No one should be surprised to learn that the 'Mad Mullahs' and the equally mad Ahmadinejead, believer in the imminent return of the 12th Imam, should be creating future generations of mad persons through the government-sponsored school system.
The Washington Times by Garth Harding regarding the recent study byDr. Arnon Groiss, Princeton-and-Harvard-educated journalist who has written critical studies of the Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian, Saudi and Egyptian education systems.
BRUSSELS -- The Iranian education system is preparing its students for a global war against the West in the name of Islam, according to an independent study of 115 textbooks and teachers guides released today.With Tehran accused of seeking to develop a nuclear weapons arsenal and the United States dispatching a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, the report by the Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace highlights the uphill task Washington faces trying to persuade Iranian youth to distance themselves from the hard-line Islamist regime.
The study, which claims to be the first of its kind, catalogs how pupils as young as 9 are conditioned to take part in a global jihad against such "infidel oppressors" as Israel and the United States.
"Hate indoctrination is a professed goal of Iranian textbooks," said the report's author, Arnon Groiss, a Princeton- and Harvard-educated journalist who also has written critical studies of the Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian, Saudi and Egyptian education systems.
According to Mr. Groiss, Iranian pupils learn from an early age that the Islamic republic is in mortal combat with Western powers bent on its destruction.
One 11th-grade textbook, quoting former spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, refers to the United States and its allies as "the World Devourers" and says that if they "wish to stand against our religion, we will stand against their whole world and will not cease until the annihilation of all of them."
Students are drilled for battle from age 12, when they are obliged to take defense-readiness classes, according to the study by the Israel-based nongovernmental organization. Some also are drafted into the Revolutionary Guard and other elite combat units, where they are taught how to handle shoulder-propelled rocket launchers, the study says.
Through stories, poems, wills and exercises, martyrdom is glorified as a means of defending the Islamic republic and attaining eternal happiness, the report says. A Grade 10 textbook on "defense readiness" boasts that during the eight-year war with Iraq in the 1980s, half a million students were sent to the front and "36,000 martyrs ... were offered to the Islamic Revolution."
Describing Iran's school system as a "global war curriculum," Mr. Groiss said the emphasis on military training from such a young age instilled a "siege mentality" among many students.
"It is a form of child abuse to install such notions in children's minds," he told journalists at a briefing in the European Parliament in Brussels.
Israel, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad repeatedly has said should be "wiped off the map," is not recognized in atlases and is portrayed as a danger to Islamic states.
"Another problem [faced by Muslim countries] is the regime that occupies Jerusalem, which has been created in this area ... for America and other aggressive powers, with the aim of taking over the Muslim lands," says a geography textbook for Grade 11 students that is quoted in the study.
Anti-Semitism is also rife, according to the report, which analyzed textbooks published before Mr. Ahmadinejad came to power in 2005. In one cartoon for third-graders, the inhabitants of a clean and tidy town discover a trail of garbage left by a ghoulish creature with the Star of David on his right arm. The contaminator is chased out of town and the mess cleaned up after him.
The United States, which is commonly referred to as the "Great Satan" and the "Arch-Oppressor Worldwide," fares little better.
"America is known as an imperialist country, which embarks on military intervention wherever it sees that its interests are in danger," says a sociology textbook for Grade 11 students, according to the study.
"It does not refrain from massacring people, from burying alive the soldiers of the opposite side and from using mass destruction weapons."
Speaking at the release of the report today, the vice chairman of the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee, Geoffrey Van Orden, said: "Young people are being indoctrinated in hatred and intolerance to other religions and cultures. This is not only very disturbing in terms of the education and upbringing of those young people, but in terms of international stability."
The Iranian Embassy in Brussels was asked to respond to the claims in the report but failed to comment.
Unfortunately there are many in our own school systems that are no better, teaching our children and youth that America and Western culture are hateful, evil and racist. The message is slightly different, but the result will be the same.
Anti-Semitism, anti-American, anti-Western, anti-Enlightenment teachings have been the norm in Islam since Mohammad began his spouting his ideology. However, things became more sticky once sectarian divisions arose. Today's Muslims fear that sectarian violence is about to explode again:
Terrified that sectarian Muslim bloodshed could soon engulf the region, U.S. allies and adversaries in the Middle East have stepped up joint efforts to head off a religious civil war.Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran have held intensive talks in recent days on ways to tamp down sectarian violence in Iraq and Lebanon. Over the weekend, Saudi King Abdullah issued an unusual public call for calm.
Top Islamic clerics and scholars in Egypt, Qatar and Iraq also have issued statements urging Muslim unity, often blaming the United States and other outside actors of trying to divide the faithful.
"All scholars are condemning the ongoing sectarian war between Sunnis and Shi'ites as a threat to the unity of Iraq and drawing the attention of Muslims away from the real enemy of the [Islamic world]," Aisha al-Mannai, an Islamic law scholar at Qatar University, said last week at the conclusion of an emergency conference in Doha on the growing tensions among various strains of Islam.
According to the Doha conference communique: "Any exchange of insults against the companions of the prophet Muhammad or his relatives should be treated as an un-Islamic act."
The swirl of activity reflects the deep regional fears that Middle East crises, from Iraq to Lebanon to the Palestinian territories, could pit the faith's two largest branches against each other.
Notice that scholars are condemning the ongoing sectarian war between Sunnis and Shi'ites...but that the real enemy the United States and those performing un-Islamic acts even though they may not be Muslim!
Terrified that sectarian Muslim bloodshed could soon engulf the region, U.S. allies and adversaries in the Middle East have stepped up joint efforts to head off a religious civil war.Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Shi'ite Iran have held intensive talks in recent days on ways to tamp down sectarian violence in Iraq and Lebanon. Over the weekend, Saudi King Abdullah issued an unusual public call for calm.
Top Islamic clerics and scholars in Egypt, Qatar and Iraq also have issued statements urging Muslim unity, often blaming the United States and other outside actors of trying to divide the faithful.
"All scholars are condemning the ongoing sectarian war between Sunnis and Shi'ites as a threat to the unity of Iraq and drawing the attention of Muslims away from the real enemy of the [Islamic world]," Aisha al-Mannai, an Islamic law scholar at Qatar University, said last week at the conclusion of an emergency conference in Doha on the growing tensions among various strains of Islam.
According to the Doha conference communique: "Any exchange of insults against the companions of the prophet Muhammad or his relatives should be treated as an un-Islamic act."
The swirl of activity reflects the deep regional fears that Middle East crises, from Iraq to Lebanon to the Palestinian territories, could pit the faith's two largest branches against each other.
No mention is made of the fact that Muslims utter insults against non-Muslims and generally provoke them all over the world.
"The schemes of the foreign occupier are responsible for the discord," he said.But the Doha conference also was marred by sharp exchanges between Sunni and Shi'ite clerics, with both sides blaming the other for the violence in Iraq. Sunni scholars also accuse Iran and its Shi'ite allies of a concerted effort to convert Sunnis to their form of Islam.
In a rare interview with a Kuwaiti newspaper over the weekend largely overlooked in the West, Saudi King Abdullah had a double-edged message for Iran.
The king told the Al-Seyassah newspaper that Saudi Arabia "does not support any party that is an enemy of Iran," but also cautioned Tehran against underestimating the danger of antagonizing the United States in Iraq and elsewhere.
"We advised Iran on how you go about cooperating internationally, and to avoid exposing the Gulf region to dangers," the king said of his meeting with Iran's Mr. Larijani.
The king also said he was aware of popular fears in the Sunni world about rising Shi'ite power.
"The majority of Sunni Muslims will never change their faith," he said.
Sunni and Shi'ia do hate each other, but they hate unbelievers even more, and neither would hestitate to wipe out the rest of us, either by demanding that we pay the Jizyah and submit as dhimmis or that we convert and submit as "slaves of Allah." Neither prospect is appealing to me.
And what are they teaching their children? Even those that live among are perpetuating the same attitude of Islamic supremacy and intolerance.
For those that are inclined to spread the message, here's a downloadable flyer. There's enough true material that no one has to make up things as unfortunately some are doing.
Perhaps someone could make a flyer using the points of the "20-Year Plan for Conquest of America," or "What You Should Know About Jihad from the Terrorism Awareness Project that has downloadable flyers and books for sale.
Here's a link that provides daily updates of the Iranian threat.
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