New Syrian School Textbooks Demonize Jews, Israel
Syria was thrust into a new era toward the end of December in 2024 with the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s secular Baathist regime and his replacement by an Islamist political order led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former jihadist who fought against US forces in Iraq.
This ideological transformation, one of the most significant upheavals in modern Syrian history, glorifies Islamic national identity, jihad and martyrdom. It also demeans Israel and portrays Jews through antisemitic stereotypes, according to a report by IMPACT-se, an educational monitoring organization.
The study analyzed 130 grades 1–12 textbooks used during the 2025–2026 academic year and compared them with textbooks published under Assad from 2011 until 2023.
What this means, in practice, is that jihad, anti-Israel rhetoric and anti-Jewish mantras will likely influence or indoctrinate the latest cohort of Syrian students, making it infinitely more difficult, if not impossible, for Syria and Israel to forge a rapprochement in the future.
Syria has undergone immense change since the sudden collapse of the Assad dictatorship. It has jettisoned its alliance with Iran and Hezbollah, downgraded its special relationship with Russia, and mended bilateral relations with the United States and Western European states like France, Britain and Germany.
US President Donald Trump has met Sharaa several times, praised his leadership and personality, and dropped sanctions imposed on Syria by previous American presidents.
Despite the regime change, Syria’s traditional attitude toward Israel, its longtime nemesis and regional rival, seems to remain firmly entrenched.
Syria’s antagonism toward Israel goes back decades. More recently, it probably stems from Israel’s actions in Syria since Assad’s downfall. Working on the assumption that Assad’s successor was or would be hostile to Israel, Israeli forces destroyed Syrian military assets, seized the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, occupied the United Nations’ demilitarized zone, and set up nine military posts in the southern region of the country.
The textbooks reflect the tensions between Israel and Syria, which have fought several wars and countless skirmishes since Israel’s creation in 1948.
According to IMPACT-se, pan-Arab nationalism has been supplanted by an identification with the wider Islamic ummah, or global community of Muslims. A grade 9 history textbook replaces “pride in Arab nationalism and Arabness” with “pride in Islamic civilization.”
“Islamic concepts of law, government and society increasingly replace civic discourse with material emphasizing divine authority.” Martyrs who die performing jihad “for the sake of Allah” are promised “eternal life in paradise.”
In addition, references to evolution are deleted or altered.
“The curriculum continues to normalize and laud violence, armed resistance, martyrdom, and self-sacrifice as morally legitimate and often noble.” This lesson is reinforced by image of an armed fighter carrying a rifle while guarding the border under Syria’s new flag.
Textbooks honor controversial historic figures such as Izz al-din Al-Qasam, after whom Hamas’s military wing is named, and Dalal al-Mughrabi, a Palestinian terrorist who participated in an attack on a bus in Israel in 1978 during which 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed.
Concepts such as peace, reconciliation, and non-violent conflict resolution are given short shrift in the textbooks.
“The new curriculum increasingly marginalizes religious and ethnic minorities, but Jews receive by far the harshest treatment. Syrian Jewish history and local communal life are entirely absent, while Islamic education textbooks repeatedly portray Jews through themes of hostility toward Muslims and Islam, betrayal, broken agreements, financial immorality and divine punishment.
“Several textbooks employ overt collective stereotyping, presenting negative characteristics as inherent to Jews as a group. In one grade 6 lesson, students are explicitly taught that treason and backstabbing are among the traits of the Jews.”
There is a shift in the textbooks toward a more exclusively Sunni Muslim identity. “Christians are generally presented as a tolerated minority rather than as equal citizens. Previous lessons promoting religious tolerance, equal citizenship and non-discrimination between Christians and Muslims have been reduced or removed.”
Israel is the object of hostility. “Its right to exist is denied, Jewish national identity and Zionist claims to nationhood are rejected, and maps continue to label Israel as Palestine or Occupied Palestine.”
Israel is often referred to as “thieving,” “filth” and the “enemy,”while Israeli military operations in 1948 are compared to “Nazi crimes against the Jews.”
Israeli actions in general are presented through themes of aggression, occupation and brutality.
The Palestinian cause is regarded as exceptionally important and is framed as both an Arab and Islamic cause. Palestinian violence, including suicide bombings and rocket attacks, is justified as legitimate resistance.
A grade 8 Islamic education textbook asks students to list “new weapons to wage war on the Zionist enemy.”
Syria’s hope of recovering the Golan Heights, which Israel conquered during the 1967 Six Day War, is presented within the context of a wider struggle to win back “occupied Muslim lands.”
This indicates the curriculum’s shift from Syrian nationalism toward a more Islamist worldview.
The textbooks may add credence to the belief by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar and his associates in the government that Sharaa is little more than a “jihadist in a suit.”
Saar’s observation may be somewhat simplistic, but the textbooks appear to confirm Israel’s suspicion that post-Assad Syria remains an implacable enemy, and that Israel cannot let its guard down when dealing with its northern neighbor.
