Aaron David Miller: Ground Zero's Wounds Are Still Too Deep to Build Upon
[Aaron David Miller is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He served as an adviser to Republican and Democratic secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations from 1988 to 2003. His forthcoming book, "Can America Have Another Great President?," will be published by Bantam Books.]
If there is one lesson to be learned from the controversy over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, it is that messing with memory, particularly traumatic memory of the first order, is akin to messing with Mother Nature: It rarely ends well, no matter how good the intention.
I learned this the hard way 12 years ago, when my idea of inviting Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat to visit the Holocaust museum in Washington proved to be a disaster. There is great danger in misappropriating memory and attempting to link it to another agenda or to a tragic historical experience seared in the minds of millions. However the controversy over the proposed mosque and Islamic center in Lower Manhattan plays out, the outcome is bound, for many in this country and elsewhere, to keep raw and open the wounds of Sept. 11, 2001. And the benefits do not appear to be worth the risk.
The decision to invite Arafat to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was conceived with the best intentions. In 1998, the Arab-Israeli peace process was in constant crisis. There was zero trust between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (then in his first term in that office). Both were looking for ways to demonize the other. Israelis and Palestinians -- officials to ordinary citizens -- traded accusations in the media over settlements, textbooks and portrayals in the media. To many Israelis, among the worst of the Palestinian transgressions was Holocaust denial. As a senior U.S. adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations, I was charged with identifying steps and gestures that might build confidence on both sides, in this case among Israelis. I proposed inviting Arafat to the museum during one of his many official visits to Washington, thinking: What better way to counter Holocaust denial than by having the alleged denier in chief visit the museum?...
Read entire article at WaPo
If there is one lesson to be learned from the controversy over the proposed mosque near Ground Zero, it is that messing with memory, particularly traumatic memory of the first order, is akin to messing with Mother Nature: It rarely ends well, no matter how good the intention.
I learned this the hard way 12 years ago, when my idea of inviting Palestine Liberation Organization Chairman Yasser Arafat to visit the Holocaust museum in Washington proved to be a disaster. There is great danger in misappropriating memory and attempting to link it to another agenda or to a tragic historical experience seared in the minds of millions. However the controversy over the proposed mosque and Islamic center in Lower Manhattan plays out, the outcome is bound, for many in this country and elsewhere, to keep raw and open the wounds of Sept. 11, 2001. And the benefits do not appear to be worth the risk.
The decision to invite Arafat to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum was conceived with the best intentions. In 1998, the Arab-Israeli peace process was in constant crisis. There was zero trust between Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu (then in his first term in that office). Both were looking for ways to demonize the other. Israelis and Palestinians -- officials to ordinary citizens -- traded accusations in the media over settlements, textbooks and portrayals in the media. To many Israelis, among the worst of the Palestinian transgressions was Holocaust denial. As a senior U.S. adviser on Arab-Israeli negotiations, I was charged with identifying steps and gestures that might build confidence on both sides, in this case among Israelis. I proposed inviting Arafat to the museum during one of his many official visits to Washington, thinking: What better way to counter Holocaust denial than by having the alleged denier in chief visit the museum?...