(TIME) Kimberly Dozier - New reforms in Saudi Arabia's official educational curriculum have stripped out lessons of hatred toward the "other" - whether Christian, Jewish, or gay - and dictats to defend the Islamic faith through violence. The Kingdom's latest textbooks have for the first time removed sections calling for non-believers to be punished by death, and predicting an apocalyptic final battle in which Muslims will kill all Jews, according to a report released Tuesday by the Jerusalem-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education, (IMPACT-se), which analyzes global curricula for extremist and intolerant views. IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff said, "We do see a significant change...a real institutional effort...at the highest levels to make a change to modernize the curriculum to remove offense." However, the books still characterize Jews and Christians as "enemies of Islam." "No question about it, there is still a way to go," says Sheff.
2020-12-17 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive