A 2017 textbook quoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – a long debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory.
Qatar’s children are being taught to hate Jews and Israel, to identify with the Palestinian cause and to engage in violent jihad, a new review of the Qatari curriculum has found.
The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) examined 238 textbooks published within the calendar years 2016–20, used to teach grades 1-12, for its interim report: Understanding Qatari Ambition. The report, which found that Qatari education does not meet international standards, unveiled texts teaching children that Jews are evil and immoral, that they have manipulated world events including the First World War to their advantage, and that Zionism aims at achieving Jewish global dominance.
“World War I helped the Zionist movement to enroll all the [warring] parties to its side, and offered promises in return for the support of Jewish Capitalism to this or that party. The movement worked in all directions to achieve its goals, whoever might win the war,” the text in a 2017 Grade 12 social studies textbook read.
An 11th grade social studies book from the same year taught: “Britain underwent a financial crisis during World War I, so the Jews exploited the situation, especially since they almost controlled the global economy, and through this they could stir the countries’ policies according to their own interests.”
The antisemitism on display draws on a range of influences, from antisemitic tropes found within classical Islam, to modern-era European antisemitism. Thus, a 2017 textbook quoted the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – a long debunked antisemitic conspiracy theory – as fact; the text reads: “It says in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion: We must win the woman, in the day she reaches out to us, and we won the case. Therefore, the Jews succeeded in directing Western public opinion, when they took hold of the [Muslim] women through media and through money.”
The report noted that later textbooks had removed references to the Protocols, however, the mentality behind the antisemitic trope was still in evidence in 2019, in texts that claimed the Balfour Declaration was designed to benefit the Jews at the expense of other nations such as Russia and Germany.
“Jew-hate remains a central element of Qatari education. Textbooks teach Jews control and manipulate world powers and markets, are treacherous and killers of prophets,” Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se said.
