UN Official Denies Holocaust is Human Rights Issue

The Holocaust - the most profound example of man's inhumanity to man in history - is universally accepted as the heart and soul of any human rights agenda. But even as the world gathered in Poland to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, in which fifty million human beings lost their lives, officials of the UN's Relief Works Agency in Gaza were unilaterally deciding to eradicate any references to WWII's Nazi Holocaust in UNRWA school curriculum. UNRWA must not act as if it is a subsidiary of Hamas. But Karen Abu Zayd, the commissioner-general of UNRWA, sounded very much like a Hamas official when she indicated at a press conference that the Holocaust and Human Rights are two different issues, 'I can refute allegations that the UN school curriculum includes anything about the Holocaust. Anyone can have a look at the school books. Really we focus on human rights in curriculum."

And John Ging, UNRWA's Gaza Director, mocked UN policy when he declared, "There is no intention to integrate materials and topics [on the Holocaust] that are inconsistent with the desire of Palestinian society."

Both UNRWA officials were responding to protests demanding that UNRWA drop the curriculum because, "the refugee camps committees categorically refuse to let our children be taught this lie created by the Jews and intensified by their media."

Join the SWC campaign to demand that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon fire these senior UNRWA officials and put in place the Holocaust curriculum at UNRWA schools. The role of UNRWA must be to help set the stage for peace and reconciliation between Palestinians and Israelis, not as agents for the agenda of terrorist groups.