[3] The American government called on Saudi Arabia to reform its educational curriculum, including textbooks in Saudi schools and distributed worldwide, by reviewing and revising educational materials and eliminating any that spread "intolerance and hatred" towards Christians and Jews and promoted holy war against "unbelievers.
Saleh Al-Fawzan, the author of the textbook on monotheism and "one of the staunchest religious conservatives in the education system", wrote in a February 11, 2002 article in the Qatari newspaper Al Jazeera: "The Jews and Christians and the polytheists have shown their heartfelt hatred and try to prevent us from the true path of God.
On a speaking tour of American cities, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Turki bin Faisal, told audiences that the Kingdom has eliminated what might be perceived as intolerance from its old textbooks.
[7] In October 2012, Robert Bernstein, who founded Human Rights Watch, serves as a chairman of Advancing Human Rights, and was a former chairman and CEO of Random House, and various other book publishers, expressed their "profound disappointment that the Saudi government continues to print textbooks inciting hatred and violence against religious minorities."
They gave an example of an 8th grade textbook which writes, "The Apes are the people of the Sabbath, the Jews; and the Swine are the infidels of the communion of Jesus, the Christians."
"[8] According to the Anti-Defamation League’s November 2018 report, Saudi government-published school textbooks for the 2018-19 academic year promoting incitement to hatred or violence against Jews, Christians, women, and homosexual men,[9] despite the kingdom’s claims to the contrary.
[13] Opposition to Shia and Sufi traditions (including visiting the graves of prominent religious figures, tawassul, kneeling to anyone other than Allah, building mosques on top of graves, and wailing over the dead) remained, labeling them as shirk, saying it will be punished by a cancellation of good deeds, rejection of repentance, and eternal damnation.