The slaughter in Gaza has exposed the presence of Jew hatred in many of our schools.
While the slaying of some 1,400 Jews by Hamas is a major tragedy in and of itself, other important facets of the story merit attention. For example, a Harris poll taken after the massacre reveals that 51% of American 18-24-year-olds think the murder of innocent Jewish men, women, and babies was justified, and much of this Jew hatred can be attributed to our nation’s schools.
Rethinking Schools, a radical activist outfit established in 1986, whose products are used by 200,000 teachers and are on university reading lists, asserts that educators have a “moral and educational responsibility” to join and teach about “the movement to boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel.”
Also, a wing of Rethinking Schools, the Zinn Education Project, which has developed history curricula since 2008, is used by 155,000 teachers nationwide. On October 10, the organization declared that the terror, violence, murder, and rape we’ve seen in the past week “is the direct result of decades of Israeli occupation.”
In Oakland, the teachers union has accused Israel of carrying out genocide and ethnic cleansing. The teachers union in Seattle passed a resolution in 2021 supporting the same lie. In Virginia, a school board member in Fairfax County has, under the banner of culturally responsive pedagogy, pushed for an explicitly anti-Israeli curriculum.
Also, Black Lives Matter, which has had success infiltrating our public schools, insists that the recent events in the Middle East are a “direct result of decades of Israeli settler colonialism, land dispossession, occupation, blockade, apartheid, and attempted genocide of millions of Palestinians.”
Then there are the colleges. The colleges! Yes, the same cohort of far-left, cultural ignoramuses who can’t define what a woman is and offers classes like “Queering Menstruation” and “Anal 101” are now, not surprisingly, weighing in on the Middle East.
In addition to Black Lives Matter and Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion tenets have become de rigeur on college campuses. The DEI-ists see everything in black and white, labeling white people as oppressors and blacks as the oppressed.While DEI typically concerns itself with USA issues, Israel, too, is on the hook, being tarred as a bastion of Jewish whiteness with a racist commitment to shattering the lives of Palestinians, who are considered people of color.
Tabia Lee, a former collegiate DEI director, explains that DEI drives campus antisemitism. She once hosted Jewish speakers on campus with the goal of “promoting diversity and inclusion by sharing different perspectives.” But she was deemed not radical enough, and was told in no uncertain terms that Jews are “white oppressors” and that it was her job to “decenter whiteness.”
