Teacher's union accused of 'trafficking anti-Semitic hatred'

The nation's largest teachers union is being accused of "trafficking in anti-Semitic hatred" over a faction of its members pushing an anti-Israel agenda.

That segment of the National Education Association membership is trying to establish "an anti-Semitic BDS/Israel Apartheid agenda into the bylaws" of the group, according to Laurie Cardoza-Moore, president of Proclaiming Justice to the Nations.

"While Americans are busy planning summer get-aways during their children's school break, the union representing America's teachers has regrettably been engaged with a growing faction within their ranks attempting to use the NEA as a means of trafficking anti-Semitic hatred to our children's educators, and ultimately to their students," she said in a statement.

In a letter to NEA President Lily Eskelstein Garcia, she's asking for the anti-Israel members to be censured.

"The NEA is the largest labor union and pro interest group in the U.S. with over three million members encompassing public school teachers from K-12 through university," she wrote. "For the second year in a row an apparent growing anti-Israel coalition within NEA has attempted to push an anti-Semitic BDS/Israel Apartheid agenda into the bylaws of the organization's vote by the mainstream rank and file."

The NEA says it is proposing the use of "existing digital communications to develop and publish resources to educate members and the general public on the apartheid, atrocities, and gross violations of human rights of Palestinian children and families by the State of Israel, funded directly by the United States."

It also calls for the "end the detention and abuse of Palestinian Children."

"The NEA must oppose the detainment, incarceration, torture, family separation, and murder of children and their families at the hands of the U.S., domestically and globally."

Cardoza-Moore said that "the very presentation of this as new business must be considered a dangerously radical reach for an organization whose stated objective declares, 'We are the voice of educational professionals."

"Our work is fundamentally to the nation, and we accept the profound trust placed in us.' Trust? How can America trust an agenda that doesn't censure the open consideration of anti-Semitic policy based on disinformation with no proof to substantiate the outrageous claims?," she wrote.

The important question for administrators, teachers and parents to consider, she said, is: "When was an American teacher's union deputized to become a global watchdog whose mission it is to vilify Israel and become a vehicle to push hate within their membership?"

Such vilification would be expected by entities such as the United Nations, "where Israel has few allies," she said.

"I find it shocking in the setting of the largest convention of American teachers. The language presented to their convention pre-supposes Israel is an apartheid state, guilty of atrocities and this lie was published in conference materials as well as online at the NEA website. The very existence of such gross propaganda being allowed legitimacy in the open forum is a means of mainstreaming hatred and lies. It warrants the deep concern for every American parent."

Cardoza-Moore explained that there certainly are Christians, Jews and other people of good conscience who are dedicated and patriotic teachers.

"Of concern is the existence of an anti-Semitic faction who for a second year have had a strong enough voice to be heard by their three million fellow members. Theirs is a persistence that will only grow in the attempt to influence their fellow educators – our children's teachers and the guardians of the minds of America's next generation of leaders," she said.

She said the attack on freedom, which failed for "budgetary" reasons, is just one of the challenges that have developed in recent days.

In many schools, she said, there are "gross examples of social justice propaganda, revisionist, distorted, and abbreviated American history, factual inaccuracies and a growing trend of anti-American, anti-Semitic and pro-Islamic content."

Her conclusion?

"The public education system is failing our nation’s students and has put the future of our constitutional republic in jeopardy."