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    School in Fairfax County is teaching hate

FAIRFAX CO., Va. (WUSA) October 19, 2007 -- Thursday, A U.S. commission suggested a school in Fairfax County is teaching hate, religious intolerance, and potentially violence. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom is urging the State Department to shut down the Islamic Saudi Academy.

"Calling violent jihad the summit of Islam, for example," says commissioner Nina Shea. "Calling Christians and Jews pigs and apes. Calling in apocalyptic terms about how God sanctions violence against Christians and Jews."

About 1,000 students attend the school, many of them American. But the commission says the property belongs to the Saudi Embassy. And it says the curriculum adheres closely to Saudi textbooks.

"One Saudi 9th grade textbook says 'the hour of judgment will not come until Muslims rise up and kill all the Jews,'" says Shea.

Paul Hamilton, who converted to Islam seven years ago, has four children at the Academy. "I've never heard that before. If this is not from the Koran, or the sword of the Prophet, Muslims don't accept it. If somebody wrote it, people can write anything."

But should it be taught, I asked him. "Absolutely not, and like I said, I've never heard that taught."

The school's director declined an interview, but the Associated Press spokes to him by phone and he said the Commission never asked to see the textbooks. He says they've been revised, and the most inflammatory language removed.

"I'll believe that when I see it," says former commission chair Felice Gaer.

Commissioners traveled to Saudi Arabia and met with officials, but they say the government has never given them access to the curriculum with the hate speech removed.

"It's being propagated within our borders in the shadow of the Capitol by a foreign government that claims to be our ally. There is something wrong," says Shea.

"Most of my family is Christian, so how could I not be tolerant of Christians," says Hamilton, the father of four students at the Academy.

Commissioners say Osama bin Laden and 15 of the September 11th hijackers were graduates of the Saudi curriculum.

Then there's the school's 1999 valedictorian: An Alexandria jury convicted Abu Ali of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate President Bush. He's appealing, alleging his confession was tortured out of him by the Saudis.

The commission was created by Congress, but has no power to enforce its recommendations. It can only recommend that the State Department shut down the school until it can review its entire curriculum to ensure that it supports the kind of tolerance that's advocated on the school's own website.

Commissioners say Osama bin Laden and 15 of the September 11th hijackers were graduates of the Saudi curriculum.

Then there's the school's 1999 valedictorian: An Alexandria jury convicted Abu Ali of joining al-Qaida and plotting to assassinate President Bush. He's appealing, alleging his confession was tortured out of him by the Saudis.

The commission was created by Congress, but has no power to enforce its recommendations. It can only recommend that the State Department shut down the school until it can review its entire curriculum to ensure that it supports the kind of tolerance that's advocated on the school's own website.