Throughout the Middle East are schools in which millions of boys and girls are taught mathematics, language skills, science and hatred of Jews and sometimes Americans.

A new study on how attitudes are formed and persist is deeply concerning in regard to those schools, some of which are supported by governments professing to be friendly to the United States.

Researchers in Europe studied anti-Semitism and found it runs deepest in a particular generation from a certain country. Germans who were young during the 1930s and were immersed in Nazi anti-Semitism in school were much more likely to have deep-seated hatred of Jews, the study found.

That has enormous implications today and for many years in the future. Clearly, schools such as the notorious Madrassas institutions many Americans may find objectionable are a threat to peace now and possibly for a long time to come.

No reasonable person objects to religiously based education. But when such schools are factories turning out commited bigots, U.S. officials’ protests of them should be stronger than has been customary – and it may be appropriate to tie our foreign aid to how our “allies” respond to our concerns.