The Blatant Hypocrisy of Condoleezza Rice

When she's not hosting Islamic holiday dinners at the State Department and declaring Islam a "religion of peace and love," our Secretary of State can be found boosting education:

".... Education is more than just a way to get a job. Education is more than just a way to achieve a little bit more. Education is truly a way to become who you were really meant to be. Its transformative power is what really makes education special. And that transformative power, making certain that each and every individual can achieve whatever they can and become who they were really meant to be, is what makes for the richness of America.

And so what we do when we fight for and struggle for education, when we confront what President Bush has called “the soft bigotry of low expectations,” is we fight for America’s confidence as a leader..."

You wouldn't know it from this speech in Aspen, but Rice herself suffers from "the soft bigotry of low expectations" in education -- education, that is, in the palestinian terrortories.

American Thinker April 2008:

Acknowledging that without a population educated to accept peace, no other negotiations or concessions were meaningful, the U.S. President set forth, "A Performance-Based Roadmap to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict." (April 30, 2003)

Before discussions on the status of land, borders, Jerusalem, or "settlements," the Road Map called for Palestinian leadership to issue an "unequivocal statement reiterating Israel's right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel."

In a few weeks, it will be five years since the Palestinian Authority was to prepare its citizens for a two-state solution and end incitement in its educational system. Yet from pre-school through highschool, Palestinian children are indoctrinated to deny Israel's legitimacy, demonize Israelis and Jews, and glorify violent struggle as a religious goal. The Palestinian government-produced textbooks and government-controlled media work in tandem to assure that Palestinian children will be no more disposed to living peacefully with Israel tomorrow than their parents are today.

It's never too early to begin the hate education. Preschool television programming could be called Terrorism for Tots. Last year American viewers had a glimpse of the weekly program starring an outrageous Palestinian version of Mickey Mouse, Farfar, who in a Mickey-like voice told children to pray until there is "world leadership under Islamic leadership" and in the meantime to oppose the "oppressive invading Zionist occupation."

And in our very own country, the State Department refuses to close a Saudi government "Academy" in Virginia that "has failed to eliminate violent and intolerant language in [their] textbooks."

Last fall - that is, a year ago this fall - the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom asked the State Department to secure the release of all Arabic-language textbooks at the Islamic Saudi Academy in Fairfax, VA.

The Commission took this action in order to ensure that the books be publicly examined to determine whether the texts used at the ISA promote violence, discrimination, or intolerance based on religion or belief. The ISA is unlike any conventional private or parochial school in the United States in that it is operated by a foreign government and uses that government’s official texts. It falls under the Commission’s mandate to monitor the actions of foreign governments in relation to religious freedom. The government of Saudi Arabia, as a member of the international community, is committed to upholding international standards, including the obligation not to promote violence, intolerance, or hate.

The Commission requested Saudi government textbooks repeatedly during and following its trip to Saudi Arabia in May-June 2007. Shortly after the Commission raised the issue publicly, the Saudi government turned over textbooks used at the ISA to the State Department, but as of this writing [June 11, 2008] the Department has not made them available either to the public or to the Commission, nor has it released any statement about the content of the books that it received.

The Commission nevertheless managed in the meantime to acquire and review 17 ISA textbooks, and determined that they include "some extremely troubling passages."

"Some passages clearly exhort the readers to commit acts of violence."

In Fairfax VA. In America. In books the State Department has, but will not release. Even our usually-do-nothing Congress has gotten into the act:

In November 2007, Reps. Frank Wolf (R-VA), Steve Israel (D-NY), and Anthony Weiner (D-NY) introduced a resolution, H.Con.Res. 262, calling on the State Department to heed the Commission’s requests regarding the ISA and to create a mechanism to monitor implementation of the 2006 Saudi commitments to improving educational materials. Twelve U.S. Senators, led by Sens. John Kyl (R-AZ) and Charles Schumer (D-NY), wrote a bipartisan letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the same month, echoing the Commission’s call for closing the ISA until the official Saudi textbooks used at the school were made available for comprehensive public examination in the United States.

Rep. Frank Wolf wrote his own letter to Secretary Rice in June of this year, noting by hand next to his signature that "THE STATE DEPARTMENT IS NOT DOING ITS DUTY."

You will agree with him, especially when you learn that the school's 1999 valedictorian, Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, was convicted in 2005 of joining Al Qaeda and plotting to assassinate President Bush (see Andrew Cochran's detailed report at the Counterterrorism Blog).

The State Department will not close the Virginia school, will not even release the textbooks in their possession for public examination, will not respond to official American commissions, nor even to Congress, about this matter. They continue to ignore, AT OUR PERIL, even the fact that one of the students of this school plotted to assassinate the President. Think about that for a minute. It's beyond not doing their duty. To my mind, it borders on treason.

State Department spokesperson Nicole Thompson: "We will continue to work with the Saudis on this issue."

That about sums it up. The State Department will continue to work with the Saudis. And we don't even know who else they work with (see for example, this tour of American schools by unknown "Muslim educators" from a "terrorist safe haven" in the southern Philippines -- organized by the State Department).

And Condoleezza Rice - in what, 20 trips to Ramallah? - has yet to to take any steps whatsoever to pressure the palestinians to meet their first obligation under the five-year-old Road Map.

Then to top it all off, she has the nerve to lecture America on education. What an utter disgrace, and a dangerous one at that.

I can only hope that in a McCain administration, we will see some of the promised Change and Reform. Like, for instance, John Bolton heading up (and hopefully, purging) the State Department.

We should start lobbying for that right away.