{"id":2207417,"date":"2024-03-27T12:56:04","date_gmt":"2024-03-27T16:56:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/massachusetts-teachers-union-hosts-webinar-by-professor-who-praised-hamas-enraging-membership\/"},"modified":"2024-03-27T12:59:48","modified_gmt":"2024-03-27T16:59:48","slug":"massachusetts-teachers-union-hosts-webinar-by-professor-who-praised-hamas-enraging-membership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/massachusetts-teachers-union-hosts-webinar-by-professor-who-praised-hamas-enraging-membership\/","title":{"rendered":"Massachusetts Teachers Union Sparks Controversy with Webinar Featuring Professor&#8217;s Support for Hamas"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmassachusetts-teachers-union-hosts-webinar-by-professor-who-praised-hamas-enraging-membership%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2207417&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The Massachusetts\u2063 Teachers Association\u200d faced criticism for\u2063 hosting a webinar featuring a professor who praised Hamas terrorists. \u2062The event, titled \u201cThe Struggle Against Anti-Palestinian Racism,\u201d involved\u2064 anti-Israel activists. The union&#8217;s actions and affiliations drew concerns\u200d about curriculum influence and anti-Semitic rhetoric, prompting backlash from \u200dvarious organizations and members \u2064within\u200b the educational\u200b community.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A Massachusetts teachers union representing 117,000 teachers and faculty members at public schools and universities across the state is under fire for hosting a webinar that featured a professor who praised the \u201ccourage\u201d of Hamas terrorists who attacked Israel on October 7.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) <a href=\"https:\/\/defendinged.org\/incidents\/massachusetts-teachers-association-board-member-accuses-israel-of-genocide-apartheid-and-ethnic-cleansing-claims-that-a-way-to-bring-peace-is-to-end-israel\/\">webinar<\/a> titled, \u201cThe Struggle Against Anti-Palestinian Racism,\u201d featured three professors from the University of Massachusetts Boston, all of whom are anti-Israel activists. One of them, Leila Farsakh, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newarab.com\/opinion\/israels-propaganda-us-media-motivated-fear\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">penned an op-ed<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> two weeks after Hamas\u2019 attack praising its terrorists that raped, killed, and beheaded Israeli civilians.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe courage of those who broke through the barbed wire, sailed by boat to return to their ancestral homes, or flew with their hang-gliders over the wall of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/debunking-the-four-biggest-lies-youve-been-told-about-israel\/\" title=\"Debunking The Four Biggest Lies You\u2019ve Been Told About Israel\">largest open-air prison<\/a> has shown that Palestinians will continue to defy the gravity of settler colonialism to be free, whatever the cost,\u201d Farsakh wrote.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe facts unfolding on the ground have made it clear who the perpetrator is and who the victim is,\u201d she added, referring to Israel as the perpetrator, before Israel entered Gaza in an attempt to find its hundreds of civilians taken hostage.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The webinar is the latest radical anti-Israel action by the union i<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">n the months since Hamas terrorists massacred more than 1,000 people in Israel. The MTA late last year <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/massachusetts-teachers-union-says-u-s-is-complicit-in-genocidal-assault-in-gaza\">passed a resolution<\/a> accusing the United States of being complicit in a \u201cgenocidal assault.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The webinar was crafted in conjunction with Jewish Voice for Peace, an anti-Semitic organization that <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.adl.org\/resources\/blog\/jewish-voice-peace-jvp-what-you-need-know\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">blamed Israel<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> for Hamas\u2019 attack while it was still ongoing and stepped up its anti-Israel activism afterward,<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/far-left-protesters-with-<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/pro-trump-religious-groups-begin-turning-up-heat-on-gop-to-take-action-on-marjorie-taylor-greene\/\" title=\"Pro-Trump, Religious Groups Begin Turning Up Heat On GOP To Take Action On Marjorie Taylor Greene\">anti-semitic<\/a>-group-storm-u-s-capitol-seeks-to-end-israel&#8221;><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> including storming<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> the U.S. Capitol.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Prior to the webinar, participants were asked if they felt supported by their schools when \u201cteaching anti-Zionist narratives about Palestine,\u201d according to a survey obtained by The Daily Wire.<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_714835\" style=\"width: 303px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-714835\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Survey sent out ahead of MTA\u2019s webinar on anti-Palestinian racism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">At the webinar, presenters made it a focus to convince the audience that anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism have no correlation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHow do we counter this unfair and misleading propaganda?\u201d Gender Studies professor Heike Schotten said with a slide stating, \u201cOne of the biggest, most common, painful, and offensive ways this propaganda works is by attacking anyone who speaks out against Zionism as anti-Semitic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWell, you know, all of us in the Zoom room are educators,\u201d said Schotten, who according to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement\u2019s website, has been active in anti-Israel activism <a href=\"https:\/\/bdsmovement.net\/news\/us-bds-activism-reaches-third-rail\">since 2006<\/a>. \u201cEducation is and has always been central to movements for liberation and justice\u2026 and when we do this together, when we learn and teach and know about Zionism, both as settler colonialism and as a very well<a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/biden-drops-plan-to-track-chinese-communist-influence-in-american-schools-report\/\" title=\"Biden Drops Plan To Track Chinese Communist Influence In American Schools: Report\">-funded propaganda effort<\/a>, we realize that these claims about anti-Semitism are lies.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Following the event, the Anti-Defamation League New England released a statement saying it was \u201cdeeply concerned by the framing\u201d of the webinar.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cBy expressly rejecting anti-Zionism as a form of anti-Semitism and invoking frameworks of \u2018colonialism and imperialism\u2019 in a discussion regarding Israel\/Palestine, this programming reinforces anti-Semitic and anti-Israel falsehoods.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cEducational programming on topics such as Zionism and anti-Zionism, particularly where a stated goal is to better prepare educators for discussions in the classroom, must be subject to at least the same rigorous standards we would expect of any curriculum intended to be taught to our children,\u201d the ADL added in its statement.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Jeremy Burton, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston, <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.jcrcboston.org\/an-open-letter-regarding-recent-mass-teachers-association-activities\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">accused members of the MTA<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> of using \u201cpernicious and inflammatory rhetoric\u201d and said messaging from the MTA in recent months played into \u201cdehumanizing anti-Semitic tropes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Burton added that he took issue with the webinar \u201ccoupling concerns for anti-Palestinian racism with a campaign of anti-Zionism in classrooms.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The webinar\u2019s promotional materials stated that \u201canti-Palestinian racism too often goes unnoticed\u201d because many teachers do not feel confident to speak about the complex topic of \u201cPalestine\u201d in classrooms.<\/span><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_714839\" style=\"width: 453px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-714839\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Massachusetts Teachers Association\u2019s promotional material for its \u201cThe Struggle Against Anti-Palestinian Racism\u201d webinar.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Brigitte Karns, a teacher and MTA dues-paying member, said she fears the school\u2019s curriculum will be infused with anti-Semitism and anti-Israel teachings.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cWe have major concerns that the end goal for the MTA is to implement this type of curriculum into classrooms across Massachusetts,\u201d Karns told The Daily Wire. \u201cThey are looking to train teachers with dangerous material that will indoctrinate our students to be anti-Semitic.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cThe MTA should not be involved in geopolitical issues,\u201d she added. \u201cThere have been many in the past with the same groups and they did not get involved.\u00a0 Ukraine\/Russia and they did not get involved.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The MTA president <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/massteacher.org\/news\/2024\/03\/uniondemocracy\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">defended the webinar<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as an opportunity for dialogue and noted that it plans to host an upcoming event on anti-Semitism.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cI expect that there will be members in attendance who will agree wholeheartedly with what is presented; there will be members in attendance who could not disagree more,\u201d Max Page said. \u201cThe particular viewpoints expressed in these individual workshops do not represent the official views of the MTA.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Page added that he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/american-who-lost-18-family-members-in-kabul-bombing-and-was-left-behind-biden-admin-broke-me\/\" title=\"American Who Lost 18 Family Members In Kabul Bombing And Was Left Behind: Biden Admin \u2018Broke Me\u2019\">lost 18 family members<\/a> during the Holocaust and that it has been difficult to be accused of anti-Semitism in recent months.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Arielle Kingsbury, who is an occupational therapist <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">in a public school in the Greater Boston area and<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> dues paying member of MTA, called the webinar \u201cabhorrent.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kingsbury took issue with Schotten making the claim that Israel rules with \u201cJewish supremacy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The webinar was biased and contradictory,\u201d Kingsbury said. \u201cThey spoke about the history of the conflict but neglected to mention a lot of historical fact.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">MTA\u2019s board of directors passed a resolution in December that accused Israel of committing ge<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">nocide and the U.S. of being complicit, the Daily Wire <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/massachusetts-teachers-union-says-u-s-is-complicit-in-genocidal-assault-in-gaza\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">previously reported<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAs an educators\u2019 union, we must take a stand with our union siblings, and promote peace and justice in the region by calling for an end to our government\u2019s complicity with Israel\u2019s genocidal assault on the people of Gaza and intent to take over their territory,\u201d the statement reads. \u201cHow many deaths, how many more children must die, before we take a stand? Silence is complicity,\u201d it adds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The ADL at the time, accused the resolution of camouflaging \u201can ill-founded attack on Israel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cAt a minimum, the statement\u2019s failure to explicitly and unconditionally condemn the Hamas attack call for the return of all remaining hostages or demand that any ceasefire include a commitment to remove Hamas \u2014 whose officials have reportedly vowed to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/watch-hamas-official-says-terrorist-group-will-repeat-oct-7-attack-again-and-again\/\" title=\"VIDEO: Hamas Official Vows to Repeat Oct. 7 Attack Repeatedly\">repeat terrorist attacks<\/a> like the one on October 7th until Israel is destroyed \u2014 as a controlling actor in Gaza is revealing,\u201d\u00a0 ADL chapter\u2019s director, Dr. Jonah C. Steinberg said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">More than 57,000 Massachusetts teachers, students, and parents signed a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/israelusa.quorum.us\/campaign\/mtajewishsafety\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">counter petition<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to the resolution which demanded a public apology, a statement noting that only 34 MTA members voted in favor, and a motion to rescind the proposal.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In the wake of the controversies, MTA\u2019s board of directors was invited to a Lappin Foundation seminar this April about countering anti-Semitism in schools. Board member Joe Herosy rejected the invitation, claiming the foundation is part of the \u201cIsrael lobby.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Heresy has been pushing anti-Israel rhetoric on <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.ph\/f0iEN\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">his social media<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> in recent months, including sharing a cartoon of Hamas terrorists bulldozing into Israel just a day after the attack.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">UMass Boston and Joe Herosy did not respond to a request for comment.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Massachusetts teachers union faces backlash for hosting a webinar with a professor praising Hamas terrorists. The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) webinar, titled &#8220;The Struggle Against Anti-Palestinian Racism,&#8221; included controversial remarks. The union, representing 117,000 educators, is criticized for the event&#8217;s content<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":597,"featured_media":2207418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/02\/GettyImages-1165623314-3.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[541],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2207417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-daily-wire"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/dw-wp-production.imgix.net\/2024\/02\/GettyImages-1165623314-3.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/597"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2207417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2207417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2207418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2207417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2207417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2207417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}