One reason the Israeli-Arab conflict persists is because the people of many Arab countries continue to be inundated with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic propaganda by their schools and state-controlled media. As a result, even Arab governments that have made peace with Israel are constrained from any public show of comity, lest they risk popular backlash. Nowhere is this problem so pronounced as in Israel’s “cold peace” with Egypt. The two countries have similar interests and their militaries often cooperate productively, yet there is minimal commerce or tourism, and often unnecessary hostility. A recent study, however, shows some surprising steps in the right direction. Miriam Wahba writes:
Egyptian textbooks have long depicted Christians, Jews, and other non-Muslims in a negative light, often framing these groups as adversaries of Islamic values and Egyptian identity. The 2023–24 report finds that a “significant number” of negative depictions have been removed. . . . In an 11th-grade history workbook, a multiple-choice question asking whether the caliph Umar forbade the Jews from living in Jerusalem due to “their betrayal and treachery” or “their love of money” has been removed. A fifth-grade textbook instructing students to use the Internet to find Quranic verses about “the treachery of the Jews” was also revised.
While these revisions are commendable, problematic content remains. A 12th-grade history textbook still asserts that “Zionists” exploited the “claim” that 6 million Jews were “killed or burned by the Nazis” to justify Jewish immigration to Palestine, stating that this population movement could only have occurred through “the extermination of the Arabs of Palestine.”
More about: Anti-Semitism, Egypt, Israel-Arab relations