Lying to America’s Kids about Israel
More propaganda may soon be coming to a school near you, thanks to some of the same groups that have already gotten calls for Israel’s destruction into K-12 curricula.
Pro-Palestinian activists, who could barely wait a day after the October 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 people in Israel by Hamas to accuse the Jewish state of genocide, are now mocking a strike on an Israeli hospital by Iranian missiles. It’s unlikely they’ll stop with a video and continue to support the Iranian regime.
Two organizations, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Palestine Youth Movement (PYM), go beyond praising Hamas and now Iran. Since October 7, they have influenced real-world school curricula with the truth nowhere to be found.
Both PYM and CAIR California have successfully inserted, or pressured, school districts into pushing their false narratives and ideologies about Israel into children’s classrooms. It’s not a stretch to imagine these same groups adding Iran to lesson plans as easily as they have added it to their list of grievances.
Recent history shows how these pro-Palestinian groups operate. Just two months after the Hamas attacks, the teachers union in Oakland partnered with PYM and held unauthorized teach-ins in several elementary and middle school classrooms. A YouTube video explaining why teachers should participate encouraged instructors to use their “labor power” to “show solidarity with the Palestinian people” and “play a small role in helping to shape the next generation.”
Of course, the video also managed to sneak in a call for Israel’s destruction, condemning its very existence.
Online teaching plans geared for students as young as kindergarten asked teachers to read books aloud, such as P for Palestine, and give lessons on settler colonialism and excessive force in the West Bank for middle and high school students.
Activists from PYM, Jewish Voice for Peace, and other groups recorded videos encouraging students to boycott Israel and join the liberation movement to free Palestine, according to local news reports. In response, Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) petitioned the Biden administration and California state officials to hold the taxpayer-funded teachers accountable and issue disciplinary actions. But the Oakland Unified School District later declined to discipline teachers involved in the effort.
Like PYM, CAIR California has also been busy trying to insert its ideology into classrooms.
In January, it announced that it had successfully persuaded the San Diego County Office of Education, which oversees 42 school districts, to revamp its teacher’s guide on the October 7 Hamas attacks. CAIR California argued the materials were “problematic,” without offering more public details explaining why.
It's clear that California school officials see CAIR California as a respectable civil rights organization, which is why its social media footprint is so troubling.
Unlike the little-known activists who are part of PYM and other advocacy organizations shilling for Iran, CAIR California is a serious group with offices and full-time employees. That makes it all the more surprising that they are sharing videos like the one above and spreading pro-Iranian propaganda.
Since the start of Israel’s bombing campaign against Iran, CAIR California has used social media to organize a steady stream of pro-Iranian protests that glorify terror. “From Iran to Palestine, Resistance is Justified,” demonstrators chant in a protest video shared to both CAIR San Francisco and PYM Bay Area Instagram accounts. The video caption warns that there is a “coordinated imperialist war strategy backed by the United States, aiming to crush all resistance to domination across the region.”
CAIR’s San Francisco office is also all over X and Instagram using the hackneyed, inaccurate trope that accuses the U.S. government of acting as Israel’s puppet. “Trump is bombing #Iran to serve Netanyahu’s agenda,” CAIR San Francisco wrote on X.
CAIR San Francisco’s reach extends beyond social media. It successfully petitioned the Biden administration to open a Title VI investigation into the Berkeley Unified School District in June 2024. The case is still listed as active on the U.S. Department of Education website.
These lies must be kept out of the classrooms.
State officials need to pass laws that prohibit radical advocacy groups from being able to shape curricula, teaching plans, or other classroom materials. On a federal level, the U.S. Department of Education can use Title VI to ensure school districts aren’t partnering with organizations that promote antisemitism or sympathize with terror organizations
It may not be possible to stop the lionizing of terrorists on the streets, but it can certainly be kept out of classrooms.
