In response to a petition to reinstate academic courses for jailed terrorists in Israeli prisons, the state released a document noting the most popular course among jailed terrorists in 2011 was “Genocide.”

Jailed terrorists were allowed to study at Israel’s Open University from prison until 2011, when the benefits were cancelled during negotiations to free Gilad Shalit, who was being held hostage by Hamas in Gaza. Shalit was held in conditions against international law and without Red Cross visits.

The reports about jailed terrorists’ studies comes amid revelations that released terrorists are unrepentant, and lived a life of ease in Israeli jails.

Maariv NRG reports that a document from the Knesset’s Research and Information Center was presented to MK Miri Regev (Likud-Beytenu), Chairwoman of the Internal Affairs Committee, for the upcoming Supreme Court case over the petition.

On Wednesday, Regev said “the terrorists need to rot in jail for murdering children and sending suicide bombers to injure innocents. The state did well to stop the benefits. I hope that the Supreme Court will be attentive also to the voice of the Knesset and will reject the petition.”

Regev further called the courses “an unprecedented scandal. The state of Israel which is threatened by terror organizations and terrorists funds with its taxes studies for murderers. Does anyone think that Al Qaeda terrorists in Guantanamo prison were granted academic studies?”

The comparison with US treatment of terrorist prisoners recalls the words of Prof. Avi Diskin, expert on political science at Hebrew University and the Shaarei Mishpat College, who said the US would never release terrorists as it pressured Israel to do.

All topics of study for the jailed terrorists were approved by Prison Services, according to the document.

The course on genocide reportedly engages questions such as how genocide occurs and what historical processes and forces bring it into being. It also includes an attempt to understand how political regimes decide on genocide as their course of action.

In 2011, before the courses were cancelled, 323 prisoners enrolled in classes, 40% more than in 2010.

After Genocide, the most requested courses were Democracy and Dictatorship, Israel in its First Decade, Between Zion and Zionism, Introduction to Middle Eastern History in the New Era, Islam – Introduction to the Religion’s History, and Introduction to National Thought.