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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The United Arab Emirates embassy in the United States says the country will begin teaching the Holocaust in history classes in elementary and secondary schools across the country.
The embassy did not provide details about courses or education authorities, and the UAE, a federation of seven emirates, did not immediately recognize Monday’s announcement.
However, the announcement came after UAE to normalize relations with Israel in 2020 as part of a deal brokered by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Following the historic (labelled) Abraham Accords, (the UAE) will now include the Holocaust in the curriculum of primary and secondary schools,” the embassy said in a tweet, referring to the eventual normalization agreement between Bahrain and Morocco also acknowledging Israel.
Ambassador Deborah E. Lipstadt, the U.S. special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism, praised the statement in a tweet of her own.
“Holocaust education is a human imperative that too many countries, for too long, have continued to downplay the Holocaust for political reasons,” wrote Lippstadt, using the Hebrew word for the Holocaust . “I applaud the UAE for taking this step and hope other countries will follow suit soon.”
The announcement comes ahead of a Negev Forum working group meeting planned for this week in Abu Dhabi stemming from normalization. Officials from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and the United States will attend. For decades, Egypt has recognized Israel diplomatically.
The Holocaust saw the systematic murder of six million European Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II. Founded in 1948 as a safe haven for Jews after the Holocaust, Israel automatically grants citizenship to anyone of Jewish descent.
Other Arab states have refused to recognize diplomatically that Israel has occupied land for decades that Palestinians hope to establish a future state.
The UAE statement also came after it and other Arab countries condemned An ultra-nationalist Israeli cabinet minister visits Jerusalem holy site It was the first since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new far-right government took office.
The site, known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary, is the holiest site in Judaism and is home to the ancient biblical temple. Today, it houses the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the third holiest site in Islam. Since Israel took over the site in 1967, Jews have been allowed to visit but not pray there.
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Follow Jon Gambrell on Twitter at www.twitter.com/jongambrellAP.
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