The grim news coming out of the Middle East casts a dark cloud over prospects for the region. But there are developments pointing towards a different, more positive road ahead. Last week’s publication of a study into the curriculum taught in schools in Saudi Arabia is one such opportunity. In fact, the strides being made in Saudi education are an instructive insight into how the region as a whole might actually look one day.
More than perhaps any other state-issued document, textbooks provide a window into the future. Within them, we find the values and principles that governments hope their children of today will enact as the adults of tomorrow. With that in mind, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), issued a report on the 2023/24 curriculum in Saudi Arabia. Following a critical review of 371 Saudi textbooks from 2019 to 2024, IMPACT-se evaluated changes made to textbooks for the current school year. As always, we measured them against internationally recognized UNESCO standards of peace and tolerance in education.
What we found was very encouraging. Continuing a steady positive trend in Saudi textbooks over the last several years, passages that endorsed violent jihad have been removed, antisemitic language is no longer found and texts that in the past promoted male superiority over women have been removed or altered, providing much-needed gender-parity in a region where it’s been lacking. Meanwhile, Zionism is no longer portrayed as the product of European colonialism.
As Saudi ruler Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) works towards implementing his comprehensive vision for his Kingdom’s future, the way Saudi children are being educated is instructive. It is no coincidence that these textbook changes are taking place as MBS, who has faced scrutiny, opens his Kingdom up to the world. As the Saudi desire for economic development, modernization and closer relations with the West persists, a curriculum which is increasingly tolerant and inclusive makes this prospect all the more likely.
This will be music to the ears of President Biden, who reminded the world last week of his vision for a cooperative and peaceful Middle East. Such cooperativeness is unfolding in other parts of the region, as well. In the United Arab Emirates, textbooks have been revised to include the Abraham Accords to emphasize tolerance, coexistence and friendly relations with non-Muslims. In Morocco, their curriculum now embraces minorities including Jews and Amazigh. Meanwhile, in Egypt, a year-by-year reform of textbooks has seen major improvements in attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. These developments remind us that a different version of the future is not only possible, but that positive steps are already being taken towards it.
However, President Biden would also do well to note that the opposite trend is unfolding in Palestinian textbooks. In his speech last week, President Biden looked to the “day after” Israel’s war with Hamas — pledging “a rebuilding of Gaza . . . [with] Arab nations and the international community, along with Palestinian and Israeli leaders.”
Presumably the Palestinian leaders he has in mind include the Palestinian Authority (PA). And yet, our extensive research of PA textbooks has consistently found them replete with Jew-hatred, incitement to violence, martyrdom and jihad across all grades and subjects. Nowhere in PA textbooks is peace mentioned as a possibility. Instead, the future envisaged is tragically bleak – a grade five study card tells students that their duty towards the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is “committing jihad and dying as a martyr for the sake of liberating it.”
As a litmus test for change, textbooks are revealing. Over 20 years ago, Mohammed Atta and 18 of his terrorist accomplices — 15 of whom were Saudi — steered two planes into the World Trade Center, murdering thousands and changing the face of the region forever. Nobody would have believed then that Saudi textbooks in 2024 would increasingly embrace tolerance and moderation. The fact that others in the region are undergoing a similar educational evolution suggests this trend has staying power.
Yet, if the Biden vision for Gaza, for Palestinians, for Israelis and indeed for the Middle East is to be realized, then a wholesale transformation in Palestinian education is imperative. Without it, Palestinian children will continue to be at odds not only with Israelis, but with their contemporaries across the region.
Marcus Sheff is CEO of the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education