UNRWA textbooks under scrutiny by EU Parliament committee
UNRWA textbooks under scrutiny by EU Parliament committee
The textbooks got the attention of the parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee after a report by an Israeli NGO found that they are “rife with problematic content that contradicts stated U.N. values.
Palestinian students affiliated with UNRWA in the southern Gaza Strip, Nov. 25, 2020. Photo by Abed Rahim Khatib/Flash90.
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(February 8, 2021 / JNS) Palestinian textbooks provided by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) came under scrutiny during a recent hearing of the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee.
The attention was prompted by a report issued by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), an Israeli non-governmental organization that found the textbooks “to be rife with problematic content that contradicts stated U.N. values.”
Hostile parties seek to close UNRWA, says senior official Schmale said that the parties depend on “spreading misleading materials and news about UNRWA or circulating existing facts out of their true context.” February 2, 2021 at 9:49 am Matthias Shamali, Director of UNRWA Operations in the Gaza Strip on 1 February, 2021 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor] Matthias Shamali, Director of UNRWA Operations in the Gaza Strip on 1 February, 2021 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor] Matthias Shamali, Director of UNRWA Operations in the Gaza Strip on 1 February, 2021 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]
The Director of UNRWA Operations in the Gaza Strip said on Monday that hostile parties seek to close the agency by spreading misleading material and news,
Report: Anti-Semitism Removed from Saudi Textbooks
A January 30 report from The Washington Post stated that anti-Semitic rhetoric has been removed from Saudi Arabia’s textbooks.
The Post noted that in early 2020, the Saudis obtained a report from the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) highlighting how their textbooks were still filled with anti-Semitism, homophobia, misogyny and intolerance toward other religious faiths outside of strict adherence to Sunni Islam. The Saudis have since taken efforts to reform their textbooks, such as removing various calls to “fight Jews,” praise for Islamic extremist martyrdom and supporting the death penalty for gays.
Saudi Arabia Revises Radical Textbooks
02/01/2021 Saudi Arabia (International Christian Concern) – School textbooks in Saudi Arabia have undergone significant updates and changes, according to a report completed by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se). These changes include the removal of passages promoting hatred of religions besides Islam and women’s subservience to men.
Saudi Arabia is notorious for its textbooks that encourage violence and radical rhetoric. The changes made to the school textbooks make an effort to tone down or remove these passages and present more moderate content. While significant and required updates were made, the new textbook editions fall short of acceptance of all religions and tolerance towards Christianity. Christians and other non-Muslims are still labeled as infidels throughout.
Saudi Scrubbing Textbooks Of Anti-Semitic, Misogynistic Passages: Experts Saudi textbooks have long inveighed against anything that diverts from the hard-line Sunni Muslim beliefs that govern the kingdom.
Updated: January 31, 2021 7:54 am IST
Some concerns about anti-Semitic themes remain in Saudi Arabia s books (Representational)
Beirut:
Saudi Arabia has been sharply criticized over the decades for school textbooks that preach women s subservience to men, anti-Semitism and a general enmity toward religions other than Islam. But those textbooks have been slowly scrubbed of much of this objectionable content, with particularly significant revisions made in the fall.
Gone is a section on sodomy that was supportive of capital punishment for homosexual relations. Gone are most adulations of jihadi martyrdom. Anti-Semitic references and calls to fight Jews are now far fewer.