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America’s largest labor union, the National Education Association, is voting NOW (June 30-July 3) on two items attacking Israel, New Business Item 29 and New Business Item 51. The education union has two million members and is holding its annual meeting virtually this week.
New Business Item 29 makes the fundamentally false claim “the Arab population of Palestine has again risen up in a heroic struggle against military repression” and libelously accuses Israel of “ethnic cleansing.”
New Business Item 51 aims to “educate members and the general public about the history, culture, and struggles of Palestinians, including the detention and abuse of children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” virtually promising the spread of fiercely anti-Israel and antisemitic propaganda if passed.
The meeting is taking place right now, so time is running out!
How You Can Help:
Send an email to your local and state NEA representatives here urging them to vote against these motions. The body of the email is already written; all you have to do is fill in some contact information! However, you have a greater impact when you share your thoughts and experiences in your own words.
Parents of children in kindergarten through 12th grade should contact their children’s schools. Remind principals and teachers that their educational institutions should not be used to disseminate propaganda. The Israeli-Arab conflict is a complicated issue and the way it promises to be presented distorts the reality that Israel has been forced to contend with since its inception as a modern Jewish, democratic state. Suffice it to say no proposed curricula will speak about Israel’s many exceedingly generous offers of “land for peace” and a viable Palestinian state within Israel’s narrow borders that the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected.
If you are a member of NEA/IEA or know someone who is and would oppose these motions, please contact Kate at [email protected].
NEA members, please write or call your union representatives as soon as possible, as voting will take place from June 29-July 3. You may wish to make the following points (courtesy of CAMERA):
• With all the challenges in education arising out of the Covid epidemic, the teachers’ union should not be entangling itself in divisive politics and should not devote financial resources to such a misguided endeavor.
• Taking sides on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will feed into negative publicity for the union. If the NEA wants to educate its members on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it must do so in a balanced and informed way.
• Describing a political movement that has resorted to terrorism that targets civilians as “heroic” is not balanced or informed. Neither is the inappropriate use of the inflammatory term “ethnic cleansing.”
Please bcc [email protected].
EMET is delighted to partner with StandWithUs, CAMERA and other organizations on this very important and time-sensitive initiative, and thanks StandWithUs for discovering and bringing to our attention what is about to take place within the NEA.
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