Teaching Arabic with propaganda

In Saturday's Washington Post, Harvard law student Joel Pollak reports that more Americans studying at elite universities like Harvard are learning Arabic. One would hope that means that the CIA and other US intelligence agencies will have a pool of loyal, Arabic-speaking Americans from which it can draw agents, thus correcting a problem that existed on 9/11. Unfortunately, that may not be the case. That's because the beginner's Arabic textbook that is used on most US college campuses today is full of anti-American and anti-Israeli propaganda. Most maps of the Middle East in "Al-Kitaab" do not include Israel, though a substantial minority of Israelis, both Jews and Arabs, are native Arabic speakers. Alongside simple Arabic poems, students read about anti-Western heroes such as Gamal Abdel Nasser. The DVD that comes with... [read full story]