If you read one analysis of why so many students are protesting Israel since it reacted to the murderous October 7th massacre by hamas, read Larry Sands’ commentary at frontpagemag.com, titled “Schools For Hamas-cide”.
Here is how it begins:
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.
Is that scary to you? Scary enough to get you to check and see what children in your area are being taught? Believe me when I tell you the rest of Mr. Sands’ article, if possible, will probably scare you even further.
Considering the above, here is a fact you might find interesting: last week (before this article was published), I contacted our local board of education, the regional board of education, our Mayor’s office, the Governor’s office and my congressperson (Rep. Andy Kim), and suggested that, under the heading of current events, they use their influence to see that middle school and high school students be required to read and discuss the hamas covenant – that is, the document written by hamas itself, that states, in its own words, what its positions are and how it intends to pursue them.
Here (with apologies; I know I’ve posted this before, but it is 100% germane here) are a few of its “highlights.
The second paragraph of the charter:
Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it” (The Martyr, Imam Hassan al-Banna, of blessed memory).
The fifth paragraph of the introduction:
This Covenant of the Islamic Resistance Movement (HAMAS), clarifies its picture, reveals its identity, outlines its stand, explains its aims, speaks about its hopes, and calls for its support, adoption and joining its ranks. Our struggle against the Jews is very great and very serious. It needs all sincere efforts. It is a step that inevitably should be followed by other steps. The Movement is but one squadron that should be supported by more and more squadrons from this vast Arab and Islamic world, until the enemy is vanquished and Allah’s victory is realised.
The last part of Article 7:
Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah’s promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.” (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
Article 8:
Allah is its target, the Prophet is its model, the Koran its constitution: Jihad is its path and death for the sake of Allah is the loftiest of its wishes.
Article 11, first paragraph:
The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. Neither a single Arab country nor all Arab countries, neither any king or president, nor all the kings and presidents, neither any organization nor all of them, be they Palestinian or Arab, possess the right to do that. Palestine is an Islamic Waqf land consecrated for Moslem generations until Judgement Day. This being so, who could claim to have the right to represent Moslem generations till Judgement Day?
Article 13, first two paragraphs:
Initiatives, and so-called peaceful solutions and international conferences, are in contradiction to the principles of the Islamic Resistance Movement. Abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion. Its members have been fed on that. For the sake of hoisting the banner of Allah over their homeland they fight. “Allah will be prominent, but most people do not know.”
Now and then the call goes out for the convening of an international conference to look for ways of solving the (Palestinian) question. Some accept, others reject the idea, for this or other reason, with one stipulation or more for consent to convening the conference and participating in it. Knowing the parties constituting the conference, their past and present attitudes towards Moslem problems, the Islamic Resistance Movement does not consider these conferences capable of realising the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Moslems as arbitraters. When did the infidels do justice to the believers?
How can students intelligently discuss this issue if they do not know this? I can’t come up with a way…which is why I have contacted the boards of education and government officials mentioned earlier – all of whom have gotten back to me and at least claimed they are considering my suggestion.
I will let you know if anything besides the “we’re looking into it” status takes place.
