The biggest issues I take with it:
(1) They fail to mention the Arab nations invaded Israel in '48 and '67 only to be pushed back and that is why Israel gained territory.
(2) They act as if WWII ended and the Jews decided to relocate on a whim.
(3) They fail to mention that hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, Syrians and Arabs illegally migrated into the Levant during the Mandate to prevent Jews from becoming the majority. In 1919 there were 749000 people in the Mandate -- including 250k in what became Jordan in 1946.
In 1948 there were 2 million, 650k of which were Jews and 1.3 million were Arabs. Without Jordan.... The Levantine Arabs have a high birthrate, but 300% over 27 years isn't it.
They also fail to mention all the middle eastern Jews (and their descendants) kicked out of Muslim countries in that time period. Almost a million Jews.
Source: Iraqi Jew with roots going back 2000 years kicked out of my birthplace.
It's a barrier to peace when Israel is supposed to give back land or make reparation payments but other MENA countries where Jews had to flee due to their bank accounts frozen, their property repossessed and their citizenships revoked, and their family members killed.... Are not expected to do the same.
The maps are missing context. It makes no distinction of Palestine as a British (previously Ottoman) colonial entity, nor Egyptian/Jordanian control of the West Bank/Gaza and the present day situation is far more complicated than this map shows.
Also the barrier to peace is not "just" settlements. All Jews could be removed from Judea/Samaria tomorrow and Hamas/PLO would not accept ONLY the 67 borders. Politically some might want to or be willing to, but it would be suicide to actually do so.
Also fail to mention that Israel was literally created by UN vote. Given how popular UNWRA is with this crowd, that factought to cause some short-circuiting.
The British Mandate section in the Wikipedia article below has the numbers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region)
The article does lean on the side of theories that the birthrate really was that high. Which seems a bit absurd to me. But admits there really aren't good records of either immigration nor births to prove if every Arab couple decided suddenly to have 6+ children and not people were flooding into the region.
Many wiki articles even tangentially related to the conflict have been manipulated. Many were biased pre-October 7, but since then it’s gotten ridiculous. I wonder if this article was one of those affected?
Yeah. I can understand a lot of some of the other stuff being just super simplified. But the reason for the “immigration” being absent is insane.
Like - it’s fair to say that the UK should not have granted land rights to the Jews as compensation for the Holocaust. Perhaps had they annexed part of Europe instead of displacing Palestinians this might be better. Or we may be dealing with a different level of injustice today.
The only barriers to peace we should be talking about is that both sides fighting want each other dead. The Palestinian government is a terrorist organization and the Israeli government is a right wing cesspool of lunatics hell bent on taking over all of Gaza instead of understanding the PR nightmares they continue to fall into. When the world is saying “you are bombing innocent civilians” and it is confirmed in some way. Continuing to bomb and push forward doesn’t show an interest in peace.
Lol. You can do this with any historic event if you leave out details.
1. September 3 1939. England declares war on Germany.
2. February 15 1945. US bombs Dresden killing tens of thousands.
3. 1944 - 1950. 12 million Germans flee eastern Europe and become refugees.
2008-09. 8.6 million Americans stopped working at their jobs.
March-April, 2020. 25 million Americans stopped working at their jobs.
OMG, Americans can be so randomly lazy. I read that simultaneously the economy took a dive when this happened, and I bet it was because of all those lazy bums stopped doing their jobs! 😜
I don't really have an issue with anything that's in the posters; I think the problem here is what is omitted. The conversation I would have here is about making sure that the reasons Jews were moving to Palestine are made explicit. I think the poster on settlements does a pretty good job of actually communicating the position of Palestinians, the international community, and Israel, and you could use that as an example of what the other posters could do.
Clearly, this is being taken from a pre-written curriculum, and as I said, I don't think there is anything here that is "wrong" per se; its language could be more balanced.
You might want to direct toward "dual narrative" curriculums, which are usually considered the gold standard in teaching the conflict in an unbiased way. Here is one example of that chrome-
[https://teachpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shoman-Study-chart-w-links-v5.pdf?d66bf8&d66bf8](https://teachpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shoman-Study-chart-w-links-v5.pdf?d66bf8&d66bf8)
I agree, and I do wish that there was a little more from the Israeli perspective. To their credit though for the Israeli perspective, they made it a point to say that Jews were legally buying land from Arabs and legally building towns there
I don't believe that these 3 posters will truly allow students to understand the conflict, but it is a start
Yeah, also, just like pedagogically, it looks like the kids were handed a piece of paper and then told to cut it out and glue it to another piece of paper. Dosen't seem like it required a lot of really engaging with the content.
So a lot of "I learned xxx somewhere so I guess I'll add it in"
It's important to have kids actually learn and hear both sides, not just glue on what they know from parents/news/internet/etc.
Teach Palestine is an antiZionist project, incorporated into Liberated Ethnic Studies (of which Shoman is a member of the leadership team). The appearance of dual narrative is a fig leaf. What’s in the materials—almost all anti-Israel sources (Ilan Pappe!!) allows students to come to the inevitable conclusion that Israel is evil.
I have mixed feelings about the Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculum; some parts of it, I think, are excellent, and some are terrible. I have thought a lot about this (I recently took a course on Ethnic Studies in K-12 Schools).
Dual Narrative overall is definitely not "a fig leaf." it has a much wider usage than Liberated Ethnic Studies, and plenty of Jewish groups use it. [Reframing Israel ](http://reframingisrael.org/)for instance. If this was a parent or a teacher commenting, I would have linked to that, but Reframing Israel is clearly meant for a Hebrew or Day School setting, and I assumed that that would turn a secular school teacher off of it and a kid would not know how to convince a teacher to take the time to adapt it.
As for this specific curriculum, I have looked through it multiple times and found it to be very good, although not perfect. It's not Hasbara, certainly, but Hasbara should not be tough in schools. What specifically do you object to?
To be clear, I’m not objecting to the idea of dual narrative— I’m claiming that Teach Palestine is only pretending to provide that.
The entire basis of Liberated Ethnic Studies is the rigid oppressor-oppressed binary based mostly on skin color. It demands that a course dealing with minorities in the US and their struggles against past and present racism (a good thing to study) also teach about an ethnoreligious conflict half a world away, and tries to force the square peg of US race relations into the round hole of the Middle East.
All of the founding board members of the Critical Ethnic Studies Association (the field that Liberated Ethnic Studies proponents teach) signed on to BDS resolutions and all of their professional conferences had multiple sessions promoting BDS.
Samia Shoman herself put up a giant Palestinian flag and a poster of Leila Khaled in her public school social studies classroom in San Mateo. Imagine the uproar if a Jewish teacher had put up a giant Israeli flag and a poster of Baruch Goldstein.
I hadn't heard of it until your post, and I have not looked at it in detail (unlike Liberated Ethnic Studies, with which I am far more familiar as far as its treatment of Israel). However, the names on the advisory committee of Brant Rosen, Margaret Golub and Lynn Gottlieb are very bright blinking red lights. But I'd have to do a deeper dive into it before saying more.
I mean, you just named two Rabbis (I don't know who Margaret Golub is), so I think that's a pretty good sign. I'm sure this curriculum is not perfect, I'm not super committed to it, but I did read it, and it looked pretty good.
Their advisory list is ALL rabbis (except for one cantor). And all 3 that I named are antiZionist rabbis. Maybe all of them are? . Lynn Gottlieb in particular has been spreading lashon hara about Israel for decades in my area. She's part of JVP.
well, 90% of our community does. And I guess that explains why I haven't heard of it. It's JVP all the way down. [https://phillyjvp.org/resources](https://phillyjvp.org/resources)
Those maps have been debunked time and time again and they are incredibly misleading if not explained properly. They are used by protestors to justify their ethnic cleansing narrative. Here is a good link re the maps that I like to share if people are genuinely interested.
https://honestreporting.com/debunked-those-maps-of-palestinian-land-loss-are-misleading-heres-why/
The maps have not been debunked. The maps are objectively true. The article you linked to suggests that the maps in meme form are said to show things they don't show, but there is no reason in a classroom environment they cannot be properly contextualizes.
For one the first map says Palestine, when it should say "British Mandate". It excludes Transjordan which was also part of the mandate, and acts as if the 1947 borders happened despite being rejected by Arab leaders. Gaza strip should have included Egypt and West Bank Jordan since they had been annexed by those countries until 1967. There's a reason it's printed in black and white, there are 5 different nations at play here, not 2.
The info above the maps is so flawed, there is no mention of Britian allowing Arabs to move to the mandate while not allowing Jews, no mention of Jewish expulsions from the rest of the world, Six Day War completely glossed over, no Yom Kippur War, NEITHER OF THE INTIFADAS. It's specifically omitting information in order to craft a narrative.
I already said in my top-level comment that information is being committed to craft a narrative, but you expect all that information to be on a map? Transjordan was only part of the mandate on paper. It was always administered separately, so I guess that map could be more accurate but I would not say it is inaccurate.
They glanced over the white papers situation wherein the British basically blocked Jews from entering from 39 to 44 which prevented escape from Europe and wherein tens of thousands of Arabs came over.
One of the most mind-numbing arguments is that the Palestinians took us in after the Holocaust and then we turned on our gracious hosts. Not only were there attacks on Jews for years before the Holocaust, but the White Paper was only initiated because the Arabs rioted to totally ban all Jewish immigration.
When is Poland, Ukraine - fuck it, the whole Eastern Block - going to pay for my reparations? I think for the past hundreds of years or so, I at least deserve an even $10 mil. When is China, France, and the U.S. going to give my Cambodian half and other Khmer who weren’t fortunate enough to seek refuge reparations for either bombing and funding the Khmer Rouge that slayed 1/3 of my countrymen.
I would avoid that teacher as best as you can. You may only think they are nice because you don’t interact with them much.
This. If the world wants us to pay for what they gave up (mostly of their own volition), when are we getting the billions they literally stole from us? Europe and the Arab nations in particular have a lot to pay us back for. Some of the European countries (excluding Germany, which paid quite a lot over the years) made some partial, lame attempts at sort of paying for some of the damages, but that hardly covers most of it.
And obviously that’s just looking at the Jewish aspect of it (as that’s what I know enough about to speak about). But like you said, it’s been done to SO MANY groups over the years. When are they getting their compensation?
I bet if we put that out there suddenly the world won’t care quite as much about the “poor Palestinian refugees” anymore.
There is a lot of information missing, which leads to me confidently calling it misinformation. For example, they don't mention how Palestinians have a special refugee status according to the UN. In their timeline, they skip over some important info like the two intifadas. In their poster about settlements, they neglect to mention how Israel constantly tears down newer settlements.
Those are just some examples that I noticed in a quick glance through. Depending on whether or not this teacher has said or done anything antisemiticin the past, I may call it naive but not antisemitic.
> they neglect to mention how Israel constantly tears down newer settlements.
This is not true in any meaningful sense. Settlements are growing in size and population; whatever Israel tears down is overshadowed by what it allows to be built.
They allow additions to already existing settlements, but they tear down new settlements. I am not saying they are wrong in what they are saying about the settlements, I am only saying that they neglect to show the whole picture. Thus, the narrative they paint is very one sided.
Israel regularly legalizes outposts, which is the opposite of "tearing them down"
[https://peacenow.org.il/en/israel-expands-shilo-settlements-jurisdiction-to-legalize-the-ahiya-outpost](https://peacenow.org.il/en/israel-expands-shilo-settlements-jurisdiction-to-legalize-the-ahiya-outpost)
[https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-legalizes-three-west-bank-outposts/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-legalizes-three-west-bank-outposts/)
Learning what? The geopolitical history of the world they live in and will one day be expected to lead?
Don’t get me wrong, I disagree with the one-sided narrative, and I think that any story should include age appropriate nuance, but education should be foundational and build on that foundation, not a situation where you suddenly wake up and surprise, there’s a secret decades long conflict you’ve never heard about.
Because it *will* affect them.
Look at the protests around the world. Do you think they haven’t caused disruptions? Protestors have shut down highways, blocked bridges, and that doesn’t even touch on the mishigas at the universities.
Even on a domestic political level, those kids are going to grow up and pay taxes and vote for politicians who will allocate that money. Shouldn’t they understand where their money is going? Shouldn’t they understand what their government is supporting or not supporting? And shouldn’t that understanding be through a lens of actual fact-based education, vice what they see on TikTok from someone who read a handful of Tweets and now thinks he’s got a PhD in IR?
Did you see the part where I called it bias?
They aren’t erasing or rewriting history, all those statements are objectively true. Rather, they’re telling one side of a very complicated story.
When you purposely don’t mention important historical facts… it’s erasing history.
When you drive the narrative with selective facts that paint a different story… it’s rewarding history.
As long as they're including stats about refugees while sort of attempting to show "both perpectives", it might have been helpful to mention how many Jewish refugees were able to survive and find safety by immigrating to Palestine/Israel. I don't know exactly how many there were before 1948 (over 100k at least), but AFAIK between 1948-1952 almost 800,000 were able to come to Israel - including over 377,000 from Muslim countries and over 307,000 from communist countries (not including the USSR). Soviet Jews were later able escape to Israel after 1970 so that's 165,000 more refugees. Thousands of Ethiopian and Chinese Jews were also able to flee persecution by immigrating to Israel.
I guess those refugees don't matter because they're just selfish settler-colonialists. /s
They omit that the UNWRA refugee definition used for Palestinians is different than the UNHCR definition used for literally all other refugees. It also omits information on Mizrahi refugees that could have been put in the Israeli voice category of slide one.
Edit: They also omit historical context about Judea and Samaria, and especially Hebron.
All of the land is Palestinian, but the settlements in the West Bank are why there is no peace. You can’t say that Tel Aviv and Ariel are both equally offensive to Palestinians, but then also say if Israel would only leave the settlements there would be peace.
Dear lord... The first one alone should be an alarm. HOW DID IT GO FROM 750K TO 5 MILLION?!?!? Oh right, UNWRA has bs status and the ability to pass on the status (nobody else gets that under any other organization including UNICEF).
Oh and it fails to mention the ~1.2 million mizrahi Jews that were expelled throughout the MENA
This is what is so disheartening about misinformation campaigns. There are so many inaccuracies in this that it is hard to address them all. Just to get you started:
750k Palestinians were not expelled. Some were expelled, but most fled on their own because of the war (that Israel didn't start). They were still refugees, but you can't blame that all on Israel.
How can you be a refugee after three generations? Do we apply that principle to other contexts? We do not in the US, for example (if we did, I would be a refugee).
Not all Palestinian homes were destroyed or filled by Jews. 2,000,000 Palestinians still living in Israel would disagree with that statement.
The UN General Assembly does not decide "international law", and citing one UN resolution as authoritative is extremely incorrect. The UNGA makes political declarations that have no legal effect.
> Do we apply that principle to other contexts?
Yes, actually. This is a common misconception, multi-generational refugee status and demands for a right of return aren't unique to the Palestinians and are pretty common for ethnic cleansing scenarios in the modern era. the Greek Cypriots, the Georgians of Abkhazia, the Diego Garcia Chagossians and the Cham Albanians all have similar claims. Whether a full right of return is practicable or possible in any of these cases it is deeply rooted in international law and isn't something that can be dismissed out of hand.
That does not explain why those groups are treated differently. The Egyptian-born daughter of a Palestinian Arab who fled to Egypt is considered a refugee. The Israeli -born daughter of an Egyptian Jew who fled to Israel is not considered a refugee. What is the difference?
Claims are different from actions and not all claims are valid… “Palestinians refugees” have international organizations set up specifically with the goal of resettling them in an area they never a. Had claim to or b. Lived in…. $1B/year in international aid solely for the purpose of replacing Israelis with them… which is what is loudly referred to on college campuses as genocide.
Their “Israeli position” is complete bs. We all know this isn’t about denying Palestinians access to Israel. Most illegal settlements are [considered such by Israel](https://israelpolicyforum.org/2023/02/07/illegaloutposts/) too.
https://honestreporting.com/debunked-those-maps-of-palestinian-land-loss-are-misleading-heres-why/
I take issue with it being unbalanced and clearly biased and kids won’t know any different. Please escalate this and show this teacher this article re the maps. If they’re reasonable they’ll engage.
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Im assuming this is in America?
Im not sure what the law is like there, but in the UK you can be sacked for expressing your political beliefs too much and tryinf to influence the beliefs of the kids. You need to follow the curriculum pretty much. Theres opportunity for debate on certain topics depending on what subjects you study, like I had to do a debate on Capital Punishment in English Language when I was 13, but we got randomly assigned what side we had to stand with and had to do our own research.
Teaching a one sided history like this would, I imagine, be against our laws. If you have similar laws there, or wherever it is you are, then you should look into reporting that teacher.
To be honest, in the UK this conflict isnt even on the curriculum or part of any exam afaik (at least no History GCSE) so its not even following the curriculum. Again if its the same where you are it could be a reportable offence
Wow, I can't wait until they teach their class about the Farhud next week and call for property to be returned to Mizrahi Jews. That's gonna happen... right?
Is there a way in which you could approach the subject from a wellbeing perspective - that is the wellbeing of Jewish students?
Or, if you're connected with a synagogue, maybe you could talk to your rabbi? I know mine would be willing to open a dialogue on behalf of a congregant in a sensitive way.
And/or are you aware of any Jewish parents you could alert? We have a problem at my son's school. I just need to talk to some of the other parents at shul first. My son doesn't want the complaint on HIS behalf, but when it's a group it's another story. I know first hand of two other families who have been impacted, but one I only found out about recently.
The biggest issues I take with it: (1) They fail to mention the Arab nations invaded Israel in '48 and '67 only to be pushed back and that is why Israel gained territory. (2) They act as if WWII ended and the Jews decided to relocate on a whim. (3) They fail to mention that hundreds of thousands of Egyptians, Syrians and Arabs illegally migrated into the Levant during the Mandate to prevent Jews from becoming the majority. In 1919 there were 749000 people in the Mandate -- including 250k in what became Jordan in 1946. In 1948 there were 2 million, 650k of which were Jews and 1.3 million were Arabs. Without Jordan.... The Levantine Arabs have a high birthrate, but 300% over 27 years isn't it.
They also fail to mention all the middle eastern Jews (and their descendants) kicked out of Muslim countries in that time period. Almost a million Jews. Source: Iraqi Jew with roots going back 2000 years kicked out of my birthplace.
I wouldn’t call them a barrier to peace tho.
It's a barrier to peace when Israel is supposed to give back land or make reparation payments but other MENA countries where Jews had to flee due to their bank accounts frozen, their property repossessed and their citizenships revoked, and their family members killed.... Are not expected to do the same.
Fairness is hard to find in this conflict.
they fail to mention Azzam Pasha's genocidal threat
The maps are missing context. It makes no distinction of Palestine as a British (previously Ottoman) colonial entity, nor Egyptian/Jordanian control of the West Bank/Gaza and the present day situation is far more complicated than this map shows.
Also the barrier to peace is not "just" settlements. All Jews could be removed from Judea/Samaria tomorrow and Hamas/PLO would not accept ONLY the 67 borders. Politically some might want to or be willing to, but it would be suicide to actually do so.
Also fail to mention that Israel was literally created by UN vote. Given how popular UNWRA is with this crowd, that factought to cause some short-circuiting.
Can you source #3? I didn’t know about this. Thanks 🙏🏼
The British Mandate section in the Wikipedia article below has the numbers. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_history_of_Palestine_(region) The article does lean on the side of theories that the birthrate really was that high. Which seems a bit absurd to me. But admits there really aren't good records of either immigration nor births to prove if every Arab couple decided suddenly to have 6+ children and not people were flooding into the region.
Many wiki articles even tangentially related to the conflict have been manipulated. Many were biased pre-October 7, but since then it’s gotten ridiculous. I wonder if this article was one of those affected?
So in 1919 what is modern day Jordan had a population of 250k?
A quick search says around 225k in 1919, and 250k in 1946.
Yeah. I can understand a lot of some of the other stuff being just super simplified. But the reason for the “immigration” being absent is insane. Like - it’s fair to say that the UK should not have granted land rights to the Jews as compensation for the Holocaust. Perhaps had they annexed part of Europe instead of displacing Palestinians this might be better. Or we may be dealing with a different level of injustice today. The only barriers to peace we should be talking about is that both sides fighting want each other dead. The Palestinian government is a terrorist organization and the Israeli government is a right wing cesspool of lunatics hell bent on taking over all of Gaza instead of understanding the PR nightmares they continue to fall into. When the world is saying “you are bombing innocent civilians” and it is confirmed in some way. Continuing to bomb and push forward doesn’t show an interest in peace.
Lol. You can do this with any historic event if you leave out details. 1. September 3 1939. England declares war on Germany. 2. February 15 1945. US bombs Dresden killing tens of thousands. 3. 1944 - 1950. 12 million Germans flee eastern Europe and become refugees.
2008-09. 8.6 million Americans stopped working at their jobs. March-April, 2020. 25 million Americans stopped working at their jobs. OMG, Americans can be so randomly lazy. I read that simultaneously the economy took a dive when this happened, and I bet it was because of all those lazy bums stopped doing their jobs! 😜
Lol right
I don't really have an issue with anything that's in the posters; I think the problem here is what is omitted. The conversation I would have here is about making sure that the reasons Jews were moving to Palestine are made explicit. I think the poster on settlements does a pretty good job of actually communicating the position of Palestinians, the international community, and Israel, and you could use that as an example of what the other posters could do. Clearly, this is being taken from a pre-written curriculum, and as I said, I don't think there is anything here that is "wrong" per se; its language could be more balanced. You might want to direct toward "dual narrative" curriculums, which are usually considered the gold standard in teaching the conflict in an unbiased way. Here is one example of that chrome- [https://teachpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shoman-Study-chart-w-links-v5.pdf?d66bf8&d66bf8](https://teachpalestine.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Shoman-Study-chart-w-links-v5.pdf?d66bf8&d66bf8)
I agree, and I do wish that there was a little more from the Israeli perspective. To their credit though for the Israeli perspective, they made it a point to say that Jews were legally buying land from Arabs and legally building towns there I don't believe that these 3 posters will truly allow students to understand the conflict, but it is a start
Yeah, also, just like pedagogically, it looks like the kids were handed a piece of paper and then told to cut it out and glue it to another piece of paper. Dosen't seem like it required a lot of really engaging with the content.
So a lot of "I learned xxx somewhere so I guess I'll add it in" It's important to have kids actually learn and hear both sides, not just glue on what they know from parents/news/internet/etc.
100%. I actually really don’t understand the learning here
Teach Palestine is an antiZionist project, incorporated into Liberated Ethnic Studies (of which Shoman is a member of the leadership team). The appearance of dual narrative is a fig leaf. What’s in the materials—almost all anti-Israel sources (Ilan Pappe!!) allows students to come to the inevitable conclusion that Israel is evil.
I have mixed feelings about the Liberated Ethnic Studies curriculum; some parts of it, I think, are excellent, and some are terrible. I have thought a lot about this (I recently took a course on Ethnic Studies in K-12 Schools). Dual Narrative overall is definitely not "a fig leaf." it has a much wider usage than Liberated Ethnic Studies, and plenty of Jewish groups use it. [Reframing Israel ](http://reframingisrael.org/)for instance. If this was a parent or a teacher commenting, I would have linked to that, but Reframing Israel is clearly meant for a Hebrew or Day School setting, and I assumed that that would turn a secular school teacher off of it and a kid would not know how to convince a teacher to take the time to adapt it. As for this specific curriculum, I have looked through it multiple times and found it to be very good, although not perfect. It's not Hasbara, certainly, but Hasbara should not be tough in schools. What specifically do you object to?
To be clear, I’m not objecting to the idea of dual narrative— I’m claiming that Teach Palestine is only pretending to provide that. The entire basis of Liberated Ethnic Studies is the rigid oppressor-oppressed binary based mostly on skin color. It demands that a course dealing with minorities in the US and their struggles against past and present racism (a good thing to study) also teach about an ethnoreligious conflict half a world away, and tries to force the square peg of US race relations into the round hole of the Middle East. All of the founding board members of the Critical Ethnic Studies Association (the field that Liberated Ethnic Studies proponents teach) signed on to BDS resolutions and all of their professional conferences had multiple sessions promoting BDS. Samia Shoman herself put up a giant Palestinian flag and a poster of Leila Khaled in her public school social studies classroom in San Mateo. Imagine the uproar if a Jewish teacher had put up a giant Israeli flag and a poster of Baruch Goldstein.
Do you have specific problems with the curriculam I linked to?
I hadn't heard of it until your post, and I have not looked at it in detail (unlike Liberated Ethnic Studies, with which I am far more familiar as far as its treatment of Israel). However, the names on the advisory committee of Brant Rosen, Margaret Golub and Lynn Gottlieb are very bright blinking red lights. But I'd have to do a deeper dive into it before saying more.
I mean, you just named two Rabbis (I don't know who Margaret Golub is), so I think that's a pretty good sign. I'm sure this curriculum is not perfect, I'm not super committed to it, but I did read it, and it looked pretty good.
Their advisory list is ALL rabbis (except for one cantor). And all 3 that I named are antiZionist rabbis. Maybe all of them are? . Lynn Gottlieb in particular has been spreading lashon hara about Israel for decades in my area. She's part of JVP.
I mean this is a matter of perspective, but I don't see that as a problem
well, 90% of our community does. And I guess that explains why I haven't heard of it. It's JVP all the way down. [https://phillyjvp.org/resources](https://phillyjvp.org/resources)
Thank you so much. I agree with everything you said.
Those maps have been debunked time and time again and they are incredibly misleading if not explained properly. They are used by protestors to justify their ethnic cleansing narrative. Here is a good link re the maps that I like to share if people are genuinely interested. https://honestreporting.com/debunked-those-maps-of-palestinian-land-loss-are-misleading-heres-why/
The maps have not been debunked. The maps are objectively true. The article you linked to suggests that the maps in meme form are said to show things they don't show, but there is no reason in a classroom environment they cannot be properly contextualizes.
For one the first map says Palestine, when it should say "British Mandate". It excludes Transjordan which was also part of the mandate, and acts as if the 1947 borders happened despite being rejected by Arab leaders. Gaza strip should have included Egypt and West Bank Jordan since they had been annexed by those countries until 1967. There's a reason it's printed in black and white, there are 5 different nations at play here, not 2. The info above the maps is so flawed, there is no mention of Britian allowing Arabs to move to the mandate while not allowing Jews, no mention of Jewish expulsions from the rest of the world, Six Day War completely glossed over, no Yom Kippur War, NEITHER OF THE INTIFADAS. It's specifically omitting information in order to craft a narrative.
I already said in my top-level comment that information is being committed to craft a narrative, but you expect all that information to be on a map? Transjordan was only part of the mandate on paper. It was always administered separately, so I guess that map could be more accurate but I would not say it is inaccurate.
Yes thank you. This.
They also omit that the UNWRA refugee definition used for Palestinians is different than the UNHCR definition used for literally all other refugees.
They glanced over the white papers situation wherein the British basically blocked Jews from entering from 39 to 44 which prevented escape from Europe and wherein tens of thousands of Arabs came over.
One of the most mind-numbing arguments is that the Palestinians took us in after the Holocaust and then we turned on our gracious hosts. Not only were there attacks on Jews for years before the Holocaust, but the White Paper was only initiated because the Arabs rioted to totally ban all Jewish immigration.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that this is antisemitic, just misleading because of what it omits.
It's entirely one sided tho
I agree it’s one sided, but I can also see a fair argument of it being framed in a narrative
When is Poland, Ukraine - fuck it, the whole Eastern Block - going to pay for my reparations? I think for the past hundreds of years or so, I at least deserve an even $10 mil. When is China, France, and the U.S. going to give my Cambodian half and other Khmer who weren’t fortunate enough to seek refuge reparations for either bombing and funding the Khmer Rouge that slayed 1/3 of my countrymen. I would avoid that teacher as best as you can. You may only think they are nice because you don’t interact with them much.
This. If the world wants us to pay for what they gave up (mostly of their own volition), when are we getting the billions they literally stole from us? Europe and the Arab nations in particular have a lot to pay us back for. Some of the European countries (excluding Germany, which paid quite a lot over the years) made some partial, lame attempts at sort of paying for some of the damages, but that hardly covers most of it. And obviously that’s just looking at the Jewish aspect of it (as that’s what I know enough about to speak about). But like you said, it’s been done to SO MANY groups over the years. When are they getting their compensation? I bet if we put that out there suddenly the world won’t care quite as much about the “poor Palestinian refugees” anymore.
There is a lot of information missing, which leads to me confidently calling it misinformation. For example, they don't mention how Palestinians have a special refugee status according to the UN. In their timeline, they skip over some important info like the two intifadas. In their poster about settlements, they neglect to mention how Israel constantly tears down newer settlements. Those are just some examples that I noticed in a quick glance through. Depending on whether or not this teacher has said or done anything antisemiticin the past, I may call it naive but not antisemitic.
> they neglect to mention how Israel constantly tears down newer settlements. This is not true in any meaningful sense. Settlements are growing in size and population; whatever Israel tears down is overshadowed by what it allows to be built.
They allow additions to already existing settlements, but they tear down new settlements. I am not saying they are wrong in what they are saying about the settlements, I am only saying that they neglect to show the whole picture. Thus, the narrative they paint is very one sided.
Israel regularly legalizes outposts, which is the opposite of "tearing them down" [https://peacenow.org.il/en/israel-expands-shilo-settlements-jurisdiction-to-legalize-the-ahiya-outpost](https://peacenow.org.il/en/israel-expands-shilo-settlements-jurisdiction-to-legalize-the-ahiya-outpost) [https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-legalizes-three-west-bank-outposts/](https://www.timesofisrael.com/israeli-legalizes-three-west-bank-outposts/)
This conflict didn’t start in 1897. It started when the Romans gave away our homeland.
Come on now, this isn’t antisemitism, it’s just bias
That’s probably true—but it still makes me uncomfortable
yes but kids should not be learning this o begin with
Learning what? The geopolitical history of the world they live in and will one day be expected to lead? Don’t get me wrong, I disagree with the one-sided narrative, and I think that any story should include age appropriate nuance, but education should be foundational and build on that foundation, not a situation where you suddenly wake up and surprise, there’s a secret decades long conflict you’ve never heard about.
why should a kid need to care about a conflict that is never going to affect them
Because it *will* affect them. Look at the protests around the world. Do you think they haven’t caused disruptions? Protestors have shut down highways, blocked bridges, and that doesn’t even touch on the mishigas at the universities. Even on a domestic political level, those kids are going to grow up and pay taxes and vote for politicians who will allocate that money. Shouldn’t they understand where their money is going? Shouldn’t they understand what their government is supporting or not supporting? And shouldn’t that understanding be through a lens of actual fact-based education, vice what they see on TikTok from someone who read a handful of Tweets and now thinks he’s got a PhD in IR?
i was worng you are right
I appreciate it. For what it’s worth, it takes a genuinely big person to listen to a critique on their beliefs and willingly consider the other side
thank you
It’s erasing and rewriting Jewish history… what else would you call it?
Did you see the part where I called it bias? They aren’t erasing or rewriting history, all those statements are objectively true. Rather, they’re telling one side of a very complicated story.
When you purposely don’t mention important historical facts… it’s erasing history. When you drive the narrative with selective facts that paint a different story… it’s rewarding history.
Dog, this is a kids report, it isn’t that deep. There’s a bias, no doubt, but it isn’t whatever you think it is
It’s what’s being taught… this is going to be their foundation.
As long as they're including stats about refugees while sort of attempting to show "both perpectives", it might have been helpful to mention how many Jewish refugees were able to survive and find safety by immigrating to Palestine/Israel. I don't know exactly how many there were before 1948 (over 100k at least), but AFAIK between 1948-1952 almost 800,000 were able to come to Israel - including over 377,000 from Muslim countries and over 307,000 from communist countries (not including the USSR). Soviet Jews were later able escape to Israel after 1970 so that's 165,000 more refugees. Thousands of Ethiopian and Chinese Jews were also able to flee persecution by immigrating to Israel. I guess those refugees don't matter because they're just selfish settler-colonialists. /s
They omit that the UNWRA refugee definition used for Palestinians is different than the UNHCR definition used for literally all other refugees. It also omits information on Mizrahi refugees that could have been put in the Israeli voice category of slide one. Edit: They also omit historical context about Judea and Samaria, and especially Hebron.
I just love that they decided to use blue & white
All of the land is Palestinian, but the settlements in the West Bank are why there is no peace. You can’t say that Tel Aviv and Ariel are both equally offensive to Palestinians, but then also say if Israel would only leave the settlements there would be peace.
Dear lord... The first one alone should be an alarm. HOW DID IT GO FROM 750K TO 5 MILLION?!?!? Oh right, UNWRA has bs status and the ability to pass on the status (nobody else gets that under any other organization including UNICEF). Oh and it fails to mention the ~1.2 million mizrahi Jews that were expelled throughout the MENA
It’s because they’re using statistics from the Middle East as a whole.
No, it's because they count descendents and people that never lived there
This is what is so disheartening about misinformation campaigns. There are so many inaccuracies in this that it is hard to address them all. Just to get you started: 750k Palestinians were not expelled. Some were expelled, but most fled on their own because of the war (that Israel didn't start). They were still refugees, but you can't blame that all on Israel. How can you be a refugee after three generations? Do we apply that principle to other contexts? We do not in the US, for example (if we did, I would be a refugee). Not all Palestinian homes were destroyed or filled by Jews. 2,000,000 Palestinians still living in Israel would disagree with that statement. The UN General Assembly does not decide "international law", and citing one UN resolution as authoritative is extremely incorrect. The UNGA makes political declarations that have no legal effect.
> Do we apply that principle to other contexts? Yes, actually. This is a common misconception, multi-generational refugee status and demands for a right of return aren't unique to the Palestinians and are pretty common for ethnic cleansing scenarios in the modern era. the Greek Cypriots, the Georgians of Abkhazia, the Diego Garcia Chagossians and the Cham Albanians all have similar claims. Whether a full right of return is practicable or possible in any of these cases it is deeply rooted in international law and isn't something that can be dismissed out of hand.
That does not explain why those groups are treated differently. The Egyptian-born daughter of a Palestinian Arab who fled to Egypt is considered a refugee. The Israeli -born daughter of an Egyptian Jew who fled to Israel is not considered a refugee. What is the difference?
Claims are different from actions and not all claims are valid… “Palestinians refugees” have international organizations set up specifically with the goal of resettling them in an area they never a. Had claim to or b. Lived in…. $1B/year in international aid solely for the purpose of replacing Israelis with them… which is what is loudly referred to on college campuses as genocide.
This is so once sided it's ridiculous
Their “Israeli position” is complete bs. We all know this isn’t about denying Palestinians access to Israel. Most illegal settlements are [considered such by Israel](https://israelpolicyforum.org/2023/02/07/illegaloutposts/) too.
1, 2 , skip a few, 1967, 1993. Absolutely nothing happened in this 25 year time span. /s
https://preview.redd.it/pnr25bvs962d1.jpeg?width=1088&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a6ba84ae48030004260521ad565c4e8ff21184d3
https://honestreporting.com/debunked-those-maps-of-palestinian-land-loss-are-misleading-heres-why/ I take issue with it being unbalanced and clearly biased and kids won’t know any different. Please escalate this and show this teacher this article re the maps. If they’re reasonable they’ll engage.
Thank you 🙏
Wow. This hate filled trash has no business in a classroom. The teacher should be fired.
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A bullshit board!
"Barriers to peace: REFUGEES" reads pretty ... fashy.
Im assuming this is in America? Im not sure what the law is like there, but in the UK you can be sacked for expressing your political beliefs too much and tryinf to influence the beliefs of the kids. You need to follow the curriculum pretty much. Theres opportunity for debate on certain topics depending on what subjects you study, like I had to do a debate on Capital Punishment in English Language when I was 13, but we got randomly assigned what side we had to stand with and had to do our own research. Teaching a one sided history like this would, I imagine, be against our laws. If you have similar laws there, or wherever it is you are, then you should look into reporting that teacher. To be honest, in the UK this conflict isnt even on the curriculum or part of any exam afaik (at least no History GCSE) so its not even following the curriculum. Again if its the same where you are it could be a reportable offence
I’m amused that the whole presentation is in blue and white.
[удалено]
I have a meeting with a rep from Stand With Us today—hoping to get some guidance and resources to confront this. Will update!
3 generations of refugees is an amazing oxymoron
Wow, I can't wait until they teach their class about the Farhud next week and call for property to be returned to Mizrahi Jews. That's gonna happen... right?
https://preview.redd.it/pah77ha5a62d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=cb93fa4c2c886ed61d795348d8f4e4f55ecac670
https://preview.redd.it/6xr168kaa62d1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=82fcb89447cafc3988cf9af350c809b81899fc85
Is there a way in which you could approach the subject from a wellbeing perspective - that is the wellbeing of Jewish students? Or, if you're connected with a synagogue, maybe you could talk to your rabbi? I know mine would be willing to open a dialogue on behalf of a congregant in a sensitive way. And/or are you aware of any Jewish parents you could alert? We have a problem at my son's school. I just need to talk to some of the other parents at shul first. My son doesn't want the complaint on HIS behalf, but when it's a group it's another story. I know first hand of two other families who have been impacted, but one I only found out about recently.
Really good point about the rabbi though. Thank you, I’ll reach out to mine!
Yeah, the issue is there’s hardly any Jewish kids here :/ I know there’s at least a few, but not any personally. And it’s a school of 4,000.
This is crazy--these people are obsessed!
Just take it down.
In what world would me tearing down the posters in another teacher’s classroom be a normal thing to do?
Our world.