Georgetown University Press has published and disseminated many thousands of copies of The Book (in Arabic, “Al-Kitaab”) to campuses, high schools, and U.S. government agencies. After being exposed to the textbook at Harvard, Joel Pollak, an expert in Muslim culture, panned it publicly. According to Pollak, as reported in Washington Jewish Week, Al-Kitaab
was studded with subtly anti-Israel propaganda that makes it appear that “Israel is not a legitimate part of the Middle East” …
most of the maps in the edition of Al-Kitaab that [Pollak] and his classmates used … do not include Israel … [and it glorifies] “anti-Western heroes,” such as former Egyptian president and ardent Israel foe Gamel Abdel Nasser, who embody “totalitarian rage” … In addition, [the DVD that accompanies the text] ignores that Israel … claims Jerusalem as its capital.
Is it too much to expect a shade more even-handedness from the vaunted and influential GUP?