Jordanian school textbooks still promote antisemitism even as state maintains peace with Israel

While the Jordanian curriculum emphasizes religious moderation, tolerance, and peacemaking, “these values are generally not applied to Jews or Israel, either historically or in the present day,” according to Impact-se.

By David Swindle, The Algemeiner

Jordan’s textbooks in schools continue to promote antisemitic ideas and justify violence against Israel, including the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, according to a new report.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), an international research group which analyzes schoolbooks and curricula around the world, released a new study this week revealing the extent to which hateful beliefs against Jews and other groups have penetrated the Jordanian educational system.

Applying the analytic standards of the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), IMPACT-se reviewed 294 textbooks used in Jordan during the 2023-2025 school years spanning such subjects as Islamic education, Arabic, social studies, civics, history, and geography.

“The Jordanian curriculum continues to fall short of UNESCO-derived standards of peace and tolerance in education,” the report states.

“While some content promotes general concepts of tolerance and moderation, often citing the Amman Message (a statement calling for tolerance and unity in the Muslim world) and highlighting Christian-Muslim harmony — the curriculum continues to proliferate anti-Jewish narratives and justify violence against Israel.”

The report’s findings are “disappointing” given Jordan’s role as a Western ally that has maintained a peace treaty with Israel since 1994, according to IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff.

“It is therefore particularly disappointing and concerning that Jordan’s curriculum includes some of the oldest antisemitic tropes, glorifies martyrdom, and portrays Israel with such hostility,” Sheff said in a statement to multiple news outlets.

“Oct. 7 was the most brutal attack against Jews since the Holocaust, yet it is described in textbooks as legitimate resistance.”

The report describes one textbook for students as downplaying the Oct. 7 onslaught, in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of southern Israel, and labeling those taken captive as “settlers” living in “Israeli colonies which surround the Gaza Strip,” thus offering justification for their captivity, torture, and murders.

While the Jordanian curriculum emphasizes religious moderation, tolerance, and peacemaking, “these values are generally not applied to Jews or Israel, either historically or in the present day,” according to Impact-se.

Instead, the textbooks generally cast Jews in a negative light, “particularly in the context of early Islamic history, using antisemitic messages that depict lying, treachery, deceitfulness, and hostility as ‘natural qualities’ and inherent ‘traits of the Jews.’”

Antisemitic ideas about Jewish involvement in the economy also predominate. The report notes that textbooks accuse Jews of “exploitation” and usury, and the religious curriculum accuses Jews of acting on behalf of Satan and fomenting conflicts between Muslims.

The books also deny Jewish connections to Israel and dispute the facts underlying Jewish religious beliefs.

The textbooks embrace silence when it comes to the Holocaust. A lesson on World War II reportedly “ignores the Holocaust and other Nazi atrocities, and excuses actions of Nazi Germany.”

This animosity toward Jews juxtaposes with more positive depictions of Christians who are characterized as “an integral part of the Jordanian social fabric” while “other religious groups are rarely represented.”

Israel’s history comes in for demonization and distortion in Jordanian schools. The texts analyzed characterize the Jewish state as illegitimate, racist, colonialist, and expansionist while Arab peace deals with Israel are cast as begrudging concessions rather than genuine bridgebuilding.

Poetry taught in the classroom celebrates violence and expelling Israelis. Interpretations of the Islamic doctrine of Jihad emphasize violence and martyrdom.

The curriculum also casts LGBTQ individuals as threats, according to Impact-se’s report. One book describes homosexuality and “homosexual propaganda” as a threat to humanity while another condemns those who “imitate” the other gender.

Women generally receive respectful portrayals, though some religious textbooks contain stereotypes of wives submitting to their husbands and deferring to their decisions.

“The Jordanian curriculum persistently falls short of UNESCO-derived standards of peace and tolerance in education. While certain content promotes broad principles of tolerance and moderation, it continues to reinforce anti-Jewish narratives and legitimize violence against Israel,” the report states in its main findings.

“Recent textbook revisions have not only failed to rectify these issues but, in some cases, have exacerbated them by incorporating even more extreme antisemitic tropes, homophobic rhetoric, and a heightened hostility toward the peace treaty with Israel.”

On April 23, Jordan banned the Islamist group the Muslim Brotherhood and confiscated its assets, a response to the arrest of 16 members after determining its involvement in a foiled terrorist plot linked to Iran.

The banning makes it a criminal offense to promote the Brotherhood’s Islamist imperialist ideology or to publish its books.

Political analyst Mohammed Khair Rawashdeh described the move as “a final divorce between the state and the Brotherhood after decades of fluctuating between co-opting them and merely tolerating their presence.”

In August 2024, a “high-ranking” Jordanian source told Israel’s Channel 12 that the Hashemite Kingdom had agreed to allow the Jewish state the use of its airspace to repel attacks from the Islamic regime in Iran.