Tensions flare as Portland teachers’ union promotes pro-Palestinian teaching guides – oregonlive.com:
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.
I’ve argued for years now that political advocacy does not belong in public education classrooms. This is just the latest example of why.
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, videos and other resources 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 resources refer to Jewish people who formed the nation of Israel as “colonial settlers” and Israel’s campaign against 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 call for the destruction of Israel, even at the cost of many Israeli lives.
I have no idea what is gained by dividing the Portland educational community through this rhetoric. No one in Portland will have the least bit of influence over the events in the Middle East. It’s like these people are actively trying to alienate potential supporters.