"The recent history of police violence enacted on unarmed black and brown citizens by American law enforcement mirrors the recent history of Israel treating Palestinians as violent insurgents." #DoBetter https://t.co/nWzX1xDFN7— Teen Vogue (@TeenVogue) July 16, 2018
We've debunked the logic before. (Of course, Teen Vogue adds twists like US and Israeli police supposedly use the same brand of tear gas. What a smoking gun!)
The troubling thing is that Israel's enemies are deliberately targeting children with anti-Israel propaganda - children who are even more susceptible to half-ruths and lies than adults are.
Teen Vogue has been consistently serving up anti-Israel lies for a while. But the issue isn't one magazine, but what is behind it.
This year, the organization IfNotNow tried to pressure Camp Ramah to push an anti-Israel message.
I wrote about a high school in Houston that had an anti-Israel presentation.
In 2014, Charles Jacobs listed some more outrageous examples of anti-Israel inculcation in US public schools:
We’ve just now learned that Newton students are given PLO-produced maps to learn about the history of Israeli “occupation” of “Palestine.” One of the maps labeled the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem as an “illegal Israeli settlement,” and another map claimed entire Palestinian cities are “walled in” by Israel.
In Williamson County, Tennessee, one biased text asks students: “If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?”
In New York, preparatory materials for the famed Regents exam falsely claim that Israel prevailed militarily in 1948 only due to strong support from the US.
In Albany, New York, an English teacher had her students write an essay, as part of a persuasive writing exercise, imagining themselves to be Nazis, and assigned some of them the task of describing why Jews are evil. After this case came to light – the result of assertive parents – the school superintendent publicly apologized and the teacher was removed from the classroom.
At New York’s Riverdale Fieldstone prep school, administrators held an Israel-Palestine day and under the pretense of “evenhandedness” invited Rashid Khalidi and Tony Judt as featured speakers to represent “both sides” of the conflict. Both Khalidi and Judt believe the State of Israel should not exist.
At the Campbell Middle School in Smyrna, Georgia, ...one lesson describes a video left by a female Hamas homicide bomber, who describes her act of martyrdom as “...my most wanted wish that I asked God Almighty to fulfill.” Another lesson in the curriculum is an editorial titled “A Palestinian’s Plea” that concludes with, “It is not hard to understand why people would take their anger and frustration out on somebody, and it is understandable that person would be Jewish. It is the Jews that take our land, it is the Jews that destroy our homes, and it is the Jews who have killed our children!”
Clearly, the anti-Israel crowd wants to spread their hate among those who are least equipped to understand what is happening to them.
It is not necessarily a centralized movement but it is very deliberate. For example, teachers in Washington State can borrow the "Palestine Teaching Trunk" where they can give students two- to six-week anti-Israel lessons complete with workbooks, maps, novels and DVDs. Many teachers seem to have already used it.
The Middle East Children's Alliance similarly has a "Teach Palestine" initiative to provide free anti-Israel propaganda to children.
The Middle East Children's Alliance similarly has a "Teach Palestine" initiative to provide free anti-Israel propaganda to children.
Some of the Teen Vogue article seems to be from the "Teach Palestine" playbook:
• Collaborate with educators and community activists on key points of interdisciplinary and inter-community curriculum—for example, how borders and walls affect communities around the world, including at the US/Mexico border and in Palestine; how the criminalization of youth affects children and families in Palestine and in the United States.
Here's a slide from another online resource put up by an anti-Israel teacher, inviting students to imagine themselves as Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression in terms of their own bedrooms:
The lesson plans often pretend to be even handed in order to get into the classrooms, but the orientation is obviously anti-Israel.
This is all deliberate and part of a grand strategy to make Israel look evil to kids. The the pro-Israel side seems way behind in the battle over the minds of children.
(h/t Jay)
The lesson plans often pretend to be even handed in order to get into the classrooms, but the orientation is obviously anti-Israel.
This is all deliberate and part of a grand strategy to make Israel look evil to kids. The the pro-Israel side seems way behind in the battle over the minds of children.
(h/t Jay)