Discussing the recent Israeli-Palestinian Conflict In Schools

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Anonymous wrote:There’s a ton of antisemitism in DCPS so I actually did not want my (Jewish) child to discuss it at all. I just mentioned it to him briefly. We’ll see what he brings back from school.

Palestinians =\= Hamas

Jews =\= Israel

Some people being fed up with Israel does not make them antisemitic.

I was going to post something similar. People continuously conflating a country/politics with religion (this applies to many places) is wrong. Issues are more complex than that.

And YOU are the one conflating it here. If this topic is to be addressed in school at all (and I hope it is not) it should be from the starting point of “a horrible anti-semitic attack happened in Israel and we know that some Jewish students may be feeling sad and scared.” YOU are the one who immediately wants to skip this part and go straight to lecturing kids about politics.

Are jewish kids in America actually feeling “scared”?

Are Palestinian kids here also feeling "scared"?

There are a lot of Jewish kids in DCPS - not many or any Palestinian kids. And the fact that you can apparently not countenance providing ANY institutional support to Jewish kids just proves my point.

So support for innocent Palestinian kids (in the US or Gaza) equals anti-semitism? got it

On Tuesday, refusing to talk about the anti-semitic nature of the attacks or both-siding it is anti-semitic. Yes.

Really, really not. But keep sticking your head in the sand.

You’re not even willing to say the Hamas attacks were antisemitic?

Of course I am!!!! I have been saying all along. And it's ALSO barbering to treat Palestinians the way they have been treated for 70 years. Both can be true at the same time.

both can be true. but the way to address in school what Jewish kids might be feeling immediately after a high-profile and terrifying antisemitic attack is NOT “oh but let’s talk about Israel.” that’s the point here. how to address the upset and fear that Jewish kids might be feeling that day in the classroom. to act like this fear doesn’t exist (as one PP thinks!) or is unworthy to be addressed is absolutely antisemitic.

Oh spare me. If this were a completely isolated incident not provoked by 70 years of turmoil for which Israel bears the brunt of responsibility, I think you might be right. But you can't treat people like animals for 70 years and expect them to just take it.

NO, I do not support the slaughter and rape of innocent people on either side but it's NOT antisemitic to condemn Israel for what they have done. I can condemn Hamas and DO. CAn you do the same?

If you can’t countenance even for a second the need to emotionally support Jewish kids then you’re just proving the point.

I can. I do. Can you do the same for Palestinian kids?

NP. I can, but I don’t feel the need to immediately change the conversation to Palestinian kids whenever supporting Jewish kids is mentioned.

DP. The conversation is about the conflict. The conflict started with a barbaric attack (support Jewish kids!) and has moved on to a declaration of war, cutting off water/food/electricity/medical supplies, and a stated intent to blaze through Gaza (support Palestinian kids??). The idea that in your head talking about kids on one side is right and proper and talking about kids on the other is whataboutism is the whole problem. There are a million kids in Gaza. It's not changing the conversation to acknowledge them, it's participating in the conversation.

If your intent in doing so is because you don’t think it’s allowable to talk about anti-semitism or if you think the Hamas attacks were justified - then yes that is a problem.

In NO other context at DCPS do we refuse to allow a marginalized group its own space.

Of course the Hamas attacks were not justified, and there's not a single word in my post that would lead you to the conclusion that I think otherwise.

But I genuinely don't understand what this bolded sentence means. The topic of the thread is "discussing the recent Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Schools" - is it your position that that entire discussion somehow belongs to Jewish American students and only to them? Even though the conflict is described as -Palestinian, any mention of Palestinian civilians is a usurpation of space where they should not be represented? Because that makes no sense to me unless you just truly think that only people on one side of the equation are worthy of any consideration. That exact framing is what people are pushing back against, and no that resistance is not anti-semitic.

No amount of calling me anti-semitic is going to make me think that some kids are okay to kill without even a mention. Just like no amount of straw-manning is going to suddenly create a world where I'm pro-Hamas or have ever said that the attacks on Jewish civilians were just or acceptable.

My entire point is that the first day back to school after a huge antisemitic terror attack, yes, you need to make space to make it entirely about Jewish kids, at least for a day. The message one PP’s kid got that “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” is entirely wrong.

That teacher was both wrong, stupid, and very unprofessional.

But the idea that it was the first day back to school after a terror attack ignores it was *also* the first day back to school after the crackdown on Gaza and declaration of war. Both things happened over the weekend. Giving the day to Jewish students doesn't make sense unless you're going to give the next day to Palestinian students (somehow I doubt it). It's either a discussion of the conflict, in which case both sides have to be discussed, or it's just a statement of support for Israel.

You can certainly say "I don't want a discussion, I want an official statement of support for Israel and nothing else" and that's clearly a lot of people's position in this thread. But you cannot say "a discussion of the conflict that includes the fact that Palestinian civilians are going to suffer as well" is anti-semitic. It's not true.

where did ANYONE say anything about an “official statement of support for Israel”?!!

A 'discussion' where even mentioning the existence of Palestinian civilians is deemed an anti-semitic attack is not a discussion. The only thing that would fit the bill of "only discuss Jewish pain or you're a bigot" is a statement of support. Like I said: if that's what people want be honest about it.

wow ok.

curious if you think you also have to discuss black crime rates when you discuss police brutality?

If all that happened was the terrorist attack, this equivalence would hold some water (with state violence vs. criminal violence flipped, but whatever). But war was declared before school on Tuesday too. Huge, traumatic actions have happened on both sides and more than just Jewish kids are impacted. The thing is, people on this thread are acting like the only thing that happened happened to Jews in Israel, and by extension American Jewish kids hold all the pain. But the siege in Gaza is also happening, now, at the same time. You can and clearly do care less about that, but to the extent DCPS is providing space for discussion of the conflict, you cannot say "only one half of this can be discussed." The death toll in Gaza has already outstripped the terror attack, and shows no signs of letting up, and that includes hundreds of children and potentially family members of kids in your kids' schools. You can only care about Jewish lives lost, but you can't impose that standard on every child in DCPS, and you certainly can't keep asserting that anyone who GAF about Palestinian civilians hates Jews or blames them all for the terror attack in the first place.

There's a difference between holding space for the pain of one side (that's a statement of support) and discussing the conflict as a current event. You got super offended when I said if you want the first, just say so. But you can't possibly think that what you're looking for counts as the second.

I don’t trust DCPS to do this right either. as evinced by this thread, the left simply cannot say “Hamas is driven by anti-semitism.” There will always be a subtext, express or implied, that Jews should be driven out of the middle east. Because this is the far-left position.

I don't think a single person has disputed the position that Hamas is driven by anti-semitism. People are disputing the position that a random American citizen having concern for civilians *on both sides* of this conflict as opposed to only one side is evidence of anti-semitism. For the record I'm neither far left, nor of the opinion that Jews should be driven out of the Middle East. I'm just an idiot who keeps thinking anyone on this thread might engage in good faith rather than move the goal posts and call names. My mistake.

[jsteele]

Please join the discussion in the Political Forum. There are over 300 pages in the thread that will keep you busy for some time.