"Diversity" is Crayola diversity: diversity of skin color and no viewpoint diversity.
"Equity": What's mine is mine and what's yours is also mine.
"Trans Kid" is someone who would likely turn out to be gay, lesbian or bisexual if they could escape the trans activists and trans allies in their lives.
As a non US citizen, I hesitate to comment on things that happen there. But as I see efforts to do the same thing here. It’s worth commenting on.
I would be supprised if the US didn’t have anti hate speech laws, even Australia had then. Where are the Jewish lawyers who should be dragging them into court.
Make no mistake the teacher activists are building a Hitler Youth army to terrorise Jewish students.
The Jewish race learned a valuable lesson in WW2. Defend your self, or very bad things happen to you. A lot of Jewish people around the world seem to have forgotten this.
Don’t be nice and reasonable to these people. You know what happened last time.
Remember an eye for an eye has its uses even today.
God forbid AIPAC loses control of the narrative!! They must maintain a monopoly on propaganda! 🙄
When I was growing up in the 80s, we were taught NEVER AGAIN! Were we being indoctrinated? Because it worked. What Israel is doing is despicable. Instead of standing up for innocent civilians, women and children slaughtered daily for over a year, you defend a genocide and now rebuke those teaching NEVER AGAIN IS NOW?! Why the double standard?
Thanks again. I am sure you have read "The Vision of the Anointed" by Thomas Sowell. The false priestly class has permeated our children's classrooms with their bias and hatred. Makes me sick.
When they tell you they are coming for your children, believe them. This insanity must stop. The teachers are free to act and speak any hateful way they want on their own time. But they aren’t allowed to use their platform in school to win wars of their own making.
As a Notthern CA resident and pro Israel/Zionist, thank you for detailed profile of antisemitic propganda in action. The far left DEI/Woke train has been in operation for some time and this emphasis on Palestinian oppression is another stop on the journey regardless and in spite of the actual history.
Only universal school choice can potentially enable a course correction as the major teacher’s unions and administrators are beyond being persuaded. It’s become a part of who they are. Every family must have educational options. Additionally, the DOE needs to cut off funding to every school district disseminating these vile teachings. Educational competition and money may enable a corrective.
Vote today if you haven’t. And vote for genuine change.
Reading some of the comments and not having forgotten how putrid public schools can be, please put me down for a yellow star armband. I attended K-12 in the 60's and 70's, a mix of Montessori, public, Catholic and 1-year of private secular. They were not all equal. This failing Catholic will wear an armband. Spread the word.
It is so exhausting to hear that to complain about the slaughter of what is roughly 200,000 Palestinians in the last 365 days is anti-Semitic. But it is. Unless you not only support but cheer on the daily slaughter of women and children until they’re all exterminated, you are a Jew hater.
Never in my life would someone dare say this of me. But because I don’t believe what you ironically call the “slaughter of Oct. 7” justifies this horrific response, that is now what I am in my 5th decade of life. Forget that it belies all logic, forget that criticizing mass murder of any kind doesn’t make one a hater of a entire race— because it’s all or nothing.
I don’t even know if I believe there are any real hostages, or that Israel didn’t orchestrate Oct. 7 itself (like 9/11) because clearly this was a planned annihilation. And we all know that the Zionist regime would not hesitate to kill Jews for the bigger cause. Nothing works quite like killing your own people to garner sympathy and support.
You can call me whatever you like. I’ve gotten a tougher skin since 2020 since I’ve been called an anti vaxxer for questioning warp speed injections, a white supremacist/racist for disagreeing with most progressive/woke agendas, a homophobic hater for questioning the trans movement and wanting to protect children from mental illness.
Call me whatever you like because it doesn’t bother me anymore. I know who I am.
Those who misuse and misunderstand (like your post) the word genocide contribute to the problem. There is no genocide happening to the Palestinians. Yes, many are dying because of Hamas’ decisions and actions (Hamas is the guilty party of genocidal intentions toward Israel and the death of its own Gaza citizens).
If you truly feel the Israelis are ‘genocidal’, how do you view Hamas? Hezbollah? No where in any official document that I’m aware of do the Israelis describe anything approximating any sort of state sanctioned eradication of their neighboring Arabs. Yet, Hamas’ own charter definitely does so regarding not just Israel but specifically the Jews. Does that not bother you? If it were up to you, how would you have responded to October 7th if you were Israel? Human rights also encompass the right to self defense. The civilian to combatant death ratio during this Gaza war is among the lowest ever. Yes, innocent people die when one party attacks another and the offended party must remove the threat. Wouldn’t you do the same if you had a murderous neighbor killing your children/family - and promising to keep killing them - unless you responded? Should I infer from your comment your morality would require you to sacrifice your own innocent family because you’re not ‘morally permitted’ to kill your neighbor’s innocent family members? That puts a lot of ‘moral power’ in the hands of terrorists who just have to hide behind innocents to avoid repercussions. Is that the kind of ‘moral calculus’ you agree with? If it’s not, then you agree that your neighbor’s innocent family might be harmed - but not specifically on purpose - so that you can save your own. The moral responsibility of those deaths falls on your murderous neighbor. This is supported by international human rights…you think Russia, China, or even the USA would behave differently - or dare I say better - than Israel has responded if they were facing the same threat…or any other country you feel is morally superior to the USA and to Israel? Which countries would those be by the way? You can throw words like genocide around, but in my view, you clearly have not thought through how you personally would respond making your comment hypocritical at best and evil at worst.
I think what Hamas did was despicable. But armed resistance against an oppressor/occupier is legal, sadly. Spare me the Israeli talking point BS about Israel not being oppressor/occupier, how they turned over Gaza and expected it would become Singapore. I have read history books. These lines don’t fly with those who know what went down.
You know what I think about the question “what should Israel have done?” It reminds me of the victim-bully complex. Who displays this? Manipulative Narcissistic abusers.
I agree with your word choice, but not much else. The term "genocide" is used mostly due to its weight in international law. I think "ethnic cleansing" is more accurate. Zionists would be satisfied with the disappearance of Palestinians from Eretz Israel, whether by death or forced migration.
"I don't know if I believe there are any real hostages." What? Let's see, 4 were rescued, 6 were executed in the tunnels. Several bodies have been found, and there was a pause and release of elderly, children and mothers. Are you possibly serving in the UN? Because you've really swallowed the doctrine of Iran, Libya, Algeria, Hezbollah. And know what? They want Spain back so they can repeat the Golden Age of the Muslim conquest of Anatolia. Do your homework and look up the statements by imams, Mustafa Barghouti, Mohammed Hijab, Abdullah al Andalusi, Ghazi Hamad, Takadum al-Khatib, Habib Umar bin Hafiz. The last one was voted most popular imam in Yemen. Then, look up refugees from fundamentalist Islamicist culture, Ayaan Ali Hirsi, Mosab Hassan Yousef (The Green Prince) and Yasmine Mohammad. Sounds like you had exactly those teachers Abigail writes about. Oh, and lastly the rhetoric, "death to America" is deadly serious. Did you know that 850,000 Jews fled from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan? The Mizrachi Jews are actually the most hawkish, in Israeli politics, because they speak and read Arabic and know exactly what they say to their Arab audiences.
I taught Kindergarten, early grade science and remedial math in Brooklyn for almost 2 decades. I worked with a now retired radical activist, Steve Quester, who posts on Instagram exactly how to turn students against Israel. We are both Jewish; I converted in 1987 and he was raised in upper middle class NJ with no religious observance. I learned to warn Jewish parents about him so they could request their children not be in his class. This goes way back into the 1990s. He claimed he'd visited Gaza, which I find strange, because he is so openly gay. He targeted Jewish teachers like myself, and had a lot of power over us, because he got himself elected union rep. Finally, after 10 years, he was defeated. He used those maps of "Arabic Speaking Countries" and had first and second grade children discussing the "colonialism" of the Israelis. I observed him cheating and giving answers on math exams and exposed him as a virulent radical to our principal, linking videos he'd put up online. When he demanded I meet with him and the principal about this, naming our lunch hours as the meeting time, I turned it around on him, "I regret Mr. Mattia, I cannot meet at that time, as per union contract for duty free lunch. I also request union representation, as I am entitled to, and since Mr. Quester is the union rep, I would need district-level representation." Mr. Mattia came to my room and, smiling broadly, gave me a double thumbs up. These teachers are so, so dangerous. Feel free to search Quester--he's out there, indoctrinating young teachers in hate.
It's foolish and unethical for teachers to try to get students to pick sides in that abysmal conflict. Is it that hard for people to understand that Hamas is a dangerous terrorist organization empowered by Palestinians and Israel is led by a sociopath who kills for power and money?
The real problem is the massive amount of US money that's funneled to Israel. There's no excuse for having or supporting a murderous ethnic state in today's world. Cut off the funds. Use that money to help children from both sides escape their parents' religious indoctrination and oppressive intergenerational fight. If Palestinian kids are offered the opportunity to live and go to school in Europe or New York, they would dump their parents' hateful vengeance and grow up to be sane, sensible people who practice their religion without obsessing about “killing the enemy.”
Israel without US funding might also find itself without the ability to promote Zionist-ordained indoctrination and intergenerational conflict. Imagine if they gave a war and no one came. Jews might even stop trying to self-victimize themselves.
US citizens should ask themselves how many more years … or generations … they want to fund this madness.
Tensions flare as Portland teachers’ union promotes pro-Palestinian teaching guides
• Updated: Jun. 04, 2024, 5:38 a.m.
• Published: Jun. 03, 2024, 4:32 p.m.
By
• Aimee Green | The Oregonian/OregonLive
A chorus of Jewish leaders, teachers and parents are expressing outrage with the Portland Public Schools teachers’ union for hosting a pro-Palestinian advocacy meeting last week where organizers encouraged teachers to display Palestinian flags in their classrooms, wear T-shirts emblazoned with a pro-Palestinian message highly offensive to Jewish communities and lead lessons on Gaza that critics say are misleading and antisemitic.
Last month, the union — the Portland Association of Teachers — also posted a guide to its website titled “Know Your Rights! Teaching & Organizing for Palestine within Portland Public Schools” and linked to dozens of lesson plans and videos that many members of Jewish communities say demonize Jews and supporters of Zionism by focusing on the death, destruction and upheaval experienced by everyday Palestinians without mentioning the genesis of the Israel-Hamas war: Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, killing of civilians and taking of hundreds of hostages.
The lesson plans and videos refer to Jewish people who formed the nation of Israel as “colonial settlers” and Israel’s campaign to take down Hamas as “Israel’s Genocide on Gaza.” The union links to posters, as well, including ones that read: “Free Palestine” and “Israel, Stop Killing Peace.”
And at last week’s meeting at union headquarters, organizers and supporters were handing out Palestinian flags and selling shirts that read “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a phrase that Palestinians say describes their right to reclaim land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean but that the vast majority of Israelis and many Jews consider a threatening call for the destruction of Israel, even at the cost of many Israeli lives.
David Kosak, a rabbi at Congregation Neveh Shalom in Southwest Portland and a Portland Public Schools parent, said the guide and lesson plans distort the facts, seek to “inculcate and indoctrinate” students to one set of views and have left many Jews in the area feeling “unsafe and attacked.”
“Any person with a heart ought to be disturbed about the conditions in Gaza,” Kosak said. “But using words correctly matters. And it creates hatred when you use them incorrectly. …They’re laying the groundwork for ever increasing amounts of hatred of Jews.”
Several other Jewish parents, teachers and parents who have no ties to Judaism also told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the union’s publication of the “Know Your Rights” guide and lesson plans are the latest blow after what they feel like have been months of one-sided advocacy supported by the union. In a newsletter, the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland also condemned the union’s actions, calling them “deeply disturbing” and the guide full of “dangerous misconceptions.”
The union responds
Angela Bonilla, president of the 4,500-member Portland Association of Teachers, said last week’s meeting, the “Know Your Rights” guide and the lesson plans on the union’s website aren’t antisemitic. [IMO Bonilla is a woke clown.] They’re simply supporting the right of educators to teach the Palestinian perspective, which she said has often been overlooked and disregarded.
“We are vehemently against any forms of bigotry, including antisemitism,” Bonilla told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
But, Bonilla added: “As educators and as a social justice union, as a racial justice union, we’re going to lift up the voices of those that have not been heard.”
Bonilla said what happened Oct. 7 was “an atrocity,” but teachers shouldn’t be squelched for talking about what happened in the months after.
“I refuse to have Oct. 7 be the beginning and end of the conversation,” she said.
The guide, produced by the union and Oregon Educators for Palestine, states it was created “in response to the censorship, discrimination, and harassment that many PPS education workers have experienced and are currently experiencing at the hands of PPS District ‘Leadership.’” The guide goes on to say that the district “has been actively censoring teachers and other education workers” who’ve taught about Gaza or expressed pro-Palestinian sentiments in schools since last fall.
The “Know Your Rights” guide uses multiple photos by Mark Graves, a photographer for The Oregonian/OregonLive. But the guide’s creators didn’t have the permission of the news organization to publish them and agreed Monday to remove those photos.
Bonilla said the union posted the lesson plans on its website after students demanded the district start teaching about the plight of Palestinians during their walkout in support of Gaza in March. Bonilla said the union asked the district to support that demand, among others. But after the district didn’t, the union posted the lesson plans on its website.
District officials say they’re not aware of any such request by the union, nor would the 10 weeks since the walkout be enough time to develop such a curriculum.
Defining the line
The union’s stance has thrust the school district into the difficult position of balancing teachers’ academic freedom to teach what the district calls ”controversial issues” with stopping teachers from espousing one-sided political views that many — Jews especially — consider antisemitic.
The district also must balance the impact such lesson plans have on students who are Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim, Arab or have no ties to the region and know only what their teachers impart.
The lesson plans are tailored for students from preschool and kindergarten to the 12th grade.
For instance, a lesson plan meant for preschool through second-graders suggests teachers explain to students: “Palestinians have been working to be safe and free in their homes for a long time, even when Israel makes unfair, unsafe, and hurtful rules.”
Another lesson plan for second- and third-graders mentions nothing of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and instead states the Israeli government has been “attacking and killing Palestinian people there (in Gaza),” adding “the Israeli army has done this many times and many Palestinian people have been hurt by this.”
The lesson plans also encourage educators to weave the Palestinian perspective into a wide range of curricula — from social studies and history to math problems, poetry and art.
The power of school districts to intervene when administrators believe teachers cross the line into advocacy is based on prior court rulings. For instance, in 2022, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Evergreen School District in Vancouver had violated a teacher’s free speech rights after he couldn’t bring his “Make America Great Again” hat to a teacher training. But the court also ruled that a district could restrict a teacher from expressing their political views if that expression created a “tangible disruption” to school operations.
Thank you, Abigail, for so ably covering this critical topic.
The depths to which the Marxists have sunk, in trying to destroy our nation and culture, is hard to put into words. To describe their conduct as appalling and unconscionable just doesn't do justice to what they have been doing. It is terrible what they are doing on college campuses, but brainwashing little kids this way is criminal, or at least it should be.
That said, it is gratifying to see that Americans are getting fed up with these Marxists who have been running wild for years and that we will soon have a president who actually cares about children and Jewish people and about holding criminals accountable.
Israel has accomplished what I would have thought was impossible. It has caused Gen Z-ers to respect the Nazi Party. Israel is and should be condemned for war crimes.
Thank you, once again! This should be the topic of your third book. A trilogy shedding light on how so many have been hoodwinked.
You could title it:
The Day You Figure Out It's All Connected!
"Diversity" is code for discrimination.
"Equity" is code for special privileges.
"Inclusivity" is code for exclusion.
“Transkid” is code for a made-up political identity.
“Decolonize” is code for Hate The West.
"Creating allyship" to "decrease microaggressions" is code for institutional capture.
DEI/BLM/SEL/anti-Bully curriculum & Ethnic Studies pushers and those that comply are the Trojan Horse!
Also:
"Diversity" is Crayola diversity: diversity of skin color and no viewpoint diversity.
"Equity": What's mine is mine and what's yours is also mine.
"Trans Kid" is someone who would likely turn out to be gay, lesbian or bisexual if they could escape the trans activists and trans allies in their lives.
"Centering trans voices" is code for STFU
💯
As a non US citizen, I hesitate to comment on things that happen there. But as I see efforts to do the same thing here. It’s worth commenting on.
I would be supprised if the US didn’t have anti hate speech laws, even Australia had then. Where are the Jewish lawyers who should be dragging them into court.
Make no mistake the teacher activists are building a Hitler Youth army to terrorise Jewish students.
The Jewish race learned a valuable lesson in WW2. Defend your self, or very bad things happen to you. A lot of Jewish people around the world seem to have forgotten this.
Don’t be nice and reasonable to these people. You know what happened last time.
Remember an eye for an eye has its uses even today.
See my comment about exactly such an individual, Steve Quester from PS 372 in Brooklyn, NY
Another incredible article by my favorite writer! Abigail Shrier is the most the important journalist in America.
I completely agree.
God forbid AIPAC loses control of the narrative!! They must maintain a monopoly on propaganda! 🙄
When I was growing up in the 80s, we were taught NEVER AGAIN! Were we being indoctrinated? Because it worked. What Israel is doing is despicable. Instead of standing up for innocent civilians, women and children slaughtered daily for over a year, you defend a genocide and now rebuke those teaching NEVER AGAIN IS NOW?! Why the double standard?
Thanks again. I am sure you have read "The Vision of the Anointed" by Thomas Sowell. The false priestly class has permeated our children's classrooms with their bias and hatred. Makes me sick.
Thanks for exposing it.
When they tell you they are coming for your children, believe them. This insanity must stop. The teachers are free to act and speak any hateful way they want on their own time. But they aren’t allowed to use their platform in school to win wars of their own making.
As a Notthern CA resident and pro Israel/Zionist, thank you for detailed profile of antisemitic propganda in action. The far left DEI/Woke train has been in operation for some time and this emphasis on Palestinian oppression is another stop on the journey regardless and in spite of the actual history.
Only universal school choice can potentially enable a course correction as the major teacher’s unions and administrators are beyond being persuaded. It’s become a part of who they are. Every family must have educational options. Additionally, the DOE needs to cut off funding to every school district disseminating these vile teachings. Educational competition and money may enable a corrective.
Vote today if you haven’t. And vote for genuine change.
Reading some of the comments and not having forgotten how putrid public schools can be, please put me down for a yellow star armband. I attended K-12 in the 60's and 70's, a mix of Montessori, public, Catholic and 1-year of private secular. They were not all equal. This failing Catholic will wear an armband. Spread the word.
It is so exhausting to hear that to complain about the slaughter of what is roughly 200,000 Palestinians in the last 365 days is anti-Semitic. But it is. Unless you not only support but cheer on the daily slaughter of women and children until they’re all exterminated, you are a Jew hater.
Never in my life would someone dare say this of me. But because I don’t believe what you ironically call the “slaughter of Oct. 7” justifies this horrific response, that is now what I am in my 5th decade of life. Forget that it belies all logic, forget that criticizing mass murder of any kind doesn’t make one a hater of a entire race— because it’s all or nothing.
I don’t even know if I believe there are any real hostages, or that Israel didn’t orchestrate Oct. 7 itself (like 9/11) because clearly this was a planned annihilation. And we all know that the Zionist regime would not hesitate to kill Jews for the bigger cause. Nothing works quite like killing your own people to garner sympathy and support.
You can call me whatever you like. I’ve gotten a tougher skin since 2020 since I’ve been called an anti vaxxer for questioning warp speed injections, a white supremacist/racist for disagreeing with most progressive/woke agendas, a homophobic hater for questioning the trans movement and wanting to protect children from mental illness.
Call me whatever you like because it doesn’t bother me anymore. I know who I am.
Those who misuse and misunderstand (like your post) the word genocide contribute to the problem. There is no genocide happening to the Palestinians. Yes, many are dying because of Hamas’ decisions and actions (Hamas is the guilty party of genocidal intentions toward Israel and the death of its own Gaza citizens).
If you truly feel the Israelis are ‘genocidal’, how do you view Hamas? Hezbollah? No where in any official document that I’m aware of do the Israelis describe anything approximating any sort of state sanctioned eradication of their neighboring Arabs. Yet, Hamas’ own charter definitely does so regarding not just Israel but specifically the Jews. Does that not bother you? If it were up to you, how would you have responded to October 7th if you were Israel? Human rights also encompass the right to self defense. The civilian to combatant death ratio during this Gaza war is among the lowest ever. Yes, innocent people die when one party attacks another and the offended party must remove the threat. Wouldn’t you do the same if you had a murderous neighbor killing your children/family - and promising to keep killing them - unless you responded? Should I infer from your comment your morality would require you to sacrifice your own innocent family because you’re not ‘morally permitted’ to kill your neighbor’s innocent family members? That puts a lot of ‘moral power’ in the hands of terrorists who just have to hide behind innocents to avoid repercussions. Is that the kind of ‘moral calculus’ you agree with? If it’s not, then you agree that your neighbor’s innocent family might be harmed - but not specifically on purpose - so that you can save your own. The moral responsibility of those deaths falls on your murderous neighbor. This is supported by international human rights…you think Russia, China, or even the USA would behave differently - or dare I say better - than Israel has responded if they were facing the same threat…or any other country you feel is morally superior to the USA and to Israel? Which countries would those be by the way? You can throw words like genocide around, but in my view, you clearly have not thought through how you personally would respond making your comment hypocritical at best and evil at worst.
I think what Hamas did was despicable. But armed resistance against an oppressor/occupier is legal, sadly. Spare me the Israeli talking point BS about Israel not being oppressor/occupier, how they turned over Gaza and expected it would become Singapore. I have read history books. These lines don’t fly with those who know what went down.
You know what I think about the question “what should Israel have done?” It reminds me of the victim-bully complex. Who displays this? Manipulative Narcissistic abusers.
I agree with your word choice, but not much else. The term "genocide" is used mostly due to its weight in international law. I think "ethnic cleansing" is more accurate. Zionists would be satisfied with the disappearance of Palestinians from Eretz Israel, whether by death or forced migration.
"I don't know if I believe there are any real hostages." What? Let's see, 4 were rescued, 6 were executed in the tunnels. Several bodies have been found, and there was a pause and release of elderly, children and mothers. Are you possibly serving in the UN? Because you've really swallowed the doctrine of Iran, Libya, Algeria, Hezbollah. And know what? They want Spain back so they can repeat the Golden Age of the Muslim conquest of Anatolia. Do your homework and look up the statements by imams, Mustafa Barghouti, Mohammed Hijab, Abdullah al Andalusi, Ghazi Hamad, Takadum al-Khatib, Habib Umar bin Hafiz. The last one was voted most popular imam in Yemen. Then, look up refugees from fundamentalist Islamicist culture, Ayaan Ali Hirsi, Mosab Hassan Yousef (The Green Prince) and Yasmine Mohammad. Sounds like you had exactly those teachers Abigail writes about. Oh, and lastly the rhetoric, "death to America" is deadly serious. Did you know that 850,000 Jews fled from Algeria, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Libya, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan? The Mizrachi Jews are actually the most hawkish, in Israeli politics, because they speak and read Arabic and know exactly what they say to their Arab audiences.
I taught Kindergarten, early grade science and remedial math in Brooklyn for almost 2 decades. I worked with a now retired radical activist, Steve Quester, who posts on Instagram exactly how to turn students against Israel. We are both Jewish; I converted in 1987 and he was raised in upper middle class NJ with no religious observance. I learned to warn Jewish parents about him so they could request their children not be in his class. This goes way back into the 1990s. He claimed he'd visited Gaza, which I find strange, because he is so openly gay. He targeted Jewish teachers like myself, and had a lot of power over us, because he got himself elected union rep. Finally, after 10 years, he was defeated. He used those maps of "Arabic Speaking Countries" and had first and second grade children discussing the "colonialism" of the Israelis. I observed him cheating and giving answers on math exams and exposed him as a virulent radical to our principal, linking videos he'd put up online. When he demanded I meet with him and the principal about this, naming our lunch hours as the meeting time, I turned it around on him, "I regret Mr. Mattia, I cannot meet at that time, as per union contract for duty free lunch. I also request union representation, as I am entitled to, and since Mr. Quester is the union rep, I would need district-level representation." Mr. Mattia came to my room and, smiling broadly, gave me a double thumbs up. These teachers are so, so dangerous. Feel free to search Quester--he's out there, indoctrinating young teachers in hate.
It's foolish and unethical for teachers to try to get students to pick sides in that abysmal conflict. Is it that hard for people to understand that Hamas is a dangerous terrorist organization empowered by Palestinians and Israel is led by a sociopath who kills for power and money?
The real problem is the massive amount of US money that's funneled to Israel. There's no excuse for having or supporting a murderous ethnic state in today's world. Cut off the funds. Use that money to help children from both sides escape their parents' religious indoctrination and oppressive intergenerational fight. If Palestinian kids are offered the opportunity to live and go to school in Europe or New York, they would dump their parents' hateful vengeance and grow up to be sane, sensible people who practice their religion without obsessing about “killing the enemy.”
Israel without US funding might also find itself without the ability to promote Zionist-ordained indoctrination and intergenerational conflict. Imagine if they gave a war and no one came. Jews might even stop trying to self-victimize themselves.
US citizens should ask themselves how many more years … or generations … they want to fund this madness.
It's happening in Portland also:
Tensions flare as Portland teachers’ union promotes pro-Palestinian teaching guides
• Updated: Jun. 04, 2024, 5:38 a.m.
• Published: Jun. 03, 2024, 4:32 p.m.
By
• Aimee Green | The Oregonian/OregonLive
A chorus of Jewish leaders, teachers and parents are expressing outrage with the Portland Public Schools teachers’ union for hosting a pro-Palestinian advocacy meeting last week where organizers encouraged teachers to display Palestinian flags in their classrooms, wear T-shirts emblazoned with a pro-Palestinian message highly offensive to Jewish communities and lead lessons on Gaza that critics say are misleading and antisemitic.
Last month, the union — the Portland Association of Teachers — also posted a guide to its website titled “Know Your Rights! Teaching & Organizing for Palestine within Portland Public Schools” and linked to dozens of lesson plans and videos that many members of Jewish communities say demonize Jews and supporters of Zionism by focusing on the death, destruction and upheaval experienced by everyday Palestinians without mentioning the genesis of the Israel-Hamas war: Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, killing of civilians and taking of hundreds of hostages.
The lesson plans and videos refer to Jewish people who formed the nation of Israel as “colonial settlers” and Israel’s campaign to take down Hamas as “Israel’s Genocide on Gaza.” The union links to posters, as well, including ones that read: “Free Palestine” and “Israel, Stop Killing Peace.”
And at last week’s meeting at union headquarters, organizers and supporters were handing out Palestinian flags and selling shirts that read “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a phrase that Palestinians say describes their right to reclaim land from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean but that the vast majority of Israelis and many Jews consider a threatening call for the destruction of Israel, even at the cost of many Israeli lives.
David Kosak, a rabbi at Congregation Neveh Shalom in Southwest Portland and a Portland Public Schools parent, said the guide and lesson plans distort the facts, seek to “inculcate and indoctrinate” students to one set of views and have left many Jews in the area feeling “unsafe and attacked.”
“Any person with a heart ought to be disturbed about the conditions in Gaza,” Kosak said. “But using words correctly matters. And it creates hatred when you use them incorrectly. …They’re laying the groundwork for ever increasing amounts of hatred of Jews.”
Several other Jewish parents, teachers and parents who have no ties to Judaism also told The Oregonian/OregonLive that the union’s publication of the “Know Your Rights” guide and lesson plans are the latest blow after what they feel like have been months of one-sided advocacy supported by the union. In a newsletter, the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland also condemned the union’s actions, calling them “deeply disturbing” and the guide full of “dangerous misconceptions.”
The union responds
Angela Bonilla, president of the 4,500-member Portland Association of Teachers, said last week’s meeting, the “Know Your Rights” guide and the lesson plans on the union’s website aren’t antisemitic. [IMO Bonilla is a woke clown.] They’re simply supporting the right of educators to teach the Palestinian perspective, which she said has often been overlooked and disregarded.
“We are vehemently against any forms of bigotry, including antisemitism,” Bonilla told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
But, Bonilla added: “As educators and as a social justice union, as a racial justice union, we’re going to lift up the voices of those that have not been heard.”
Bonilla said what happened Oct. 7 was “an atrocity,” but teachers shouldn’t be squelched for talking about what happened in the months after.
“I refuse to have Oct. 7 be the beginning and end of the conversation,” she said.
The guide, produced by the union and Oregon Educators for Palestine, states it was created “in response to the censorship, discrimination, and harassment that many PPS education workers have experienced and are currently experiencing at the hands of PPS District ‘Leadership.’” The guide goes on to say that the district “has been actively censoring teachers and other education workers” who’ve taught about Gaza or expressed pro-Palestinian sentiments in schools since last fall.
The “Know Your Rights” guide uses multiple photos by Mark Graves, a photographer for The Oregonian/OregonLive. But the guide’s creators didn’t have the permission of the news organization to publish them and agreed Monday to remove those photos.
Bonilla said the union posted the lesson plans on its website after students demanded the district start teaching about the plight of Palestinians during their walkout in support of Gaza in March. Bonilla said the union asked the district to support that demand, among others. But after the district didn’t, the union posted the lesson plans on its website.
District officials say they’re not aware of any such request by the union, nor would the 10 weeks since the walkout be enough time to develop such a curriculum.
Defining the line
The union’s stance has thrust the school district into the difficult position of balancing teachers’ academic freedom to teach what the district calls ”controversial issues” with stopping teachers from espousing one-sided political views that many — Jews especially — consider antisemitic.
The district also must balance the impact such lesson plans have on students who are Jewish, Israeli, Palestinian, Muslim, Arab or have no ties to the region and know only what their teachers impart.
The lesson plans are tailored for students from preschool and kindergarten to the 12th grade.
For instance, a lesson plan meant for preschool through second-graders suggests teachers explain to students: “Palestinians have been working to be safe and free in their homes for a long time, even when Israel makes unfair, unsafe, and hurtful rules.”
Another lesson plan for second- and third-graders mentions nothing of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel and instead states the Israeli government has been “attacking and killing Palestinian people there (in Gaza),” adding “the Israeli army has done this many times and many Palestinian people have been hurt by this.”
The lesson plans also encourage educators to weave the Palestinian perspective into a wide range of curricula — from social studies and history to math problems, poetry and art.
The power of school districts to intervene when administrators believe teachers cross the line into advocacy is based on prior court rulings. For instance, in 2022, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Evergreen School District in Vancouver had violated a teacher’s free speech rights after he couldn’t bring his “Make America Great Again” hat to a teacher training. But the court also ruled that a district could restrict a teacher from expressing their political views if that expression created a “tangible disruption” to school operations.
The rest of the story appears behind a paywall here: https://www.oregonlive.com/education/2024/06/tensions-flare-as-portland-teachers-union-promotes-pro-palestinian-teaching-guides.html
A search of The Oregonian's site will yield subsequent reporting on this story. https://www.oregonlive.com
Thank you, Abigail, for so ably covering this critical topic.
The depths to which the Marxists have sunk, in trying to destroy our nation and culture, is hard to put into words. To describe their conduct as appalling and unconscionable just doesn't do justice to what they have been doing. It is terrible what they are doing on college campuses, but brainwashing little kids this way is criminal, or at least it should be.
That said, it is gratifying to see that Americans are getting fed up with these Marxists who have been running wild for years and that we will soon have a president who actually cares about children and Jewish people and about holding criminals accountable.
Let all the children know that Gaza may be free. Israel is working on that as we speak.
Israel has accomplished what I would have thought was impossible. It has caused Gen Z-ers to respect the Nazi Party. Israel is and should be condemned for war crimes.