Teaching kids at the BBC

I got intrigued by the BBC children’s website when I read at Power Line how that website described 9/11:

The way America has got involved in conflicts in regions like the Middle East has made some people very angry, including a group called al-Qaeda – who are widely thought to have been behind the attacks.

In the past, al-Qaeda leaders have declared a holy war – called a jihad – against the US. As part of this jihad, al-Qaeda members believe attacking US targets is something they should do.

When the attacks happened in 2001, there were a number of US troops in a country called Saudi Arabia, and the leader of al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, said he wanted them to leave.

That’s what children all over the English speaking world are reading if they naively believe that the BBC is a respectable and unbiased news source. Given the fact that the Beeb is anything but unbiased, I decided to check out some other stuff at their website. For example, I thought I’d read the BBC’s answer (for children) to the question “How do Muslims View Other Religions?

The Qur’an describes Christians and Jews as members of the family of Abraham (one of the prophets) and Muslims respect these religions because they believe that they all worship the same God.

Muslims do not believe that Jesus was the Son of God, but that he was one of God’s prophets, just like Muhammad.Bookworm Room › Edit — WordPress

Muslims believe in many of the stories about Jesus that the Christians believe in.

For example, they believe in the virgin birth and that Jesus will come again.

In fact, Jesus is regarded within Islam as a special prophet. His name is in the Qur’an 25 times – more times than Muhammad’s.

Muslims believe that the Qur’an is God’s most recent words and is his final message.

Isn’t that sweetly ecumenical? It seems a little disingenuous, though, when this is what the Muslims are really saying:

Following a lesson on the monotheistic faiths, Saudi Arabian schoolchildren are asked to discuss “With what types of weapons should Muslims arm themselves against the Jews?” That question is part of an official textbook for 8th grade students which also emphasizes that “Jews and Christians were cursed by Allah and turned into apes and pigs,” and that “The hour [the Day of Judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them.”

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MEMRI reports that “the textbook interprets the conversation between the prophet and his companion as follows: the most important activity is Jihad for the sake of Allah and the convocation of Allah’s religion on this earth.”

By ninth grade, students are ready for “The Promise of the Stone and the Tree” — the story of Abu Hurayra, one of the prophet’s companions who quoted the prophet as saying: “The hour [the Day of Judgment] will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. A Jew will [then] hide behind a rock or a tree, and the rock or tree will call upon the Muslim: ‘O Muslim, O slave of Allah! There is a Jew behind me, come and kill him!’ — except for the gharqad tree, for it is one of the trees of the Jews.”

And there is, of course, that little problem of Muslims being killed if they convert to another religion, a practice that really doesn’t comport well with the statement that “Muslims respect these [other] religions because they believe that they all worship the same God.” And maybe I’m imagining it, but isn’t the Bible banned in Saudi Arabia, a ban that can be imposed with the death sentence? It seems to me that the BBC isn’t being quite honest with the little kiddies, is it? The BBC should either have been honest in this little segment or, if honesty was political suicide, it shouldn’t have said anything at all. As it is, it came out with what is a pretty blatant lie, and that’s offensive.

UPDATE:  Just a little more on Islamic tolerance for other religions.  Here’s a Palestinian politician calling Jews the brothers of apes and monkeys, and calling for their destruction.  And if you’re inclined to discount this link by saying these expressions may come from Muslims, but they are separate from Islam itself, which by its express terms is more tolerant, that’s not the case.  While everyone focuses on the “Jesus is a prophet,” “Moses is a prophet,” etc., they forget that Islam goes on to say that, while these men are prophets, those who follow their religion are in profound error for not having made the switch to Islam.  And for that error, they are condemned to death or perpetual servitude (see Parts I, II and III of Andrew Bostom’s scholarly analysis of Jewish life under the Turks, going back hundreds of years).  No matter how you spin it, that is not the “respect” or “tolerance” that the BBC would have people — no, make that “children” — believe exists within Islam.  Mark Steyn, as usual, has the most pithy summary of Islamic disdain for all other religions.  A religion must be understood, not only by its words (which are discriminatory enough), but by its acts over the centuries and into the present day, which are equally discriminatory.

Let me just throw in a link about the Taliban and the Buddhas.