Dr. Maayan Agmon, a nursing professor at Haifa University, stirred up controversy recently, by comparing the Holocaust with the Arab defeat in the War of Independence. She later apologized for her remarks.
The incident took place last month, when during one of her lectures Agmon asked her students: "How do you perceive culture? There are different types of culture. The Jews have the Holocaust and the Arabs have the Nakba," she said, referring to a term literally meaning "catastrophe," coined to mark the Arab world's defeat in the 1948 war, the flight of Palestinian refugees from Israel, and the "catastrophe" of Israel's inception.
One of her students reportedly asked her how she could compare the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis to the displacement of 700,000 Palestinians, to which Agmon replied: "You have to accept the fact that [the Palestinians] also went through a holocaust. You should respect that."
Matan Peleg, head of the right-wing Zionist organization Im Tirtzu, denounced Agmon's remarks, saying "This lecturer has adopted a false narrative that sins against historical facts. Any comparison between the outcome of the War of Independence and the [Palestinians'] desire to annihilate Jews in Israel and the Holocaust is outrageous and horribly disrespectful. It is also indicative of ignorance and distorted morals."
Tzahi Melman, head of the Victims of Nazi Persecution organization, sent a letter to Haifa University President Amos Shapira and Education Minister Shai Piron criticizing the remarks: "If university lecturers in Israel mention the Holocaust and what the Arabs, who sought to finish what Hitler started, tried to do [in 1948], in one breath — what are those who look up to them supposed to think?"
"I'm sorry if my remarks were misunderstood and I apologize if anyone was offended by them," Agmon later said.
Haifa University also issued a statement, saying that "The Holocaust was a deliberate and systematic genocide the like of which has never been seen in history. Any comparison between the Holocaust and other events is distorted and baseless, as the university has made clear. [Dr. Agmon] is the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, and as someone whose family experienced Nazi atrocities she was extremely upset about being misunderstood."
"In a hearing held after the incident she clarified that as part of a lecture she gave in one of our nursing classes, she spoke about the need to provide equal quality of care to all, regardless of any cultural differences, and that in order to do so, we must be familiar and respectful of different narratives. She did not mean to compare the Holocaust and the Nakba," the university said.