Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on March 31, 2020

Saudi Arabias King Salman has been in power now for justover half a decade. He and his son CrownPrince Mohammed have been credited with carrying out a comprehensive reformagenda to modernize the kingdoms economy and liberalize its society.

Some outward signs of a more open country are certainlyevident. The austere dress code has been relaxed. Women are permitted to driveand are increasingly found in different sectors of employment. Crucially though,have these visible signs of progress been reflected in education? Is thegroundwork being laid by Saudi Arabias schools for a different future?

Following up on severalrecent studiesof the Saudi curriculum by ADL, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and CulturalEducation in School Textbooks (IMPACT-se) just completed a longer, comprehensivereview of Saudi textbooks since 2016, using standards for peace andtolerance outlined by UNESCO as a benchmark.

The results are eye-opening, including the examination oftextbooks for the 2019-2020 academic year that are currently in use. In somerespects, progress has been made. Hostility towards Christians has beensoftened in some regards. References to Christianity as a colonial force andan invalid and perverted religion have been removed from the latest Saudicurriculum. Unlike previous curricula, terrorism perpetrated by Muslims isspecifically and sharply criticized. Importantly, the latest textbooks makeclear that self-sacrifice for the sake of jihad, such as suicide bombings, isprohibited. Previous curricula had sought to justify jihad against so-calledinfidels.

Although the current curriculum does not promote genderequality, it does endorse female employment, entrepreneurship and the right todrive. Tellingly, a Grade 6 Social Studies and Civics textbook features acartoon in which a girl says, I am Saudi: I will be, Inshallah, an outstandingphysician, and I will discover more medical inventions. Teaching femaleambition in such a way would have been unthinkable only a few short years ago.

Yet, on the other hand, the latest Saudi curriculum remainsplagued by intolerance. Non-Muslims including Christians and Jews are stilldemonized in the latest books as infidels, who are described as enemies of Godand all Muslims. Shiite Muslims,referred to derogatorily as polytheists, are similarly marginalized andcondemned.

Meanwhile, vicious incitement against gay men continuesunabated. They are still presented in this years books as scapegoats forsocietal misfortune, with children taught that society will be punished withdisease and disaster for the sin of homosexuality. The kingdoms lessonscontinue to teach that the proper penalty for men having sex with men is death.

In addition, the kingdoms official textbooks still containnumerous messages of anti-Jewish hatred. Jews are described at one point asmonkeys and blamed as assassins of Islamic prophets or caliphs throughouthistory, although some of these references have been cut out since 2017. Jews are portrayed in several instances aseternally treacherous, guilty of committing evil and determined to harm Muslimholy places. Jews are repeatedly accused of plotting to destroy the al-AqsaMosque in Jerusalem. For example, the textbooks authors teach the blood libelblaming Jews or Israeli authorities for setting fire to the mosque in 1969, anact that was actually perpetrated by a mentally ill Christian man fromAustralia.

Fighting and killing Jews is presented in the Saudicurriculum as a precondition for the End of Days. Some limited improvementshave been made in the 2019 curriculum, finally removing a longstandingreference to the slanderous claim that Jews have a secret plan to take over theworld, a conspiracy theory that had been highlighted in 2018 on thecover of an ADL research report. Yet, this is wholly overshadowed by whatremains a bleak and damaging portrayal of Jews.

In essence, the latest Saudi curriculum seems to besomething of a contradiction. On the one hand, there appears to be a realattempt to move away from jihadism. On the other, deep and destructiveprejudices remain, including those that are used by extremists to justifyreligious violence against people demonized as the other. Progress in thecurriculum has been tentative and unsure, with stark limits in some of the mostimportant areas. Although the kingdom has undertaken rapid reforms in severalother policy areas such as expanding womens rights and curtailing theabusive religious police the kingdoms rulers have yet to show that they aregiving similar priority to the urgent removal of incitement fromgovernment-published textbooks.

Marcus Sheff is CEO of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se). David Andrew Weinberg is the Anti-Defamation Leagues Washington Director for International Affairs.

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Tags: Saudi Arabia, Saudi textbooks

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Saudi textbooks revised, but still incite hate - Long War Journal

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