Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat frontrunner for Virginia governor, has a skeleton in her closet that’s raising eyebrows across the Commonwealth.
Spanberger, a former congresswoman and polling favorite, worked at the Islamic Saudi Academy (ISA) in northern Virginia during the 2002-2003 school year, an institution funded by the Saudi government and criticized for extremist teachings and alleged terror links, as Just the News reports.
Let’s rewind to the 1980s, when the ISA was founded in 1984 to educate children of Saudi diplomats, later expanding to include students from various Middle Eastern countries, almost all Muslim.
The school, guided by the Saudi Ministry of Education and chaired by the Saudi ambassador, operated on embassy-owned properties with tuition paid by the Saudi government -- hardly a model of American independence.
Arabic and Islamic studies were mandatory, complete with daily calls to prayer over loudspeakers and segregated prayer times in an adjacent mosque. If that doesn’t scream foreign influence on U.S. soil, what does?
Residents weren’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat either, opposing the school’s relocation and expansion in the 1990s over concerns about Saudi control and human rights abuses. “The last thing we need in Loudoun County is an institution run by a repressive government,” resident Sandra Elam declared in 1998, and it’s hard to argue with that logic.
In 1995, Maryland locals rejected a $5 million Saudi offer to relocate the ISA to Montgomery County, and Loudoun County’s 1998 approval came with a contentious 7-2 vote, Republicans dissenting.
The ISA’s textbooks didn’t help its case, packed with inflammatory content like an 11th-grade text predicting Muslims attacking Jews on Judgment Day, or an 8th-grade book comparing Jews and Christians to animals. Saudi officials admitted to problematic material since the mid-1990s, promising revisions only in 2006 -- too little, too late for many critics.
Worse yet, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom flagged the school in 2007 and 2008 for promoting violence and justifying the killing of apostates using the Saudi curriculum. That’s not exactly the kind of reading list you’d expect in a Virginia classroom.
Then there’s the alumni track record -- ISA graduates like Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, arrested in 2003 and later convicted for plotting to assassinate President George W. Bush, don’t inspire confidence.
Two other graduates, Mohammed Osman Idris and Mohammed el-Yacoubi, were denied entry to Israel in 2001 over suspicions of planning a suicide attack, though not charged. Add to that ties to Hamas figures like Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzook, whose children attended the school, and the ISA’s comptroller Ismail Selim Elbarasse, linked to the terrorist group, and the red flags pile up.
Enter Spanberger, who taught at the ISA starting in December 2002 to cover a maternity leave while awaiting her CIA clearance, claiming she informed recruiters of the gig. “I was teaching kids who, to my mind, were normal kids,” she said in 2018, but one wonders if she missed the memo on the school’s reputation.
Her employment surfaced in 2018 via a leaked U.S. Postal Service file, prompting Spanberger to fire back with a cease-and-desist letter, decrying the exposure as political exploitation. “I have nothing to hide in my background,” she insisted, yet her campaign bio conveniently omitted this chapter -- curious for someone so transparent.
There’s no evidence she directly knew individuals under investigation at ISA, and allies like Sen. Chuck Schumer defended her in 2018, noting she left years before his 2005 call for probing the school’s terror links. Still, for a former CIA officer, working at a place dubbed “Terror High” by critics like Rep. Dave Brat in 2018 raises questions about judgment in a post-9/11 world.
Virginia voters deserve clarity on whether Spanberger’s past aligns with the leadership they expect, especially when the ISA’s history of extremist teachings and questionable connections looms large. This isn’t about personal vendettas -- it’s about accountability and ensuring our leaders’ records withstand scrutiny without the woke excuse of “it’s just a job.”
