WHY DO CATHOLICS TOLERATE PROPAGANDA IN THEIR OWN SCHOOLS?

The Catholic Sentinel – September 22, 2006

Christian-Muslim talks scheduled - Archdiocese of Portland in Oregon

The Institute for Christian-Muslim Understanding is hosting a potluck dinner and lecture entitled “Jesus and Mary: Christian and Muslim Perspectives” at St. Mary’s Academy on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006.

Speakers will be Holy Names Sister Mollie Reavis and Aseel Nasir-Dyck. The event is free and open to the public. Those attending the 6:30 p.m. potluck are asked to bring a pork-free dish for six.

Muslim sunset prayer will be at 7:30 p.m. followed by the lecture at 7:45 pm.
The institute was founded four years ago.

Source URL:
http://www.sentinel.org/articles/2006-38/14944.html

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Aseel Nasir-Dyck is a contributor to a highly controversial high school textbook, The Arab World Studies Notebook. This raises red flags. Think "making inroads into our Catholic schools."

More red flags:

In addition, she has signed a petition against Israel:
Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Look under International Supporters list of signatories.
http://www.pacbi.org/boycott_news_more.php?id=315_0_1_0_C
Also, look at the Links page which lists many anti-Israel groups.
http://www.pacbi.org/links.htm

AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE (AJC)
Critique of The Arab World Studies Notebook

Propaganda, Proselytizing and Public Education

AJC is urging school districts across the nation to follow the lead of the Anchorage, Alaska School Board in banning the Arab World Studies Notebook as a resource on the Middle East for public school teachers. The school board's action corresponds with the findings of AJC's study,
Propaganda, Proselytizing and Public Education:
A Critique of the Arab World Studies Notebook.

The Notebook appears largely designed to advance the anti-Israel and propagandistic views of its sponsors. It fails to meet the standards we have come to expect of material used to educate our children at American public schools. Therefore, it is inappropriate for public school teachers and students.

AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE

Arab World Studies Notebook Inappropriate for Public School Teachers
http://www.ajc.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?
c=ijITI2PHKoG&b=849241&ct=873537

February 22, 2005 - New York - The American Jewish Committee today urged school districts across the nation to follow the lead of the Anchorage, Alaska School Board in banning the Arab World Studies Notebook as a resource on the Middle East for public school teachers.

"The Anchorage School Board action corresponds with the findings of our own study that this publication is inappropriate for American public schools," said AJC Executive Director David A. Harris. The Anchorage School Board voted unanimously this month to ban the Notebook.

The AJC study, Propaganda, Proselytizing and Public Education:
A Critique of the Arab World Studies Notebook, concludes that it "appears largely designed to advance the anti-Israel and propagandistic views of the Notebook's sponsors, the Middle East Policy Council and the Arab World and Islamic Resources (AWAIR), to an audience of teachers who may not have the resources to assess the text critically."

"Educating American children about the Middle East and about different religions and cultures is vitally important, but the Notebook is precisely the wrong way to go about it," Harris said.
The Notebook "fails to meet the standards we have come to expect of material used to educate our children at American public schools," states the AJC report.

The outdated Notebook - it was last revised in 1998 - is replete with factual errors, inaccuracies and misrepresentations about Middle East history. Moreover, the lack of citation makes reference-checking virtually impossible.

"Most disturbingly, for a public school setting, the Notebook frequently steps over the line from teaching about religion to teaching religion itself, as when it suggests that students repeat Arabic phrases that are confessions of belief and proposes that Muslim faith statements be transmitted to others," concludes the AJC report.

"These lessons are less teaching about the Muslim religion than they are proselytizing for it."

The Notebook's skewed account of Middle East history and the Arab-Israeli conflict consistently distorts well-established facts and uses polemical, one-sided language, states the AJC analysis. "It by no means offers the kind of 'even-handed' approach to conflict situations that one would expect of American social studies curricular materials."

Further, without any foundation, the Notebook denies any Jewish connection to Jerusalem, a tactic used by extremists in the Muslim world to undermine Israel's legitimacy. It is not clear how many schools in North America currently are using the Notebook, but its promoters claim that over 12,000 copies have been distributed and over 16,000 educators have attended workshops in which it is being used.

The AJC report is available at our website. Contact: Kenneth Bandler (212) 891-6771 PR@ajc.org
Lisa Fingeret Roth (212) 891-1385 rothl@ajc.org

MORE AT AJC:

http://www.ajc.org/ Search for Arab World Studies Notebook

ARABS IN THE NEW WORLD?

THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Textbook on Arabs Removes Blunder
April 16, 2004
George Archibald
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040416-120208-4455r.htm

An Indian tribe has forced distributors of an Arab studies guide for U.S. teachers to remove an inaccurate passage that says Muslim explorers preceded Christopher Columbus to North America and became Algonquin chiefs.

Peter DiGangi, director of Canada's Algonquin Nation Secretariat in Quebec, called claims in the book, the "Arab World Studies Notebook," "preposterous" and "outlandish," saying nothing in the tribe's written or oral history support them. The 540-page book says the Muslim explorers married into the Algonquin tribe, resulting in 17th-century tribal chiefs named Abdul-Rahim and Abdallah Ibn Malik.

Mr. DiGangi said the guide's author and editor, Audrey Shabbas, and the Middle East Policy Council (MEPC), a Washington advocacy group that promoted the curriculum to school districts in 155 U.S. cities, have been unresponsive to his concerns since November. But Ms. Shabbas said this week the passage was removed immediately from subsequent copies, and that she was "giving careful and thoughtful attention" on how to notify the 1,200 teachers who have been given copies of the book in the past five years.

"As the editor of the 'Notebook,' when I heard from Mr. DiGangi that a citation in the work was not borne out by either Native American written records or by oral traditions, I was grateful that the statement could so easily be removed," she said.

She did not explain how the false information got into the curriculum.

"There was no [scholarly] peer review," said Mr. DiGangi, who says he was never contacted after lodging his complaint. "It was so outlandish. It never should have gone to press."

Jon Roth, MEPC's program manager, yesterday said the group has decided to remove the two-page chapter called "Early Muslim Exploration Worldwide: Evidence of Muslims in the New World Before Columbus."

"It is not, nor has it ever been, our intention to spread lies or untruths," Mr. Roth said.

Meanwhile, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation this week issued a report that is critical of "Arab World Studies Notebook." The study, titled "The Stealth Curriculum: Manipulating America's History Teachers," reviewed many curriculum supplements and "professional development" programs aimed at schoolteachers. { SEE BELOW for link } "It appeared that the creation and dissemination of these materials, often through professional development institutes and [teacher] in-service programs, had fallen into the eager hands of interest groups and ideologues yearning to use America's public school classrooms to shape the minds of tomorrow's citizens by manipulating what today's teachers are introducing into the lessons of today's children," the Fordham study concluded.

Mr. Roth said the "Arab World Studies Notebook" is the primary reference text used in the council's program of teacher workshops conducted by Ms. Shabbas, which have numbered more than 268 in 155 cities since 1987. The book, offered at a markdown of $15 from $49.95, has 90 readings and lesson plans covering the history and culture of the Arab world, the broader Middle East and Islam worldwide. "A lot of teachers use it," Mr. Roth said. Chester E. Finn Jr., Fordham Foundation president, said the new "cottage industry" of "predigested supplemental materials" and professional development for history and social studies teachers was intended to help teachers who had little or no background in certain areas, and because textbooks are often insufficient.

"How could we expect them to handle complicated and emotionally charged subjects like the Holocaust and figure out what lessons to learn about it? To escort youngsters safely through the thicket of political correctness and ethnic politics that now surrounds such benign holidays as Columbus Day and Thanksgiving?" he asks in the preface of the foundation's report.

The void in teachers' knowledge and instructional materials has been filled by publishers, universities, research groups and think tanks, advocacy groups, cable networks, film producers and itinerant teacher trainers, Mr. Finn said. "We know staggeringly little about how good these materials and workshops are -- how accurate they are, whether the information they present is balanced and accurate. We know even less about the efficacy, value or intellectual integrity of innumerable workshops, institutes and training programs in which teachers participate," he said.

The report, written by Sandra Stotsky, former senior associate commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Education, described the "Arab World Studies Notebook" as "propaganda."

The chapter written by Ms. Shabbas and Abdallah Hakim Quick claims that Muslims from Europe were the first to sail across the Atlantic and land in the New World, starting in 889, the report says. "The idea that English explorers met native Indian chiefs with Muslim names in the middle of the Northeast woodlands sounds almost like something a Hollywood film writer dreamed up for a spoof," the report says.

The current 1998 edition of the "Notebook" has "no evidence or documentation to support key historical 'facts' that serve to advance their political views or religious beliefs," the report says. "One can only wonder if this has ever been questioned by the teachers who use its materials, or if they feel they must agree to any claim made by Muslims as an 'alternative perspective' or risk being labeled insensitive, Eurocentric, or racist."

Copyright © 2006 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.

THE TEXTBOOK LEAGUE
Arab World Studies Notebook lobs Muslim propaganda at teachers
http://www.textbookleague.org/spwich.htm
Shabbas's dupes learn from the Notebook that the Koran condemns wars of "territorical [sic] conquest" -- and they also learn that, from the 8th to the 13th centuries, Arabian Muslims built a great empire that "extended across North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia, from Spain to the borders of China." Does this mean that those Arabian Muslims spurned the Koran? Does it mean that they assembled their empire without fighting wars of conquest? Exactly how did they do that? You may well ask the questions, but you won't find any answers in the Notebook.


THOMAS B. FORDHAM FOUNDATION
EDUCATION EXCELLENCE NETWORK
http://www.edexcellence.net/foundation/publication/
publication.cfm?id=331

The Stealth Curriculum: Manipulating America's History Teachers

An excerpt from PART I: SUPPLEMENTAL CURRICULUM

Islam and Islamic History

The traditional history curriculum has been faulted for concentrating almost solely on the history
of the Western world—ancient Greece and Rome, and European, British, and U.S. history. To help American students become more familiar with other cultures, civilizations, and regions, and thus less “ethnocentric,” history teachers, who tend to have been trained chiefly in Western or U.S. history and whose textbooks often have a similar focus, have had to draw upon additional resources. This is especially the case for addressing Islam, the Islamic world, and the Middle East. I describe here three egregious sets of curricular materials. All three falsify history in their attempt to indoctrinate both teachers and students.

The Arab World Studies Notebook

The Arab World Studies Notebook is published jointly by the Middle East Policy Council and
AWAIR (Arab World And Islamic Resources and School Services). The Middle East Policy Council (formerly the Arab American Affairs Council) sponsors workshops about the Arab world and Islam for teachers, while AWAIR runs the workshops and distributes printed materials and videos. The Notebook is described as containing secondary level curriculum materials.

The workshops are provided free to schools all over the country, and the Notebooks cost much less money per teacher ($15) when schools arrange for the workshops than when teachers buy copies on their own (over $50). The Notebook has been used in schools for many years and is in every bibliography on Islam that I’ve seen for educators. It is specifically touted for staff development by a faculty member at Teachers College, Columbia University in a 1999 ERIC Digest article on “the resources available to provide Arab Americans with a supportive school environment and all students with an accurate and unbiased education on the Middle East.”10 (It was also a major resource for a professional development institute described in the second part of this report.)

I first came across the Notebook in 1990 when parents and other citizens belonging to an organization we called Citizens for Quality Education were engaged in a high profile battle with social studies administrators and teachers at Brookline (MA) High School over the content of a course called “World in Crisis” and their attempt to eliminate Advanced Placement European History.11 The Notebook was one of the pieces of propaganda we found in half a dozen courses at the high school. Published in Berkeley, California, and edited by Audrey Shabbas, who is still its editor, as well as director of AWAIR, the 1989 version (about 300 pages long) stated among other non-facts that Yasir Arafat was president of a newly declared State of Palestine, that the United Nations General Assembly had voted to recognize this state in 1988, and that the Canaanites were the ancestors of many present-day Palestinians.12 I will paraphrase or quote briefly from William Bennetta’s preliminary report and correspondence on the content of the current version of the Notebook.

This report may be read in its entirety at
http://www.textbookleague.org/spwich.htm.

Bennetta concluded that the principal purpose of the 1998 Notebook (now 513 pages long) is to
induce teachers to embrace Islamic religious beliefs, support political views favored by MEPC and AWAIR, and disseminate those religious beliefs and political views in their classrooms. Its attempt at indoctrination goes beyond presenting religious myths as matters of fact, and it also includes some bizarre history. For example, one article, ascribed to Abdallah Hakim Quick and Audrey Shabbas, is titled “Early Muslim Exploration Worldwide: Evidence of Muslims in the New World Before Columbus.” The article claims that Muslims from Europe were the first to sail across the Atlantic and land in the New World, starting in 889. Not to be outdone by any of the early European explorers, the article also claims that West African Muslims had not only spread throughout South and Central America but had also reached Canada, intermarrying with the Iroquois and Algonquin nations so that, much later, early English explorers were to meet “Iroquois and Algonquin chiefs with names like Abdul-Rahim and Abdallah Ibn Malik.”

The idea that English explorers met native Indian chiefs with Muslim names in the middle of the
Northeast woodlands sounds almost like something a Hollywood film writer dreamed up for a
spoof. What is most astonishing about this “historical information” is that it seems not to have been recognized as fake history by all the satisfied teachers that MEPC claims have participated in its workshops over the years. At least no complaints have reached local newspapers or state departments of education, so far as it can be determined. The current version of the Notebook continues the practice that CQE noted in 1990—no evidence or documentation to support key historical “facts” that serve to advance their political views or religious beliefs. One can only wonder if this has ever been questioned by the teachers who use its materials, or if they feel they must agree to any claim made by Muslims as an “alternative perspective” or risk being labeled insensitive, Eurocentric, or racist.

Interestingly, this particular bit of fake history may soon be cleaned up at the request of the
Algonquin Nation itself. In 2003, the Algonquin Nation Secretariat, in Quebec, became aware of the academic travesty being committed in its name (i.e., English explorers meeting Algonquin chiefs with Muslim names) and issued an alert on November 28, 2003, “to state that there is no credible evidence to support these theories, in the archival record, academic study, or in oral history” and that “we are extremely concerned that such nonsense would be circulated as curriculum intended for use in schools.”13 The Secretariat calls upon the sponsors of the Arab World Studies Notebook to render an “explanation and an apology” for “material that is so patently untrue and academically indefensible.”

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Liberal magazine of the National Education Association has the temerity to ask, “Whose agenda?”

EDWEEK ONLINE
March 2, 2005

Supplementary Text on Arab World Elicits Criticism
By Kathleen Kennedy Manzo

Education officials in Anchorage, Alaska, have prohibited teachers from using a guide to teaching about the Arab world—the same guide that a national Jewish advocacy organization is now urging districts across the country to ban.

While Anchorage officials cited inaccuracies in the materials, the American Jewish Committee claims the guide also contains anti-Semitic messages.

The “Arab World Studies Notebook” is produced by Arab World and Islamic Resources, a Berkeley, Calif.-based publisher of supplementary instructional materials. The 540-page ringed binder provides historical summaries, religious and cultural information, primary documents, lesson plans, and recommended readings that promote “the Arab’s point of view,” according to Audrey Shabbas, the editor of the guide.
Ms. Shabbas has led workshops around the country—including in Anchorage—to help teachers incorporate the information in their classes. She said the guide has a disclaimer stating that it represents one point of view, and an advisory to teachers to balance the information with perspectives from Jewish organizations and other history texts.

“In this notebook, they are only being given the Arab viewpoint,” said Ms. Shabbas. “The first thing students have to do is get all those [other] viewpoints.”

Whose Agenda?

The 50,000-student Anchorage district took action last month after a review committee found that while information on Arab art, music, and literature was of high quality, “a substantial amount of historical, political, and content-area information in the notebook was determined to be inaccurate,” according to district documents.

A recent review of the guide by the American Jewish Committee, a New York City-based organization that works “to safeguard the welfare and security of Jews” around the world, described the guide as “propaganda.”

“The ‘Arab World Studies Notebook,’ attempting to redress a perceived deficit in sympathetic views of the Arabs and Muslim religion in the American classroom, veers … toward historical distortion as well as uncritical praise, whitewashing, and practically proselytizing,” says the critique, “Propaganda, Proselytizing, and Public Education.”

The report argues that the text whitewashes the problems of Islamic extremism, presents religious beliefs as facts, and implies that Islam is superior to Judaism and Christianity.

Ms. Shabbas said the guide represents the diversity of the Arab world, including information on the various languages spoken, as well as the various forms of religion practiced in the region.

First published in 1990 and last revised in 1998, the guide is the primary reference for workshops sponsored by the Middle East Policy Council, a moderate Washington-based organization that works to promote discussion and understanding of U.S. policies in the Middle East. The workshops have been presented to more than 16,000 teachers in 43 states, according to the council.

A small section of the guide that outlined research showing Muslims’ pre-Columbian presence in North America was removed several years ago after the Algonquin tribe in Canada disputed the claim.
Critics, Ms. Shabbas said, simply have opposing viewpoints.

“I suspect the overarching thing is that this notebook and teacher workshops are dispelling the negative stereotypes about Arabs and of Muslims,” she said, “and that probably doesn’t fit [critics’] agenda.”
Vol. 24, Issue 25, Page 5