Article content continued

But the idea has met with fierce criticism from teachers in Palestinian refugee camps in Jordan and across the Middle East.

“The students need to know about their own history, how their parents were driven from their homes at gunpoint by Israeli gangs and militias, not how the Jews are victims,” says Riyadh.

UNRWA teachers say the UN body is planning to include the topic under the pretext of talking about human rights.

“The UN should show some respect for our tragedy. I would prefer to resign from my job than teach my students to sympathize with the same people who took our land,” Riyadh said.

He declined to give his last name because he faced expulsion from his job for talking to journalists.

The Holocaust is included in topics that discuss tolerance, conflict resolution, coexistence and other modern history issues

Earlier this month, the Executive Committee of UNRWA Teachers in Jordan, a body representing some 4,000 teachers in URWA schools around the country, announced it will not allow its members to teach Holocaust studies, following news that the topic will be included in this year’s schoolbooks.

In a nearby elementary school for girls, Huda teaches religious studies to students aged 12 to 15. She says the issue of the Holocaust is very controversial as long as peace with Israel is not achieved, and calls for a final and fair solution to the 60-year-old conflict.

“Peace between Arabs and Israelis must come first. There is the so-called peace process between the Palestinian Authority and Israel, but that process has been going backward rather than forward,” she says.