In the US
some labor unions, city governments, and town councils have weighed in on
Israel’s war on Gaza issuing statements in support of a cease-fire — often over
vociferous objections from some of their members and constituents.
اضافة اعلان
On Wednesday night, the school board in
Ann Arbor, Michigan, became one of the first public school districts in the country to
vote in favor of such a statement.
Supporters
of the resolution, including
Palestinian American and Jewish board members,
said that the statement was an urgent moral necessity amid a humanitarian
crisis.
But the
vote — 4-1, with two members abstaining — was divisive in Ann Arbor, home to
the University of Michigan and sizable Arab and Jewish populations.
At a
meeting punctuated by cheers and jeering, some parents said that they did not
see any role for the local school board in the conflict, despite their wishes
for the hostilities to end. And they worried that singling out Israel for
condemnation, in a world filled with wars and suffering, could fuel
antisemitism in the district.
One
father said he planned to remove his children from the district’s schools.
Several
parents asked the board to refocus on other matters, such as the district’s
search for a new superintendent and academic recovery following the pandemic.
“Direct
your attention back to the needs of our children,” one parent said.
Israel’s
war on Gaza has created huge rifts within education, both at universities and
in local school districts, especially in left-leaning enclaves like Ann Arbor.
In
Oakland, California, some
Jewish parents are withdrawing their children from public schools after teachers held an unauthorized, pro-Palestinian teach-in
last month.
After a
public outcry, an elementary school in the New York City borough of Brooklyn
removed a classroom map that depicted the Middle East without Israel, labeling
the country “Palestine.”
Last
week, the
Ann Arbor City Council endorsed its cease-fire resolution. But in
December, the University of Michigan prevented the student government from
voting on several cease-fire statements.
“The
proposed resolutions have done more to stoke fear, anger, and animosity on our
campus than they would ever accomplish as recommendations to the university,”
the university’s president, Santa J. Ono, wrote in a letter to the community.
Rima
Mohammad, who had supported the statement as Ann Arbor’s school board
president, acknowledged that the cease-fire resolution was “symbolic.”
But
Israel’s war on Gaza “is definitely something we have to address, especially
because I do believe the ongoing conflict abroad is leading to an increase in
racism and discrimination locally,” she said in an interview before the vote.
“The Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Palestinians, Israelis are all hurting.”
Mohammad
is a Palestinian American who immigrated to the United States at age 5.
On
Wednesday night, the school board, as scheduled, elected a new president,
Torchio Feaster, who abstained from the vote on the resolution.
In
addition to calling for a “bilateral cease-fire in Gaza and Israel,” the
resolution condemned Islamophobia and antisemitism.
It also
encouraged teachers in the 17,000-student district to facilitate classroom
discussions about the war.
That
became one of the most divisive elements of the proposal. Many established
curriculum resources on Israeli-Palestinian issues are created by advocacy
groups and are themselves highly disputed.
Marci
Sukenic, a parent of three students in the district, and a staff member of the
Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, said she was “adamantly opposed” to the
resolution, in part because “our teachers are not equipped for those
conversations.”
“There is
a lot of bias out there,” she said. “There is misinformation.”
In the
past, she said, her children had been called on in class to “represent the
Jewish view” of issues, a role that she did not think was fair. “Our kids could
be singled out,” she said.
Jeff
Gaynor, the Jewish school board member who supported the resolution, is a
retired middle-school social studies teacher who once wrote his own curriculum
on Israeli-Palestinian issues. He said he trusted educators to not venture
beyond their expertise.
Ernesto
Querijero, the board trustee who sponsored the resolution, said he did not
think teachers should have to avoid the issue, especially when students were
exposed to so much discussion of the conflict on social media.
“We have
to make space for students to be able to talk about this,” said Querijero, an
English professor at a community college. “Can you create a space to allow
students to voice their own opinions?”
The
resolution was introduced by an Ann Arbor high school junior, Malek Farha, 16,
who said he wrote the statement with his uncle. As a Palestinian American, he
said, he supported educating students about the conflict so his peers could
understand that “it has been going on for decades that Palestinians are
oppressed.”
He said
most students were getting their information on the conflict from social media
and the news. But he disputed the idea, brought up by many adults, that the war
had divided his Jewish and Muslim peers, adding, “It never caused conflict
between us.”
If that
is so, the same could not be said for the adults. The Wednesday board meeting
had to be paused several times to try to tamp down on heckling and personal
attacks from the crowd.
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