Leaders of the Oakland Education Association in Oakland, California, called on school leaders to stand in solidarity with Palestinians and called for a ceasefire as tensions between the terrorist organization Hamas and Israel continue to increase.
The union’s leadership shared curriculum resources it encouraged educators to employ in their classrooms, which accuse Israel of carrying out genocide and ethnic cleansing, something a Jewish parent said is concerning for her family as antisemitism is on the rise.
Megan Bacigalupi, a Jewish parent of students who attend schools in the Oakland Unified School District, said the union leaders’ statement is concerning given the increase in antisemitic incidents nationwide and in the area, including graffiti and the removal of hostage posters for Israelis taken to Gaza.
“We, the members of OEA, express our unequivocal support for Palestinian liberation and self-determination. We condemn the genocidal and apartheid state of Israel,” the now-deleted post on Instagram read, according to a screenshot of the post taken by Bacigalupi.
Bacigalupi, co-founder of California Parent Power, called the post antisemitic and said its position was not welcoming to the Jewish students or teachers in the district. She said it’s especially concerning, given the broader context of increasing antisemitism.
“Within our own community, we’ve seen these instances of antisemitism,” Bacigalupi told Chalkboard in an interview. “To then see the teachers union issue a statement which says really inflammatory things against Jewish people and particularly Jewish people in Israel, it was scary for me to see given the context we’re living in the world right now for Jews.”
The union that represents almost 3,000 educators and school staff said in a Facebook post Friday that its members “unequivocally condemn the 75-year-long illegal military occupation of Palestine.”
“The Israeli government created an apartheid state, and the Israeli government leaders have espoused genocidal rhetoric and policies against the people of Palestine,” the statement reads. “Our conscience demands that we say clearly that OEA calls for a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine.”
Israel’s statehood was announced 75 years ago, in May of 1948. The White House said last week that a ceasefire in the region would only benefit Hamas, which is designated by the U.S. Department of State as a terrorist organization.
The union’s leadership said educators have “the academic freedom” to teach about Palestine based on its contract with the school district “and the responsibility to teach young people about the realities of the world we live in.”
The statement encouraged teachers to use resources compiled by OEA educators in Google Drive and that the union would back teachers who face disciplinary actions. Some of those resources describe a “genocide” committed by Israel and ask students to consider how Palestinians’ “human rights are being infringed upon.”
A resource sheet in Google Drive says educators can take action by calling Congress to “stop the genocide” and “write a letter to Congress for an immediate ceasefire.” A “Free Palestine” slideshow from the union’s leaders said, “The US helps fund Israel’s Genocide.”
“If you haven’t spent time educating yourself on the 75-year ongoing ethnic cleansing in Palestine, please don’t teach this and educate yourself first, then learn to teach this,” the slideshow said. It did not mention the Oct. 7 terrorist attack carried out against Israel.
“It’s really troubling,” Bacigalupi said. “If you are teaching about this, you have to be accurate and allow them to be critical thinkers and not persuaded by false or misinformation.”
The OEA statement also recommends teachers utilize TeachPalestine.org, which it calls a “great resource for classroom materials.”
A document linked prominently on that website called “Gaza on the Eighth Day of Israeli Aggression” supposedly “tells the story of the destruction of Gaza and the loss of life through numbers and statistics.” That document calls dead Palestinians “martyrs.”
TeachPalestine.org also links to a website called the Middle East Monitor as a purported source for news and updates on the conflict. The director of the publication, Daud Abdullah, was condemned in 2009 for signing a public statement of support for Hamas militarism while he served on the Muslim Council of Britain, according to The Guardian.
Another website listed as a resource by Teach Palestine, Jadaliyya, published a piece about the Oct. 7 attack on Israel that praised terrorist organizations’ “resourcefulness.”
“That Hamas and Islamic Jihad were under these circumstances able to plan and prepare an operation of such scale, scope, and sophistication, a process that will have consumed many months at the least, and will have required extensive communications among leaders, cadres, and operatives, is an astonishing achievement and testament to the legendary resourcefulness of Gaza’s Palestinians,” wrote Mouin Rabbani, a Dutch-Palestinian researcher.
When Hamas terrorists entered Israel on Oct. 7, they killed over 1,400 civilians and took hundreds of hostages back to Gaza. Israel has retaliated with air strikes, which a Hamas-run health agency reportedly says has resulted in over 8,000 casualties.
The Oakland Education Association called on school leaders to allow students to protest and to take a stand to support peace and the Palestinian people.
The union also said it would participate in an event on Saturday called the International Day of Solidarity: Free Palestine Bay Area. The Oakland Education Association is listed on an event posting.
The event calls for “no more U.S. aid to Israel,” “lift the siege on Gaza,” and that “the people demand a ceasefire.”
Students have walked out of class in a number of California districts in solidarity with Palestinians, which has led to Jewish parents asking administrators to keep San Francisco students safe.
Originally published on chalkboardnews.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
Teachers unions along with college admins / faculties have become the perpetrators of perverse lies, hypocrisy, malevolent ideologies, illicit mind control & purveyors of sadistic Islamic / Marxist propaganda.
IMO, anyone in solidarity with Palestine is supporting Islam dominance by brutal force & is a dangerous insidious threat to all of us, but especially to the minds of our children.
Political & religious apartheid, genocide & rejection of human rights are the foundations of Islam belief system.
It is Islam belief system that prefers death rather than peaceful equal coexistence with Jews or non Islam people.
It is Islam belief system that governs by force & terror, sacrifices women & children as human shields, treats women as chattel & believes the slaughter / extinction of non Islam “infidels” is their holy duty. Human rights be damned.
So, yeah, I say save the world & wipe out the Hamas savages & all the rest of their barbaric Islamist brothers in blood.
one can only imagine the low level of intellect of these “teachers”. they’re even dumber than the ignorant illiterate unteachable “students”.
everything we value, beginning with merit and hard work and achievement is gone.
AND THIS IS why i would love to have the power, to just utterly eliminate these ‘teacher unions’..
“The union’s leadership said educators have “the academic freedom” to teach about Palestine based on its contract with the school district “and the responsibility to teach young people about the realities of the world we live in.””
“To teach young people about the realities of the world we live in.” In accordance with their manufactured, subjective realities.
The very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in common.
They do not alter their view to fit the facts. They alter the facts to fit their view.
This is a very common trait among Democrats.
To this self-righteous, woke Democrat Party and their idiot supporters, the U.S. Constitution, Laws, Gender, Truth, Facts, Reality and History are all irrelevant, if the Democrats do not WANT to believe them or they disagree with them. Democrats will just make up their own, laws, Gender, Truth, Facts, Reality and History to fit what they WANT to believe or fits into the Con or Deception that they are running at the time.
I DOUBT they even know what the “Reality” of the world we live in, Actually is.. ESPECIALLY since so bloody many, choose to IGNORE THE REALITY OF GENDER AND BIOLOGY, with all their push for the 73 flavors of ‘gender ideology’…
the united states appears to be the turning into the 4th reich with the left wing nazis running our colleges and universities.
even in the halls of our christian founded government.
AND In the dept of the SS and FBI.
This union is officially an anti-American terrorist organization
well, it IS Apartheid. Look it up and look at what’s going on.
the demonic Rothschild Zionists STOLE the land where Christians, Muslims, and Jews were getting along just fine before.
Read Revelation 2:9 and 3:9 in the bible where it warned that there would be Posers pretending to be Jews (the askhenazi/khazarian fake semites, descended from Japheth whereas Real Semites descend from Shem.
Oh Steve, so sorry for your poor grasp of word meanings & lack of knowledge of world history.
Apartheid is segregation / discrimination on basis of race or any other reasons, meaning Islam wins the apartheid blue ribbon prize since at least 10% of the 1.8 billion or 180 million of them would rather die or murder Jews & other non Islam people than to peacefully & equally co-exist with them.
Earliest evidence of Israelites & then later formation of the United Kingdom of Israel (Judah & Israel) in the region that corresponds with the Israel of today, was 1200 to 900 BC.
Islam didn’t develop until around 630 AD or minimum of 1500 long years later & Christianity was only developed in 1st century AD. So it’s pretty hard to figure out how the Israelite Jews stole land from Islam or Christian Arabs who didn’t even exist.
Fact is Jews have been brutalized, hounded, enslaved, murdered in mass & forced out of not only their ancient homelands but from most places they have lived throughout human history just because they are Jews for whom the morally depraved degenerates of the world don’t think any human rights apply.
Have to cynically laugh at your “pretend Jews”. All I can say is any pretend Jews better watch out since the barbaric forces of Islam & supporters have made clear they want to slaughter all Jews, pretend or otherwise.
Still trying to wrap my head around reason for killing Palestinian civilians. Hamas the target. Moreover, considering all the facts, tensions will always be there. Perhaps a two-nation possibility conversation could be helpful with regard to the built in reasons for the tension. Here is one that knows I don’t know solution, so you’ll find me praying.
Palestinians are being killed either because they support & encourage Hamas to slaughter Israelis or they were too dumb to leave Gaza in 2006 when Hamas took over & made killing Jews & destroying Israel their only goal even if it meant sacrificing every Palestinian man, woman & child to do so.
Unfortunately for Hamas & the other “Live by Islam or die” terrorist groups, the Israelis & I think most of rest of non Islam world, including Russia & China, are willing & able to resort to some brutality & barbarism of their own before they will ever submit to Islam political or social domination.
So as long as terror, torture, butchery & death are what Hamas Palestinians & many other radical Islamists want to inflict on other people & their children in the name of Islam, then they should not whine, snivel or holler unfair when same is inflicted on them & their children in return.
BTW, all Hamas needs to do to save Palestinians is to surrender, free hostages & turn their leaders & commanders over to ICC for criminal prosecution for the 10/7 attack, torture & massacre of innocent Israelis. Very simple.
2 state agreement conversation would help. The actions or underlying reasons for problems complicated and delicate. May take more than just one dogging the other to solve. Remember Lincoln suggested similar solution for enslaved citizens and African American leaders rejected. In fact, some thought Lincoln was slipping to even suggest that. No my friend, its going to take prayer followed by a supernatural change in people’s point of view to solve this one. God loves all of us.
Really Thomas? Praying for supernatural change in point of view re: Islamist mindset & overt efforts to exterminate Israel & Jews is your best recommendation?
You are aware that Palestine Islam has from the get-go adamantly & violently refused to accept any peaceful coexistence at all with Israel, much less a 2 state solution, right?
There are only two choices here.
You either side with the Islamists who publicly state they will keep trying to annihilate Israel & Jews as well as the USA & anyone else who gets in their way of doing so – or you don’t.
Reason. IF someone’s hiding in a building, and shooting out at you, DO YOU RETURN FIRE, or do you NOT< just because "he's holding a civilian in front of him"???
HAMAS, ISIS, the PLO.. EVERY ONE OF THESE islamic terror groups, for YEARS Have used civilians as human shields.
SO UNLESS ISRAEL refuses to attack back, HOW the hell exactly, do they NOT KILL civilians when striking back.??
Just one more reason to pull your kids out of public school, especially if you live in California. Next these terrorist loving unions will want to turn American schools into Madrasahs.
Several years back, we already SAW SOME colleges and other schools, push to allow “muslim foot baths in the dorms etc”, and “LOVE ISLAM days”…
Public schools already promote Ramadan over any other religious holiday. Cultural Marxism.