New Delhi:
New children’s textbooks in Iran feature controversial imagery of US President Donald Trump and repeatedly refer to the United States as the “Great Satan”, according to a report.
The material, part of a series titled “We Defend Our Iran,” is being circulated among students across elementary, middle and high school levels, The New York Post reported.
The books were published last year following a 12-day heightened conflict between Iran, Israel and the US. During that time, Iranian nuclear facilities such as Isfahan, Fordow and Natanz were targeted.
The Post mentioned that the textbooks, accessed in PDF form from Iran’s education ministry website by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), feature images of missiles launching out of a student’s backpack along with other graphic war scenes.
In one of the lessons, children are asked to figure out how long Iranian missiles would take to reach cities in Israel. The exercise walks them through missile names, what those names mean, and their speeds, before asking them to calculate the time using a map.
An image shows rockets fired toward a Star of David, along with a depiction of Trump with missile-shaped marks on his face.
The textbooks also include references to real-world geopolitical incidents. One section highlights a 2016 episode in which US Navy personnel were detained by Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) after entering Iranian waters.
There is also an image of Israeli cities being crushed under a giant Iranian military boot. The textbooks further claim that the ceasefire which brought last year’s 12-day conflict to an end “was proof Iran was the victorious power in the conflict.”
“These textbooks show a deliberate effort to promote violence, antisemitism, and hostility toward the United States… the threat is real and the evidence is in the classroom,” IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff told The Post.
The report claimed that textbooks across parts of the Middle East often carry strong antisemitic messaging and anti-Israel narratives. It also pointed to a 2021 European Union study which found similar content in Palestinian school textbooks.