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Home Front: WoT
Saudi-funded madness in Washington’s backyard
2009-08-07
On Monday, Virginia officials granted permission to the Islamic Saudi Academy of Fairfax — the only Saudi-funded school in the United States — to double the size of its facility in northern Virginia just across the Potomac River from the nation’s Capitol. That means the school will be able to increase the number of students it indoctrinates in an extreme version of Islam. The same indoctrination is found in the most radical madrassas across the Middle East. These institutions graduate students who are steeped in hatred for America and Western cultures, and who are often committed to a deadly kind of jihad. This is a foolhardy decision by local officials that should be overruled by federal authorities.

That’s not likely, however, because the U.S. Supreme Court declined June 29 to hear a civil lawsuit filed by the 9/11 families alleging a financial link between members of the Saudi royal family and terrorist front groups, based on what The New York Times described as “thousands of pages of previously undisclosed documents,” including a “line-by-line description of tens of millions of dollars in bank transfers, with dates and dollar amounts.” Without considering this new evidence, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals threw the case out on grounds of sovereign immunity. The Justice Department also sided with the Saudis, ordering attorneys to destroy any copies of leaked classified documents in their possession.

Academy officials deny that their facility teaches violent jihad to its students, but the available evidence says otherwise. The school’s textbooks have been condemned by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for numerous anti-Christian, anti-Semitic and anti-American passages that justified the killing of non-Muslims. Some even included illustrations on how to cut off the extremities of those who violate Sharia law. Ahmed Omar Abu-Ali, the school’s 1999 valedictorian who was voted “most likely to be martyred,” was recently sentenced to life in prison for participating in an al-Qaida plot to assassinate President George W. Bush, kill members of Congress and bomb public gatherings. A 2003 graduate, Raed Al-Saif, was arrested in June when airport security officials in Tampa, Fla., allegedly found a 7-inch knife hidden in his bag.

A terrible irony here is that the same Virginia officials who approved the academy’s expansion twice denied a similar request from a Christian school that occupied the same property in the 1980s. During Abu-Ali’s sentencing, U.S. District Court Judge Gerald Bruce Lee cited the former valedictorian’s “unwillingness to renounce the beliefs that led to his terrorist activities” as a threat to the safety of all Americans — beliefs that were instilled and nurtured at the Islamic Saudi Academy.
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Home Front: Culture Wars
Va. Saudi Academy Aims for Expansion
2009-07-14
FAIRFAX, Va. - A Fairfax County school is looking to expand, and not everyone is happy about it. The Islamic Saudi Academy has faced claims in the past that its religious curriculum teaches intolerance.
Intolerance? No. Murderous hatred and jihad are the correct terms.
The academy says it has revised its text books, and now it wants to expand its campus. A final public hearing is being held on the issue on Monday night.
Show us your textbooks and supplementary materials, and all curricula... and standard test scores. Let's see of you meet Virginia education requirements. Then we'll talk.
The Islamic Saudi Academy wants to put up another school building on its sprawling campus off Popes Head Road in Central Fairfax County. That would increase the number of students who'd be attending classes there by 300. The campus has been home to 200 children from kindergarten through the third grade.

The Islamic Saudi Academy wants to make this a first through 12th grade campus with a total of 500 students. People who live near the school and oppose the expansion plans say they worry about the added traffic. "We went down and counted all the cars -- it is frightening," said Beth Parker, a Fairfax County resident. Others say they oppose the Saudi Academy's expansion plans because they say the school teaches hate.

An academy official says they've been in the community for 25 years, and they have never caused any trouble. They also say they would create a turn lane at the school's main entrance to help ease any added traffic.
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Home Front: WoT
State Department ignores requests to investigate Saudi sponsored academy
2009-03-20
Seven attempts by U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf to have the U.S. State Department initiate an investigation into controversial textbooks used at two Islamic schools in Northern Virginia have gone unanswered. In his seventh letter in less than a year to the department, Wolf calls continued inaction on the part of the department "inexcusable."

The Islamic Saudi Academy, or ISA, has close ties with the government of Saudi Arabia, which Wolf says charges the State Department with overseeing any investigation of it, under the Foreign Missions Act of 1982. "The Saudi ambassador is the head of the school," said Wolf.

ISA has two campuses. One in Alexandria on Richmond Highway, and another in Fairfax on Pope's Head Road. Material in some textbooks used at both campuses has been called "intolerant" and "shocking" by the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and by Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the The Institute for Gulf Affairs, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C., think tank.

According to Al-Ahmed, one example is a 10th-grade work that "indulges in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories." Wolf said, "Textbooks used in Saudi Arabia are very anti-Semitic, anti-Christian and pretty hate-filled."

While some textbook material has reportedly been changed due to pressure from the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, Wolf says an independent investigation of the textbooks and their overarching use at the academy has yet to be initiated. "We're just asking that there be an independent evaluation by someone that's not paid by the Saudi Academy," Wolf said.

In a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on March 12, Wolf wrote: "According to AP, 'while the Islamic Saudi Academy deleted some of the most contentious passages from the texts, copies provided to the Associated Press show that enough sensitive material remains to fuel critics who claim the books show intolerance toward those who do not follow strict interpretations of Islam.'"

According to the Associated Press report cited by Wolf, along with federal court documents, at least three graduates of the academy have been involved in some questionable activities since leaving the academy. In 2001, two former students, Mohammed El-Yacoubi and Mohammed Osman Idris, were refused entry to Israel when El-Yacoubi was suspected of being part of a "martyrdom operation" there. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, a 1999 ISA valedictorian, was convicted in federal court in 2005 of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate former President George W. Bush.

"I think you can't ignore this," Wolf told the Times. "The school is now even asking for an expansion, and yet this cloud remains over it. You don't want to put a cloud over the students that are going there, and I'm sure there are a lot of good people who go. If someone can just say that 'we looked at this and we are truly independent and not paid by anyone and everything seems OK,' then this whole thing will go away. But to date, we have not been able to get that done.”

Calls made to both the State Department and ISA were not returned by the Times' deadline.
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Home Front: WoT
Verify - but never trust - Saudi 'educational' materials
2009-03-13
For years, the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, the Institute for Gulf Affairs, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, and various Washington Post journalists have been documenting the fact that the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in northern Virginia — a school founded, funded, and controlled by the Saudi embassy — was teaching religious hatred and violence. More precisely, the Saudi Academy used Saudi Ministry of Education textbooks that sanction what is known in the United States as murder against Jews, adulterers, homosexuals, and converts from Islam, and that encourage Muslims to break various other American laws. The Saudi Academy is now putting out the word that its textbooks have been “revised.” Should we declare victory and move on? Not so fast.

The Associated Press, which ran a story this week headlined “Saudi Academy in Virginia Revises Islamic History Books,” relies on quotes from three individuals who give the academys new textbooks a Good Housekeeping seal of approval: Academy director Abdulrahman Alghofaili, Brown University visiting fellow Eleanor Doumato, and University of North Carolina anthropology professor Gregory Starrett. As AP makes clear, all three were paid by the Islamic Saudi Academy to review the textbooks. A fourth commentator quoted in the AP report, Ali Ahmed, who is the president of the Gulf Institute and who is not funded by the Saudis, gives a somewhat different assessment. As the AP reporter paraphrases, “The revised texts now being used at ISA make some small improvements in tone. But he said it’s clear from the books that the core ideology behind them — a puritanical strain of Islam known as Wahhabism that is dominant within Saudi Arabia — remains intact.”

Ever since September 11, 2001, there has been a highly funded publicity campaign by the Saudi embassy to persuade Americans that the Academy’s textbooks have been completely revised. Saudi ads in American political magazines, speeches by various Saudi ambassadors and foreign ministers before the Council on Foreign Relations, a national speaking tour by the Saudi ambassador — all have spoken along the lines one of those ambassadors, Turki al-Faisal, took when he told a Town Hall meeting in Los Angeles in 2006: “The Kingdom has reviewed all of its education practices and materials, and has removed any element that is inconsistent with the needs of a modern education. Not only have we eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from old textbooks that were in our system, we have implemented a comprehensive internal revision and modernization plan.” A number of prominent Americans — Charles Freeman, for example — have repeated such claims, despite our annual reports that show this is far from true. At this point, forget trust; we must verify.

The AP story reports that the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, a large regional educational accrediting agency, was conducting a review of the Saudi Academy curriculum. Unfortunately the Association may not be up to the task. In 2005, it accredited the Academy, not knowing — since it did not have the capacity to translate the texts from Arabic — that the school countenanced religiously motivated killing. Although the accrediting association now says it has improved its procedures, it still relies on volunteers to do its inspections. The State Department, which had been requested to sponsor a textbook review by Rep. Frank Wolf (R., Va.), the ranking member of the Appropriations Committee, which oversees its budget, refused to get involved. In the light of these institutional failures, the Hudson Institute’s Center for Religious Freedom, Mr. Ahmed, and outside expert translators are currently working on a thorough, independent review of the Academy’s new textbooks, which will be released later this spring.

Readers may recall that the Saudi curriculum has been blamed — including by a growing number of Saudi commentators — for helping to form the ideology underlying such jihadi terrorists as Osama bin Laden, the 11 Saudi members of the 9/11 hijacking team, the Saudi Gitmo detainees (who formed the largest contingent there, after persons from Afghanistan), the Saudi suicide bombers in Iraq (who formed the largest such foreign contingent), the Pakistani Islamist militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba and its network of radical schools that trained the Mumbai terrorists, and even a former valedictorian of the Saudi Academy itself, to name but a few.

What the Islamic Saudi Academy teaches is important. This Saudi government entity in our midst is now educating some 1,000 students and has said that its mission is to be “the premier educational institution” for the American Muslim community. No less than our national security and way of life are at stake.
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Fifth Column
Murder is permissible if the victim is...
2008-09-02
Textbook Appeasement: The State Department and the Islamic Saudi Academy

Pop quiz: Murder is permissible if the victim is:
(a) An apostate
(b) An adulteress
(c) A polytheist
(d) All of the above
If you answered (d), then you are either a hardened Islamist hunkered down for a last stand in Mosul or a twelfth-grade student at the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in Arlington, Virginia. While the above quiz is fictional, it reflects the actual teachings of some of the textbooks used at the ISA.

As a result of the violent exhortations contained in ISA textbooks, Fairfax County has appealed directly to the U.S. Department of State for assistance in determining whether ISA's curriculum is "offensive to the interests of the United States."[1] So far, the State Department has refused to intervene, claiming it lacks jurisdiction.[2]

Under the Foreign Missions Act (FMA), the State Department has an obligation to review the ISA's textbooks and determine whether such texts contain violent teachings which would run "contrary to protection of the interests of the United States."[3]

A Violent Curriculum

In 2007, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)--the independent, bipartisan federal agency mandated to recommend policies promoting religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy--launched an investigation into language contained in official Saudi textbooks used at the ISA. Although Saudi officials eventually provided the State Department with copies of ISA textbooks, the State Department has so far refused to issue a statement on the content of the materials, let alone make the texts public.[4]

Nevertheless, USCIRF was able to independently obtain several copies of ISA textbooks. The contents were troubling, as USCIRF's June 11 report documented with the following two representative examples:
"In a twelfth-grade Tafsir ([Quranic] interpretation) textbook, the authors state that it is permissible for a Muslim to kill an apostate (a convert from Islam[to another religion]), an adulterer, or someone who has murdered a believer intentionally: 'He (praised is He) prohibits killing the soul that God has forbidden (to kill) unless for just cause...' Just cause is defined as 'unbelief after belief, adultery, and killing an inviolable believer intentionally.'"[5]

"A twelfth-grade Tawhid (monotheism) textbook states that '[m]ajor polytheism makes blood and wealth permissible,' which in Islamic legal terms means that a Muslim can take the life and property of someone believed to be guilty of this alleged transgression with impunity."[6]
ISA officials charge that alarm over the contents of students' textbooks is being fueled by mistranslation and misinterpretation.[7] However, if the above-cited passages contained non-violent nuances lost in translation, why don't the ISA and the State Department publicize all Arabic language textbooks currently in use at the ISA? Instead, neither organization has complied with USCIRF's request for full public disclosure.
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Home Front: Culture Wars
Saudi-funded US charter school director admits not reporting abuse
2008-07-31
The director of a Saudi-funded Islamic school in northern Virginia accused of promoting religious hatred has pleaded guilty to failing to report suspected child abuse.

Abdalla Al-Shabnan, director of the Islamic Saudi Academy, was fined $500 after pleading guilty to a single misdemeanor count alleging that he failed to inform authorities about suspected sexual abuse of a 5-year-old girl who attended the school. Prosecutors dropped an obstruction of justice charge.

A federal commission reported last month that the school's textbooks promote intolerance and teach that it is permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and those who convert from Islam. The school denies the allegations.
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Home Front: WoT
Director of Saudi Academy arrested for failing to report alleged child abuse
2008-06-21
The director of the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) was arrested last week and charged with failing to report a child abuse allegation. Abdallah I. Al-Shabnan, director of ISA, was also charged with obstruction of justice, according to a police report on his June 9 arrest. He is now out on bail pending trial and is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 1. He could not be reached for comment.

Police say Al-Shabnan’s arrest came after police alleged he covered up an incident in which a 5-year-old girl attending the school reported that she was being sexually abused by her father. According to court papers, Al Shabnan, 52, of McLean, Va., said he didn’t believe the girl and did not report the incident, instead telling the girl’s parents to seek counseling for her.

Police said in court papers that Al-Shabnan ordered a written report about the girl’s complaint, which had been prepared by other school officials, to be deleted from a school computer. Virginia state law requires school officials to report allegations of abuse within 72 hours.

“At no time did Mr. Al-Shabnan report the allegations to any child protective agency or law enforcement agency,” an affidavit for a search warrant filed in the Fairfax County Circuit Court says. “He further stated that he was not aware that he was required to make such a report.”
Missed that part of school principal training, did he ...
Court documents also say Al-Shabnan “stated he did not believe the girl’s complaint and felt she may be attempting to gain attention.”

The misdemeanor counts come at a time when the private school is under heavy criticism from a federal commission and other groups over textbooks that allegedly teach violence and hate. ISA, a 900-student private school with campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax, Va., has been the subject of renewed scrutiny after an investigation by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom said it found that textbooks used in the school contained offensive passages.

More than a dozen protesters lined up outside the ISA this week. The protesters, including the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, want the Justice and State departments to investigate the school. The State Department last year obtained copies of the school’s textbooks but did not make their findings public.

Staff and children affiliated with ISA brought bottles of water to the demonstrators, who gathered near a sidewalk in front of the school holding signs. Rahima Abdullah, the ISA’s education department director, denied the allegations. “That’s absolutely not true,” said Rahima. “What we teach here is love and tolerance.” The school issued a statement saying the textbooks had been mistranslated and misinterpreted.
Lot of that going around it seems ...
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Director of NVa. Saudi Academy Arrested for Failing to Report Child Abuse
2008-06-17
The director of a Saudi government-funded Islamic school has been arrested and charged with failing to report a child abuse allegation, adding to scrutiny of the northern Virginia academy as protesters came out Tuesday to call for a federal investigation of its teachings.

Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, director of the Islamic Saudi Academy, was also charged with obstruction of justice, according to a police report about the June 9 arrest. The misdemeanor counts come at a time when the private school is under heavy criticism from a federal commission and others over textbooks that allegedly teach violence and hate.

More than a dozen protesters lined up outside the school Tuesday, waving signs that read "Saudi hate is not an American family value" and "Islamic Shariah teaches violence and hate."

The protesters, including the conservative Traditional Values Coalition, want the Justice and State departments to investigate the school. The State Department last year obtained copies of the school's textbooks but has so far refused to make them public.

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, said the arrest of al-Shabnan is just further evidence of problems at the school.

"The academy is a virtual one-stop shopping center for law enforcement," she said, citing the case of a former school valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was convicted of joining al-Qaida after leaving the school and plotting to assassinate President Bush.

Al-Shabnan's arrest came after police alleged he covered up an incident in which a 5-year-old girl attending the school reported that she was being sexually abused by her father.

According to court papers, Al-Shabnan, 52, of McLean, told police that he didn't believe the girl, and advised the girl's parents to put her into counseling.

But state law requires school authorities to report alleged child abuse within 72 hours of learning of the allegation. Al-Shabnan is free pending trial.

Police said in court papers that Al-Shabnan ordered a written report about the girl's complaint, which had been prepared by other school officials, to be deleted from a school computer.
Link


Home Front: WoT
Close The D.C. Madrassa
2007-11-03
A federal panel wants a Saudi school inside the Beltway shut for promoting hate, something we've urged for years. But remarkably, this madrassa still has powerful backers. The Washington Post rebuked the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom for singling out the academy in a report criticizing Saudi Arabia for promoting religious intolerance in schools it runs around the world.

As we've reported in these pages, the Alexandria, Va.-based Islamic Saudi Academy is a breeding ground for terrorists, including the al-Qaida operative convicted last year of trying to assassinate President Bush. The commission has asked the State Department to close the school pending a thorough review of its curriculum and texts. State has broad discretion over the school because, as an arm of the Saudi government, it's subject to the Foreign Missions Act.

The Post editorialists called the move "irresponsible." First, they tried to compare the madrassa to parochial schools. "Many such schools teach what outsiders might consider intolerance: that homosexuality is a sin, for example, or that only those who believe in Jesus Christ are destined for heaven," they said. Then they argued that there's no proof the Saudi academy has cross the lines of intolerance into "advocating violence."

"The commission presented no evidence, or even a credible suggestion, that this is occurring at the Saudi academy," the Post editorial board opined. "Thus it was the commission that crossed the lines." But evidence has been presented in the very pages of the Post. If only the paper's higher-ups would read the copy of their news reporters.

Take the Feb. 25, 2002, Post story headlined, "Where Two Worlds Collide; Muslim Schools Face Tension of Islamic, U.S. Views." It noted that numerous textbooks used by the Islamic Saudi Academy promote "hatred of non-Muslims and Shiite Muslims."

"The 11th-grade textbook, for example, says one sign of the Day of Judgment will be that Muslims will fight and kill Jews, who will hide behind trees that say: 'Oh Muslim, Oh servant of God, here is a Jew hiding behind me. Come here and kill him,' " the article said. It goes on to quote several students of the school who say they are taught in Islamic studies that "it is better to shun and even to dislike Christians, Jews and Shiite Muslims." One teen, who recited by memory parts of the Quran, told the Post he's taught by academy teachers that it's OK for Muslims to hurt or steal from such "kaffirs."

This was the steady diet of hate that the Saudi academy fed Ahmed Abu Ali, the would-be al-Qaida assassin. Lest anyone think he was a misfit loner, Ali graduated valedictorian and was voted by his class "Most Likely to Be a Martyr," which in this jihadist school is like being voted Most Popular.

Why is this militant madrassa still operating just across the Potomac from the White House and Capitol? Because Fairfax County is still leasing it an old high school building, and the Democrat county supervisor in charge of the lease doesn't see any problem with the school. The supervisor recently took a tour of the campus and "was reassured by what he saw in the English materials," the Post editorial said. What about the Arabic texts? He doesn't read Arabic. But the Saudi Embassy, which controls the school, assures him they're clean.

The nonprofit Freedom House recently translated a sample of those cleaned-up official Saudi texts and found they're still indoctrinating students to wage jihad against the infidel to "spread the faith." Here's what an eighth-grade Saudi text teaches — with the intolerant parts removed: "The apes are Jews, the people of the Sabbath; while the swine are the Christians, the infidels of the communion of Jesus."

In short, nothing has really changed in Saudi texts or schools — nor in Washington, which is still blindly tolerating intolerance.
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Home Front: WoT
Religion monitor: Shut Saudi school
2007-10-18
An independent government agency that monitors worldwide religious freedom will suggest today that the State Department shut down the 23-year-old Islamic Saudi Academy in Northern Virginia on the grounds it is fomenting hate and religious extremism.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which advises Congress, the State Department and the president on religious-freedom issues, has issued a 30-page document saying the Saudi Embassy, which operates the 933-student academy, is violating U.S. law. It will explain its findings at 10 a.m. today in Room 538 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.

Foreign governments can engage in nondiplomatic activity on American soil, the USCIRF points out, but cannot do so via their embassy, according to the 1982 Foreign Missions Act. The State Department can require an embassy to divest itself of property and close down any businesses not embassy-related.

Embassy spokesman Nail al-Jubeir did not return a call seeking comment. His brother, Saudi Ambassador Adel al-Jubeir, is chairman of the bilingual English/Arabic academy's board of directors.

At issue are textbooks the USCIRF says contain "highly intolerant and discriminatory language, particularly against Jews, Christians and Shi'a Muslims." Its findings are based on a three-year study of Arabic-language textbooks, some of them from the Saudi Academy, by the Center for Religious Freedom in the District.

The textbooks instructed students to "hate" Jews, Christians, "polytheists" and other "unbelievers," praised violent jihad as a "religious duty" and to believe as fact the anti-Semitic forgeries known as "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." Saudi officials said in response that the textbooks were being revamped and an official at the academy, who asked not to be named, said school textbooks were revised in 2006.

The USCIRF was rebuffed when it asked the embassy this summer to see copies of the new textbooks, spokeswoman Judith Ingram said. "We've simply gotten nowhere with our requests," she added.

The Saudi Academy is one of 20 international Saudi schools around the world. The Virginia academy's main campus is on Richmond Highway in Alexandria and a west campus for young children is on Popes Head Road in Fairfax. Twenty-eight percent of its students are Saudi citizens.

The USCIRF has long been critical of Saudi Arabia, and in 2004 it named the kingdom a "country of particular concern" in terms of religious-freedom violations. As a result, the Saudi government promised the State Department it would allow greater religious tolerance within its borders. During a visit there this spring, USCIRF officials said they were stonewalled by the Saudis on several issues, including the content of current school textbooks.
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Home Front: Culture Wars
Teaching Johnny About Islam
2006-05-22
In our brave new schools, Johnny can't say the pledge, but he can recite the Quran. Yup, the same court that found the phrase "under God" unconstitutional now endorses Islamic catechism in public school.

In a recent federal decision that got surprisingly little press, even from conservative talk radio, California's 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it's OK to put public-school kids through Muslim role-playing exercises, including:

Reciting aloud Muslim prayers that begin with "In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful . . . ."

Memorizing the Muslim profession of faith: "Allah is the only true God and Muhammad is his messenger."

Chanting "Praise be to Allah" in response to teacher prompts.

Professing as "true" the Muslim belief that "The Holy Quran is God's word."

Giving up candy and TV to demonstrate Ramadan, the Muslim holy month of fasting.

Designing prayer rugs, taking an Arabic name and essentially "becoming a Muslim" for two full weeks.

Parents of seventh-graders, who after 9-11 were taught the pro-Islamic lessons as part of California's world history curriculum, sued under the First Amendment ban on religious establishment. They argued, reasonably, that the government was promoting Islam.

But a federal judge appointed by President Clinton told them in so many words to get over it, that the state was merely teaching kids about another "culture."

So the parents appealed. Unfortunately, the most left-wing court in the land got their case. The 9th Circuit, which previously ruled in favor of an atheist who filed suit against the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, upheld the lower court ruling.

The decision is a major victory for the multiculturalists and Islamic apologists in California and across the country who've never met a culture or religion they didn't like — with the exception of Western civilization and Christianity. They are legally in the clear to indoctrinate kids into the "peaceful" and "tolerant" religion of Islam, while continuing to denigrate Judeo-Christian values.

In the California course on world religions, Christianity is not presented equally. It's covered in just two days and doesn't involve kids in any role-playing activities. But kids do get a good dose of skepticism about the Christian faith, including a biting history of its persecution of other peoples. In contrast, Islam gets a pass from critical review. Even jihad is presented as an "internal personal struggle to do one's best to resist temptation," and not holy war.

The ed consultant's name is Susan L. Douglass. No, she's not a Christian scholar. She's a devout Muslim activist on the Saudi government payroll, according to an investigation by Paul Sperry, author of "Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington." He found that for years Douglass taught social studies at the Islamic Saudi Academy just outside Washington, D.C. Her husband still teaches there.

So what? By infiltrating our public school system, the Saudis hope to make Islam more widely accepted while converting impressionable American youth to their radical cause. Recall that John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," was a product of the California school system. What's next, field trips to Mecca?

This case is critical not just to our culture but our national security. It should be brought before the Supreme Court, which has outlawed prayer in school. Let's see what it says about practicing Islam in class. It will be a good test for the bench's two new conservative justices.
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Home Front: Culture Wars
Saudi Academy Disputes Radical Reputation
2005-05-19
The Islamic Saudi Academy is seen by some as a dangerous outpost of militant Islam on the outskirts of the nation's capital. And as evidence, they point to the school's 1999 valedictorian, who is charged with joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate President Bush.

But teachers, students and administrators at the school — which serves nearly 1,000 students in kindergarten through 12th grade at two campuses just beyond the Capital Beltway — say such suspicions are unfounded. "These kids are not drilled in any kind of fanatical Islam," said Matt McClusky, who has taught American literature at the school for three years and is leaving to enroll in the New York Police Department training academy. "The kids are led to be open-minded."

On a recent day at the school, most of the female students wore a traditional Muslim head scarf, but many did not. In one student essay on display, a youngster listed his favorite book as the Quran; another essay was about a student's favorite TV program — the gross-out reality show "Fear Factor." A student's artwork showed the emblems of the three Abrahamic faiths — the Muslim crescent, the cross and the star of David.

The school was founded in 1984, primarily to serve children of the Saudi diplomatic corps. Today the student body is more diverse, with nearly three dozen countries represented, but much of the funding still comes from the Saudi government. In recent years, the academy has been at the center of debate over the religious curriculum in Saudi schools and whether it fosters radicalism.

Those questions resurfaced when former valedictorian Ahmed Omar Abu Ali was charged in February. Abu Ali pleaded not guilty and argues that Saudi authorities extracted a false confession from him through torture. Two other people connected to the academy have turned up in terrorism-related cases: A federal indictment in Chicago last year named a former treasurer of the school, Ismael Selim Elbarasse, as a high-ranking official of the militant group Hamas, though Elbarasse was not charged with a crime. Mohamed Osman Idris, an ISA graduate, pleaded guilty in 2002 to lying on a passport application after an investigation into whether he was supporting Hamas.

Frustrated by outsiders' perceptions of the school, academy officials say that two-thirds of the school's teachers are Americans and non-Muslims and would not work there if it promoted anti-Western propaganda. Also, with students from across the Muslim world, with a variety of religious and cultural traditions, it would be impossible to promote Wahhabism — a fundamentalist Saudi form of Islam that has influenced extremists — or any other specific strain, they say. The school's director general, Abdalla I. Al-Shabnan, said that some of the religious curriculum that comes from Saudi Arabia is actually toned down at the academy. "If there is anything in our curriculum that we feel is offensive, we ask the teachers not to teach that kind of subject here," Al-Shabnan said.

School officials cited a textbook for first-graders that contains a notation in the teachers' edition instructing teachers to ensure "explaining that all religions, other than Islam, are false, including that of the Jews, Christians and all others."
Could this be an example of what WE feel is offensive? Or does WE only include muslims?
School officials said teachers were told to disregard that characterization.
At least while infidel reporters are present.
"To say the other religions are false is totally absurd," particularly in instructions to first-graders, said the school's education director, David Kovalik.

But Ali Al-Ahmed, director of the Saudi Institute, a think tank that is critical of the Saudi regime, said it is difficult to believe that any amount of revision can salvage the Saudis' religious curriculum. "It's very clear what they teach," he said. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has asked the Justice Department to investigate the school, saying in a letter, "The continued association of the ISA with individuals linked to terror within the United States must be addressed." The Justice Department told Schumer it could not comment on whether the school was under investigation.

Abdullah Hijazi, a senior from Mitchellville, Md., said he and other students have not been exposed to extremism in the classroom. At the same time, he said, most of the students have access to the Arab media, and "most of the student body generally sides with the Palestinian cause." But as for the Sept. 11 attacks, Al-Shabnan said: "Our religion was hijacked by a group of people who do not represent Islam."
They never do.
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