NEW YORK (Press Release) — The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Wednesday, March 26, voiced deep concern over Saudi Arabia’s denial of a request from the Obama Administration for a visa to be issued to Michael Wilner, an American reporter for The Jerusalem Post accredited to the White House, so he could accompany the president on his upcoming visit to the Kingdom.
“Because there have been clear precedents for issuing such visas in the past, and Mr. Wilner is the only journalist currently accredited to the White House who was denied a visa, it is difficult to understand this decision, which prevents a Jewish American journalist working for an Israeli news outlet from doing his job,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.
In a letter to the Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Adel Al-Jubeir, Foxman said the decision and the absence of an explanation from the Saudi government has led to speculation that Mr. Wilner was singled out because he is Jewish and works for an Israeli newspaper.
“As you know, if that speculation is true, it is unacceptable and will diminish the standing of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the eyes of many,” Foxman wrote. “If it is not true, I respectfully urge you to publicly set the record straight and provide a reasonable explanation for the decision to exclude Mr. Wilner from covering President Obama’s important meeting with King Abdullah.”
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Preceding provided by the Anti-Defamation League.
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NEW YORK (Press Releasef) — AJC (American Jewish Committee) is asking President Obama to press the Kingdom’s rulers to fulfill their long-standing pledges to revise hate-filled textbooks during his visit to Riyadh this weekend.
Hatred of Christians and Jews is taught in Saudi schools, according to an unpublished U.S. State Department study. The Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), in a new report, revealed highlights of the U.S. government study, which was reportedly completed in 2012, but, inexplicably, still has not been released.
“It is disheartening and dismaying that Saudi Arabia has done little, if anything, to revise and update their hate-filled textbooks since AJC first exposed them more than a decade ago,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris. AJC issued the first comprehensive study of Saudi textbooks, together with the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace (CMIP), in 2003.
AJC’s study reviewed 93 textbooks published by the Saudi Ministry of Education and used in first through tenth grades. They covered a wide range of subjects, from literature to math. The textbooks were replete with anti-Christian, anti-Semitic, and anti-Western references. “Official Saudi school books indoctrinate children in hatred of the West, Christians and Jews,” the AJC study concluded.
“The FDD has done a great service by bringing to light the current state of Saudi education materials, and the unpublished U.S. study,” said Harris.
David Andrew Weinberg, author of the FDD report, Textbook Diplomacy: Why the State Department Shelved a Study on Incitement in Saudi Education Materials, concludes that “The Saudis had committed to completely resolving the issue by the middle of 2008, but the White House failed to hold them to that deadline.”
AJC urges the U.S. to publish the State Department report on Saudi textbooks in full, and to pursue additional measures to ensure that Saudi Arabia indeed makes the long overdue and necessary changes.
“Teaching hatred is reprehensible under any circumstances. It is especially alarming when it forms an integral part of the school curriculum in a country long viewed as a close friend of the U.S. and regarded as a center of the Muslim world,” said Harris.
“And our 2003 study also suggested that the textbooks were used in at least some Saudi-funded schools abroad. In all, how many children have now been infected with hatred that can last a lifetime because so little has been done since the problem was brought to light 11 years ago? Action is needed – and now.”
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Preceding provided by AJC
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