None of this is really surprising except to those learned analysts who persist in assuming that Islam in the West must be different from what it has been at virtually all other times and places. “UK: Anti-Semitism Rampant in Muslim Schools: Second Generation More Extreme than Parents,” by Soeren Kern for Hudson NY, December 9 (thanks to Twostellas):
Muslim religious schools operating in Britain are using poisonously anti-Semitic textbooks from Saudi Arabia to teach children as young as six that Jews are descended from “monkeys” and “pigs,” and that Zionists are plotting to take over the world. The schools are also instructing children on how to chop off the hands and feet of a thief as per Islamic Sharia law. These are just a few of the findings of a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) exposé of Saudi-run Muslim schools in Britain that aired on the prestigious Panorama documentary television program on November 22.
The Panorama investigation identified a network of over 40 such after-school and weekend programs catering to about 5,000 children, from ages six to eighteen. The schools offer the official Saudi national curriculum and run under the umbrella of “Saudi Students Clubs and Schools in the UK and Ireland.” Panorama says the schools are overseen by the cultural bureau of the Saudi Arabian Embassy in London, and that a building used for one of the schools (in Ealing, West London) is owned by the Saudi government.
Saudi officials quoted by the BBC disavowed direct responsibility for the schools and clubs, and described the teachings cited in the program as having been “taken out of their historical context.”
Of course!
But BBC Newsnight exposed similar anti-Semitic sentiments in Saudi textbooks at a Saudi school in London in 2007. At the time, the Saudi government promised a “comprehensive” review of all offensive material in its curriculum. (Saudi Arabia also promotes anti-Semitic hate-speech in the United States.)
According to Panorama, one Saudi textbook asks children to spell out the “reprehensible” qualities of Jews and explains that Jews are “cursed by God.” Another textbook teaches that the penalty for sodomy is execution, and outlines differing perspectives as to whether death should be by stoning, immolation by fire, or throwing offenders off a cliff.
Yet another Saudi textbook explains the punishments prescribed by Sharia law for thievery, including the amputation of hands and feet – a hand for the first offence, a foot for the second. A BBC video shows a textbook illustration of a hand and a foot marked to show where amputations should be made….
There is much more. Read it all.