Culture of hatred exists in Muslim world

Currently, schoolchildren in Egypt and Saudi Arabia are taught to hate Israelis, Jews and westerners. Saudi Arabia claims, however, that its Education Ministry has eliminated the intolerant, hateful rhetoric from school textbooks.

These claims are false. Saudi textbooks continue to teach young students to hate, according to a 2008 report by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. According to this report, Saudi textbooks continue to have hateful and intolerant statements, such as: “Every religion other than Islam is false”, “The Jews and the Christians are enemies of the believers (Muslims),” and, “The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus.”

In 2008, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education issued its own report that concluded that “little has changed over the years in Saudi school curricula.” According to this report, textbook statements include: “Now it (Palestine) is occupied by the Jews, a people of treachery and betrayal, who have gathered there from every place ... their end, by God’s will, is perdition”; and “The struggle of this nation (the Muslim nation) with Jews and Christians goes on, and it will last forever ...” [The State Journal-Register] Read more