Egypt has made significant progress in removing antisemitic and anti-Christian content from its school textbooks, and about 80 percent of Egyptian students in elementary or preparatory education are learning from the “reformed” versions, according to a new report published by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (Impact-se), an Israeli watchdog group.

The report, titled “Review of Changes and Remaining Problematic Content Egyptian Textbooks: Selected Samples 2023-2024,” explained that Egypt has been striving toward reducing antisemitism in its curricula for several years, having chosen to pursue a “year-on-year” process of reform which will reach higher grade levels over time.

The results so far have been promising. For example, 10 antisemitic passages identified by Impact-se researchers last academic year, including one in which Jews were described as “people of treachery and betrayal,” has been replaced with another “underlining tolerance and coexistence between Islam and Judaism.”

Other changes warrant optimism, according to the report. An 11th grade history textbook no longer teaches that Jews possess an inordinate “love of money,” and a third grade textbook on Islamic education no longer teaches that Jews cannot be trusted to describe the contents of their holy books, an accusation attributed to the Prophet Muhammad. Additionally, a sixth grade textbook now features what Impact-se described as a “rare specifically positive reference to Jews” in which the Constitution of Medina is said to be a shared accomplishment of Muslims and Jews while comparing it to the 1948 United Nations Declaration on Human Rights.

One reform the report strongly commended was the removal of some texts which encouraged jihad, martyrdom, and religious intolerance. Violence, one 11th grade textbook now says, was a measure of “last resort” in early Islamic conquests.

“Our report also found four problematic examples that have been removed, including a grade 5 Arabic Language grammar exercise teaching that Allah loves the jihad warrior, and a statement from the same textbook declaring that martyrs deserve a great reward,” Impact-se wrote. “A grade 6 Islamic Education textbook no longer glorifies the martyrdom of Muhammad’s Companion of Hamza for his jihad against many idolaters.”

Some concerning content in this vein remains, the authors noted, including the heralding of the martyr as “the most spectacular example of sacrifice” and a section of a grade 11 textbook in which Muhammad refers to “idolaters, Jews, and hypocrites.”

Alongside these lingering issues, however, Impact-se observed a softening of attitudes on gender roles, as evinced by the new curricula’s “promoting inclusivity and equality in gender roles” and “emphasizing the contribution of women in Egyptian society, politics, and Islamic history.” One sixth grade textbook even saidthat the Prophet Muhammad was an inveterate contributor to areas of household management thought to be exclusively the business of women, such as “sewing garments” and “mending sandals.” The new curricula also strongly condemns female genital mutilation, describing it as a desecration of “what God created” as well as cruel to women.

“We are delighted to see the ongoing reforms taking place in the Egyptian curricula, which mark significant progress,” Impact-se chief executive officer Marcus Sheff said in a statement announcing the findings of the report. “There are 25 million children in school in Egypt and around 80 percent are now studying this new material.The progress in revising materials for younger grades is extremely encouraging, especially in material regarding Jews and Israel.”

He continued, “We believe a similar evolution will be implemented in the curriculum for older grades. These changes in the most populous Arab country with a long-standing landmark peace agreement with Israel are of real importance to the region’s future.”

Impact-se’s research on school curricula in the Middle East has attempted in part to gauge states and other governmental entities’ intentions to foster peace and coexistence with the state of Israel, given that public education is the most active way in which countries manufacture the ideal kind of citizen.

In May, the group released a report revealing that Saudi Arabia has been quietly revising its school textbooks, scrubbing negative depictions of Jews, Christians, and homosexuals, and toning down rhetoric against Israel.

However, not all trends have been positive, and Impact-se has sometimes found disturbing trends.

Earlier this year, it issued a report describing the ways in which Palestinian curricula teach girls that women are inferior to men while demanding that they sacrifice their bodies and families for “jihad.” Coinciding with Women’s History Month, the report, titled “Gender Inequality in Palestinian Authority Textbooks,” revealed that Palestinian education materials deem women as a problem to be managed by the authority of religion and patriarchy, as valuable insofar as they contribute to the community’s population of terrorists and capacity to wage holy war.

Such ideas are ancillary to larger political goals, Impact-se explained. In denouncing women as transgressors of sexual morality and inherent sources of corruption, the Palestinian textbooks aim to rationalize subordinating women to men and limiting their role in public life. They also advocate dressing in accordance with Islamic law, women accepting fault for being sexually harassed and assaulted, and the notion that gender equality is a fiction. Palestinian schools also teach the Islamic prophet Muhammad’s saying, “Never will succeed such a nation that makes a woman” a head of state.

With all avenues for personal growth and achievement sealed off, what is left to Palestinian women is the option to commit violence, to become martyrs and the mothers of terrorists of the future, the report stated.

“The characterization of women as inferior in Palestinian Authority textbooks reflects a broader and worrying narrative of bigotry in the curriculum, which is continuing to shape the outlook millions of Palestinian children,” Sheff said at the time. “Furthermore, it contradicts international treaties on gender equality that the [Palestinian Authority] itself has ratified. In particular, the emphasis on women’s participation in resistance activities as a warped form of gender equality sets a disturbing precedent.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

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A group of 20 Democratic lawmakers in the US House on Tuesday sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin urging the Biden administration to “suspend offensive weapons” to Israel due to the country’s military campaign in Gaza.

The letter, signed by some of the most strident critics of Israel in Congress, called for the outgoing US administration to withhold critical offensive weapons from Israel, citing dire humanitarian conditions in Gaza, where the Jewish state has been fighting Hamas terrorists for the past 14 months. The lawmakers said that Israel has “failed” to address “concerns over Gaza” and that the Biden administration should “reconsider” sending more weapons to the long-time US ally and lone democracy in the Middle East.

The message was spearheaded by Reps. Summer Lee (D-PA) and Greg Casar (D-TX), the incoming Congressional Progressive Caucus chair. Among the other signatories were some of the most outspoken critics of Israel in Congress, including: Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman (NY), Cori Bush (MO), Joaquin Castro (TX), Lloyd Doggett (TX), Veronica Escobar (TX), Jesús García (IL), Al Green (TX), Sara Jacobs (CA), Pramila Jayapal (WA), Hank Johnson (GA), Jim McGovern (MA.), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Mark Pocan (WI), Ayanna Pressley (MA), Delia Ramirez (IL), Rashida Tlaib (MI), and Bonnie Watson Coleman (NJ).

“​​We believe continuing to transfer offensive weapons to the Israeli government prolongs the suffering of the Palestinian people and risks our own national security by sending a message to the world that the US will apply its laws, policies, and international law selectively,” the lawmakers wrote. “Furthermore, a failure to act will put Israeli lives in danger by prolonging [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war, isolating Israel on the international stage, and creating further instability in the region.”

The letter also condemned Israel for allegedly blocking humanitarian aid transfers into Gaza, saying that an average of 42 trucks per day have entered the enclave. 

Experts have rejected such claims, arguing there is no evidence suggesting Israel has blocked humanitarian aid into Hamas-ruled Gaza.

“The facts are that the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] has facilitated the delivery of more aid to territory controlled by the enemy than any military in the history of warfare, despite knowing with certainty that doing so is actually strengthening Hamas and making the IDF’s job harder,” John Hannah, former national security adviser to US Vice President Dick Cheney, recently told The Algemeiner.

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon said in October that Israel has delivered over 1 million tons of aid, including 700,000 tons of food, to Gaza since it launched its military operation a year ago. He also noted that Hamas terrorists often hijack and steal aid shipments while fellow Palestinians suffer.

In Tuesday’s letter, the lawmakers also criticized Israel over its polio vaccination drive in Gaza, asserting that the Jewish state contributed to escalating “violence” which forced delays in the vaccine distributions. The letter also claimed that Israel did not provide “access to northern Gaza” during the vaccination efforts. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), over 556,000 children under the age of 10 received two doses of the polio vaccine, representing 94 percent of the target population. The vaccination campaign was a “remarkable achievement given the extremely difficult circumstances the campaign was executed under,” according to the WHO.

Israel has insisted that the evacuation of northern Gaza was a necessary step to preserve civilian life as it continued its military campaign against Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that launched the war with its invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7. Though critics have labeled the evacuation orders as “forced displacement,” Israel argued that these advanced warnings were evidence of the Jewish state’s commitment to protecting innocents. 

Israel says it has gone to unprecedented lengths to try and avoid civilian casualties, noting its efforts to evacuate areas before it targets them and to warn residents of impending military operations with leaflets, text messages, and other forms of communication. However, Hamas, which rules Gaza, has in many cases prevented people from leaving, according to the IDF.

Another challenge for Israel has been Hamas’s widely recognized military strategy of embedding its terrorists within Gaza’s civilian population and commandeering civilian facilities like hospitals, schools, and mosques to run operations and direct attacks.

However, the letter lambasted Israel for allegedly bombing hospitals, schools, and places of worship in Gaza without once mentioning Hamas or any of the terrorist threats that Israel faces.

The missive represents the latest attempt by some Democratic lawmakers, particularly from the party’s progressive wing, to forcibly wind down the Israel-Hamas war by cutting off the Jewish state’s access to certain American arms. In the year following Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel, Democratic politicians have adopted an increasingly adversarial stance against the Jewish state. While the vast majority of Democratic officials expressed public agreement with Israel’s right to go to war against Hamas, many liberal lawmakers have nonetheless accused the Jewish state of “indiscriminately” bombing Gaza civilians or inflicting mass “starvation” on the beleaguered enclave.

Tuesday’s letter came days after a group of 77 Democrats in the US House sent a letter to Blinken and Austin demanding that the Biden administration provide an assessment of Israel’s “compliance with all relevant US policies and laws,” suggesting that the Middle East’s lone democracy and Washington’s closest ally in the region is violating international humanitarian law in Gaza.

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The Palestinian Football Association (PFA) applauded the Norwegian Football Federation on Tuesday for calling on FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, to investigate Israel ahead of the European qualifiers that are set to take place next year for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Israel and Norway’s national soccer teams are set to compete against each other in 2025 on March 25 and Oct. 11 as part of the qualifiers in Europe for the World Cup the following year, it was announced on Saturday. After the matchup was announced, Lise Klaveness, president of the Norwegian Football Federation, reportedly called on FIFA to investigate Israel for alleged human rights violations in the Gaza Strip during the country’s ongoing war against Hamas terrorists who orchestrated the Oct. 7 deadly massacre in southern Israel. Klaveness said it was “difficult” to see that Norway has been paired to compete against Israel in the World Cup qualifiers and expressed concerns over Israel’s military actions in Gaza, according to reports.

On Tuesday, the PFA commended Norway’s “recognition of the ongoing violations against Palestinian civilians and athletes.”

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