An investigation has uncovered Qatari textbooks for the 2025-2026 school year that demonize Jews, delegitimize Israel, glorify jihad, portray Christians as idolaters, condemn Christianity and Judaism as corrupt religions, and promote Islamic supremacism.
In February 2026, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) published a report that refutes the notion that Qatar is religiously tolerant, an image former Fox News host Tucker Carlson promotes.
In February 2026, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education ... published a report that refutes the notion that Qatar is religiously tolerant.
The investigation, which examines fifty-two textbooks for grades one through twelve covering social studies, geography, history, Islamic education, Arabic language, and Arabic literature, found that Qatar’s education policy continues to promote “religiously motivated” hatred of non-Muslims, contradicting its official stance against intolerance, extremism, and religious bigotry.
Using United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)-derived standards of peace and tolerance in education, the review exposes antisemitic tropes in textbooks portraying Jews as lying, scheming, materialistic, sexually depraved, discord-spreading, unwilling to honor agreements, and manipulators of global affairs.
The grade-seven textbook on Islamic education evokes the Prophet Muhammad’s expulsion and extermination of the ancient Jewish Banu Qaynuqa, Banu Nadir, and Banu Qaynuqa tribe to “derive lessons” about the “grave failure” of “Jews” in honoring agreements and God’s role in “striking fear” in the hearts of the Jews.
The grade-eight Islamic education textbook intensifies the anti-Jewish polemic, narrating: “Muhammad ordered his Companions to go to Khaybar in order to punish the Jews there for their treachery against the Muslims, and to put an end to the danger they posed to the Islamic state.” It asks students: “In your opinion, how can a small group of people, who are far away from Medina, be a threat to the state of the Muslims?”
Eleventh graders are taught falsehoods that Jews “took Ezra, or ‘Uzair,’ as the son of God” and that “the Talmud occupies a very important place, which exceeds that of the Torah.”
History and Arabic language textbooks distort historical facts by omission or misrepresentation. The grade-twelve history course claims that Britain issued the Balfour Declaration to manipulate the United States into supporting it during World War I while gaining the “affection of the Jews in Russia and compelling them to pressure the country to carry on in the war.”
History and Arabic language textbooks distort historical facts by omission or misrepresentation.
The course omits the Jewish Holocaust but details the Nazis’ persecution of Romani people during World War II, including their expulsion, detention in internment camps, and mass murder. The textbook teaches that “the hearts of Christians and Muslims are attached to the land of Palestine,” but says nothing about the ancient Jewish association with the land.
The Arabic language grade-four textbook refers to Jerusalem as “an Arab city.” It mentions the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Dome of the Rock Mosque, and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, but does not name a single Jewish holy site.
Eighth-graders are told that Moses and Jesus are exclusively “Islamic prophets” and that Christians are polytheists who will be punished for believing in the Trinity. Quoting Qur’anic verses from Surah Al-Saff, the textbook accuses Christians of “inventing lies about Allah by ascribing to Him a partner.” Ninth graders are warned that those who partake of polytheism will spend eternity in hellfire.
A lesson about Ali bin Abu Talib, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, glorifies his killing of non-Muslim polytheists and Jews as a major testament to his excellence as a human being in the Islamic education grade-six course.
Multiple textbooks normalize violent jihad as a religious ideal. The Islamic education grade-six course glorifies Nusaybah bint Ka’b for raising her children “to love jihad,” noting that her three children later “died as martyrs for the sake of Allah Almighty.” The Islamic education grade-twelve textbook promises jihadi martyrs entry into Paradise. Eighth-graders are taught that God loves jihad warriors who “fight” (yuqātilūn) for His sake, favoring a violent interpretation of jihad.
Pushing a fake narrative of religious pluralism, the History grade-twelve textbook claims that “Jerusalem has been considered a model of Islamic-Christian coexistence” and insists that “religious brotherhood in Palestine is manifested in mosques and churches embracing each other, in a scene rarely seen in the world.”
Multiple textbooks normalize violent jihad as a religious ideal.
The propaganda echoes Carlson’s recent promotion of Qatar. “There are twice as many Christians living in Qatar as there are in Israel,” Carlson asserted, adding that if Qatar were truly an “ISIS state where people are beheaded for proclaiming the name of Jesus, why are there twice as many in Qatar as there are in Israel?”
The answer to his question are that Christians in Qatar are all foreigners who may worship only inside one state-approved compound, are prohibited from displaying the cross on their churches, advertising religious services, and cannot become citizens.
“Qatar and Saudi Arabia are the only countries in the world where Wahhabi Islam predominates and the only two countries to follow the Hanbali school of Islamic law,” the Lindisfarne Centre for the Study of Christian Persecution warns. “Qatar citizens potentially face being sentenced to death if they are discovered to be Christians.”
U.S. foreign policy is most effective when the White House and State Department base it on reality rather than rhetoric. While Qatar pays to promote a false image of tolerance, its school curriculum suggests a far different reality and goal.
