Glen Beck discusses ISA text book report with USCIRF analyst

by Jerry Gordon, American Congress for truth blog

Last night on the Glen Beck Program, there was a segment devoted to a discussion of the Islamic Saudi Academy  (ISA) textbook report by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). Beck’s guest for this segment was Dwight Bashir, senior policy analyst at the USCIRF.  What follows is the transcript of that interview. Note that Beck indicated there would be a follow up on tonight’s program that dealt with yesterday protest at the Alexandria, Virginia campus of ISA. The demonstration was organized by Traditional Values Coalition with participation by the United American Committee Virginia Chapter  and the ACT! for America Chapter and Maryland volunteers, Center for Security Policy and others.

Transcript of Glen Beck Program Interview with Dwight Bashir, senior policy analyst, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

BECK: Well, I told you yesterday and about a year ago about the Islamic Saudi Academy. It`s a private school that teaches about 900 students in grades K through 12 in Virginia.

The school receives much of its funding from the Saudi government. That`s fantastic! And investigators claim it`s using textbooks that say you get an A-plus if you kill somebody.

When a school is using textbooks that say it`s permissible for Muslims to kill adulterers and converts from Islam, that the Jews conspired against Islam, that Muslims are permitted to take the lives and property of those deemed polytheist, which — then it might be time to draw a line in the sand, what do you say? Especially when it`s our damn sand.

Fortunately, protests against the school are raging now. Worst of all, the school`s director was arrested today for failing to report child abuse. Oh, and a past valedictorian is sitting in prison after being convicted of plotting to assassinate the president.

I don`t know why there`s a problem with this school. Just another day at class, kids.

Dwight Bashir is a senior policy analyst for the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

Dwight, first of all, this is — you are appointed by Congress, right?

DWIGHT BASHIR, U.S. COMMISSION FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM: That`s correct. We`re appointed by Congress.

BECK: OK. All right. And you`re not out on a witch hunt and you don`t have a problem with Islam. Let`s get all this bull crap out of the way.

BASHIR: Absolutely not.

BECK: OK.

BASHIR: Our mandate is to monitor violations of freedom of religion and belief and to make recommendations for U.S. policy.

BECK: OK.

I brought this school up, I don`t know, a year ago, maybe two years ago, and said, what is in the textbooks? You guys have been doing the same thing.

I`m a clown on television. You guys are the Congress. You have the power of the Congress behind you.

You couldn`t get the textbooks until recently. It says all kinds of horrible things. This school tried to avoid the Congress by going to the State Department.

Is that right?

BASHIR: Well, actually, we`re a federally funded entity, but what happened here is that we actually went to Saudi Arabia about a year ago and met with the Saudi officials who told us that they had add revised their textbooks. We have been following this for years. And we asked for the textbooks, including those at the Islamic Saudi Academy, and inevitably, we never actually got copies of the books.

When we released the report last year that you`re referring to that said there were reports that there was intolerance and hatred and violence in the books based on previous reports, we went ahead and asked for the books again. And they never did send — give anything to us. But later, they gave them to the State Department and to Fairfax County, a local county that leases the property to the embassy of Saudi Arabia.

BECK: OK. This textbook is Wahabiism. This is the most extremist kind of nonsense out there. The State Department, everybody could make this thing go away, but nobody wants to, right?

BASHIR: Well, the thing here is that the embassy has the ability to do anything it wants with the textbooks here because the chair of the board is the Saudi ambassador. And the State Department has jurisdiction over this school because the Saudi government funds it, the property it`s on is leased by the embassy. And so the problem here is that the State Department has received the books that we had said we`re not able to get copies of for now eight months, and they haven`t made a review of those books public.

We`re calling for a review of the books, because what we were able to do is to get some copies from independent sources and from a congressional office. And what we found in a small fraction of these books was this kind of language that you refer to, the incitement to violence and the intolerance towards other religious groups and so on that`s still in there.

So they`ve taken some things out, but a lot of this bad stuff is still there. And we just want the State Department to make it clear what`s in there.

BECK: Dwight, thanks. We`ll follow up on this story hopefully again tomorrow and tell you more about the protests.

I`ve got to tell you, sometimes I sit here and I watch the news and I think, I`m watching the destruction of my own country by people who are supposed to be protecting us.