My letter to Joel Klein

Submitted by James Vesce (United States), Apr 25, 2007 at 15:15

Dear Mr. Klein,

I write you today about the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), scheduled to open in September.

I find it astonishing to believe that the NYC school system is allowing a school to open which will inevitably indoctrinate its students with the same anti-American, anti-Israeli hate lessons that children are being taught today in Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian sectors.

What steps are you going to take to prevent the teaching of hatred at KGIA in New York City? Are you going to review the teaching materials, the books, the videos, and the lectures? Are you going to exclude the likes of Sami al-Arian from the school's faculty? Will Quran be taught alongside the Bible and the Torah, or will it be Quran-intensive? Will you at least report to us if the lessons about Judaism and Christianity contain the Quranic distortions that Abraham and Noah and Jesus were all Muslim, and that Jesus Christ was a mere prophet lacking divinity?

I shouldn't have to remind you that the Palestinians completely violated their Oslo agreement to teach for peace. I shouldn't have to remind you that Islamist hatred for Western Democracy, and for the "Crusader-Zionist alliance" is being taught today in Iran and Egypt and Saudi Arabia. I shouldn't have to remind you that much of the support for teaching such hatred comes from Saudi Arabian Wahabbists, and that Saudi Arabian Wahabbists are probably going to provide much of the financial backing and educational materials for this school.

Will history lessons at KGIA be the revisionist Islamist history lessons taught in Arabic elsewhere in the world?

Are you at least going to check and see if the school's maps of the Middle East outline and label Israel? Instead, will you sanction public education in a setting where the maps label that land "Palestine"?

Who will monitor for separation of mosque and state in this school funded by the public?

Sincerely,

James Vesce

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