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Hamas, UNRWA and the Holocaust

GAZA, Aug. 31 2009 (Xinhua News Agency ) -- The Islamic Hamas movement and the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) argued on Monday over the inclusion into the curriculum of UNRWA preparatory schools a course on human rights that speaks about the "Jewish Holocaust."

UNRWA educates some 200,000 refugee children aged between 6 and15 in the densely populated Gaza Strip, which has been ruled by Hamas since it routed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' security forces and seized control of the enclave in June 2007.

A course of human rights for the 14-year-old children of eighth grade in schools run by UNRWA in Gaza angered Hamas when it talked about the Jewish Holocaust.

The Popular Committee of Palestinian refugees, a pro-Hamas group in the Gaza Strip, severely slammed the UNRWA and demanded it to "immediately" erase the part that speaks about the Holocaust from the Palestinian pupils' curriculum.

The committee sent a letter to the chief of the UNRWA office on Sunday, calling on the UN relief organization to erase the Holocaust subject from the human rights books.

Husam Ahmed, the Popular Committee's coordinator in the Gaza Strip said the material, which is included in the human rights subject, "was formed in a way that shows sympathy with the Jews." He warned of having an attitude "to construct a generation that supports the Jews and the Holocaust" in the Palestinian territories.

Ahmed warned that "if UNRWA ignores our demand, we will organize protests, rallies and demonstrations that are allowed by the law."

"We call on UNRWA to erase the subject ... and stop any future attempt to insert strange concepts or cultures that contradict with the Palestinian values, traditions and principles," said the committee's letter.

"We are against it because those who added the subject to the curriculum aim at playing with the feelings and thoughts of our children," said the pro-Hamas popular committees' letter.

Meanwhile, the interior ministry of Hamas de facto government in Gaza said in a statement that "it expresses astonishment because UNRWA curriculum is talking about the Jewish Holocaust."

"We reject teaching our pupils such thoughts that contradicts with our Palestinian beliefs," said the interior ministry statement, which called on the ministry of education "to check if such news is right."

Meanwhile, UNRWA denied that it teaches the Holocaust in preparatory schools and also denied that the Holocaust is included in the pupils' curriculum.

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samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

There is a movement in the US that doesn't want to "upset" children by teaching them about it. Another theory, you have to teach both sides of all stories, so allow holocaust deniers a chance

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helenS · 36-40, F

@samueltyler2 I sure hope that's a tiny movement of outsiders?

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@helenS There are some in positions of power in large states! It is insane, they don't want to teach about slavery as well.

BohemianBabe · M

@helenS It is, but it's quickly growing. It's the result of Republicans trying to get Nazis to vote for them by using Nazi propaganda.

helenS · 36-40, F

@BohemianBabe When I was in the US, about 15 years ago, those Republicans I met were decent and honest men and women. What has become of that party???

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@BohemianBabe they foster the replacement theory, that leads to the growth of the neo-Nazi movement

helenS · 36-40, F

@samueltyler2 "Replacement" theory??

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@helenS it depends on your definition of decent. Look back over decades and look at what the Republicans did. The interesting thing is in the south, the Dixiecrats were Democrats in the south that no seemed to favor racism. Lincoln was a republican. All that changed sounds nice WWII. It started with the fear of communism. Then led to unsupported claims that the minority would become the majority and rule with an iron fist. There was a TV program with that theme. When i i was in college, early 1960s the "young republicans" had a bizarre agenda, borne out today by what has happened.

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@helenS yes, listen to the crowds fir ng the riots in Charlottesville, listen to the Nazi chant that was their mantra, we shall not be replaced.

BohemianBabe · M

@helenS Conservatism as an ideology has always been authoritarian. All they needed was a politician who was dumb enough to be openly authoritarian. That's all it took for virtually the entire Right to reject both democracy and reality. In a way it's good, because now the GOP can't win right-leaning moderates. The downside is now the Republicans are all trying to end democracy so Trump can be a dictator.

@samueltyler2 Even more than that, there's the use of the "Cultural Marxism" conspiracy theory. That leads people straight to Nazism, since it's so heavily based on the original Nazi propaganda.

helenS · 36-40, F

@samueltyler2 Sorry please but replaced by what??

BohemianBabe · M

@helenS The conspiracy is that the Jews are replacing the white population with a multiracial population. Basically, open borders so America can be flooded with brown people.
The irony is that it's actually Republican policies which cause mass immigration into America, but facts are for Leftists.

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@helenS Jews and African Americans.

helenS · 36-40, F

@samueltyler2 It's bizarre 😐

flipper1966 · M

@BohemianBabe You're referring to right-wing authoritarianism. There are also authoritarians on the left.

justanothername · 51-55, M

@helenS Cry baby Trump arrived

trollslayer · 46-50, M

@helenS your questions have been answered, and I think those answers are spot-on.

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@helenS DANGEROUS!

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@flipper1966 I have seen this nonsense far too much on this site and similar ones, you are projecting too much, further, the way the far-right extremists react is far more damaging and dangerous.

flipper1966 · M

@samueltyler2

Is the myth of left-wing authoritarianism itself a myth?

Abstract

Is left-wing authoritarianism (LWA) closer to a myth or a reality? Twelve studies test the empirical existence and theoretical relevance of LWA. Study 1 reveals that both conservative and liberal Americans identify a large number of left-wing authoritarians in their lives. In Study 2, participants explicitly rate items from a recently-developed LWA measure as valid measurements of authoritarianism. Studies 3-11 show that persons who score high on this same LWA scale possess the traits associated with models of authoritarianism: LWA is positively related to threat sensitivity across multiple areas, including general ecological threats (Study 3), COVID disease threat (Study 4), Belief in a Dangerous World (Study 5), and Trump threat (Study 6). Further, high-LWA persons show more support for restrictive political correctness norms (Study 7), rate African-Americans and Jews more negatively (Studies 8-9), and show more cognitive rigidity (Studies 10 and 11). These effects hold when controlling for political ideology and when looking only within liberals, and further are similar in magnitude to comparable effects for right-wing authoritarianism. Study 12 uses the World Values Survey to provide cross-cultural evidence of Left-Wing Authoritarianism around the globe. Taken in total, this large array of triangulating evidence from 12 studies comprised of over 8,000 participants from the U.S. and over 66,000 participants world-wide strongly suggests that left-wing authoritarianism is much closer to a reality than a myth.

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@flipper1966 you make me laugh, what are the studies, who performed them, where were they performed, where were they published? You really disclosed yourself when you spoke about tRump. Don't tell me to look it up, that is a cop put. If you say there are 13 such studies show us even 6.

BohemianBabe · M

@flipper1966 The spectrum of Right to Left is essentially Authoritarianism to Libertarianism. There is no such thing as "left-wing Authoritarianism" because Leftism is all about spreading power throughout society. Conservatism is the opposite, it's about consolidating power in a hierarchical way.

flipper1966 · M

@BohemianBabe

Leftism is all about spreading power throughout society. Conservatism is the opposite, it's about consolidating power in a hierarchical way.

🤣 🤣 🤣

[media=https://youtu.be/2R7YXg9czrA]

BohemianBabe · M

@flipper1966 Tankies aren't Leftists.
There's a reason why the Left rejected the Bolsheviks when it became clear that they were anti-democracy.

Meanwhile, the Right claims that China is communist, yet supports Trump as he says that America should be more like China. The truth here is that China isn't communist, it's authoritarian, which is why Trump and his drooling idiot supporters like China. The Right always comes down on the side of hierarchical power.

helenS · 36-40, F

@BohemianBabe

the Left rejected the Bolsheviks when it became clear that...

... they opposed World War I.

samueltyler2 · 80-89, M

@BohemianBabe I can't understand how the republican party I knew, which was devotedly against communism, has become so enamored of current Russia, particularly of Putin who seems a reincarnated Stalin!

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