Spanish University Cancels Course Comparing Gaza to Auschwitz

The course included readings of a Holocaust survivor and a Palestinian poet, among others.

By Dion J. Pierre, The Algemeiner

A literature course comparing the Gaza Strip to the Auschwitz extermination camp has been cancelled by the University of Santiago of de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, a leading pro-Israel group said Tuesday.

Titled “Auschwitz/Gaza: A Testing Ground for Comparative Literature,” the class was scheduled to be taught by Professor César Domínguez this fall, according to the Action and Communication on the Middle East (ACOM) organization, a Spanish pro-Israel advocacy group that had previously criticized the course.

“The iconography and main theme of the program established, and not by coincidence, a correspondence between Gaza, an area controlled by Hamas, a jihadist organization that subjects its population to a regime of terror, and the Auschwitz extermination camp,” ACOM said in a statement.

“We celebrate that the University has rectified, eliminating from its academic offer a course designed only from the utmost clumsiness, fierce sectarianism, and a shameless sense of impunity, a true enormity that trivializes the Holocaust, even awarding academic credits for it,” the group said.

The University of Santiago of de Compostela did not immediately respond to an Algemeiner request for comment.

A course description published by ACOM included readings from the Holocaust survivor and writer Primo Levi and the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, among others.

The planned class had also drawn outrage from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, which on Monday called on Spain’s minister of universities to intervene.