‘Challenging Zionism’ Is Not Critical Thinking

Last month, CODEPINK activists held a teacher-training series whose title was remarkably candid about its political goal: "Challenging Zionism in Schools.”

CODEPINK is a radical activist group that regularly stalks the halls of Congress, harassing members of Congress and their staff. Its foreign ties have prompted congressional scrutiny and federal investigation.

It isn’t just trying to influence American politics. It is now also training K-12 educators to push anti-Israel teaching into the classroom using vague academic standards — social-emotional learning among them. They view these vague standards as an "an open door" for their activism, praising the vulnerability in the system they’re exploiting.

Earlier this year, my organization exposed this training, as well as union activists who quietly repurpose education for their political ends and call it "fugitive pedagogy." A  colleague, Ben Austin, writing about this training series, reiterated that activists who misuse standards  — which were “intended to teach students how to think for themselves" — are failing students who have a right to a quality education, free of their teachers' political biases.

In an oped response to Austin, CODEPINK defends its politicized training — but their defense reveals too much. Marcy Winograd, one of the organizers, makes the case against her own training in her own words.

She claims the course is designed to "challenge existing indoctrination" — described in the materials as "Zionist brainwashing" — and praises lessons that supposedly present "multiple perspectives" and foster "rigorous debate.”

In other words, she knows exactly what education is supposed to do: teach children to think for themselves. And she’s claiming to be training teachers to do that.

But one look at the content contradicts her claim.

As Ms. Winograd describes it, the course included a professor who "explained" that the chant "From the River to the Sea" is not antisemitic but "liberatory" for Palestinians. That explanation is only one interpretation of a contested slogan, offered apparently without presenting the perspective of millions who understand those same words as a call for Israel’s destruction. The lesson leaves room only for the anti-Zionist view — an unusual definition of “multiple perspectives.”

Think of the Jewish children in that classroom, and the isolation this kind of biased teaching produces. They may technically be invited to share their view, but the lesson has already told them which view is legitimate. That is a chilled environment, not an open one.

Ms. Winograd cannot claim CODEPINK supports “critical analysis” when its course immerses children in one-sided political narratives in order to “break the silence” of Zionism and then invites them to "debate" a conclusion that is embedded in the lesson.

She anticipates criticism by pretending the alternative to challenging Zionism is not to teach controversial subjects at all. She sets up a straw man, suggesting that critics want classrooms stripped of controversy and reduced to what she derides as "bland content" and "drill-and-kill exercises." But that is a false choice.

The alternative to bias in the classroom is not to take out controversy. It is to teach the controversy responsibly, presenting competing views rather than leading students to their teachers’ agendas.

Responsible teaching about the Middle East should include age-appropriate materials that cover a range of views on Zionism, anti-Zionism, antisemitism, terrorism, war, human rights, and international law. Children need to understand the facts and evaluate competing claims so they can arrive at their own conclusions.

The CODEPINK training does not help teachers do that. Instead, it coaches them to exploit standards to bring one side of a deeply contested issue into the classroom while calling it "rigorous debate.”

That same sleight-of-hand runs through Ms. Winograd’s closing line. She claims to want students to be able to debate if “'never again’ only applies to the Holocaust or whether it means never again’ for everyone — including those in Palestine.”

Of course, genocide is a human atrocity, and "never again" means precisely that: never again, for anyone. But look at what she has smuggled into that sentence.

She takes on a false claim — that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza — and embeds it inside a moral claim that no decent person would dispute. The implication is: you either agree with anti-Zionism, or you are for genocide, with the premise that Israel is committing genocide simply assumed. It’s a clever trick, but it doesn’t make the accusation true.

CODEPINK is candid about the objective of its training. It is not called "Understanding Zionism in Schools” or "Debating Zionism in Schools." It is called "Challenging Zionism in Schools."

It cannot claim to be teaching “rigorous debate” with its conclusion built in. Recruiting students to your political cause is not the same thing as educating them.