During a lecture Brigitte Gabriel, the founder of ACT! For America explained that 80 percent of Arabic speaking people in the U.S. are not Muslim. The reason; when Islam and the Caliphate “conquered minorities they forced the people to speak the Arabic language because the easiest way to strip a culture from its heritage is change the language.”
We had all better go back to elementary school. Did you know that Muslims discovered America long before Columbus? That’s the way it is portrayed according to The Arab World Studies Notebook.
In a letter from October 2003 from William J. Bennetta to Stuart Elliott, Mr. Bennetta writes,
Not all of the phony “history” in the Notebook consists of religious myths. There are other flights of pseudohistorical fakery as well, including a farcical article in which Shabbas and someone called Abdallah Hakim Quick disclose that Muslims reached the New World in pre-Columbian times and spread throughout the Caribbean, Central America, South America and even Canada. By the time when Columbus arrived, it seems, the New World was fairly crawling with Muslims -- and English explorers met “Iroquois and Algonquin chiefs with names like Abdul-Rahim and Abdallah Ibn Malik.”
Mr. Bennetta is the Textbook League’s president and explains that he has been reviewing schoolbooks and other instructional publications for about eighteen years. He titled the letter “Arab World Studies Notebook lobs Muslim propaganda at teachers” because as he says,
“The Notebook is a vehicle for disseminating disinformation, including a multitude of false, distorted or utterly absurd claims that are presented as historical facts.”
He continues to explain in his letter, referring to one of the authors ‘Shabbas’ that “In a public-school setting, the religious-indoctrination work which Shabbas wants teachers to perform would clearly be illegal.”
As I write this article I have 27 windows of research open on my computer and I don’t even know where to begin. Each window is a different case of textbooks in American public schools, those funded with your tax dollars, in which Islam is presented solely as a peaceful and loving religion while Western civilization and Judeo-Christian traditions and values are put into question and blatantly misrepresented.
Case after case history is not just slightly changed and exaggerated, but rewritten with totally false information, lies and not one source of where or how this information was gathered.
For example in the text book “A World History: A Cultural Approach by Daniel Roselle”, is this bizarre lesson: “Wherever they went, the Moslems brought with them their love of art, beauty and learning. From about the eighth to the eleventh century, their culture was superior in many ways to that of western [sic] Christendom.”
In yet another text book from 2008 titled Global History and Geography: The Growth of Civilization, the text book describes the belief of Christianity as, "…his [Jesus’] apostles claimed that they had seen and talked with him. They believed that Jesus was indeed the Messiah and had risen from the dead, or been resurrected.” Yet on Islam it only states the following as fact, “Muhammad was the messenger of Allah.” So with Christianity it was a “claim” or “belief” but with Islam it was fact?
This has been going for years and I have written about this in the past. But now we have this, the Federal Government Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP), identifies Arabic as a “language of the future.”
According to the article on February 8 “Flap over feds funding Arabic culture curriculum” from One News Now,
Parents in a North Texas school district are upset that they were not notified until after the fact about a plan to require all students in a couple of schools to learn Arabic culture.
Mansfield was one of five school districts in the country to receive the Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) Grant, which identifies Arabic as a “language of the future.” The plan reportedly involves embedding Arabic culture in all facets of school activities, from discussing the Arabic roots of the word “algebra” to serving a Middle Eastern dessert at a class party. The Mansfield classes are part of a five-year, $1.3 million federal grant.
This is much more indoctrination than it appears, according to a different articlefrom February 9,
Arabic classes would be mandatory at an elementary and intermediate school in the district and optional at the middle and high schools.
Author and activist David Horowitz says it’s absolutely outrageous that some elementary and intermediate school students will be forced to take Arabic language and culture classes in a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb.
Mandatory, yes you read that correctly. A public school district gets a 1.3 million dollar grant from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE). The DOE refers to Arabic as “the language of the future” and it isn’t enough that students will be forced to learn Arabic in a public school. They will also learn about Arabic culture.
What exactly is “Arabic culture”? Would that be Islam? How can the “culture” be taught without getting into the so called religion?
According to the Mansfield school district website,
What is the Arabic Foreign Language Assistance Program Grant?
This grant is a wonderful opportunity for the students in MISD. We have been selected as one of only five districts across the country to participate in the grant that provides Arabic studies. Arabic studies include language acquisition, culture, government, art, traditions and history. MISD has been awarded a total of $1.3 million over a five year period to promote learning. Mansfield ISD graduates will possess the language proficiency and cross cultural communication skills to compete in the 21st century. Our students will be at an advantage in an increasingly diverse and economically global society.
Under the F.A.Q. section it states,
This grant provides a sequential foreign language program from elementary through secondary levels, starting with the fundamentals at Davis Elementary.
Elementary school? Aren’t our children having enough of a problem learning the English language? Now we are going to take 100 minutes a week to teach them Arabic?
While reading an article on the Mansfield school district situation I came across a quote from Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of Liberty Institute, Shackelford stated,
“Washington is obviously “forcing” onto a local school district something that was never part of the district’s plan.”
According to the Liberty Institute website,
Liberty Institute was founded as Free Market Foundation in 1972 as a 501(c)(3) non- profit organization dedicated to protecting freedoms and strengthening families.
We added our legal division, once known as Liberty Legal Institute, in 1997. Today, we employ a team of experienced full-time Constitutional attorneys and also work with many volunteer attorneys who donate their time to help in our mission of protecting freedoms and strengthening families.
Kelly Shackelford, Esq., is president and CEO of Liberty Institute, a constitutional scholar; Mr. Shackelford has argued before the U.S. and Texas Supreme Courts and has testified before the U.S. Congress and the Texas Legislature.
He was recently named one of the 25 greatest Texas lawyers of the past quarter-century by Texas Lawyer, and is the recipient of the prestigious William Bentley Ball Award for Life and Religious Freedom Defense for his leadership and pioneering work protecting religious freedom.
We had the pleasure last Thursday evening of having Mr. Shackelford as our guest on my radio show ‘America Akbar'. I asked him how the Liberty Institute became involved in this case.
“We’re a group that focuses on basic freedoms, the founding freedoms that our country was built upon.
We represented over 5 million veterans in the Mojave Desert Cross case, we had the big battle that was covered nationwide over social studies standards that were going to be used in text books across the country where there was an attempt to really change from American exceptionalism and principles that made this country great, to a very different approach to our education and we were able to fight that back.
So when this came up I think it was a natural that people would come to us.
We’re just really glad that the parents found out about this and could do something about it because really there are a lot of issues we could talk about but the ultimate solution is when parents get involved, things are going to change.
I would just really encourage everyone to be involved in their school district and really know what’s going on, because this thing is turning around now because of parents.”
Speaking on the Mansfield Texas school district he explained that there has not been decision as of yet, but “that everything was on hold now. Instead of something that was going to be done, it is now, quote, “on hold” and the parents are going to now make the decision as to how it was going to be done.”
Mr. Shackelford explained the way this federal grant is to be used,
“When you take one hundred minutes a week, which is what this requires, away from teaching these kids fundamental things that they need to learn in education, that’s just foolishness.
It’s one thing if you want to offer an elective class when you are older, but to actually force every child to do this makes no sense.
It’s the type of thing that comes from Washington, D.C.; this is exactly why you need education to be local, to be controlled by elected officials locally who are accountable to parents.
I guarantee you that the people that came up with this brilliant idea to force on children, they’re kids weren’t in these schools. They’re back in Washington, D.C.”
Discussing some of the other mandatory requirements Mr. Shackelford explained,
“When you have requirements that not only teach the Arabic language, but the culture, the history, the traditions, the words that they use, you can’t help but teach Islam.
Now you are going to be in a serious situation of how balanced or biased this is going to be”.
Referring to school text books across the country Shackelford stated,
“We uncovered and I know the State board of education of Texas just had a big battle over this about six months ago, where they found incredibly biased text books that were being used for history all over the country, that I think 90% of Americans would just be shocked to see that it presented Christianity in a very anti light and yet, Islam very overtly positive.
Instead of presenting the works and the positives of both in an objective way, it was treated like Christianity was all about the Crusades, killing and murder and that Islam was a peaceful religion that was about lifting women’s rights. It was just bizarre to read how unbalanced it was”.
When we discussed the Federal Government being involved on a local school Shackelford had this to say,
“We don’t need the Federal government to tell us how to do local education. Look in the Constitution, there is no enumerated power that gives the federal government any authority or right to control or impact education around the country.
That is not a federal power, it is not a Constitutional power and so this kind of monkeying around gets exactly what you’ve got here; somebody from long distance that thinks they’ve come up with a great idea that they’re going to force on other people’s children.
That’s not our system of government and that’s why we never gave that kind of power to the federal government.”
When asked if he thought it would have gone differently had the parents known in advance Shackelford answered,
“The problem was, not only did not they not involve the parents, the parents had no idea. This had been done a good while back and the parents were not aware that this was happening at all and that’s the type of thing that shouldn’t happen.
The wonderful thing about our system is because we have a representative government, a democratic republic, in this case, these folks that were on the school board when this thing got out, they realized ‘uh oh’ I’m accountable to these parents and these parents are not happy.”
Explaining how large of a problem this can become Shackelford summed it up this way,
“It’s one thing to have choice, but to force this, not only to make it required, but to force this at such low levels down to the elementary school and to go beyond language and get in to understanding traditions, the history and the culture; obviously when you talk about Arabic you are talking about where in many places their government and their religion is really meshed.
When you are talking about their history and traditions you’re talking about their religion and you are going to get into some serious disagreements as to how that should be treated and how honest people should be with what’s done and you’re going to open up a hornets nest.”
What I found rather interesting is when I read the Foreign Language Assistance Program (FLAP) on the Department of Education website, specifically the requirements that need to be met; nowhere did it state that it had to be mandatory. It states,
IN GENERAL.-The Secretary is authorized to make grants, on a competitive basis, to State educational agencies or local educational agencies to pay the Federal share of the cost of innovative model programs providing for the establishment, improvement, or expansion of foreign language study for elementary school and secondary school students.
DURATION.-Each grant under paragraph (1) shall be awarded for a period of 3 years.
Nor does it say anything about the curriculum having to include the history, traditions or culture having to do with the language.
On another webpage of FLAP, I found the following schools are teaching Arabic with this grant; the school district of Dearborn, Michigan, the Mid-Prairie Community Schools in Iowa and the Wisconsin Department of Education.
It states,
The purpose of the project is to increase Arabic language proficiency and cross cultural competence for K-5th grade students.
Kindergarten, are you kidding me? Our children should be learning reading, writing and arithmetic and as far as I can remember kindergarten was playing games, nap time and simple lessons, not a foreign language.
Still think I am blowing this out of proportion or exaggerating the truth? Consider this, the website Dawanet, it explains on its Dawa in public schools page,
Definition of Dawa
Dawa means to invite non-Muslims to accept the truth of Islam. Performing Dawa involves both our words and actions.
It explains on this page how to spread the message of Islam in public schools. Some of these sections include,
Dawa through the school newspaper
Including Islamic holidays in the school calendar
Islamic books in school libraries
Scanning textbooks for misinformation on Islam
Starting an Islamic newsletter
Other Miscellaneous activities
Setting up Dawa tables with Islamic literature
Hosting Islamic exhibitions
Placing advertisements in the school paper with the toll-free telephone number for non-Muslims
How many of the above items fall into a category that is not allowed in public schools? Children today have “Winter Festival” because the word “Christmas” can no longer be used, but it is okay to “include Islamic holidays in the school calendar” or to have “Islamic books in school libraries”? Try that at your local school with a bible.
It even goes so far as to advise,
It is highly recommended that all Muslim students carry Dawa flyers in their schoolbags and purses to pass them on to their friends at school. To obtain free Islam brochures for distribution, contact the Islamic Circle of North America.
In case you were unaware, the Islamic Circle of North America was one of 29 Islamic organizations listed on the Muslim Brotherhood’s “the project for the 100-Year Plan of Global Islamist Domination” that was entered into evidence during the Holy Land Terror Trial. These 29 organizations were listed as those that were to help achieve a worldwide Islamic policy. In other words, total global Islamic or Sharia law.
The last part of the Dawa page explains what they list as “The bottom line”,
We should use every opportunity to sensitize non-Muslim peers and school staff to Islam and to establish an environment in which everywhere a non-Muslim turns, he notices Islam portrayed in a positive way, is influenced by it and eventually accepts Islam with Allah’s guidance, Insha Allah (if God wills).
So this is the Islamic desire for our public schools, for our children, “is influenced by it and eventually accepts Islam”?
It seems to me we are at a time when our children can’t even pledge allegiance to the flag without parental approval and many schools no longer even have flags in the class rooms. Let’s not forget to mention, heaven forbid your child wants to pray silently to their choice of a god is not allowed either.
How is it with all these restrictions the federal government is calling Arabic “the language of the future” and the school districts that were given this grant under the FLAP program are making the study of Arabic and its culture mandatory?
While visiting the Holocaust museum “Yad Vashem” in Jerusalem I found it interesting that the way Hitler taught an entire generation to hate was by starting with the school books that taught German. We here in the U.S. have “Dick and Jane” and “See Spot run”, in WWII Germany they had “Don’t Trust A Fox in A Green Meadow Or the Word of A Jew”.
It is amazing what you can teach when you start them early.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor Gadi Adelman is a freelance writer and lecturer on the history of terrorism and counterterrorism. He grew up in Israel, studying terrorism and Islam for 35 years after surviving a terrorist bomb in Jerusalem in which 7 children were killed. Since returning to the U. S., Gadi teaches and lectures to law enforcement agencies as well as high schools and colleges. He can be heard every Thursday night at 8PM est. on his own radio show “AmericaAkbar” onBlog Talk Radio. He can be reached through his websitehttp://gadiadelman.com.