Demonstrators attend a protest in support of Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Amman, Jordan, May 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Alaa Al Sukhni

Despite Jordan’s 1994 peace treaty with Israel, newly published research into the kingdom’s school textbooks shows that students are still being taught to hate Jews, sympathize with Islamist terrorists, and view Israel as illegitimate.

The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), a leading nonprofit that analyzes textbooks and curricula worldwide, this week released its review of Jordanian textbooks for the 2025-2026 school year.

The organization examined 125 textbooks used from first grade through high school, including Arabic Is My Language, Islamic Education, Social Studies, Geography, History, and History of Jordan. For upper grades, the report also distinguished between academic and vocational tracks.

One of the most blatant examples of antisemitism appears in a ninth-grade Islamic Education textbook, in a section discussing the Battle of the Trench, a seventh-century conflict involving Muslims and non-Muslims under the leadership of Islam’s prophet Muhammad.

According to IMPACT-se’s translation, the textbook tells students that “treachery and the violation of agreements are some of the traits of the Jews and their natural qualities,” citing the Jewish tribe of Banu Qurayza. It further praises the punishment of those who “betray their homelands and conspire with the enemies,” invoking Muhammad’s treatment of Banu Qurayza.

The curriculum then quizzes students on whether “violating agreements is one of the traits of the Jews and their natural qualities.”

IMPACT-se urged Jordanian education officials to remove such claims, arguing that students should be taught the episode in its proper historical context rather than through defamatory generalizations about Jews.

Other textbooks, the watchdog found, employ similar themes, linking ancient “corruption of the Israelites” to modern Israelis and associating Jews with usury, excessive wealth, manipulation, monopolies, fraud, and economic exploitation.

The report also found that Jordanian textbooks continue to sanitize or implicitly justify the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led massacre in southern Israel, in which terrorists murdered approximately 1,200 people and kidnapped hundreds more.

One textbook, IMPACT-se said, frames the attack by first emphasizing alleged Israeli oppression, then describing Hamas as attacking “Israeli settlements” and killing “soldiers and civilians.” By contrast, Israel’s military response is described in harsher language and said to have killed “mostly women and children.”

Geography and history materials also undermine Israel’s legitimacy. A newly introduced ninth-grade History textbook includes a map presenting the entire territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea as “Palestine,” despite Jordan’s formal recognition of Israel under the 1994 treaty.

Even the peace treaty itself is not presented as a diplomatic achievement. Instead, IMPACT-se found, one textbook frames it as a reluctant Jordanian move to restrain Israeli “greedy aspirations” and recover “stolen” water and territory.