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Saudi Arabia continues to remove anti-Israeli and antisemitic
content from textbooks
General reforms initiated by Saudi Crown Prince MBS continue to show progress
by All Arab News Staff | July 18, 2023
(Photo: Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Handout via REUTERS)
A study released in May by the London-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) found that nearly all antisemitic content had been removed from Saudi textbooks.
IMPACT-se has been tracking anti-Israel and antisemitic content in Saudi textbooks for several years. In December 2020, the group announced a significant shift in how Israel and Jewish people were represented in textbooks when compared to previous years.
“Examining the trend-line of our 2002, 2008 and even 2019 reports of the Saudi curriculum, it is clear that these new 2020 textbooks represent an institutional effort to modernize the Kingdom’s curriculum,” Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se said at that time.
While the sudden change was welcomed by the group, they identified several instances of antisemitic content still remaining, including a description of “Jewish wrongdoers” as monkeys and a refusal to label Israel on maps of the Middle East.
“Further improvements need to be made. But the overriding impression is of a willingness to engage, to participate in dialogue regarding curriculum content and finally move towards textbook reformation,” Sheff reported.
In 2022, IMPACT-se announced further improvements in the Saudi curriculum, with Sheff calling it a “continuation of the clear trajectory of improvement.”
That report identified a few significant areas of improvement: The lack of Israel on regional maps, the description of Zionism as “racist,” and the false narrative that “Zionists” tried to burn down the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in 1969.
According to the new report that analyzes the 2022 Saudi textbooks, only two major problems remained: The absence of Israel on regional maps and the use of “Israeli occupation” or “Israeli occupiers” to identify Israelis in some instances. In addition, many instances of the term “the Zionists” had been replaced with “the Israelis.”
The study also found that textbooks have shifted from sections praising jihad to sections now critical of radical religious groups known for terrorism, such as Hezbollah, ISIS, al-Qaeda and the Houthi militants.
While IMPACT-se’s 2020 study found several problematic sections including “Qur’anic surahs, hadiths, and religious interpretations that incite against non-Muslims,” “textbooks [which] commonly promulgated antisemitic tropes,” and “a strong emphasis on jihad war and the virtue of martyrdom,” the new study found nearly all of those issues had been removed.
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has been criticized for his apparent role in the killing of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The U.S. Biden administration released a declassified report in February 2021 claiming that MBS approved the operation to kill Khashoggi.
Biden has had tense relations with MBS since the beginning of his administration, although he has claimed to be working towards normalization between the Saudi Kingdom and Israel.
Kristin Diwan, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said the changes are more about the Saudi government seeking legitimacy.
She warned that even though the new curriculum shows increased tolerance of Judaism as a religion, it keeps the “political acceptance of Israel in limbo.”
“This is consistent with efforts to ease religious intolerance of Jews, incrementally preparing the way should a political decision be made on Israel normalization,” she said.
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