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Our Tax Dollars at Work: Funding an Islamic, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Israel Curriculum
While all of us were shouting about freedom and due process, and the Left was screaming back about sexual predators, the continuous creep of Islam continued unabated. I came across three programs that are paid for with our tax dollars: a program with the innocuous title, Primary Source; a program developed for Newton, MA schools by the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES); and a program funded by the Department of Education and distributed by PBS, called Access Islam. I’d like to describe each one and then offer some thoughts.
Recently The Federalist printed a story about a high school in Newton, MA that was teaching classes that were anti-Semitic. In particular a history teacher, David Bedar attended a five-day summer teacher training course for teaching about “the dynamics of the Middle East.” Called Primary Source, the program is funded by the Mass Cultural Council, Mass Humanities, the Cummings Foundation and lastly, the Qatar Foundation International. Bedar’s course is filled with anti-Israel and anti-Semitic lies and distortions. The Federalist presented an example:
Here’s Bedar’s ‘Israeli perspective’: ‘During the war [of Israeli independence] there were a number of massacres, robbery and rape by Jewish fighters.’ His ‘Palestinian perspective’? The Palestinians say they ‘had been exposed to the most barbaric kinds of torture and immoral and inhuman practices’ by Jewish fighters.
Both statements are highly misleading. The first is neither a mainstream Israeli perspective nor a factual one, while the second is hysteric slander. Arab violence, on the other hand, is given the opposite propaganda treatment. According to Bedar’s ‘Israeli Perspective,’ the Arab anti-Semitic orgies of slaughter prior to Israel’s independence are characterized antiseptically as ‘[t]he riots of 1920, 1929 and 1936,’ and the Arab leaders who instigated them as simply ‘unscrupulous.’
You can read the article for additional “perspectives”; The Federalist explains that some of the “data” is not part of the Primary Source program, but Bedar’s own creations.
The controversy in Newton, however, didn’t blow up until Newton Public Schools invited the Harvard Center for Middle Eastern Studies to assist history teachers in developing “new resources in the classroom to teach on the conflict in Israel and the Occupied Territories.” Funding for the program came primarily from Saudi petrodollars. Eighty Newton Public School teachers were trained on April 20, 2010. After the training, complaints from parents began to roll in. But the controversy did not erupt until June 2018 when 70 parents showed up at a Newton Public School Board meeting to protest. Although Superintendent David Fleishman had promised to remedy the situation, nothing had changed. Outrage came to a head after the May 2 Middle East Day, where a film was shown that was modeled after Schindler’s List, but instead of Nazis killing Jews, Jews were shown killing Palestinians.
In August, a lawsuit was filed:
A community group called Education Without Indoctrination (EWI) filed a lawsuit on behalf of three Newton taxpayers against the Newton School Committee in Massachusetts Superior Court, claiming numerous violations of the Massachusetts Open Meeting Law ‘stemming from the school committee’s handling of a burgeoning scandal over anti-Semitic lessons and the promotion of Islamic religious beliefs as objective facts in the public school district’s history classes,’ according to a statement from the Boston-based organization Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT).
But the discovery that I found most disturbing was a program developed by the Department of Education called Access Islam.
The program began under President George W. Bush to educate students about the traditions and culture of Islam, and was greatly expanded under the President Obama administration. It is distributed by PBS:
The program, written for Grades 5 – 12, has students learning verses from the Quran and Hadith. Students must not only learn the verses, but give the religious ‘meaning’ of those verses and explain how they use them in their daily lives.
The program also includes a video presentation on how to perform a Muslim prayer, use a prayer rug and wash prior to praying.
Students are also shown a video of a Muslim who converted from Christianity and claims Islam ‘is the true worship of God.’ The video instructs children to ‘submit yourself’ to Allah.
Martin Mawyer, President and Founder of the Christian Action Network (CAN) has written a formal complaint to US Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, PBS President Paula Kerger, and Ohio State University President Michael Drake, “arguing that Islam receives preferential treatment in public school curriculum when compared with Christianity, Judaism and other world religions.” Here is an interview by Tucker Carlson with Mr. Mawyer.
I’m relieved to know that people are taking action against these efforts to promote Islam and indoctrinate our children. At the same time, several questions have not been answered:
How many children have already been indoctrinated?
Which schools will continue to offer this type of propaganda taught as “education?”
What other anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and pro-Palestinian programs are being offered in schools?
How prepared are parents to fight a system that is determined to be “politically correct?”
It’s important to remember that Islamists are patient and willing to work within the system. The Muslim Brotherhood, an umbrella for many Islamist groups located in the US, has not modified its mission to spread Islam and sharia law worldwide.
If we are not vigilant, they may be successful.
Published in Islamist Terrorism
Where is “Access Christianity” and “Access Judaism”? Our culture seems so disconnected from those traditions now that our schools are every bit in need of education there as for Islam.
I’m torn on this suggestion, @rodin. I might be satisfied just to have those values taught, rather than the moral relativism that’s promulgated. If religion isn’t taught at home, it probably doesn’t belong in the schools either.
I originally hail from the Boston area; in my view, the Jewish organizational/institutional “establishment” from my hometown bears at least part of the blame for relatively unhindered advances that these evil, soi-disant educators made up to now in Newton public schools and possibly elsewhere in the Bay State.
In particular, I would point to the Boston JCRC/Jewish Community Relations Council, especially during the 20-year run that Nancy Kaufman had at this organization until late 2010; one level up from the JCRC (approximately) was the executive and board-level leadership cadres at CJP/Combined Jewish Philanthropies (the Massachusetts equivalent to the Jewish “Federations” and similar “Jewish-but-non-denominational” non-profits operating in the Tri-State Area and other regions of the US) — the “machers” (bigwigs) in the CJP establishment consistently kept the JCRC funded and Kaufman furnished with communal “air-cover” politically as she pushed the Council’s agenda and activities ever-leftward, year after year.
Post-9/11, the Kaufman-instigated JCRC/CJP Jewish self-flagellation campaign vis-a-vis local Muslims included a persistent hounding of Charles Jacobs, one of the key founders of Americans for Peace and Tolerance (the group is referenced in one of the articles in Susan’s OP), as well as similar predecessor groups dedicated to raising the alarm about Islamist infiltration in American communities and especially the risks this can pose to the Boston-area and other Jewish communities Stateside.
By reputation, Jacobs is not the easiest person to work or interact with, so at an individual-to-individual level, it may well be that he might get on poorly with a number of people in this vaunted Boston-area Jewish “establishment,” to a degree that might be otherwise avoidable or somehow mitigated.
However, on substance, to me at least it is abundantly clear that Kaufman and those among the Jewish “great and good” already predisposed to support her viewpoint in all and sundry were virulently opposed to the kind of warning Jacobs was issuing as a matter of policy preference and emotional commitment. So, collectively, they did what they could to inhibit Jacobs’ efforts and distort the messages he has sought to convey.
As I indicated, fortunately Kaufman pulled up stakes from Boston and the JCRC in late 2010, in order to take an executive director posting in NYC with the National Council of Jewish Women — and accordingly, I get the sense that the JCRC back in MA has been taking a few baby-steps since her exit to re-position the organization away from an agenda that even many rank-and-file participants in Jewish communal life started to recognize has tended to place Jewish well-being needs dead last and to airily dismiss Jewish community security concerns.
Put differently, I would posit that if Nancy Kaufman were still on the scene with the Boston JCRC, a tremendous amount of “Jewish establishment” pressure would have been brought to bear to squash both this story and the litigation.
Such as beheading women in the streets? [Warning – very graphic]:
http://www.israelvideonetwork.com/woman-beheaded-broad-daylight-moderate-muslim/
This is why I think we should fight any effort to portray Islam as a “peaceful” religion.
Excellent background information, !@dannyalexander Thanks so much! It all makes sense–the Jewish Left’s insidious efforts to hurt its own community. I think your assessment is correct. Now NYC will have to deal with her–and they’ll probably embrace her with open arms.
In Bush’s defense, @stad, he was trying to avoid an uprising against Muslims after 9-11 through education. Naturally, the Islamists (and maybe even some moderate Muslims) saw this as an opportunity to meet a larger agenda. And now here we are . . .
I understand that, but none happened and still hasn’t. So why continue with this pro-Muslim, anti-Semitic education, unless it’s propaganda?
At this point, I couldn’t agree with you more. Stop all of it.
Middle East Muslim nations and the Chinese are pouring tons of dollars into the American educational system. Why? To ensure future scholars of their cultures view them in nothing but a positive light.
Why aren’t we doing this in their countries?
My guess, @thescarecrow, is that we don’t do it because it’s outright propaganda. I believe we’ve always felt that we would impress the world through our example, rather than manipulate or invent a positive image. I know that I personally dislike the idea of messing with other people’s educational processes, unless they are harming others with what they are teaching. For example, the Palestinians continue to lie about Israel in their textbooks, and we’ve asked them to stop, to no avail. Finally, we are a free country, so people have access to many of our systems, whereas Middle Eastern countries and China are dictatorships; it’s a bit harder to infiltrate over there!
Persecution of our people and trade.
Newton used to have a fairly high percentage of Jewish people (albeit people who were left of center), and I doubt it’s changed that much. If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.
On the other hand, MA is a blue state, and although Newton has a large Jewish community, it is likely Left. I’m so glad to see them pushing back .
So these are public schools and outside groups can get these programs placed in them, how? If it’s primarily the Federal Department of Education we can all write our congressmen and the white house. We should get a story into TV, Fox and onto Rush. It’s good that you post it here.
Ultimately we must replace the centralized public monopoly with some kind of completely decentralized choice. The idea that a single state run monopoly is a good model for the most rapidly changing diverse and one of the biggest nations is complete insanity. We ought to be able to use this particular subversion as a weapon to destroy the system as it now exists. What is DeVoss doing anyway?
There is a website that says her family foundation funded anti-Israel, pro-Muslim programs. I find this hard to believe, but I’ll investigate further. Your point, @iwalton, is an excellent one: we need to put education in the control of each state and let them decide. Meanwhile, we need to stop this agenda. (I don’t know if you viewed the video, but Tucker Carlson interviewed the president of Christian Action Network) who condemned this program.
Old and Busted: schools that say, “Hey, kids, how ’bout that Jesus!”
New Hotness: schools that say, ‘Hey, kids, how ’bout that Muhammad!”
Where
It’s likely to happen anywhere an educational institution or organization has any of its upper leadership positions occupied by SJWs. (Any institution, really. Look how thoroughly Condaleeza Rice was able to change the culture at State.)
Middle Eastern Studies departments have long been Arabist in outlook, and have long hired Jews mainly from the Left, including the Israeli Left. Couple that with Gulf oil money, O’Sullivan’s Law as applied to foundations that give money to organizations in the field, and the unmentioned but real judicious application of physical threats to offending academics… An incident of the latter was related to me by a Buddhist cleric of my acquaintance who had objected to a theologian whom he described to me as (theologically connected to the Taliban, so I suspect of Deobandi leanings if not formal allegiance) being hired by his academic institution. One night there was a knock on the priory door and couple of thugs standing in the darkness informed him that if he knew what was good for him he’d drop his opposition to the jihadi scholar.
True! And people don’t pay attention to the steps they’re taking that are destructive and dangerous.
The tax dollars tend to be directed in response to activism. Asra Nomani, a fairly honest journalist though a Leftist, has been following the money and shows us how it worked against Kavanagh.
Here’s a highlight. Or lowlight. Or something:
“MoveOn” doesn’t appear to be the real sentiment of the Left, either. For example,
Nancy Pelosi, who sounds like her father’s alleged Mafia buddies here:
I saw Archila interviewed afterward and she was unapologetic about her employer. She’s just doing her job–with a nasty agenda.
@mikescapes, we’re in agreement! I think your observation here is also true. We must, after all, be politically correct.
Not even close. It’s a made up holiday. Wikipedia:
Karenga served time for a vicious kidnapping and assault – which he denies having committed, saying he was “a political prisoner.
I agree with your response to my comment. My point was that given the dominance of progressive secularism in education and our culture, the rationale for teaching Islam could easily apply equally to Christianity and Judaism. In truth, the home is where you educate children on values.