THE REFORMATION ROLLS ON:

 Like the proverbial hand that rocks the cradle, school textbooks still have a big influence on a country's next generation, despite the growing power of social media. And perhaps no country has made such a swift change in its textbooks over the past few years than Saudi Arabia, the center of the Islamic world.

The shift by the Saudi Ministry of Education away from teaching hate and fear of others - especially Jews and Christians - has been so dramatic that a new study of the latest textbooks claims a change in Saudi attitudes "could produce a ripple effect in other Muslim majority countries."

"The Saudi educational curriculum appears to be sailing on an even keel toward its stated goals of more moderation and openness," states the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (Impact-se), an Israeli research group. Just since 2020, at least 22 anti-Christian and antisemitic lessons were either removed from or altered in the textbooks while an entire textbook unit on violent jihad to spread Islam was removed.

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