By Jerry Dunleavy
Published: October 5, 2025 11:03pm
The Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Virginia worked for a Saudi government-controlled school just after 9/11, at a time when the Islamic academy was already controversial for being controlled by the Saudi royal family and for its extremist textbooks which taught hatred of non-Muslims.
Abigail Spanberger, a former Democratic congresswoman from Virginia, is currently the favorite to be the state’s next governor, according to polling averages. When it was revealed during her first congressional run in 2018 that she had worked for the Islamic Saudi Academy in northern Virginia during the 2002-2003 school year, Spanberger said that she was “proud” and “not ashamed” of her work history, despite the fact that, when she chose to work at the school, it was also already well known for its links to the terrorist group Hamas and for its recent graduates who had seemingly considered carrying out a jihad-inspired suicide attack in Israel.
The problematic nature of the Saudi academy — known as the ISA in shorthand — would be revealed even further in the years which followed.
A review by Just the News of hundreds of contemporary and historical news reports found that the following facts were widely-reported and well-established by the time that Spanberger chose to take her brief job at the ISA:
The school was controlled and funded by the Saudi government;
Numerous local citizens in northern Virginia were opposed to the relocation and expansion of the ISA due to concerns about the school’s teachings, about its control by and funding from the Saudi government, and about the Saudi government’s human rights record;
A top leader of Hamas had sent his children to the school;
The school’s comptroller had been linked to Hamas;
Then-recent graduates of the school had come under suspicion by federal authorities of potentially seeking to carry out a suicide attack in Israel;
The school’s textbooks contained hateful language, including animosity toward non-Muslims and Jews in particular;
The ISA had withdrawn from membership in a major accreditation organization; and
The ISA’s own website stated that it was controlled by the Saudi government and was guided by the Saudi Ministry of Education.
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/spanberger-worked-saudi-government-school-known-hamas-links-jihadi-grads