So Jesus was a Palestinian—an Arab, not an Israelite! So what? Robert Byrd was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and the man who shot Jesse James wasn’t a coward, he was just careful. What difference will it make if Opie Taylor thinks Jesus Christ was a Palestinian? No public school in America—elementary, junior high or alternative—will ever hold a Yeshiva Day complete with bagels, blintzes, yarmulkes and selected readings from the Talmud to celebrate Jewish culture. No, sir! So what if the textbooks stretch the truth a bit, tell little white lies? It’s for a good cause, isn’t it—to assist an immigrant group into the mainstream of American society, to make them feel good about themselves?

So what if the new wave schoolbooks make the Jews and the Christians look bad? Look what they did to poor George Armstrong Custer and more recently to Christopher Columbus. Nobody complained. So what if they promote Islam—should Mohammedanism become the only religion on earth as promised by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) it won’t matter, the last Jews will have been buried and the descendants of Bill Maher and Hugh Heffner will be shining shoes for some Imam with a lustrous beard and an eye for slave girls.

It’s a rather gloomy picture to paint because of a few mistakes in a textbook, isn’t it? Yes, it is, but it must be painted and let the colors splash on whom they may.

Last month the Institute for Jewish & Community Research announced the release of The Trouble with Textbooks: Distorting History and Religion by Dr. Gary Tobin and Dennis Ybarra. The dauntless duo spent five years studying some of the most widely used textbooks in the American educational system. History, geography, social studies…they didn’t miss a beat. Remember the name: Lexington Books.

Tobin and Ybarra found the books full of errors, inaccuracies and what could only be called propaganda. Okay, so the books mess with Opie’s mind. What are the books telling Opie and his pals that might have a negative impact on their future—say, twenty years down the road? Did Lassie die? Did America lose the Cold War? Are there 13 donuts in a dozen? What hurtful things are they saying? Well—they are saying plenty!

Thirteen donuts to a dozen would be preferable to the nonsense Lexington Books and its accomplices in the printing business have been putting in their textbooks. Some of the inaccuracies are so bad they would make George Costanza blink. Yes, George Costanza!

How about this from the Book of Hypocrisy: Verse One: “Christianity was started by a young Palestinian named Jesus.”

“Back up a minute there! Did you hear that, Jerry? Jesus was a Palestinian?”

“Sure, George. Jesus was a Palestinian, Mickey Mouse was a cat and George W. Bush was a Democrat.”

Who would have the gall to insert such incredible nonsense in a textbook? Could it be the same people who ‘mistakenly’ credited the discovery of America to Muslim sailors years before Christopher Columbus blundered upon the New World? It could be. See Audrey Shabbas. (This is a must read. This woman has developed curriculums and conducted teacher workshops for the Middle East Policy Council for 22 years!) Does the brain trust at Lexington Books employ fact-checkers? Do they know what fact-checkers are? No, they are in the printing business.

Tobin and Ybarra found more than 500 erroneous passages in the books they checked. Some are more than a little disconcerting. As hard as it is to believe the following claim was amongst them: “Palestinian terrorism is nonexistent or minimal.” (Maybe they missed Hanadi Jaradat and Hamas Mouse; maybe they mistook Sirhan Sirhan for John Wilkes Booth)

Here is a falsification that would be sure to catch Opie’s eye: “The intifadas were children’s revolts.” Yes, they were children’s revolts! Every child has a secret desire to be Rambo, to fight oppression, to get girls. Why else would the media refer to the revolts as intifadas? If it had been the work of adults AP would have called them adultifadas and CNN and The New York Times would have followed suit. Right?

In some cases it was difficult to separate the errors from the propaganda. This is typical: “The Arab nations want peace.” One hates to resort to an old joke but it is apropos—like the Soviet Union wanted peace…a piece of Poland, a piece of Hungary, a piece of Germany, the Arab nations also want peace… a piece of Israel, a piece of Londonderry, and, according to CAIR a large piece if not all of the United States.

America’s radical groups accept many of the errors and most of the propaganda found in these books. Howard Dean has endorsed this one: US support of Israel causes terrorism, including the attack on the World Trade Center.” See? Just as Bill Clinton said—American foreign policy resulted in 9/11!

Jesus Christ was a Palestinian; the PLO did not engage in terrorism; the intifadas were the work of the Middle East’s version of Spanky and Alfalfa; Jihad means peace; and Thomas Jefferson set in motion the chain of events that brought down the World Trade Center. That takes care of five of the inaccuracies—only 495 to go and none of them have any connection to anything Ward Churchill or Nicholas De Genova might have said or done. Amazing! But America cannot say it wasn’t warned.

Two years ago, a report by Gilbert T. Sewall for the American Textbook Council (ATC) found the problem regarding Islam to be “uniquely disturbing.” Isn’t that what terrified fool number one said as the first zombie rose from the grave on The Night of the Living Dead? Is America already in the cellar?

The Sewall report pulled no punches. “Islamist activists use multiculturalism and ready-made American political movements, especially those on campus to advance and justify uncritical Islam-related content makeover in history textbooks,” he said.

Dr. Tobin is president of the Institute for Jewish & Community Research. “Elected officials at every level should investigate how these offensive passages are creeping into our textbooks,” he said. “Presenting false information in the classroom undermines the very foundation of the American educational system.”

Co-author Dennis Ybarra agreed. “The textbooks tend to be critical of Jews and Israel, disrespectful about Christianity, and rather then represent Islam in an objective way, tend to glorify it,” he said.

Dr. Tobin said, “If the president of Iran wants to blast Israel at the U.N., he can use American textbooks to do so.”

The ATC review posed some serious questions: “What do the textbooks say about terrorism? What do they say about the September 11 air attack on the United States? About weapons of mass destruction? Do textbooks outline Islamic challenges to global security? Do they describe and explain looming dangers to the United States and world?”

Well, no—not so as to alarm Rosie O’Donnell and Bill Maher, certainly not enough to concern Dennis Kucinich and Jon Corzine, no more than Ibrahim Hooper and Muzammil Siddiqi would think appropriate, not enough to deter George W. Bush from attending a prayer breakfast with Sami al-Arian and Siraj Wahhaj, but shouldn’t somebody damn well warn Opie Taylor about Islam and the designs the Wahhabi Imams have on his future? Yes, someone should, but it’s not being done by Lexington Books or the politically correct chuckleheads sitting on school boards throughout American nor the left-leaning fraternity of university presidents and the Hate-America-First college professors who decide what is fit for Johnny to read in the way of textbooks.

It is getting late in the game and it may take a few cracked heads and a thousand bruised egos to make sure Opie gets an education worthy of an American. Islam’s running dogs in the publishing houses and in the universities must be put on notice. No more business as usual! The politically correct lies, the culturally diverse flimflam and the engrained anti-Americanism of the radical-liberal left must be brought to an end come Hell or High Water. That fellow McGuffey was right—he knew what America was about and it sure wasn’t the Qur’an and fellow with the bomb in his hat.