Saudi Arabian textbooks for middle school and high school are calling Christianity an “invalid and deviant religion” and encourage violence against Christians and numerous other groups, according to a new report.
Besides Christians, the textbooks include incitement to violence against gays and lesbians, Muslim apostates, Jews, and even Muslims who do not follow the Wahhabi sect of Islam.
Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, says this is nothing new and Saudi Arabia is distributing these textbooks on a worldwide scale.
“After 9/11 there was a focus in connecting these dots beyond the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia,” Perkins said on Starnes Country. “The textbooks that Saudi Arabia had been promoting and publishing around the world, not just in Saudi Arabia but in Afghanistan and other places, came to really be a focal point of our government, and they promised that by 2008 they would reform their textbooks.”
Perkins said that the textbooks have even raised alarm bells in Muslim majority countries, as the books also single out Muslims who do not follow the Wahhabi Islamic sect.
But 10 years later nothing seems to have changed.
The latest report “looked at the textbooks in middle school and high school in the 2017-2018 school year,” Perkins said. “So these are the textbooks that are currently being used.”
“I think it is time to fish or cut bait,” Perkins said. “It is time for them to begin revising these textbooks, reforming it and stop the incitement that is taking place around the world.”
Perkins, who serves as commissioner for the US Commission on Religious Freedom, said the US finds itself in a stronger negotiating position now as it is no longer reliant on Saudi Arabian oil due to the Trump Administration’s push for energy independence.
“Energy independence is certainly one step forward, but I think this administration is going to have to hold them accountable to fix these textbooks, revise them and then buy back those inciteful manuals that are out there around the world,” he said, noting that the Saudi government had been funding islamic schools even in the United States.