Fueling antisemitism, normalizing hate: The dangers of anti-Israel textbooks in education - opinion
The American Jewish community must stand up to anti-Israel textbooks making their way into the mainstream education system.
Children take part in a demonstration in support of the Palestinian people at the Palestinian Embassy in Brasilia in June 2025.(photo credit: ADRIANO MACHADO/ REUTERS)ByROBERT HORENSTEIN
For decades, the Israeli government and pro-Israel advocates in the US and Europe have been sounding the alarm about the textbooks used to teach Palestinian children in Gaza and the West Bank. This past March, a study done by the London-based Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education revealed that “revised” textbooks produced by the Palestinian Authority for Gaza continue to promote antisemitic tropes, glorify violence against Jews, and even celebrate the October 7 Hamas massacre in Israel.
Despite international demands for reform, the curriculum still dismisses Jewish national identity as a fabricated justification for colonization. Israel is erased from all of the textbooks’ maps, which depict the entire territory as Palestine, thus reinforcing the notion that the Jewish state’s existence is illegitimate. Even more disturbing, Jews are portrayed as deceitful, depraved, and hostile toward Islam.
It’s troubling enough to observe Palestinian children being indoctrinated and radicalized. However, it’s not only a problem in Gaza and the West Bank. Increasingly, American middle school and high school students are being exposed to anti-Israel propaganda masquerading as social studies curriculum.
Teaching Palestine is a glossy book containing lessons and articles, whose editor is a former Portland schoolteacher ($34.95 on Amazon). The name alone is a good indicator that the content is biased. But “biased” doesn’t go nearly far enough in describing the harm to Jewish students caused by the use of this so-called curriculum.
What do students learn from Teaching Palestine?
Zionism is an oppressive, racist political ideology and the sole cause of Palestinian suffering. It emerged over a century ago when white European Zionists dispossessed the indigenous Palestinians of their land. Moreover, since Zionism is merely a political movement – not an integral part of Jewish religious and cultural identity – anti-Zionism cannot be considered antisemitism.
A United Nations-run school in Gaza City. (credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/REUTERS)
Before the establishment of Israel, a product of “settler colonialism,” Palestine belonged to the Palestinian Arabs, all of whom lived there “for generations.” The Jewish historical and religious connection to the land is conveniently omitted as is the fact that half the Arab population in Palestine at the beginning of the 20th century consisted of recently arrived immigrants.
A stage-managed simulation using bags of candy – divided unequally among Jewish Israelis, who are privileged, and Palestinians, whom the Israelis oppress – helps students “gain an overview of the Israeli system of apartheid.”
Historical revisionism: Israel acted as the aggressor that started the 1967 Six Day War, despite a lack of intelligence that Egypt was planning to attack. The Second Intifada (2000-2004) resulted from “frustrations with continued Israeli aggression.” The horrific wave of terrorism during which 1,000 Israelis were killed over those four years is described as “some Palestinians engaged in suicide bombings.” Out of frustration, of course.
Students should become advocates for the Palestinian cause; teachers should support the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
This extremely biased, inaccurate, and toxic content fuels antisemitism and normalizes hate. It gives license to students to harass and ostracize their Jewish, especially Israeli, peers, marking them as “dirty Zionists,” “baby killers,” and “genocide supporters.”
However, to challenge the use of Teaching Palestine is no simple matter. For starters, it’s published by Rethinking Schools, a nonprofit organization based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that, according to its website, is dedicated to promoting education through “social justice teaching” and “activism” (another red flag). Rethinking Schools is highly regarded by many teachers around the country, thereby giving legitimacy to Teaching Palestine.
But that’s hardly the only impediment to confronting this propaganda. Because now, paradoxically, you can be accused of racism for calling out this curriculum as antisemitic.
Anti-Israel ideologues have devised a new narrative: “Anti-Palestinian Racism” (APR), which its proponents describe generally as the erasure, silencing, and maligning of Palestinians. Their definition of APR is ridiculously – and deliberately – broad. In other words, any account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that rejects the idea of Israel as a racist, genocidal, and settler-colonial state is to be considered APR.
It’s a clever ploy. By claiming “racism” (never mind that “Palestinian” isn’t a race), proponents of Teaching Palestine will seek to sway sensitive school administrators to allow their lessons into the classroom.
The American Jewish community can’t afford to let these insidious tactics deter us. We need to press superintendents and school boards to adopt, emphasize, and enforce policies requiring complex subjects such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be taught fairly, impartially, and from multiple perspectives. We must also provide curriculum specialists with teacher-friendly, pedagogically sound resources on Israel.
The well-being and safety of our Jewish students and families are hanging in the balance.■
Robert Horenstein is chief community relations and public affairs officer of the Jewish Federation of Greater Portland.
