Kasab Mahameed, a 44-year-old Israeli Arab and a Muslim who lives in Nazareth and is the founder of the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education. He passionately believes that progress in Israeli-Arab and Israeli-Palestinian relations is impossible until Arabs and Palestinians are fully educated about the Holocaust, accept its reality, and open their hearts and minds to the historical suffering of the Jews. Holocaust denial injures Palestinian Muslims directly, he argues.
Mahameed’s story is then linked to outcries against hatred by several other inspiring, courageous and outspoken individuals, including former NYC Mayor Ed Koch and ex-President Bill Clinton. May all of our hearts be strengthened and softened this Christmas (NOT an oxymoron unless one is filled with hate) – by the love around us, by great art and by noble, courageous, timeless ideals…BS
This entry was posted on Monday, December 25th, 2006 at 10:39 AM and filed under Civil Rights, History, Politics, Religion. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.
