Follow Steve Postal: @HebraicMosaic
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Unlike Saudi Arabia, who continues to reform its textbooks in the wake of the Abraham Accords, Qatar is not substantively changing teachings that continue to: be anti-Semitic, anti-Christian and anti-polytheistic; undermine Jewish ties and claims to Israel; and glorify jihad. According to a recent report of 55 Qatari textbooks from 2023-2024, key aspects include:
Anti-Semitic references. Passages include: teaching students to avoid “resembling Jews”; insinuations that Jews “have been invited to Islam and rejected it,” and that Jews “…invent lies about Allah when being invited to Islam”; references that Allah punished “Moses’ nation” for rejecting him; and vague references of “Hitler’s racist ideas,” while failing to mention the Holocaust and the anti-Semitism of Nazism when teaching about World War II.
Additional bigotry towards non-Muslims. Passages include: “Allah exposed the infidels to the Hellfire”; Christianity and Judaism “have been corrupted” while being infused with polytheism, polytheism is “ignorance” and “false”; polytheism is “the greatest sin”; and polytheism “wrongs the soul.”
Undermining Jewish ties and claims to Israel. Passages include: that Jews “fled” Palestine during the Roman invasion and therefore “their connection to Palestine was severed”; that the Arabs “have the best claim” to Palestine; that “the hearts of Christians and Muslims are attached to the land of Palestine” while omitting any mention of Jews, that Palestine has “mosques and churches embracing each other” while omitting any mention of synagogues; referencing the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher as sites in Jerusalem while not mentioning the Western Wall and other Jewish sites; and that the ancient Canaanites were “Arabs,” and “an Arab tribe” who “originated in the Arabian peninsula.”
Additional passages include: teaching students to “not conced[e] on any part of Palestine, for it is an Arab, Islamic land”; opposing “normalization [and its various forms” of relations with Israel; opposing Israel’s efforts to “Judaize” the land; claiming that Israel is deliberately trying to expel Palestinians from the land and obliterate [its] Arab and Islamic identity”; claiming that Israel is an “occupation,” “Zionist state” and “Israeli entity”; claiming that Israelis are “the oppressors” and “the butchers”; showing Israel on maps as “Palestine” or “Occupied Palestine”; referring to Hamas leaders as “leaders of the Palestinian national action”; and claiming that the 1929 Arab riots in the British mandate of Palestine were targeting “Zionist gangs” [when both Zionist and non-Zionist Jews were indiscriminately targeted].
Praise for Jihad. Passages include: praise of classical Islamic figure Nusaybah bint Ka‘bin that she raised her children “to love jihad”; glorification of Islamic figure Ali bin Abu Talib for killing polytheists and Jews; and teaching that Allah loves jihad warriors.
By not being in the Abraham Accords, Qatar has been able to continue to propagate hatred, while Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco have made significant reforms. The Biden administration should pressure Qatar to kick Hamas out of its country, and otherwise reduce its presence in and ties to Qatar unless the country implements true reforms towards its hateful education.
