The UK-based Varkey Foundation which awarded Palestinian teacher Hanan Al-Hroub its Global Teacher Prize has refused to withdraw the award after it was revealed that Al-Hroub’s husband had served time in an Israeli prison for his involvement in the killing of six Israelis in the early 1980s.
The foundation said in a statement that it does not look into the conduct of candidates’ relatives and that the teacher was committed to nonviolence.
“As a point of principle, we only look at the qualities, achievements and conduct of the candidates themselves,” it said.
“As Hanan Al-Hroub has said herself, she has spent her whole life dealing with the effects of violence on children at close hand and every day she works toward a world where children, wherever they come from, can grow up peacefully,” it added. “She has spent her entire career teaching the principle of nonviolence. She believes in nonviolence in all its forms and in all circumstances.”
Pro-Israeli sites began a smear campaign against Al-Hroub on Friday demanding the international organisation withdraw the prize.
The Jewish World newspaper said Omar Al-Hroub was a chemist who supplied the Palestinians with the necessary materials to manufacture a bomb that killed six Israelis in the early 1980s.
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