Reaching out to culture of hate

Culture of Hate Persists in Saudi Arabia and Egypt

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 2, 2009

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Obama to Travel to Both Countries in Effort to Reach Out to Muslim World

TIP’s Press Kit for President Obama’s Trip to Cairo
Obama’s Visit to Riyadh: Competing Agendas? (Washington Institute for Near East Policy) 
Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance (Hudson Institute) 
The West, Christians, Israel and Jews In Saudi Arabian Schoolbooks (IMPACT-SE)
Jews, Christians, War And Peace In Egyptian School Textbooks (IMPACT-SE)
TIP’s Briefing with Nonie Darwish and Dr. Mitch Bard on Abbas and Middle East Peace
TIP’s Briefing with Itamar Marcus on the Palestinian Hate Industry
As U.S. President Barack Obama departs Tuesday (June 2) for Saudi Arabia and Egypt in an historic attempt to engage with the Muslim world, anti-Western and anti-Semitic content continue to inundate both countries’ schoolhouses and media, many of which are government-controlled.
Obama’s trip to the Middle East comes a week after his meeting with Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas at the White House, where Obama urged the Palestinian leader to end the culture of hate that permeates Palestinian educational and religious institutions. Said Obama, “…It was very important to continue to make progress in reducing the incitement and anti-Israel sentiments that are sometimes expressed in schools and mosques and in the public square, because all those things are impediments to peace.” For a list of recent examples of the culture of hate that permeates Palestinian society

Also on Tuesday, Lebanon’s Daily Star published an editorial stating that “Obama is correct in his assessment that our region’s school textbooks, newspapers and sermons are crowded with examples of extremism and anti-Semitism and that these sentiments impede the possibility of peace.” [1]
During the five-day trip, Obama will deliver a major speech Thursday aimed at the Muslim world at Cairo University and meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. [2] The day before, he will visit Riyadh for meetings with Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah. [3] Obama hopes to make progress on a variety of issues during the meetings, including energy, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and combating extremism. [4] Obama will also travel to Germany and France.
Although the U.S. maintains strategic alliances with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, textbooks and media in both countries continue to broadcast content vilifying the U.S., Israel and Jews. Some recent examples include:

• Despite Saudi Arabia’s claims that its Education Ministry has eliminated intolerant rhetoric from its school textbooks, the textbooks continue to indoctrinate students to hate, according to a 2008 report by the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom. Saudi textbooks continue to publish statements such as: “Every religion other than Islam is false;” “The Jews and Christians are enemies of the believers;” “Only through force and victory over the enemies is there security and repose;” “The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus.” [5]
• Similarly, a 2008 report by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education notes that little has changed over the years in Saudi school curricula. Statements in the books 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;” “One of the best deeds is Jihad in God’s cause, and advocating it, for [the purpose of] spreading God’s religion on earth…;” “The struggle of this nation [i.e., the Muslim nation] with Jews and Christians goes on, and it will last for ever…” [6]
• On April 27, the host of a children’s program on the Egyptian-Saudi TV channel Al-Hafez TV stated, “Of course, the Jews, by their nature, know that their confrontation with the Muslims will come for sure….Because our hatred towards the Jews is perpetual and continuous….Who is the greatest enemy of Islam? The Jews.” [7]
• On Feb. 17, on Egypt’s state-run Al-Nas TV channel, [8] Egyptian psychiatrist Dr. Salah Haroun expressed his disappointment that some people consider Obama to be a “prophet” who has come to save the world, adding, “[Obama] went [to Palestine] to receive the Jewish blessing. This won him votes in the elections.” Speaking about the world’s Muslim population outnumbering Jews, Haroun said, “Someone told me something nice. He said: ‘If we [the Muslims] were to spit on the Jews, they would drown.’” [9]
• On Jan. 11 on Al-Jazeera TV, Saudi cleric Khaled Al-Khlewi instructed children to hate Jews. After stating that “with the Jews, nothing works but force….The Jew is treacherous, disloyal, deceitful, and belligerent by nature,” Al-Khlewi then asked eight-year-old Omar, “Do you like the Jews?…You hate them.” Al-Khlewi praised the boy after he stated that the Jews killed the Muslim prophet Muhammad. [10]
• On Oct. 7 in an interview on Saudi Arabia’s Al-Majd TV, Saudi cleric Abd Al-’Aziz Fawzan Al-Fawzan claimed that the U.S. was responsible for carrying out the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. Said Al-Fawzan, “Either they [the U.S] were accomplices in 9/11, or else they carried it out, even though they have deceived the world about this.” Al-Fawzan also stated that the U.S. is collapsing and that it is adopting Islamic economic principles. [11]

Iran-backed Hamas—and even the Palestinian Authority—continue to promote a culture of hate that permeates Palestinian society, particularly in Palestinian schools, Gaza’s Hamas-ruled Palestinian government and Palestinian media. [12] Some recent examples include:

• In May, the Palestinian newspaper Al-Ayyam reported that the PA named a new computer center after Dalal Mughrabi, a female terrorist who in 1978 killed 37 civilians—including 12 children—in a bus hijacking in Israel. American photographer Gail Rubin was among those killed in the attack. [13]
• In Palestinian classrooms, schoolchildren are taught that Israelis are the enemy and Palestinian TV regularly airs programs geared towards children that encourage them to kill Israelis and thus achieve martyrdom. [14]
• Hamas’s own charter calls for killing Jews: “The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him!” [15] It also states: “The indoctrination campaign must involve ulama, educators, teachers and information and media experts, as well as all intellectuals, especially the young people and the sheikhs of Islamic movements. It is [also] necessary to introduce essential changes in the curricula, in order to eliminate the influences of the intellectual invasion which were inflicted upon them by the Orientalists and the missionaries.” [16]
• In May, Abbas rejected the idea of a Jewish State and met with Palestinian youth leaders in Ramallah where he held up a framed map of Palestine – clearly labeled in English – that covered all of Israel. “I say this clearly: I do not accept the Jewish State, call it what you will,” Abbas said during the meeting. A photo of Abbas holding the map appeared on the front pages of both Palestinian Authority daily newspapers. [17]

For more information watch these two videos:
TIP’s Briefing with Nonie Darwish and Dr. Mitch Bard on Abbas and Middle East Peace
TIP’s Briefing with Itamar Marcus on the Palestinian Hate Industry

Footnotes:

[1] “Obama needs to do his homework before wading into the Mideast morass,” The Daily Star, June 2, 2009, http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&article_id=102538&categ_id=17
[2] Cloud, David S., “Obama to address Muslims in Egypt,” Politico, May 8, 2009, http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0509/22272.html
[3] “Obama adds Saudi Arabia to Mid-East agenda,” BBC, May 27, 2009, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8069334.stm
[4] Sweet, Lynne, “Obama’s Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Germany and France trip briefing,” Chicago Sun-Times, June 2, 2009, http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2009/06/obamas_saudi_arabia_egypt_germ.html
[5] “Saudi Arabia’s Curriculum of Intolerance,” Center for Religious Freedom of the Hudson Institute, accessed June 2, 2009, http://www.google.com/search?q=%E2%80%9C2008+Update%3A+Saudi+Arabia+%E2%80%99s+Curriculum+of+Intolerance&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
[6] Groiss, Arnon, “The West, Christians, Israel and Jews In Saudi Arabian Schoolbooks,” July 2008, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, http://www.impact-se.org/docs/reports/SA/SA2008.pdf
[7] “Children Indoctrinated with Antisemitism on an Egyptian-Saudi Koran-Memorization Channel,” MEMRI, April 27, 2009, http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2106.htm
[8] Derk, Ian, “Say ‘J’ for Jihad,” COMOPS Journal, accessed June 2, 2009, http://comops.org/journal/2007/03/06/say-j-for-jihad/
[9] “Egyptian Psychiatrist Dr. Salah Haroun: The Druze Are Infidels,” MEMRI, Feb. 17, 2009, http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/2129.htm
[10] “Saudi Cleric Khaled Al-Khlewi Teaches Children to Hate Jews,” MEMRI, Jan. 11, 2009, http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=saudiarabia&ID=SP231009
[11] “Saudi Cleric Who Taught in U.S. On Al-Majd TV: ‘Allah Be Praised, America Is Collapsing’; ‘Will The West Acknowledge the Collapse of Capitalism[?]… They Have Begun to Adopt the Principles of Islamic Economy’; ‘Either They [The U.S.] Were Accomplices In 9/11, Or Else They Carried It Out’,” MEMRI, Oct. 28, 2008, http://www.memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=countries&Area=saudiarabia&ID=SP209708
[12] Groiss, Arnon, "Jews, Israel and Peace in the Palestinian Authority Textbooks: The New Textbooks for Grades 5 and 10," Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, June 2005; “PMW Video Archives: Hamas in its Own Words,” Palestinian Media Watch, January 2006-2007, http://www.pmw.org.il/tv-hamas.htm
[13] Marcus, Itamar and Crook, Barbara, “Will the US follow its laws and suspend funding to Abbas?,” The Jerusalem Post, May 25, 2009, http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1243259515568&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
[14] Marcus, Itamar and Crook, Barbara, "Hamas TV Mickey Mouse beaten to death by Israeli – becomes Martyr in final episode," Palestinian Media Watch, July 1, 2007,
http://pmw.org.il/bulletins_jul2007.htm#b010707; “PMW Video Archives: Hamas in its Own Words,” Palestinian Media Watch, January 2006-2007, http://www.pmw.org.il/tv-hamas.htm; Groiss, Arnon, "Jews, Israel and Peace in the Palestinian Authority Textbooks: The New Textbooks for Grades 5 and 10," Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, June 2005
[15] "Hamas Charter (1988)," The Jerusalem Fund, accessed May 13, 2009, http://www.thejerusalemfund.org/www.thejerusalemfund.org/carryover/documents/charter.html
[16] “The Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement – Hamas,” MEMRI.org, Special Dispatch – No. 1092, Feb. 14. 2006, http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD109206
[17] Marcus, Itamar and Crook, Barbara, “Mahmoud Abbas: ‘I do not accept
the Jewish State, call it what you will’,” Palestinian Media Watch, April 28, 2009, http://www.pmw.org.il/Bulletins_Apr2009.htm#b280409

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