Saudi Arabia's making a big deal about how worldly and enlightened they are because they invited some scary Jews to their big multi-faith religious conference that starts today in Madrid. Saudi King Abdullah says he organized the anything goes faith-fest "to promote tolerance, get rid of violence, and achieve peace and security for all peoples," but you'd be better off wagering that the old guy (a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, by the way) is just doing it to make his petro-kingdom an even bigger player on the geopolitical scene than it already is.
The people at the Center for Religious Freedom are a little annoyed with all of the ridiculous, self-congratulatory garbage the Saudis are slinging about this charade, which is why they went to the Saudi Ministry of Education's website, translated the Saudi school textbooks available there, and released their findings the day before the Saudi's big event. Huge surprise—turns out the militant theocrats are actually pretty tolerant when it comes to killing Jews and gays and hating on anyone who doesn't share their puritanical form of Islam. What follows are excerpts from textbooks used by Saudi children during the 2007-2008 school year, which really illustrate the House of Saud's devotion to tolerance, peace, and interfaith understanding. It'll also help explain why a Saudi conference is being held in Spain.