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FURTHER UPDATE June 17! “More Than a Dozen Protest at Saudi Academy.” Click here for entire post.

FURTHER UPDATE June 12! “The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors should revoke the lease (I assume that the lease includes the standard ‘termination for convenience’ clause in all government contracts). And the State Department should order the school shut down as suggested by the USCIRF.” - - - “Islamic Saudi Academy in Virginia: Case Study in Homegrown Radicalization” here By Andrew Cochran.

UPDATE June 12! Report: “. . .Intolerance Remains in Textbooks Used at Saudi Government’s Islamic Saudi Academy. . .” Read the entire pertinent entire post on United States Commission on International Religious Freedom website here. Fairfax County citizens should hold supervisors accountable for their reckless renewal of the lease of public property to the Academy without a thorough published report on the Academy’s curricula.

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The US Commission on International Religious Freedom made a troubling complaint last October 19 here about Islamic Saudi Academy textbooks in Fairfax County, Virginia. The Commission declared:

“The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, an independent, bipartisan federal agency with a mandate to recommend policies that promote religious freedom in U.S. foreign policy, has recommended that the Secretary of State open diplomatic talks with the Saudi government in order to obtain official Saudi textbooks used at the government-run Islamic Saudi Academy outside Washington. The Academy should be closed until the official Saudi textbooks used at the school are made available for comprehensive public examination and are found to be consistent with Saudi government commitments to revise them to remove intolerant and violent references.

Very significant for the course of action recommended by the Commission is the fact that the Academy is not a private or charter school. “(Underscoring BRF’s.)”

This is a matter of local public concern because the Academy leases a campus from the County here. Do the ISA textbooks remain, in fact, objectionable in the specific ways the International Religious Freedom Commission listed. (According to the Commission, “Several studies, including by Saudi experts themselves, have pointed to serious concerns that these texts encourage violence toward others, and misguide the pupils into believing that in order to safeguard their own religion, they must violently repress and even physically eliminate the ‘other.’”) If the ISA textbooks are still objectionable in this way, should Fairfax County help advance such views by continuing to lease public property to the ISA?

Here is the ISA’s response in a November 24, 2007 AP report “Saudi Islamic school rejects ‘Terror High’ label” appearing in USA Today. Read entire article here:

“Abdalla al-Shabnan, the school’s director general, says criticism of the school is based not on evidence but on preconceived notions of the Saudi educational system.

The school, serving grades K-12 on campuses in Fairfax and Alexandria, receives financial support from the Saudi government and its textbooks are based on Saudi curriculum. Critics say the Saudis propagate a severe version of Islam in their schools.

But al-Shabnan said the school significantly modified those textbooks to remove passages deemed intolerant of other religions.

See also today’s Washington Post article “Board Extends Saudi School’s Lease Supervisor Finds No Reason for Concern Over Textbooks, Teachings” here.

In a related development, a May 5 plea here from Sue Myrick, the head of the House Anti-Terrorism Caucus, asks the president to raise the issue of Saudi textbooks worldwide during his just-completed visit to that kingdom.

The Washington Examiner explains the leasing background here:

“Va. county extends lease to Saudi Academy FAIRFAX, Va. -

Fairfax County supervisors voted Monday to continue leasing property to a private Islamic school funded by the Saudi government that its critics have accused of fostering intolerance.

The Islamic Saudi Academy leases its flagship campus in the Alexandria section of Fairfax County for about $2.2 million a year.

The unanimous vote by the county’s Board of Supervisors extends the lease by one year, through June 2009.

The county has leased the land to ISA since 1989, but the lease faced increased scrutiny this year following the recommendation of a federal commission that the academy be shut down.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom issued a report in October that broadly criticized the Saudi educational system, with specific criticism aimed at the Islamic Saudi Academy, which serves nearly 900 students in grades K-12.”

The Traditional Values Coalition here asked the Fairfax County supervisors

“that a vote scheduled for today’s [May 19] Board meeting on renewing the ISA lease be delayed until after the public has had a reasonable period to review the report and the texts.

“We believe the supervisors made the right decision in ordering the report,” said TVC Executive Director Andrea Lafferty in testimony prepared for delivery at the meeting. “But we don’t understand why it has not been made available to the public.”

“We would like to see hearings so that the public would have a full understanding of what is being taught at the academy.”

But, according to the Washington Examiner report, a Fairfax County supervisor claims there is no written report:

Mount Vernon District Supervisor Gerald Hyland, who ordered a county-level review of the materials after the commission’s report, fiercely rebutted opponents at a public hearing before the vote.

“I didn’t come away with the impression that hate was being taught at the academy, second that they were training terrorists, and that they were doing anything other than teaching young children in a fashion that is to be an example for others,” he said.

Hyland, however, did qualify his statements: “I would be less than frank if I didn’t tell you that the curriculum does contain references to the Quran, which, if taken out of context and read literally, would cause come concern.”

He said he met with the school director and other staff after the county’s review, but said there is no written report that came out of it.

According to Counterterrorism Blog here:

ISA’s 1999 valedictorian was Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, who was convicted and sentenced to prison for joining Al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush.

Fairfax County supervisors and citizens alike should read Steve Emerson’s 2006 testimony before the House of Representatives Homeland Security panel here on Ahmed Omar Abu Ali.

Readers should know that Representative Frank Wolf joined Representative Steve Israel of New York in introducing (last November 15) H. Con. Res. 262

“Expressing the sense of Congress regarding Saudi Arabia’s policies relating to religious practice and tolerance, including Saudi Arabia’s commitment to revise Saudi textbooks to remove intolerant and violent references.”

Among H. Con. Res. 262’s declarations and recommendations:

“Whereas the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA), with campuses in Alexandria and Fairfax, Virginia, is the only school in the United States that operates with the direct authority of the Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia;”

the Secretary of State should immediately begin diplomatic discussions with the Government of Saudi Arabia with the goals of–

(A) having the Government of Saudi Arabia close the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) until such time as the official Saudi textbooks used at the ISA are made available for comprehensive public examination in the United States;

Why did the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors not prudently commission an independent, formal report on the Islamic Saudi Academy’s current textbooks? Certainly this and any related documents should have been available well before last Monday’s Board of Supervisors hearing. The gravity of the charges warranted public discussion in some detail before the Board decided to continue the lease.

Maybe the Board should review their Cliff Notes from Building Public Trust and Confidence 101.

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