In Saudi schools, new textbooks have improved the depictions of Jews and Israel. The encouraging report is here: “New Saudi Textbooks Show Improvement in Depiction of Jews and Israel, Study Finds,” Algemeiner, December 15, 2020:
New editions of Saudi Arabian textbooks show a significant improvement in their references to Jews and Israel, according to a new report published by a major research institute on December 14. IMPACT-se — which monitors textbooks across the Middle East in regard to what they teach about Jews, Israel and non-Muslims — called the new Saudi educational materials “encouraging,” much of the hate speech and incitement included in previous editions had been removed.
Citations of a Muslim hadith — or saying of the Prophet Muhammad — that calls for genocidal war against the Jews, antisemitic conspiracy theories of Jewish world domination and calls for jihad and martyrdom had all been deleted, the group said.
Furthermore, Israel is being depicted in a manner that is “more balanced and tolerant.”
A chapter on the “Zionist danger” is no longer present, thus removing passages claiming Israel has no right to exist and that it wants to conquer most of the Middle East.
However, IMPACT-se pointed out, “anti-Israel content does still remain in the curriculum.”
In particular, Israel is not shown on maps of the Middle East and is referred to as the “Zionist enemy,” and Zionism is still depicted as racist.
Antisemitism is also still present in teaching related to Islam, such as describing Jews as monkeys and saying Allah would punish them in his final judgement….
It is easier for Saudi Arabia to maintain security collaboration with Israel against the Iran threat, that shows no signs of diminishing, if Saudis are no longer taught to hate Israel and Jews. And if Saudi Arabia is to normalize relations with Israel, as Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman so clearly wants, the government has to prepare its population to be ready to accept, rather than want to destroy, the Jewish state and Jews. The government has calculated that it can’t cleanse the textbooks entirely of anti-Jewish and anti-Israel content at once – that would infuriate too many conservative Saudis, especially clerics. But the government can remove, by careful degrees, the most egregious examples of hate speech against Jews and incitement against Israel. The new texts – the report doesn’t tell us what grade levels are affected but these sound like history or social studies texts for use in high schools – have an entire chapter on the “Zionist danger” eliminated. That means no more inculcating students with the belief that Israel has no right to exist, or teaching that Israel wants to expand until there is a Jewish state “from the Nile to the Euphrates.” A hadith of Muhammad that speaks of genocidal war against the Jews has been eliminated (though one wonders if the Saudi state can manage to prevent that hadith being taught in madrasas ) from textbooks. There are no longer calls for jihad against Jews. The standard antisemitic conspiracy theories about powerful Jews plotting for world domination are also gone. That’s a very great deal to have eliminated from textbooks within a single year.
If these new, revised textbooks are accepted without too much opposition, the Saudi government should be willing to take additional steps in the next edition of the relevant textbooks. Instead of the hadith that describe Jews as monkeys, those Saudi textbooks could reprint the sermon delivered last September by the imam of the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Abdul Rahman al-Sudais. In that sermon, Al-Sudais said that Muhammad had treated his Jewish neighbor so well that he converted to Islam. He also said that Islam requires Muslims to respect non-Muslims and treat them well. Al-Sudais pointed out that Muhammad “performed ablution from a polytheistic water bottle and died while his shield was mortgaged to a Jew.” That sermon sets a considerably different tone, friendlier to Jews (Al-Sudais’ sermon was, no doubt, a performance commanded by the Crown Prince), than continuing to call them the descendants of monkeys.
Last to be changed will be the maps. Israel needs to be shown on, rather than effaced from, the school maps, and thus from the consciousnesses of Saudi students. Even an Israel depicted as existing within the 1949 armistice lines (and the West Bank shown as “occupied by Israel”) would be a great improvement over not showing the Jewish state at all. Israel ought no longer be formulaically called “the Zionist enemy” and described as “racist.” It should, in those continuously-improved texts, be described merely as “the nation-state of the Jews.” These additional changes to Saudi textbooks would go a long way toward making normalization of ties with “the Jewish state” possible, acceptable, and — for ever more Saudis — even desirable.
mike says
2A protection need I say more
mortimer says
That is not the answer. Ideology can only be defeated ideologically and intellectually. Is that beyond your ability?
gravenimage says
Mortimer, you have never said that you yourself have personally “deprogrammed” any Muslims–so what is it that you want Mike to do?
mortimer says
It’s about time for this revision. The US has been asking for such reforms of Saudi supremacist school texts for decades. Will they remove texts that call for warfare and hatred against KUFAAR?
Whatever the Saudis take out of their school texts, cannot be taken out of the original, primary source texts of Islam.
Islam is intrinsically anti-Semitic, genocidal and KAFIR-O-PHOBIC.
mgoldberg says
And they can put the verses right back in, in a heartbeat… just as they took them out in the blink of an eye.
gravenimage says
Yep.
mortimer says
Saudi school texts also teach the children to hate Shi’ites and other sects of Islam!
The Salafist religious doctrine is the official doctrine of Saudi Arabia and its intrinsic intolerance and bigotry cannot be removed from Salafism.
The only real ‘reform’ of Saudi thought would be to abandon SALAFISM entirely.
gravenimage says
To abandon *Islam* entirely.
Infidel says
Wonder whatever happened to that Saudi project to discover their ‘jahaliya’ past i.e. pre-Mohammedan past
CogitoErgoSum says
Maybe at one point Muhammad was kind to a Jewish neighbor and as a result the neighbor became a Muslim. Did this happen before or after the “revelation” of Surah 9 and particularly verse 9:29? What if the Jewish neighbor had not converted to Islam when Muhammad asked him to convert? Would Muhammad have fought his Jewish neighbor until he either converted, was killed or accepted submission of the Jizya to Muhammed in complete humiliation? Which came first: the idea that Muslims should be nice to Jews or that Muslims should fight the Jews until they submit? And which abrogates the other?
john smith says
This is a step in the right direction, but unfortunately that’s all it is, a step.
Islam is a religion of hate, and no matter how much the textbooks are revised, it will never be anything else. other than evil,
ElderlyZionist says
I hope the Saudis will be able to continue their rapprochement with Israel despite probable opposition from the new Soros-Biden-Harris administration.
Infidel says
Okay, so Saudi students currently going to school/college will no longer study hatred of Jews or other infidels. But what about the rest of the Saudi adult population: how will they be de-programmed from decades of islamic indoctrination?
Unlike others, I tend to give MbS the benefit of doubt regarding his sincerity about reform. However, the problem w/ Saudi Arabia ain’t him: it’s his people, who have been brought up on the same diet of hatred that al Qaeda and ISIS raise their recruits from
jewdog says
It’s finally beginning to sink in that all this hatred and jihadist radicalism is biting the hands that incite it. Between the MB, Turkey and Iran, the Saudis have significant enemies, and Israel could actually help.
Anna Yelena says
The Saudis finally realized that in case of a war, Israel would whip their ass. But bottom line I wouldn’t trust any Muslim as far as I could throw one.
Infidel says
True! But Saudi Arabia has been shown to be a paper tiger since 1991, when they needed our troops there to defend against Saddam Hussein. The only time we’ve seen their military do ‘well’ is in occupying Bahrein at the behest of the Khalafas: otherwise, their defenses are a joke. One just has to hark back to last year when the Houthis were launching attacks on their oilfields, as well as the fact that to combat the Houthis, they’ve needed troops from Emirates and any other country willing to spare troops. One would think given the size of their countries – Saudi Arabia 34 million vs Yemen 28 million, Saudi Arabia would be able to handle the latter. But they can’t do it w/o their other Arab stooges, who do it if they get paid
Also, another important fact about the Gulf Arabs – the black gold rush has ended. With oil dipping below $0 a barrel this year – meaning them having to pay customers to store that permanently – they no longer have money to throw even for their defenses, and are now focusing on budget cuts, re-jigging their economy to be based on things other than oil (that’s what that Neom project is all about). The era of them funding mosques and dawa activities are over: the only ones doing that now are Turkey and Qatar (if the latter is still at it)
Also, the battle for the leadership of islam is now b/w the Arabs (represented by the Saudis) and the non-Arabs led by Turkey. And the Arab side can no longer bribe non-Arabs (like Pakistan or Bangladesh or Indonesia) to support their claims
gravenimage says
Citations of Muhammad calling for genocidal war against the Jews deleted from Saudi textbooks
…………………..
Well, this is better than the alternative.