Free Republic

'The Jews worship the devil," the teachers tell 8th-graders. Later, in 10th-grade history class, students will learn that the Jews were responsible for the French Revolution and, of course, the Bolshevik Revolution. These are mild examples of the blatantly untrue "information" systematically taught in schools across Saudi Arabia. It is no wonder anti-Semitism is still alive and well. Every year, the Saudi education system breeds a new pool of extremists. Students are taught to hate Jews and Christians (as well as people of other religions) and encouraged to act violently against them. In a 9th-grade textbook on selected Hadiths, or...

High school students in the Wahhabi-led school learn that "the Jews conspired against Islam" and Sunni Muslims should shun all Shia Muslims. They also are taught that killing an apostate or an adulterer is acceptable under Islamic law. And polytheists (defined elsewhere as Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews and even Shia and Sufi Muslims) likewise can be subject to death for their transgressions. It is troubling enough to consider such lessons being ingrained in the minds of teenagers in Riyadh and throughout the kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But the same textbooks are in use in Alexandria, Va., at the Islamic Saudi...