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Palestinian scholar Prof. Mohammed Dajani Daoudi was born in Jerusalem. He has been living there and in a number of other places such as Egypt, Syria, England, United States and Jordan. Although some of these moves were not made out of free choice he vehemently maintains that he never called himself a refugee and also never felt like one. For him being a refugee implies a certain dependence on others and a focus on the past. “I believe that the past is like a museum: It’s a place to visit, but the moment you leave, you have to look to the future, not the past.”
This proactive, self-made man approach guided him throughout his life: In his young years he joined Fatah where he organised for instance anti-American and anti-Zionist demonstrations in Beirut. Because of his good English he then got involved in political affairs and publishing for the organisation. But he soon got disillusioned and started disagreeing with the political direction Fatah was taking, the management of the organisation and Yasser Arafat’s leadership style.
But it took almost another 20 years before he had a life-changing experience that altered his perspective of Israel and Israelis: “When I went back to Israel in 1993, my father had cancer and was getting chemotherapy at Hadassah Medical Center in Ein Karem, Jerusalem. He took me with him to drive him home after the treatments. It was a totally new experience for me. The doctors and nurses there did not treat him as an Arab or a Palestinian or a Muslim, but as a patient. I noticed there were other Palestinians receiving medical care there. It opened my eyes to the humanity in the other. That was very important for me: It helped me to see Israelis not as soldiers or as manning a checkpoint, but as therapists or doctors. It was a different perspective.”
In 2007 Dajani and his brother cofounded Wasatia (“moderation/ the middle way” in Arabic) that promotes non-violence and compromise. In this framework he has published numerous articles and books, amongst others on the need to teach the Holocaust in the Palestinian education system. Based on his belief that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of conflicting narratives he finds the only way forward is walking in the other’s shoes. And the Holocaust plays a crucial part in this he believes.
His first knowledge of the Holocaust was based on denial and on the idea “that the Holocaust was exploited to create Israel and generate sympathy for Israel.” Digging a bit deeper he found it hard to find well-founded research on the topic in his native language so he co-authored a book about the Holocaust in Arabic “because we felt we had to fill that gap.” His first visit to Auschwitz in 2012 on the invitation of a French organisation he describes as “eye-opening experience”. “Without discussing the Holocaust, discussing genocide is meaningless,” he wrote in a joint op-ed in The New York Times. His efforts in changing the Palestinian perspective on the Holocaust reached a peak when he first took 27 Palestinian students on an educational visit to Auschwitz in 2014. It was part of the long-term project “Hearts of Flesh Not Stone” between Wasatia, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany and Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Israel, in which Israeli students also visited the Deheisheh refugee camp near Bethlehem.
Although he knew that his activities were not greeted with enthusiasm from all sides he never expected the reprisals he had to face for taking Palestinian students to Auschwitz and other death camps in Poland. Arabic language media falsely stated that the trip was financed by Israeli universities and Zionist organisations while the funding actually came from the German partner university in Jena. He was branded a “traitor”, received death threats and ultimately resigned from his senior post at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem. But he did not give in to the intimidation and started organising another trip. As soon as this was published on Wasatia’s website Dajani’s car was set ablaze. “There are many reasons for that resistance,” he explains. “They do not want to acknowledge the Israeli narrative because they feel it would undermine the Palestinian narrative.”
Asked if he fears for his life, he says, “No, I’m not afraid. As Muslims, we always believe in what God plans for us, in destiny. […] I am working with Friedrich Schiller University on a PhD program in reconciliation. I have an agreement with them to have Palestinian students study for two years in Palestine for their degree and in the third year go to Germany, to Jena, to complete the degree and get a diploma from them. We don’t have funding yet, but we are hoping to raise funds.” Dajani does not give up. He continues on his stony path.
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