“University of Mosul must NOT be a Vector of Jew-Hatred”

Paris, 3 October 2025

Madam Director-General,

UNESCO’s “Global Programmes for Education” have great impact. In one case, however, some good intentions seem to be soiled by fake propaganda.

The University of Mosul (UoM) is the second largest in Iraq. Its library had been destroyed during the period when ISIS ruled the town. Since 2018, under the “Revive the Spirit of Mosul” initiative, UNESCO undertook the worthy restoration of the Mosul University Library, with funds provided by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (AICS).

The UoM hosts also a “College of Education for Human Sciences - Department of Quranic Sciences and Islamic Education”... where one course on “Religious Studies” for 3rd year students (academic year 2024-2025), led by Hiba Abdel-Ilah Mohammed, includes the “history of Judaism”.

This course teaches that the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is one of the three sources upon which Judaism is based, along with the Old Testament and The Talmud. The course’s presentation thus details a distressing list of false claims and accusations against Judaism and the Jews, such as:
- Plotting, through temptation and corruption, to take over the world;
- Propagating social, economic or gender freedom and equality, as tools of sedition;
- Sowing the seeds of discord through the use of secret societies, the press, the arts, sport clubs...;
- Causing global economic crises, by monopolizing gold and finance;
- Spreading vice and dissolution, thus destroying consciences, religions, and the family system, etc.

In truth, the “Protocols” were an infamous forgery by the Tsarist Secret Police to scapegoat the Jews during the relentless social and economic collapse of the Russian Empire. That period saw massive anti-Jewish pogroms that were endemic especially in then newly acquired imperial territories, today’s Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine.

Together with other antisemitic conspiracies – such as Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” or Henry Ford’s “The International Jew” – the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” have become a bestseller peddled by many Arab dictatorships and regimes, first to justify persecuting local Jewish communities, and then to incite hatred and hostility towards the Jewish State of Israel. It is a persistent conspiracy epitome for anti-Zionists and antisemites alike.

Madam Director-General, “post-conflict reconstruction and the promotion of peace” cannot include books, university courses or TV shows with such defamatory and demonizing content. We have seen that decades of indoctrination of Palestinian children – with the tacit, implicit or often explicit collaboration of UNRWA – have created the monstrosity of 7 October 2023, and its deadly backlash.

We urge you to address a clear admonishment to the University of Mosul: the “Protocols” do not represent Judaism as a religion, are not part of Jewish identity – as a people or as a nation – and have no space in the realm of Education, Science and Culture. The “Protocols” have been and are still a vector of hate and conflict.

Most Respectfully,

Dr Shimon Samuels
Emeritus Director for International Relations of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre

Alex Uberti
Independent researcher and Project Manager for CSW-Europe

__________________________________________________

For detailed content of the above-mentioned Mosul University course, please contact us at csweurope@gmail.com