Anti-Semitism is endemic to Kuwaiti school textbooks, a new study by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has found.
According to their research, Jew hatred found in the country’s educational curriculum ranges from Holocaust denial to the age old anti-Semitic trope that Jews are underhanded and scheming.
The ADL’s look at Kuwaiti school material said that the Kuwaiti education ministry “is continuing to reuse state-published textbooks from past years that teach horrific anti-Semitism,” contradicting a recent edict from Kuwaiti Emir Nawaf Al Saba who instructed his nation to adhere “to the teachings of our tolerant religion, which urges us to unify ranks and spread kindness and compassion.”
It also noted that Kuwaiti society is “exceptionally pluralistic, with large Sunni, Shi’ite and expatriate communities, and it has the most participatory system of government in the Arabian Peninsula.”
The ADL added that additionally “some lessons include ideas that are intolerant or confrontational toward Ahmadi Muslims, Baha’is, and Christians.”
The ADL found “particularly disturbing” examples of anti-Semitism in a textbook used for eight grade Islamic education courses. As part of the book’s “stated learning objectives,” the text lists than one object “is for students to learn that ‘the enmity of the Jews toward Islam and the Muslims is old and deeply rooted’ and that ‘stirring up strife, breaking pacts, and malice are among the inherent characteristics of the Jews.’” The phrases are also repeated at the end of one of the book’s chapters.
Another example given is a textbook that “invokes a controversial prophecy that the world hereafter will not come until ‘the victory of the Muslims over the Jews,’ when ‘the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them,’ including those hiding behind rocks and trees. Lastly, the textbook calls for confronting the Jews by ‘Muslims shouldering the obligation to liberate their lands and holy sites, and to cleanse them from the enemies of God.’”
The report also lists a government published textbook for twelfth grade students that teachers the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion as “genuine fact.”
Another textbook “presents as its role model for a Western academic Roger Garaudy, an infamous Holocaust denier.” In 1998, the late Garaudy was convicted and fined for Holocaust denial under French law.
“As Kuwait’s new ruler starts to chart his country’s course, peace and tolerance education should be one of his considerations,” the report said. “The United States, which still plays a major role ensuring the State of Kuwait’s national security, should convey that hateful indoctrination of this sort is simply unacceptable.”
The report commented that “shortly after 9/11, Kuwait’s Ministry of Education reportedly announced that it would be reforming its government-published textbooks in order to teach ‘brotherhood, equality, love, caring, mercifulness, and coexistence.’ Clearly, that has not been achieved consistently to date.”
It concluded that Kuwait has failed to “implement successful peace and tolerance education reform” over the last two decades. Saying this should be a “cautionary tale” for American officials, the report stressed that “tolerant principles and goals are wonderful to express, but their implementation cannot succeed if Kuwait’s Ministry of Education continues to publish textbooks that teach kids anti-Semitism.”