Teaching religious bigotry

Cal Thomas:

Despite a report by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom that the Islamic Saudi Academy in Alexandria, Va., has continued to use textbooks that teach hatred of everyone not of their specific brand of faith, the U.S. State Department has yet to act to close down the school. Officials of the academy, which has about 1,000 students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12, promised to excise passages in the textbooks that disparage Jews and Christians, but according to an examination by The Washington Post for the 2006-2007 school year, though "much of the controversial material had been removed, at least one book still contained passages that extolled jihad and martyrdom, called for victory over one's enemies and said the killing of adulterers and apostates was 'justified.'"

Once again, Islamic Saudi Academy officials have promised to clean up the text.

There are at least two questions that should be asked. One: are they telling us the truth this time? Probably not. Two: why do we allow such schools in our country when nothing close to a Christian, Jewish or even secular school would be permitted in Saudi Arabia, whose government specifically treats as contraband any religious text other than the Koran and prohibits even private worship of any God but Allah?

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This is no small matter. The root cause of Islamic terrorism is religious bigotry toward everyone who does not accept their weird religious beliefs. One of the reasons for the spread of these weird beliefs is the Saudi education system. The Saudis have been going to great effort to reeducate and reform some of these internal terrorist. They should start with a reform of their education and textbooks. They must stop teaching religious bigotry.