Mother of Akal Srur

Several days ago (Friday June 5) another Palestinian man, Akal Srur, was killed by Israeli soldiers in the weekly demonstrations in Niilin (we were not there that day). Israeli media is just as manipulative as U.S. media, note the headline of this article, “IDF: Man killed in Naalin was Hamas operative”:

Of course, he may have been a “member” of Hamas, but that’s just like saying he was a Democrat or Republican in the U.S. – the two main political parties are Hamas and Fatah. And to call him an “operative” of course makes it sound like he was following orders from high up, was on a mission, maybe was armed. He wasn’t on a mission, he just lives in Niilin and joins the demonstrations almost every Friday. He was one of 5 Palestinians killed in Niilin in the last year and a half.

We were in Niilin last week for a memorial service for him, will post from that footage soon.

Yesterday, the same Israeli paper ran TWO articles on Niilin, the village where Khaled and I have been shooting for the past several months (and where some of its citizens decided to open their own holocaust museum, see posts below…) On the one hand, two Palestinians were injured there yesterday in the demonstrations.

And on the other hand, the Israeli army states that in Niilin and Biilin (a neighboring village, where we have also shot, and where a villager was killed soldiers a month ago), “Gaza was easier.” The saga, and the bloodshed goes on. Of course, the “Gaza was easier” article didn’t mention once WHY the villagers in both places demonstrate weekly (because the Separation Fence cuts them off from a large percent of their olive trees and thus their income).

So how to sum up this mess? That the villagers AND the soldiers (not to mention all the citizens in Palestine and Israel) are victims of government policies that avoid peacemaking?

At the site of his ancestral home in Ellajon

I’m Khaled Kasab Mahameed born in Um El Fahem in 9^th of May 1962 from a family who was deported from the destroyed Palestinian village “Ellajon” – which is Armageddon – mentioned in the holy Bible:  Revelation Chapter 16.

My father Mahmood was expelled with his family and all the inhabitants of that village in 1948 from Ellajon – accompanying other  541 Palestinian villages by the Israelis when he was 17 year old where he carried in his memory, and which he told me and my other 12 brothers and sisters later, when he was returning from the Israeli jail -  there he spent a few periods of prisonment because he was claiming for the right of his fellow Palestinians.

I was six years old when I heard about the Holocaust  first time in my life. My father said, “We Palestinians Pay the price for the Atrocities the Nazis caused the Jews in the Holocaust”. From that time my mind wanted to know – what is was Holocaust?

It took for me 4 decades to decide to establish what is now called “The first Holocaust Museum in the Arab world,” after studying Sociology and Political Science in Hebrew University, business administration in Stockholm’s University and in Haifa University, and Law in East London University.

I practice Law for my living but Holocaust research and education for Palestinians in my “free time” for my “prophecy” and by my own expenditure.

In 2004 my wife Izdihar and I, with the support of our two children – Jawdat, who is now 14,  and Asil who is now 12 -  put on the internet the first website in Arabic  about the Jewish Holocaust  - which is aimed to inform Arabs about this unique crime in human History. We established “the Arab Institute for Holocaust Research and Education” in October 2004. Then in January, 2009, we inaugurated the second Holocaust museum in the world, in the Palestinian village of Ni’lin in the West Bank.

Next step is to inaugurate 5 Holocaust Museums in different 5 Palestinian towns.

Khaled and Hassan (Nilin resident) at the museum in Nilin

After an initial exhibit in the West Bank Palestinian village of Niilin in January, the official inauguration of the museum is next Tuesday, April 21 – Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel).
Come see for yourself how the Khaled’s work is inspiring debate and yes, starting controversy (I invited one Israeli journalist to this event, and he said “No, thanks,” saying it was undoubtedly a case of “holocaust abuse.”)
Read an article here about Niilin’s exhibit.

If you live in Israel, drive or take the bus to Modiin, getting out on Highway 443 just before entering Modiin. Then turn onto the road towards Modiin Ilit, and wait 30 meters down that road at the bus stop (and get there by 9:15 a.m.). We will drive the 10 minutes into the West Bank to Nilin. Israeli citizens, don’t worry – coming back to Israel afterwards there is a checkpoint, but IDs are never checked there. Cars are also leaving from Jerusalem. For information, please call or email Harvey: 052-801-6017,  jerusalemnewyork@gmail.com

The venerable “The Forward”, which was first published as a daily Yiddish newspaper, in 1897, published an article quoting Khaled last week – in their English edition. Definitely an evil publication, they came out early in favor of trade unions and democratic socialism – so it figures they would feature Khaled’s work at some point. 

The November 1, 1936 cover is at the top.

Today Khaled, Radi, and I drive to Bilin, a village in the West Bank about 20 km northwest of Jerusalem. The town is cut in two by the Separation Fence (which is a 30 foot high concrete wall in other places). Palestinian farmers can no longer get to their fields, their land is suddenly no longer theirs, but Israel claims it prevents potential terrorists from slipping into Israel.

We join the weekly march/demonstration, which ends up at the Fence – Khaled and Radi holding high large b&w photos of the Holocaust. Finally, we’re 100 feet from the soldiers, several layers of fence and barbed wire between us. Khaled and Radi are armed with the photos, held up against the fence like protective crosses. (Khaled convinced a young Palestinian guy, who usually throws stones at the soldiers, to hold a photo too.)

A few moments of silence. The soldiers seem confused, one looks away, maybe in response to the photos. Then – a shot, followed by the characteristic hiss coming at us across the No Man’s Land – a tear gas grenade spirals across the ground near us. My first experience of this wonderful “crowd dispersal” invention, my eyes immediately burn, tears fall, and I can’t stop coughing.

Went today on an exploratory trip to Dheisheh Refugee Camp, which is on the edge of Bethlehem (birthplace of Jesus) and only 10 kilometers from Jerusalem, where I live. Short trip into the West Bank, but worlds apart. The usual downer through the checkpoint, in this case a whole warehouse, but almost no human authorities visible, all hiding behind one way glass or peering thru security cameras.

Hung across the main entrance to the camp, the usual proud banners, but look closely at the one they had up today. Anniversary of the death of the hero on the right, humiliation of the villain on the upper left.

Later, coming back thru the checkpoint, passed crowds of Palestinian day workers coming back to Bethlehem, being grilled by the guards behind glass. Me, I just had to flash my U.S. passport, didn’t even ask me to open it, and I strolled through …God Bless America.

Fast forward to the Israeli/Palestinian mess. I’m a card carrying Jew (circumcised, Bar Mitzvahed, even a kabbalistic tattoo on my arm). I’m proud of my ancient heritage – especially when it talks about “justice, justice, shall you pursue” and “a stranger shall you not oppress, since you know the heart of a stranger, seeing you were strangers in the Land of Egypt.”

I immigrated to Israel in 2006 (as any Jew worldwide can do, according to Israeli law – something any Palestinian refugee worldwide, whose grandparents actually lived somewhere in the current state of Israel, can only dream of). I immediately realized this is a frustratingly polarized place. A lot of “leftists” are just as aggressive and angry as the worst of the ultra-Zionists, pan-Arabists, and other fundamentalists. And I soon discovered this very unusual Palestinian activist, lawyer, and poet. Not only a terrific subject for a doc, but a great excuse for some wild adventures.

How do you teach people compassion? Especially when they don’t necessarily WANT to identify with “the other”?

Mahameed sometimes hangs a Palestinian flag in his tiny museum. He often spends the first hour with a Palestinian audience developing rapport, speaking their language – yes, he wants every one of them to be able to return to their villages WITHIN Israel. Then finally, near the end of his talk, when they’re itching to see the photos he’s mentioned several times, he takes them out.

It’s almost like he has to trick people into feeling something they don’t want to feel. And likewise, when he shows the photos to Israeli soldiers, he says he wants to “shock them” into treating Palestinians more humanely.

A guy who has sat down with sheikhs and rabbis, Hamas and Fatah members, holocaust survivors and the father of Gilad Shalit – is not afraid to test his ideas wherever he can. One thing for sure: he has an almost obsessive faith in the power of examining the Holocaust – “looking into the pain” – to change peoples’ thinking on BOTH sides.

I’ve quickly found that not only Khaled’s work, but my film will provoke people – including potential funders. One Jewish guy was totally high when I first talked w. him (I guess he assumed Khaled was some kind of simplistic saint), but the more I showed him, the more suspicious he got, until he was quoting me warnings like, “If we are kind to the cruel, then we will be cruel to the kind.”

So I ask you – Arab or Jew, Zionist or anti-Zionist, religious, secular, none of the above – to look at this project with open eyes – don’t immediately evaluate it one way or another. We welcome interaction and feedback. Stay with us for the ride, support us in any way you can – and in a year or so, we’ll have finished a cool film about an amazing man, set in a beautiful, peaceful corner of the world.