Tel-Chai Nation

The Weekly Standard reports that Texas and Florida's school system are revising how they deal with teaching about the Religion of Peace:

In the past, American textbooks were prone to two great pitfalls: Either they dealt with Islam superficially or they presented it in the manner preferred and promoted by well-funded defenders of Islamic extremism. A hallmark of that latter view is an emphasis on the unity of Islam, which is portrayed as simple, monolithic, and benign. The wide range of belief and practice between Sunni, Shia, and Sufi Islam, to name only the best-known variations, is downplayed, and the problems of Islam, especially violent jihad, are simply left out. Some of the current efforts at revising textbooks successfully avoid these mistakes.

Really? We can only hope. However, there are still some likely problems, including, as some of the textbooks feature, that the students:

understand the impact of the rise of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism and the ongoing conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis in the second half of the twentieth century. The student is expected to: (A) explain the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the second half of the twentieth century; and (B) explain the origins and global consequences of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict; and (C) explain the global response to terrorism from September 11, 2001 to the present.

As TWS says:

Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism are properly considered in the context of modern totalitarianism. But if this addition to the Texas standards is positive, it also elicits one caveat. The new language could suggest a causal link between the conflict over territory in Israel and the Palestinian lands and the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism. Some Westerners have come to believe the Israeli-Palestinian wars are motivated by religious hostility and that actions by the West and Israel have brought about the growth of Islamic fundamentalism. It is appropriate for American students to be exposed to the alternative view: that Islamic fundamentalism has been introduced into the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation by powerful radical interests, especially those financed by Saudi Arabia and Iran, aggravating the Israeli-Palestinian problem.

Yes, this, more or less, is what students need to understand, that Islam is the main problem with this "race" called palestinians, though they could also learn where the name originated, and that it was the Romans who came up with it as a delegitimizing term for Israel at the time of Bar-Kochva.

If there's anything I'd like to know about these textbooks, it's if they'll actually deal with Mohammed's marriage to the 9-year old Ayesha. I realize this is a very grisly and frightening subject to have to deal with, but sooner or later, students are going to have to learn about these "cultural" and barbaric aspects that litter the Religion of Peace, and are just as harmful as jihad itself.

Labels: islam, jihad, misogyny, United States