Saudi Arabia Is Ridding Its Textbooks of Anti-Semitism, but the Rest of the Middle East Has a Long Way to Go

For many years, the Saudi kingdom was the major exporter of religious extremism, including hatred of Jews and Israel, to the Muslim world. That that has changed dramatically is evidenced by the textbooks used in the country’s schools, which no longer teach children, for instance, that Muslims will one day receive divine help in slaughtering Jews en masse. Marcus Sheff discusses these changes in conversation with Hussein Aboubakr, and puts them in the context of trends throughout the Muslim Middle East—ranging from the United Arab Emirates, where textbooks praise tolerance as a virtue, to Iran, where they extoll the martyrdom of children, and Houthi-ruled areas of Yemen, where {imagined) Jewish malfeasance is an obsession. (Moderated by Sarah N. Stern. Video, 54 minutes.)