Stay updated with breaking news from Monitoring Peace. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
Saudi Arabia has been quietly revising its school textbooks, scrubbing negative depictions of Jews, Christians, and homosexuals, and toning down rhetoric against Israel, according to a new report that suggests the Gulf kingdom may be laying the groundwork for normalizing relations with the Jewish state. The report from the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural
The same bill, which comes in light of evidence suggesting UNRWA employees' links to Hamas, will abolish the immunities and privileges gifted to UNRWA employees.
Analysts see the textbook revisions as an incremental step that could lay the groundwork for Saudi Arabia's warming relations with Israel.
The move is "another step towards the transformation of a curriculum into an educational framework which encourages tolerance, peace and greater equality,” said IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff.
IMPACT-se has reviewed the Saudi school curriculum since the early 2000s as a result of the September 11 attacks, which raised questions on the role of schools in radicalization in the Middle East.