In Whitewashing Islamism, Some K-12 Programs Advance Jihad

You may have read about the proposed ethnic studies curriculum developed for California public high schools, which caused an uproar because of its biased treatment of Jews and Israel, support for the BDS movement, and fear that it fomented anti-Semitism. That is one of many battles over curricula as Islamists attempt to rewrite history and erase any mention of Islamic extremism.

The “Islamophobia” industry is engaged in a nationwide effort to whitewash the history and practice of Islam and perpetuate the myth that Islam has always been a religion of peace. These propagandists seek to silence their critics and smear anyone who exposes the truth as “Islamophobic.”

We have seen this effort on college campuses, which have received nearly $3 billion since 2012 from Arab/Muslim states and individuals who hope to influence the next generation of Americans to adopt their view of the Middle East. These investments have paid off in the hiring of apologists for Islamist terror who teach, write textbooks, and serve as sources for the media.

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Equally disturbing, as I wrote in The Arab Lobby, is an increasing effort to shape the views of children in K-12. The terror attacks on 9/11 provoked fear and misunderstanding about Muslims and Islam while political correctness allowed the lobby to present its sanitized version of events aimed at downplaying Arab/Muslim distinctions, ignoring differences in values and interests, and dismissing links between Islam and terror.

U.S. taxpayers underwrite some of these efforts through government-funded Title VI Middle East studies centers at major universities. Today’s “Islamophobia” lobby can have an exponential impact through these centers, whose mandate is to educate teachers about the region.

As I’ve documented, as part of their obligation to engage in outreach, Title VI centers often produce materials reflecting the lobby’s views that teachers pass on to students.

Advancing the same politicized agenda that rules academe, Islamist organizations have allied with leftwing interest groups and pressured publishers to revise textbooks to better reflect multicultural ideologies. The result is a reluctance to discuss negative aspects of Islam such as the discriminatory treatment of non-believers, women, and gays, the role of radical Muslims in terrorism, and the Islamist animus toward the United States, Israel, and the West. A 2008 study by Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra concluded:

While it is understandable that American Muslims would not want their religion associated with radicalism, teaching that jihad is a wholly benign concept related to a believer’s internal struggle distorts the term’s meaning by ignoring its relationship to extremism even as terrorists – such as Palestine Islamic Jihad – use the word to convey their malignant mission.

The Mountain Ridge Middle School in West Virginia taught students to write the shahada, the Muslim profession of faith, in Arabic.

Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis explained that “Conventionally translated ‘holy war,’ [jihad] has the literal meaning of ... ‘striving in the path of God’ (fi sabil Allah). Some Muslim theologians ... have interpreted the duty of ‘striving in the path of God’ in a spiritual and moral sense. The overwhelming majority of early authorities ... discuss jihad in military terms.”

The “Islamophobia” lobby might veto citing Lewis, a Jew smeared by critics as a Western-oriented propagandist, but textbook authors can also cite the medieval Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun, who wrote “In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the (Muslim) mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.”

According to the medieval Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun, “holy war is a religious duty” for those who practice the Islamic faith.

Students can find a more contemporary definition in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, where Emile Tyan wrote “Jihad consists of military action with the object of the expansion of Islam.”

Learning the meaning of jihad is also key for students to understand the Middle East today, where the commitment to jihad by terrorist organizations such as Palestine Islamic Jihad and Hamas perpetuates the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Students should learn, for example, that Palestine Islamic Jihad considers jihad the only way to liberate Palestine. A Tel Aviv University analysis explains the group believes a “Muslim victory and the elimination of Israel are foreordained by God’s words in the Quran.”

By reading primary documents, students can see for themselves the true meaning of jihad. To understand the ideology of Hamas, teachers can direct them to the group’s charter, which states “There is no solution for the Palestine question except through jihad” and calls on Muslims to “raise the banner of jihad” to “rid the land and the people of their uncleanliness, vileness and evils.”

American public schools could also use material taught about Islam in Muslim schools. A study of Saudi textbooks, for example, found they “encourage both violent and non-violent jihad against non-believers.”

A Palestinian textbook for eleventh graders offered a definition of jihad very different from the one proposed for Loudoun school children: “Jihad is an Islamic term that equates to the term war in other nations. The difference is that jihad has noble goals and lofty aims and is carried out only for the sake of Allah and for His glory . . . .”

Unquestionably, students should learn more about Islam. But they should learn it from unbiased sources, not from apologists for Islamism. It is a disservice, and intellectually dishonest, to teach them a sanitized version of history that whitewashes the extremist elements of the religion. If the “Islamophobia” lobby has its way, the next generation will grow up unaware and unprepared to face the danger from Islamists who threaten American lives, values, and interests.