|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By Hugh Fitzgerald, Frontpage Magazine
The new textbooks in Syria of course eliminate all praise, direct and indirect, of the Assad family, father and son, but when it comes to Israel and Jews, those textbooks remain unchanged:
“New Syrian government issues textbooks filled with antisemitism and praise for terrorists,” by Jane Prinsley, Jewish Chronicle, February 7, 2025:
Multiple maps in a geography textbook for 14 – 15-year-olds present all of Israel’s internationally recognized territory as Palestine.
The Israel-controlled Golan Heights are presented as part of Syria, and the textbook cover features an image of the Sea of Galilee, which is located within Israeli territory, potentially suggesting that the lake, or parts of it, belong to Syria.
It’s unclear whether Israel is depicted as existing within the 1949 armistice lines, or if has been effaced altogether. What is clear is that the Israel that now exists is not shown on those maps.
Some historical women have been removed, including references to Nazik al-Abid, known as the “Joan of Arc of the Arabs”, Queen Zenobia and Khawla bint al-Azwar, in Islamic education and social studies textbooks for children aged eight to nine years old….
In the new schoolbooks, the role of women in Arab history is being deliberately downplayed; for Islam relegates women to a lower rank than men.
In the 20th century, Nazik al-Abid obtained her fame as a defender of women’s rights; this is not a cause that the new Islamic regime would favor.
Queen Zenobia dates from the 3rd century A.D., which means she lived during the Time of Ignorance, the Jahaliyya, so is hardly someone to emulate or admire.
And Khawla bint al-Azwar, a warrior during the time of the Rashidun, believed that Ali was the first rightly-guided caliph, making her in effect a Shi’a, and she would naturally have no place in the schoolbook pantheon of the new, uber-Sunni regime in Damascus.
The watchdog also found that some “secular scientific concepts perceived to be un-Islamic” have been removed. An entire chapter in a biology textbook for 13 – 14-year-olds on evolution has been removed.
All devout Muslims know that “evolution” is only a “theory.” And since evolution is contradicted by Islamic teachings, it is best to put off teaching it to students until they can be “Islamically” prepared to withstand its appeal,
“Martyrdom” will be reframed in the new textbooks from a national to a religious perspective.
One year 10 lesson will glorify martyrdom as an exalted deed worthy of reward by Allah, by replacing the term “a person giving away his soul to defend his homeland” with “a person giving away his soul for the sake of Allah.”
Defense Minister Katz says Israel will remain on Mount Hermon ‘indefinitely’
The nationalist message has been eliminated, to be replaced by an Islamic one: children are not told to sacrifice for the “homeland” of Syria but to become, rather, martyrs for the sake of Allah.
And what is to be done “for the sake of Allah”? Sacrificing yourself to promote the spread of Islam, expanding the umma, and killing Infidels.
Just like Dalia al-Mughrabi, who was killed during the Coastal Road Massacre, in which she helped to murder 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children. Al-Mughrabi is in the new textbooks, held up as a model to be emulated.
The main backer of al-Jolani’s rebel group HTS in its war against Assad was Erdogan’s Turkey. Turkey is still the main foreign backer of the new regime in Damascus, though there may later be a parting of the ways if Turkey insists on keeping a military presence in northern Syria to suppress the Kurds.
But right now, Turkey is a friend, and the Ottomans need to be referred to without animus. Thus, the Ottoman “occupation” mentioned in Assad-era textbooks has now become the Ottoman “regime,” which is not pejorative but simply matter-of-fact.
There is also no more emphasis on Syria itself, as was found in previous textbooks. Now the focus is squarely on Islam, and the worldwide umma. Statements against Jews remain, as do those against all the Western powers — warmongers and exploiters who suck the “blood of the innocents.”
Al-Jolani’s repeatedly expressed desire to focus only on Syria, making sure that all of its armed groups give up their weapons and become part of a national army, and his unwillingness to try to pressure Israel to withdraw from the territory it has just taken over on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, are reassuring. But then there are those new schoolbooks, just released, that have become even more Islamic in their contents, and that will influence the minds of Syrian children, whose Islam-infused curriculum will lead some of them inexorably to become jihadis themselves.
The Israelis, who continue to hold back from responding to what some have taken to be overtures made by al-Jolani to the Jewish state, are right to do so. If you are wondering why, just look at what remains and what has been changed, for the worse, in the new textbooks now to be used in Syrian schools; Impact-se lays it all out.
