Saudi Arabia Removes Lessons About “Greater Israel” From Textbooks

In July 2026, the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se) revealed that Saudi Arabia had removed a school lesson claiming Israel aimed to expand its territory from the Nile to the Euphrates as part of a plan to create "Greater Israel." The lesson, titled "The Zionist Danger," was found in a Hadith textbook for students in Grades 10 to 12.

IMPACT-se's review, part of a broader assessment of Saudi curriculum changes between 2024 and 2026, noted that Saudi Arabia had continued to revise textbook content on sensitive subjects, including Israel, Zionism, religious minorities, jihad, and others. Recent editions have seen the removal or softening of several politically charged references to Israel.

For instance, a Grade 11 history textbook replaced "the Zionist enemy" with "the Israeli occupation" and removed the phrase "The Muslims will never give up Jerusalem." The review also discovered that instances previously deemed antisemitic were eliminated from the latest curriculum. Despite these changes, the organization observed that Saudi textbooks still portray Israel as an occupying state and omit Israel from several maps used in the curriculum.