Much of the furor over the indoctrination of students in government-run schools has centered on race, sexuality, and gender identity. The COVID-19 pandemic, and subsequent lockdown restrictions and school closures, brought the issue to light.
But there are several other areas in which progressives seek to use educational institutions to influence young minds, one of which is the overall Israel/Palestinian conflict. The current war in Gaza that started on October 7, 2023, has sparked new conversations on the matter, and the left is seizing on this to indoctrinate children into embracing their views on the conflict.
One of the figures Shrier discusses in her report is history Ron Gochez, who gave a presentation at a teacher’s conference in which he taught educators how to involve students in anti-Israel protests without school involvement.
In August, the second largest teachers union chapter in the country—there are more than 35,000 members of United Teachers Los Angeles—met at the Bonaventure Hotel in L.A. to discuss, among other things, how to turn their K-12 students against Israel. In front of a PowerPoint that read, “How to be a teacher & an organizer. . . and NOT get fired,” history teacher Ron Gochez elaborated on stealth methods for indoctrinating students.
But how to transport busloads of kids to an anti-Israel rally, during the school day, without arousing suspicion?
“A lot of us that have been to those [protest] actions have brought our students. Now I don’t take the students in my personal car,” Gochez told the crowd. Then, referring to the Los Angeles Unified School District, he explained: “I have members of our organization who are not LAUSD employees. They take those students and I just happen to be at the same place and the same time with them.”
Educators employ subtle methods to incorporate anti-Israel/pro-Hamas perspectives into lessons in a way that subverts administrative scrutiny, according to Shrier.
"We have to know that we’re under the microscope. We have to know that Zionists and others are going to try to catch us in any way that they can to get us into trouble,” Gochez told the audience.
William Shattuc, a middle school teacher and panelist at the conference, said that “good history education is political education” and argued that “when we are coming up against political movements, like the movement for Zionism…they [Zionists] have their own form of political education and they employ their own tools of censorship.”
One of these supposed tools used by Zionists is referring to their political opposition as “antisemites.” Sounds pretty rich from the people who score political points by calling everyone who disagrees with them racistsexistislamophobictransphobes, right?
The report raises concerns about the impact these indoctrination efforts can have on students and suggest that these are not isolated incidents, but part of a larger trend happening in schools across the country.
Today, extensive interviews with parents, teachers, and non-profit organizations that monitor the radicalism and indoctrination in schools convinced me that demonization of Israel in American primary and secondary schools is no passing fad.
Shrier is right.
Last week, the Portland Association of Teachers held a pro-Palestinian advocacy meeting where members were urged to display Palestinian flags in their classrooms, according to a report in the Oregonian newspaper. Union members were also urged to wear T-shirts that read “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – an antisemitic slogan the refers to the elimination of Israel, which is home to nearly half of the world’s Jews.
The meeting comes after the union recently released a guide that instructed teachers on how to get involved in Pro-Palestinian organizing and how to inject their lessons for children as young as preschool with anti-Israel messages.
The 32-page guide, “Know Your Rights! Teaching & Organizing for Palestine within Portland Public Schools,” was published last month by the Oregon Educators for Palestine in collaboration with the teachers’ union. It offers legal advice to educators “teaching about the genocide in Palestine,” and advice on how to teach about the ongoing conflict.
At one point, it recommends teaching students that “Palestinian resistance is a political struggle for self-determination against colonial and apartheid rule.”
In many instances, pro-Hamas activists have used violence and threats against Jewish students and citizens. They have called for universities to divest from Israel and organizations affiliated with the Jewish state.
Now, they are foisting this ideology on young children without the knowledge of their parents. According to Shrier’s report, they are even doing this without the administration’s knowledge as well. These people are serious about indoctrinating children, no matter what it takes, which means that more parents must be educated on what is happening in their children’s schools.