by tyler | Oct 9, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Israel’s defense minister ordered a “complete siege” of Gaza on Monday, as the military said it had retaken control of Israeli communities that were stormed by Hamas gunmen over the weekend.
Yoav Gallant said on camera that Israel would halt the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel to the Palestinian enclave. “I have given an order – Gaza will be under complete siege,” the minister said. “We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly.”
Israeli forces are conducting “wide-scale strikes” on several “strategic” centers in Gaza belonging to Hamas, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said in a statement Monday.
Earlier, Israeli forces fought door-to-door to regain control of all communities around Gaza. There is no ongoing fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants inside Israel, the Israeli military said.
More than 48 hours have passed since the Islamist militant group launched a surprise assault, launching thousands of rockets and sending armed fighters into Israel.
Israel on Sunday formally declared war on Hamas in response to the unprecedented attack, which has so far killed more than 700 people in Israel. At least 2,506 people have been injured, the Israeli Health Ministry said.
Israeli jets continued to bombard Gaza with deadly airstrikes Monday as the war entered its third day.
The Israeli strikes have killed at least 560 people, including dozens of children, and left 2,900 injured, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Hamas said it fired 120 rockets toward the coastal cities of Ashdod and Ashkelon on Monday in response to Israeli airstrikes. A CNN team on the ground saw dust billowing over the sky, as rockets launched from Gaza were intercepted by the Israeli air defense system in Ashdod.
Nine United States citizens have died in the conflict, a US National Security Council spokesperson said.
Hamas militants claimed late Sunday to be holding more than 100 hostages in Gaza, including high-ranking Israeli army officers, according to Mousa Abu Marzouk, chief deputy of Hamas’ political bureau.
Videos on social media showed militants capturing multiple civilians, including children, as Israeli families across the nation made anxious pleas for the safe return of their loved ones.
In addition to Israeli captives, other nationalities are also believed to have been taken hostage, including American, Mexican, Brazilian and Thai nationals – further complicating Israel’s response to the Hamas attack. At least nine citizens from Peru, Paraguay, Brazil and Mexico are missing, according to their respective authorities.
Qatar has been in talks with Hamas about the hostages the terror group is holding inside Gaza, and the US has been coordinating with the Qataris as they play a key mediating role with Hamas, a senior US official and another person familiar with the discussions told CNN.
CNN has reached out to the governments of Qatar and Israel for comment.
For now, airstrikes have been Israel’s primary retaliation measure within Gaza itself, with jets repeatedly pounding the heavily populated 140 square mile coastal strip, turning multiple buildings to rubble, displacing tens of thousands of people and sending waves of injured Palestinians to overwhelmed hospitals.
An IDF spokesman said it had been hitting Hamas, destroying around 800 targets and killing “hundreds” of fighters, wounding thousands and capturing scores of others.
Most of those arriving at hospitals in Gaza have sustained second- and third-degree burns and amputations, a spokesperson for the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza told Palestinian news outlet Shihab Agency on Monday. Many have also sustained shrapnel injuries, Ashraf al-Qidra said.
Those seeking hospital care are mainly women and children, al-Qidra said, adding that this is a “result of Israelis directly targeting residential houses and buildings.”
Access to medical care has been complicated by Israel cutting power to the territory, threatening the “lives of hundreds” of those injured, the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said.
The ministry said later that all services at the only functioning hospital in Gaza’s Beit Hanoun neighborhood were suspended due to continuous Israeli airstrikes, blocking medical teams’ ability to enter or exit the building. Nine ambulances have been targeted since Saturday, the ministry added.
Israeli airstrikes targeted the Shati and Jabalia refugee camps in Gaza on Monday, the Palestinian health ministry said, describing the assault as a “massacre against the entire neighborhood.”
The ministry said bodies were still being recovered after the strikes killed a “large number” of people. No death toll has been provided.
Meanwhile, Palestinian Minister of Health Mai al-Kaila urged the international community to stop “the aggression” against medical facilities and teams in Gaza.
At least 13 family members, including four toddlers, were killed in an Israeli airstrike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza on Sunday, according to journalist Hassan Eslayeh and a family relative.
While it remains unclear what the full scale of the Israeli response will be, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday predicted a “long and difficult war” and vowed “mighty vengeance” on Hamas.
IDF spokesperson Lt. Col. Richard Hecht said Sunday that the priority for the coming hours and days was to “control the entire enclave and kill all the terrorists in our territory.”
Israel’s declaration of war set the stage for a major military operation in Gaza, and tanks and personnel carriers could be seen on the move near the Israel-Gaza border on Sunday.
Thousands of Israeli reservists have been called up and the IDF announced that several communities close to the Gaza security fence are being evacuated.
An Israeli military official and a United States defense official said Israel is requesting precision guided bombs and additional interceptors for its Iron Dome missile system from the US, including Joint Direct Attack Munitions, or JDAMs – a kit that turns an unguided “dumb” bomb into a precision “smart” weapon.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the US would provide security assistance to Israel imminently. The US said it was also sending a Navy carrier strike group to the eastern Mediterranean Sea, including guided missile destroyers and guided missile cruisers.
Many Israelis have spent much of the past two days in bomb shelters and saferooms.
Throughout the bloody weekend, Hamas rockets made direct hits on multiple locations inside the country, including Tel Aviv, while armed terror groups entered Israel and infiltrated military bases, towns and farms, shooting at civilians and taking hostages.
The assault has left Israel reeling and impacted families far beyond its borders. Twelve Thai citizens, 10 Nepalis, two Ukrainians, two French nationals and one British citizen are among those killed in Israel.
Photos released by the Israeli foreign ministry showed dozens of bodies in the aftermath of Hamas gunmen’s attack on a music festival near the Israel-Gaza border, which emergency responders said left at least 260 dead.
The father of an Israeli woman who was reportedly taken hostage at the festival told CNN that he “didn’t want to believe it” when he saw his daughter being hoisted onto the back of a motorcycle by Hamas assailants in a video circulating on social media.
“One couldn’t describe it with words. It’s impossible… It was a very difficult moment,” Yakov Argamani said, describing the moment he saw the video of his 25-year-old daughter Noa for the first time.
Videos obtained and geolocated by CNN show at least four civilians in the kibbutz of Be’eri were killed while in the custody of Hamas, just feet from where armed militants had been escorting them.
The IDF said early Monday that Be’eri was “very badly hit.”
Questions remain over how the Israeli military and intelligence apparatus appeared to be caught off guard in one of the country’s worst security failures.
Fighting between the two sides has surged in the past two years. The violence has been driven by frequent Israeli military raids in Palestinian towns and cities, which Israel has said are a necessary response to a rising number of attacks by Palestinian militants on Israelis.
UN peacekeepers urged restraint after the conflict flared out into the wider region on Monday, when the IDF said it killed armed individuals who “infiltrated” Israel from Lebanon.
It came after Lebanese group Hezbollah claimed responsibility for targeting three Israeli sites in Shebaa Farms, which Lebanon considers Israeli-occupied. The al-Quds Brigades of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad later said it bombed several locations “in southern Lebanon on the border with occupied Palestine.”
On Sunday, the UN Security Council held an emergency meeting but no action was taken afterward.
European Union foreign ministers are expected to meet Tuesday to address the situation in Israel.
by tyler | Oct 9, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
The brazen attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel that began on Saturday will be seen as a turning point in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict with far-reaching repercussions, analysts say.
The multi-pronged attack saw as many as 1,000 assailants infiltrate Israeli territory, kill hundreds of soldiers and civilians, and take dozens of hostages back into Gaza. It was like nothing Israel had seen since the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.
Israel pledged revenge, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowing “mighty vengeance.” Hamas said it was prepared for all scenarios.
“Things will change forever,” said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv. There is nothing in Israeli history that compares to this attack, he said.
“Hamas will no longer be Hamas that we knew years ago,” Michael, who previously served as the deputy director general and head of the Palestinian desk at Israel’s Ministry for Strategic Affairs, told CNN.
Hamas said the attack was retribution for what it described as attacks on women, the desecration of the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and the ongoing siege of Gaza.
Here’s what we know about the group:
An Islamist organization with a military wing, Hamas first came into being in 1987. It was an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni Islamist group that was founded in the late 1920s in Egypt.
The word “Hamas” is itself an acronym for “Harakat Al-Muqawama Al-Islamiyya” – Arabic for Islamic Resistance Movement. The group, like most Palestinian factions and political parties, insists that Israel is an occupying power and that it is trying to liberate the Palestinian territories. It considers Israel an illegitimate state.
Unlike some other Palestinian factions, Hamas refuses to engage with Israel. In 1993, it opposed the Oslo Accords, a peace pact between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) that saw the PLO give up armed resistance against Israel in return for promises of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel. The Accords also established the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Hamas presents itself as an alternative to the PA, which has recognized Israel and has engaged in multiple failed peace initiatives with it. The PA, whose credibility among Palestinians has suffered over the years, is led by President Mahmoud Abbas.
The group has over the years claimed many attacks on Israel and has been designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Israel.
The US State Department in 2021 said that Hamas receives funding, weapons, and training from Iran, as well as some funds that are raised in Gulf Arab countries. The group also receives donations from some Palestinians, other expatriates and its own charity organizations, it said.
In April, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant suggested that Iran provides Hamas with some $100 million annually.
By undertaking such a devastating strike, the group’s primary goal would have been to dramatically shake up the status quo, experts say: Israel maintains a tight siege on Gaza and continues to occupy the West Bank, and the goal of an independent Palestinian state is nowhere in sight.
One objective would be to put the Palestinian issue back on the regional and international agenda, said Khaled Elgindy, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute and director of its Program on Palestine and Israeli-Palestinian Affairs.
“People had moved on (from the Palestinian issue),” Elgindy told CNN. “The new game in town is Saudi-Israel normalization, and this new regional integration.”
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman last month publicly acknowledged for the first time that negotiations were underway with Washington to possibly establish ties with Israel, saying normalization is getting “closer” every day. Saudi-Israel normalization could be a landmark moment for Israel’s regional legitimacy as it might prompt other Muslim countries to follow suit. Saudi Arabia had previously pledged not to recognize Israel until it grants independence to the Palestinians.
Elgindy said that, to some extent, Hamas has succeeded in its aim of bringing attention back to the Palestinian cause.
The group may also be trying to shatter any conceptions about its military capabilities, analysts say.
Hamas had delivered “a blow to Israel beyond what it is used to,” and was also putting its capabilities on display, said Omar Rahman, a fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs who focuses on Palestinian affairs. Its shock tactics are a declaration that it “must be taken more seriously,” Rahman said.
The Israeli military said Monday that Hamas had taken “dozens” of hostages and Hamas has said it has abducted more than 100 people. The number of hostages taken, and the fact that many are civilians, shows that Hamas is looking for much more than a prisoner swap, the experts said. In a previous kidnapping situation, Israel traded more than 1,000 prisoners for one Israeli hostage.
The large number of hostages ensures that “this is not a short-lived military tit-for-tat that will die down and be forgotten,” Rahman said, “but that it has longer-term political implications.”
As part of its campaign against Israel, Hamas produced slick propaganda videos documenting its assault on Israel step-by-step. In some videos, its fighters wore bodycams to film the operations as they broke through Israeli fortifications and were seen dressed in commando-style uniforms.
That’s key to the group’s propaganda war, analysts say, which serves a number of objectives.
On the one hand, it is to “instill fear” among the Israeli public and imply that their leaders can’t keep them safe, Elgindy said. “That is going to come as a shock because Israelis take enormous pride in their military and their intelligence capabilities.”
On the other hand, it is also for domestic Palestinian consumption. Hamas has been long caught in a political war with the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank and engages in security coordination with Israel.
This is meant to show Palestinians that “while over there, Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president) … is basically asleep at the wheel, we are the true resistance, (and) are actually doing something,” Elgindy told CNN of Hamas.
Hamas’ large-scale offensive shows that the group knows that the coming war may be an existential one, experts say.
Michael, of the INSS, speculates that Hamas may have been trying to provoke an all-out war with Israel, and may have been promised regional backing by its allies should it take place.
“Hamas… has had a very clear strategy which is based on the organizing rationale of a multi-front conflict,” Michael told CNN, adding that Hamas sees Gaza, Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Arab citizens of Israel who support Hamas, and southern Lebanon as potentially supporting its campaign.
A senior Hamas official, Saleh al-Arouri, over the weekend said the militant group was ready for the “worst-case scenario, including a ground invasion.”
He said that the ground invasion would be “the best for us to decide the ending of this battle.”
by tyler | Oct 4, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Activists on Wednesday accused Iran’s morality police of assaulting a teenage girl for not wearing a headscarf in a Tehran metro station, leading to her hospitalization with serious injuries. But, Iranian authorities and the teenager’s parents said she was hospitalized due to low blood pressure.
A Norway-based group focused on Kurdish rights, Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, said that 16-year-old Armita Geravand, originally from Kermanshah, was subject to “severe physical assault” by the morality police and has been in a coma since Sunday. Another opposition network, IranWire, said it had obtained information that Geravand was admitted to the hospital with “head trauma.”
CNN could not verify the information published by Hengaw and Iranwire, who have in the past covered Iranian protests extensively.
Geravand’s mother and father told state media in an interview that their daughter hit her head after fainting from low blood pressure while she was on her way to school. The parents said there were no signs from the videos they saw that Geravand was assaulted.
CNN has reached out to the Iranian government for comment.
“I think they said she had low blood pressure… drop in blood pressure or fallen on the floor… her head hit the edge of the metro and then (her friends) took her off (the train),” the mother said.
In a video posted on state-affiliated Fars News Agency’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, a group of girls are seen entering the metro train. CNN cannot identify which girl in the video was Geravand.
Some of the girls entering with Geravand appeared to not be wearing headscarves. Moments later, the video goes on to show a group of girls carrying Geravand out of the metro train, placing her on the metro platform as the metro leaves the station, the video shows.
No altercation can be seen on the edited video posted on state media. CNN has been unable to confirm its authenticity.
The CEO of the Tehran metro told state media that there was no physical or verbal interaction between Geravand and members of his staff.
“According to our investigation, after reviewing the CCTV footages from the moment she entered the station and gets on the train, there was no verbal or physical altercation between the passengers with them or our staff. There was nothing recorded on the videos,” Tehran metro managing director Masoud Dorosti, told state media.
The father told state media in the interview that the hospital is carrying out a “thorough examination.”
In the past, UN human rights officials and rights groups have accused Iranian authorities of pressuring families of protesters killed to make statements supportive of the government narrative. It’s unclear if Geravand’s family were coerced into speaking to state media. CNN has been unable to reach the family for comment.
The teenager is currently being treated at a hospital in Tehran, Fars News Agency reported. IranWire is reporting that she is being treated at Fajr Air Force Hospital, in a separate statement it published on Wednesday.
Iran was besieged with protests following the case of Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died in custody after being arrested by Iran’s morality police last year for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. Amini’s death sparked nationwide protests.
More than 300 people were also killed in months-long protests, including more than 40 children, the UN said in November last year. US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) in January placed the number of dead at more than 500, including 70 children. Thousands were arrested across the country, the UN said in a report in June, citing research released last year by their Human Rights Committee.
A journalist from Iranian pro-reform outlet Shargh Daily had gone to Fajr Air Force Hospital to report on Geravand’s condition when she was arrested on Tuesday, according to a post Shargh Daily on X, formerly known as Twitter. The reporter, Maryam Lotfi, has since been released, the outlet reported.
by tyler | Sep 8, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Rescuers are rushing to save an American man trapped in the third-deepest cave in Turkey after he became ill, the Turkish Caving Federation said.
Some 150 rescuers are involved in a “complex” operation to save Mark Dickey, who was part of a research team in Morca Valley, the Turkish Caving Federation said. The rescue operation was first announced on Monday.
“In the Morca Sinkhole, the 3rd deepest cave in Turkey with a depth of 1,276 meters (4,186 feet), during an exploration mission involving local and international teams, American caver Mark Dickey fell ill at a depth of 1,120 meters (3,675 feet) and was placed under observation at the cave base camp located at 1,040 meters (3,412 feet),” the Turkish Caving Federation said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
Bulent Genc, head of the federation, told CNN Thursday that the rescue could take days due to the fact that the cave is deep and narrow. Short movements will be required to carry Dickey out on a stretcher, Genc added.
Caving rescue workers from several countries have arrived in Turkey to assist in the operation, including Hungarian, Italian, Croatian and American rescuers, according to Genc.
The Hungarian Cave Rescue service said that Dickey suffered gastrointestinal bleeding.
Six units of blood were delivered to him, said the Turkish federation. His condition is currently stable and he is able to walk on his own, the federation added.
“Mark is currently residing at the campsite at 1,040 meters from the entrance,” the Turkish Caving Federation said on Wednesday.
“The cave features narrow winding passages and several rappels,” the federation said, adding that it takes 15 hours for an experienced caver to reach the surface in ideal conditions.
Gretchen Baker, from National Cave Rescue Commission (NCRC), who has known and worked with Dickey for several years and has been in communication with the rescue team, expressed cautious optimism about Dickey’s safe passage out of the cave.
In an interview with CNN’s Isa Soares on Thursday, Baker said “the team on the ground is very happy that Mark’s condition seems to be improving, so that it looks like that he will not have to be in a [rescue] litter the entire way out.”
“The more he can help, the faster the rescue can go,” she said.
Despite Dickey’s improving medical situation, Baker said even with him helping, the rescue operation still has some way to go.
“We’re anticipating that it will take days to get him out of the cave,” she said.
A rescue mission at this depth is “very rare, extremely difficult” and needs “many very experienced cave rescuers,” according to the European Cave Rescue Association (ECRA), which is involved in the operation.
The association received a call on Saturday to report that Dickey was suffering from severe gastric pain.
On Sunday, a team from the Hungarian Cave Rescue Service, including a doctor, descended into the cave and set up a tent providing intensive medical care, the ECRA said.
On Monday, 17 people including a doctor and a paramedic from the Bulgarian rescue team reached the base site of the cave.
On Wednesday, Italian Croatian and Polish teams were on their way to the base camp.
by tyler | Jun 29, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Demonstrators breached the perimeter of the Swedish embassy in Baghdad Thursday, a day after a protester burned a copy of the Quran in Sweden.
The protests in the Iraqi capital were ordered by the powerful Iraqi Shia cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, who also called for the expulsion of the Swedish ambassador in Baghdad.
Videos circulating on social media showed some protesters climbing over a barricaded wall outside the embassy. It is unclear how far into the building they got, before withdrawing.
Sweden said its staff were safe. “We are well informed about the situation. Our Embassy staff are in safety and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs is in regular contact with them,” the Swedish foreign ministry’s press office told CNN in an email.
An Iraqi security source confirmed to CNN that the incident was over. The AFP news agency reported that the protestors were inside the compound for about 15 minutes.
The protests in Baghdad came after an incident in the Swedish capital, Stockholm, on Wednesday, when a man burned a copy of Islam’s holy book outside a mosque. Images of the event showed he was the only person apart from his translator at the demonstration, which coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid-al-Adha, one of the most significant in the Islamic calendar.
Al Sadr demanded authorities withdraw the Iraqi nationality of Salwan Momika – the organizer of the one-man Quran protest in Stockholm – who immigrated to left Iraq for Sweden five years ago.
“If freedom of speech is guaranteed to Iraq and the world, then the believers have to express their views on the burning of the holy books… through massive angry protests against the Swedish embassy in Iraq,” Al Sadr said.
Muslim countries and Islamic organizations had condemned the burning of the Quran in Stockholm. Iran called the act “provocative” and Kuwait said it’s a “dangerous provocatory step”.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation [OIC], the Arab League and Gulf Cooperation Council all separately expressed strong condemnation to the event.
On Wednesday, Morocco recalled its ambassador to Sweden and both Iraq and Saudi Arabia strongly condemned the act. On Thursday, the United Arab Emirates summoned Sweden’s ambassador to Abu Dhabi to protest the Quran burning incident, the UAE’s state news agency WAM said.
In January early this year Iraqi protesters clashed with security forces outside the Swedish embassy for a separate incident of Quran burning in Stockholm.
by tyler | Jun 19, 2023 | CNN, middleeast
Textbooks in Saudi Arabia have been changing. For years, researchers have been observing a gradual moderation on subjects ranging from gender roles to the promotion of peace and tolerance.
Among the changes raising attention recently, in light of reports that the United States is trying to pave the way toward normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, are edits related to Jews, Christians and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A report released last month from the Israel- and London-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), which mainly monitors how Israel and Jews are portrayed in education texts, found “almost all examples portraying Christians and Jews in a negative manner” were removed from the latest Saudi textbooks, building on trends seen in previous years.
Prominent examples removed include implications “that Jews and Christians are the enemies of Islam,” or that “Jews and Christians are criticized for having ‘destroyed and distorted’ the Torah and Gospel,” according to the study.
On Israel and the Palestinians, IMPACT-se found moderation, but not yet full acceptance of Israel. Certain references to “the Israeli enemy” or “the Zionist enemy” have been replaced with “the Israeli occupation” or “the Israeli occupation army.” But other negative references to Israel, as well omitting it on maps is also noted in the study. There continues to be no mention of the Holocaust.
In the 2022-23 curriculum, a lesson on patriotic poetry removed an example of “opposing the Jewish settlement of Palestine.” A high school social studies textbook no longer contains a section describing the positive results of the First Intifada, the late 1980s Palestinian uprising against Israel. And one textbook “removed an entire chapter addressing the Palestinian cause.”
The modifications, IMPACT-se said, “are an encouraging sign that progress may include attitudes toward Israel and Zionism.”
The organization, which has been monitoring Saudi textbooks since the early 2000s, examined changes made to more than 80 textbooks from the 2022-23 Saudi curriculum and more than 180 textbooks from previous curricula.
IMPACT-se is also advising the United Arab Emirates’ ministry of education as it updates its school curricula to include Holocaust education.
“This also is intended to signal that the new Gulf states’ leaders are modern, forward-thinking and secular-leaning – all of which is meant to appeal to a specific, largely external audience,” said Mira Al Hussein, a research fellow focusing on Gulf states at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.
She said however that it is “quite ambitious” for governments to “suddenly do a 180 (degree turn) and start preaching tolerance. The reliance on people’s short-memory is misguided in this instance.”
IMPACT-se observed that new content in Saudi textbooks also criticizes certain Islamist groups such as Hezbollah, ISIS, al Qaeda, Houthi militias and the Muslim Brotherhood.
CNN has not independently verified the findings.
The Saudi Center for International Communication and the Ministry of Education didn’t respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Experts on the region say while the textbook changes are notable, they should be seen in context.
Saudi Arabia’s school curriculum came under intense scrutiny in the West after the 9/11 attacks in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. Since then, the kingdom has been gradually removing radical content from its textbooks.
Kristin Diwan, senior resident scholar at the Gulf States Institute in Washington, said the recent changes are in line with the kingdom’s new political orientation “with the ruling family central to its legitimacy.”
For decades, the government sought legitimacy at home and abroad though its status as the birthplace of Islam and home to its two holiest sites, but the kingdom has in recent years moved towards a more secular form of nationalism.
“This allows for the easing of religious language denigrating Shiism, Judaism, and Christianity. It also gives more strategic latitude for the leadership to bargain on these religious issues, as seen through the greater emphasis placed on peacemaking and tolerance,” she told CNN in an email.
But Diwan cautioned that the while the new language may show more religious tolerance towards Judaism, it leaves the “political acceptance of Israel in limbo.”
“This is consistent with efforts to ease religious intolerance of Jews, incrementally preparing the way should a political decision be made on Israel normalization,” she said.
Aziz Alghashian, a researcher on Saudi foreign policy and its ties with Israel, said the kingdom is “undergoing a change in its relationship with Islam.”
“It is not sidelining it, but making it more moderate and more tolerant of others. Before, the religious discourse was not overly tolerant because Saudi Arabia was not exposed to globalization as it is today… It is clear that this is changing, and it is also clear that it will take time.”
Alghashian said the amendments in the Saudi textbooks are subtle and don’t suggest a major transition towards acceptance of Israel.
“Some in Israel want to see normalization with Saudi so badly that any interaction about Israel will be framed as something positive towards normalization,” he said.
The changes suggest that “Saudis perhaps have a better understanding of Israel,” he told CNN. “The general understanding of Israel in the Arab world and Saudi Arabia is misunderstood and not nuanced,” he said, adding that that may be changing “which is certainly a positive thing.”
The Joe Biden administration has been pushing Saudi Arabia to normalize ties with Israel, to build on the Abraham Accords that had four Arab nations recognize the Jewish state in a major foreign policy feat for President Donald Trump in 2020.
Saudi Arabia opened its airspace to Israeli airlines for the first time last year but has insisted that no normalization will occur before a Palestinian state is established.
Normalization continues to be a taboo among Arab publics. An opinion poll conducted last year by the Arab Center Washington DC found that 84% of Arabs surveyed disapprove of their countries’ recognition of Israel. In Saudi Arabia, support for normalization stood at 5%.
Elie Podeh, a professor at the Department of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies at Hebrew University, who has extensively studied educational systems in the region, said the changes are part of a “very long process” of moderation.
“It’s not a coincidence. It is a kind of a policy from above and I think that if you combine the two trends, fighting extremism and the other one is, Israel gradually being more accepted as a player in the Middle East. Then you can understand why we are seeing those changes in the education system,” Podeh said.
But even the deletion of an entire chapter on the Palestinian cause does not mean the Saudi government will suddenly stop caring.
“Obviously they are not negating, they are supporting the Palestinian issue. It’s not that they suddenly they will go in one direction and will neglect the other one. No, no way,” Podeh said.
But Podeh and the other experts all agreed: public perceptions of Israel will be shaped by much more than textbooks.
“If you were to ask me something like 20 years ago, I will say (textbooks have) a lot of impact… But today, social media, and so many socialization instruments to some extent minimize the role of the textbook,” Podeh said.
Diwan noted that textbooks are important, but “people’s views are impacted by media messaging, by global events, and by personal experiences. Not all of these are in the control of the state.”
