Palestinians Attack Professor Over Auschwitz Student Visit

April 13, 2014 15:48
by Simon Plosker

Disowned by his university and branded a traitor by his fellow Palestinians. This after a professor took 27 college students on a trip to the Auschwitz concentration camp as part of a project to teach empathy and tolerance. The Washington Post takes up the story:

[Professor] Dajani said that many Palestinians think the Holocaust is used by Jews and Israelis as propaganda to justify the seizure of lands that Palestinians say are theirs and to create sympathy for Israel. Others, he said, think the Holocaust is exaggerated or just one of many massacres that occurred during World War II. …

A university student who went on the trip but asked not to be named because of the charged atmosphere said the visit changed him. “You feel the humanity. You feel the sympathy of so many people killed in this place because of their race or religion.”

“Most people said we shouldn’t go,” the student said. “It is a strange thing for a Palestinian to go to a Nazi death camp. But I would recommend the trip.” He said it did not diminish his desire for a Palestinian state.