AMMAN - UNRWA teachers in Jordan threatened to escalate measures if the relief agency continues with a plan to include the Holocaust in school textbooks.

Warning that the plan would hurt the feelings of all Palestinians, a member of the executive committee for teachers working at UNRWA-run schools told The Jordan Times on Wednesday that the educators are expecting a response from the agency today to clarify its position after teachers, not only in the Kingdom but at UNRWA’s five fields of operations in the region, opposed the plan.

“If the agency insists on its position, we plan to resort to work stoppage and strikes,” the source said.

A recent statement by Sami Mshasha, UNRWA’s spokesperson in the West Bank, said that the agency, which provides educational and health services to over four million Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, plans to include an “enrichment” subject on human rights that includes the Holocaust. The announced move angered teachers, who questioned why the UNRWA would not consider instead teaching about Israeli massacre of Palestinians.

The Jordan Times tried to contact Mshasha but he was not available for comment.

However, an UNRWA official in Jordan confirmed there are plans to teach the enrichment subject, including the Holocaust, in Gaza and the West Bank, but stated UNRWA-run schools in the country follow the textbooks of the education ministry.

The Union of Arab Workers at the UNRWA said in a statement issued March 13 that teachers, students and their parents as well as all Palestinian refugees were shocked by the agency’s plans, describing them as “attempts to derail the relief agency from its main duty of providing humanitarian services to refugees”.

The statement stressed that this topic, the Holocaust, should not be allowed to enter UNRWA schools at the five fields of operations, calling on the organisation to include an “enrichment” topic about the right of refugees to return to their homeland.

The statement, made available to The Jordan Times, urged teachers to refuse to contribute to the new syllabus in any form.

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