By Jalal Tagreeb
Despite the landmark 1994 Wadi Araba Peace Treaty between Jordan and Israel, which formally ended decades of hostility and promised a new era of cooperation and mutual respect, the country’s educational system has failed to reflect this peaceful accord. For over three decades, the Hashemite Kingdom’s textbooks have remained a reservoir of antisemitic incitement, a direct legacy of the pervasive influence of the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated Islamic Action Front (IAF) on the nation’s pedagogy. This analysis examines how a network of Brotherhood-dominated unions and a government stance of appeasement have poisoned children’s education, ensuring that the peace treaty remains an empty promise on the ground.
From Partners to Antagonists: Ideological Rupture in the Classroom
For decades following its establishment in 1945, the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan was not merely a tolerated religious charity but a key ally of the Hashemite monarchy, bolstering King Hussein against Arab nationalist and leftist movements. This alliance allowed the Brotherhood to embed itself into Jordanian society, gaining significant influence in the educational system. The group established its own schools and leveraged its control to promote the top-down Islamization of the national curriculum. The apogee of this influence came in the 1970s when Brotherhood figure Ishaq Farhan was appointed Minister of Education, instructing officials to incorporate the group’s religious teachings directly into state textbooks.
The signing of the peace treaty with Israel in October 1994 marked the definitive rupture between the state and its former ideological partner. While King Hussein viewed the treaty as a strategic imperative for national security, the Brotherhood and its political arm, the IAF, denounced it as a betrayal of the Palestinian cause. This ideological schism, however, did not remove the Brotherhood’s influence from the classroom; rather, it weaponized it. The political opposition to normalization simply shifted the curriculum from a tool of nation-building to a weapon of ideological warfare against the peace process.
The “Cold Peace” Curriculum: Indoctrination by Omission and Hate
In the vacuum created by the state’s reluctance to enforce a robust, pro-peace narrative, the Brotherhood’s ideology of defiance flourished. Official Jordanian curricula, approved as recently as the 2024–2025 academic year, continue to systematically undermine the peace treaty and incite hatred against Jews. According to extensive reports by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), Jordanian textbooks have seen a “marked deterioration” in their depiction of Jews and Israel.
The treaty is framed not as a diplomatic achievement, but as a begrudging concession forced upon Jordan to curb what textbooks describe as Israel’s “greedy ambitions” and “expansionist” desires. Israel is systematically erased from cartographic reality; maps label the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea entirely as “Palestine,” denying the existence of the Jewish state.
Antisemitic tropes, rooted in classical Islamic texts, are taught as historical fact. A Grade 9 Islamic Education textbook explicitly instructs students that “treachery and violation of agreements are some of the traits of the Jews and their natural qualities,” while another assignment asks students to “think about the reasons for the Jews’ efforts to annihilate the Muslims”. Such rhetoric is not merely academic; it is the toxic ideological foundation that turns Jordanian youth against the very existence of a Jewish state.
Infiltration of the Classroom: The Teachers’ Syndicate as a Fifth Column
The Muslim Brotherhood’s most insidious influence on education has been its long-standing control over the Jordan Teachers Association (JTA). For years, the government accused the Brotherhood of dominating the syndicate, using it as a political battering ram rather than a professional guild. In 2014, the “Muslim Brotherhood-dominated JTA” launched a nationwide strike, which dissenting teachers publicly decried as a cynical political maneuver. Mohammad Yousef, an English teacher, charged that the strike was designed to “serve political purposes,” accusing the syndicate of “using students as a bargaining chip to press the state for concessions”.
The hold of the Brotherhood’s political machinery over Jordanian pedagogy remained so absolute that it required a judicial earthquake to dislodge it. In July 2025, Jordan’s Constitutional Court dealt a decisive blow to this influence by ruling the Teachers’ Syndicate Law unconstitutional, effectively dissolving the union that the Brotherhood had long weaponized for political leverage against the state. This legal victory for the monarchy, however, came after decades of the Brotherhood using the union to obstruct reforms and radicalize educators, leaving a generation of students exposed to a curriculum of hate.
Subversion of Reform: The Battle for Jordan’s Classrooms
Recognizing the existential threat of radicalization, the Jordanian government has sporadically attempted to excise extremist content from its textbooks. Following the 9/11 attacks and the rise of ISIS, the Ministry of Education took steps to remove overt incitement to violence. Education Minister Mohammed Thnaibat declared that the reformed books would teach students “how to be a moderate Muslim, how to respect others, how to live in an environment that has many nationalities and different ethnic groups”.
Yet, every attempt to secularize or moderate the curriculum has been met with fierce, organized resistance from the Muslim Brotherhood’s network. In 2016, when the government tried to reduce overtly religious content and include images of women without headscarves, the teachers’ union—along with Islamist parent groups—erupted in rage. They staged a violent sit-in outside the Education Ministry, burning copies of the new textbooks and accusing the government of a “conspiracy against Islamic values” and promoting “normalization of relations with Israel”. The Islamic Action Front, holding seats in parliament, echoed these protests, demonstrating how the Brotherhood uses both street violence and legislative power to paralyze educational reform.
The “October 7” Justification: Antisemitism as State Policy
The October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre—in which over 1,200 civilians were murdered and hundreds taken hostage—was a watershed test for Jordanian education. It failed miserably. A 2024 Grade 10 National and Civic Education textbook, introduced just months after the attack, framed the massacre not as terrorism but as a legitimate “surprise” operation against “Israeli settlements.” It blamed Israel exclusively for “tens of thousands of martyrs” and omitted any mention of Hamas’s role in the violence.
This is the direct fruit of the Brotherhood’s relentless campaign against the peace treaty. By refusing to treat Israel as a legitimate sovereign state and instead teaching children that it is an “enemy” entity existing on stolen land, the curriculum has effectively normalized the massacre of Israeli civilians. Marcus Sheff, CEO of IMPACT-se, rightly warned that “Jordan’s education system has become one of the most dangerous in the region,” noting that the hatred incited in classrooms plays out in real-world violence, such as the terror attacks at the Allenby Bridge crossing.
Conclusion
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan remains one of Israel’s only Arab peace partners, a status that requires constant vigilance against domestic radicalism. Yet, for three decades following the peace treaty, the state has allowed the Muslim Brotherhood’s antisemitic poison to flow through its educational system virtually unchecked. Through control of teachers’ unions, infiltration of the Ministry of Education, and violent intimidation of reformers, the Brotherhood has successfully nullified the spirit of the peace treaty in the minds of Jordanian youth.
Until Amman fully dismantles the Brotherhood’s educational apparatus, purges antisemitic tropes from every textbook, and enforces a curriculum that genuinely teaches the legitimacy and permanence of the State of Israel, the peace with Jordan will remain a perilous mirage. The only way to secure a future of coexistence is to stop educating a new generation of Jordanians for war.
Jalal Tagreeb is an East Jordanian freelance researcher and translator who works in the United Kingdom and abroad, specializing in Islamic Studies and History. Formerly rooted in conservative Sunni Islam, he was once an active Muslim apologist who frequently debated secularists. Following a series of decisive intellectual defeats, he undertook a profound re-evaluation of his beliefs, ultimately culminating in his public renunciation of Islam.
He now focuses on analyzing cultural and ideological contrasts between the West and the Middle East. Through his writings and translations, he aims to foster meaningful dialogue, encourage critical engagement with Islamic tradition, and promote intellectual honesty. His writings, debates, and a selection of his previously refuted Islamic arguments can be found here: Jalal Tagreeb, Author at The Freethinker.
He can be contacted at servantjiff@gmail.com.
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