High School Propaganda
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
In a country where many high school students cannot even correctly identify the century in which the American Civil War was waged, at least students in Andover High School in Massachusetts may become very familiar with the historical term “ethnic cleansing,” and how the world’s most egregious example of its continued practice is, of course, found in the “Jewish privileged state” of “apartheid Israel,” to quote Ron Francis, a physics teacher at the school.
Thanks to the efforts of Mr. Francis, who also is an informal adviser to Students for Middle East Justice, an unofficial after school group, students will have the opportunity of listening to the anti-American, anti-Israel view of the Wheels of Justice organization. Wheels of Justice preaches a one-sided message that all the woes of the Palestinians are singularly the result of Israel’s “colonization, occupation, displacement, apartheid and the denial of the right of Palestinian refugees.”
There was some controversy at the end of October when Andover High’s principal, alerted to the actual nature and content of the Wheels of Justice traveling bus tour, temporarily postponed the visit that Mr. Francis helped arrange until other speakers, offering counterbalancing views, could be found. In a statement released last week, the principal said that Wheels of Justice will appear at the school for, in the words of the online edition of the Eagle-Tribune of December 7, “one in a series of three forums, each featuring a different perspective on Middle East conflicts.” No date for any of the sessions has yet been set.
Tom Meyers, president of the teachers’ union and an outspoken Francis supporter — who together with five other social studies teachers invited the group to address about 200 students earlier this year — was indignant over the school’s initial decision to exclude the lecturers and limit someone’s First Amendment rights, although it is not entirely clear exactly whose rights were being denied.
The Constitution protects the right of people to express their views, no matter how reprehensible, in what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes termed the broad, public “marketplace of ideas,” but nowhere is it incumbent on any institution, and certainly not public schools, to be forced to sponsor, or provide a public platform for, the ravings of any outside individual, merely because that individual has a message he or she is eager to express.
Despite their claim of being peace activists looking for an open, unbiased solution and “to speak honestly and openly about Palestine/Israel,” Wheels of Justice’s starting premise is that “the Israeli military occupation continues a legacy that began in 1947 with the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians to make room for the State of Israel” and that “the roots of the conflict remain,” which are all the fault and responsibility of Israel. There is, of course, no mention in the group’s language of the intractability of Hamas and other Palestinians in not recognizing, even now, the right or reality of Israel’s existence; the Arabs’ aggression beginning with the founding of the Jewish state; the Hamas charter which calls for a jihad against Zionism and for killing Jews; the continued Palestinian assault on Israel with Qassam rockets and suicide bombers, and the anti-Semitic teaching throughout the Arab world.
While it is still not acceptable, at least in America, in civil social circles to publicly express Jew hatred, it has become very convenient for anti-Semites that they are able to express what David Frum has termed their “genocidal liberalism” by aiming their crypto-hatreds at Israel instead, relentlessly condemning it and calling for its eradication.
They may express themselves in the manner of Mr. Francis, who invites extremist speakers like those from Wheels of Justice and has spearheaded an Israel divestment project in his hometown of Somerville. In an interview with the Andover Townsman newspaper in June, on the topics of America, Israel, and Hamas, Mr. Francis said, “I do not condemn the Palestinian people because the actions they are taking, given the circumstances they face, (are) completely understandable and within the bounds of normal human behavior. I have to ask myself, would I be any different?”
In his obsessive reverence for everything Palestinian and with his demonizing of Israel, Mr. Francis does his students a great disservice by presenting a worldview that can, and should, be challenged by different perspectives. It is a view so one-sided and extreme that it does not merit a place in a reasonable discussion. Students should be taught to seek balance in discussions, analyze opposing viewpoints, and not blindly accept rabid ideology.
Groups such as Wheels of Justice conveniently describe themselves as human rights activists, even though they seem singularly obsessed with the failings and moral lapses of Israel — and only Israel — among all countries in the world, in many of which civil strife, actual genocide, ethnic purging, enslavement, mass murder, and totalitarianism prevail. “Could the singling out of Israel,” Edward Alexander, professor of English at the University of Washington in Seattle, ironically asks, “possibly have anything to do with the fact that it is a Jewish country?” And one of Wheels of Justice’s own stated missions, promoting “solidarity with Iraqis and Palestinians under war and occupation,” makes it quite clear that its moral, political, and financial support is committed to supporting, not all parties, but solely the enemies of America and Israel.
More important in the context of exposing high school students to current events is the fundamental question about what role teachers should have, if any, in promoting personal ideology, and in exposing students to one-sided, historically inaccurate, and debatable views of difficult political issues. Why this particular issue to shove down students’ throats among all the incendiary geopolitical situations on earth? Why link Israel with America’s alleged “occupation” of Iraq, and why promote anti-American sentiment and practically fawn over Iraqi insurgents who murder Americans?
The good news, at least, is that at Andover High School, Mr. Francis teaches physics and not history.
Mr. Cravatts, a lecturer at Boston University, Emmanuel College, and Babson College, writes frequently about politics, religion, and culture.