Manama: Bahrain Crown Prince and Prime Minister Salman bin Hamad Al-Khalifa has instructed schools to remove lessons about Israel and normalization agreement, Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported.
The order comes as the kingdom prepares to implement changes to primary school materials, including lessons on the normalization of relations between Bahrain and Israel.
According to the Crown Prince’s order, the educational institutions must make changes in the curriculum that ‘contradict Bahrain’s national values’ designed to protect religion and its fundamental pillars.
Bahrain’s Crown Prince order comes after some critics voiced issues with the inclusion of Israel and change to the maps of the contested Israeli-Palestinian territories.
Bahraini activists confirmed the existence of changes in the Bahraini curriculum, including the inclusion of the word “Israel” on a map in the first preparatory-grade social book, the deletion of a lesson about Jews in the third-grade preparatory school social book, and the inclusion of a lesson about the normalisation agreement between Bahrain and Israel.
Several preachers and scholars issued statements calling on the Ministry of Education to restore, and retract matters to normal.
On Wednesday, the Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported, quoting the Minister of Education, Dr Mohammad Juma, that a team of specialists has been assigned to conduct a “comprehensive review of all curriculum to verify all modifications and changes that have occurred.”
The order issued by the Bahraini Crown Prince to halt the implementation of changes in the educational curriculum did not prevent the netizens from demanding that the Minister of Education be held accountable.
A wave of anger swept the country’s social media, after the changes were revealed, and the #المناهج_الدراسيه topped the list of the most discussed topics in Bahrain over the past two days.
Social media users believed that normalization is “a political basis, not an educational one, and the decision of the curriculum is sovereign and does not belong to any other country.”
Bahrain and Israel signed a normalisation of a US-brokered Abraham Accords deal in Washington in September 2020 and, since then, they have exchanged diplomats and signed agreements in security and commerce.
However, Manama’s normalization with Israel has proven widely unpopular with citizens of Bahrain, who regularly hold rallies against the 2020 decision.
