UAE teaches global impact of Holocaust in schools

The director of the Museum at the Crossroads of Civilizations in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, shows visitors the facility’s Holocaust gallery, January 11, 2023.

(KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images)

In early January, the United Arab Emirates embassy in the United States announced that, for the first time in its history, the Arab Gulf state would begin teaching about the Holocaust in public schools. Much of the immediate reaction focused on how the decision could be a result of the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. But behind the possibility of strengthening UAE-Israel relations and improving Muslim-Jewish dialogue, teaching the Holocaust in the United Arab Emirates is not only about teaching history, but introducing new ideas about human rights. From the UAE, a center of education, these ideas will spread to the global South, with uncertain implications for authoritarian or autocratic regimes such as Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Oman.Contrary to popular belief, Holocaust education does not guarantee strong bonds between Israel and Muslims, especially if Israel turns illiberal under its right-wing government…