Antisemitism in schools

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c623d7z1rxg5o

So sad that the anti semitism brought about by an anti Israel non mentality is now impacting schools and the government is having to act to protect pupils.

Have schools been welcoming lots of Palestinian refugees?

Not that I know of. I don’t think that the UK has an official refugee programme for Palestinians like it did with Ukraine. I actually have two Palestinians in my team, both based in Dubai. They were both brought up in refugee camps in Lebanon.

That might be rather difficult when one thinks about it.

Ukrainian refuges are fleeing a war. Good people and nations are giving them shelter to wait for the war to end, so they can return. Once the invaders are expelled.

Palestinians, however. They have more of an ejection thing from their own country thing going on. As in, get out we don't want you, and don't come back. Orders from an occupying force.

Do you see the difference?

Well another difference is that Ukrainian refugees tend to be women and children.
There would be a risk that some Palestinians would be Hamas members and that would present a security risk as well as potentially enflame antisemitism in the UK to even greater heights.

But Ukrainians who might be a tad anti Russian are ok?

I don’t see huge marches and student activism and aggressive online activity against Russians in the UK ?
The Green Party hasn’t had a vote to deny Russians the right to a homeland.
But you already know this comparison is spurious.

The ridiculous attempt to suggest Russians in the UK are subject to the same level of prejudice and threat that Jewish children face tells me that some posters don’t care about UK children being victimised if they are Jewish.

I never suggested that. I just asked a question. And you appear to have avoided the question and joined dots that are not there.

I mean, we (the UK) are anti-Russian. We’re effectively at war with them. Russians in the UK must be vocally and demonstratively anti-regime. Any who support the regime are ostracised as well as attracting the attention of the security services, having their property seized, visas revoked etc.

What was the meaning behind your question.

Taken literally, it seems facile.

We’re not anti Russian. We’re anti Putin.
I don’t see anti Russian sentiment- just anti Putin. Considering Russia presents a real threat to us and Israel doesn’t- it’s quite strange .

There are very few Russian children in UK classrooms and actually may be discussions about that conflict should be limited in those school as where there are significant number of Russians......but there have be no incidences of Russians being targeted in any way in the UK. Jewish children are going to schools with huge fences and essentially going through routines akin to shooter alarms in the USA. it's a poor argument brining Ukraine into this when there are few Russians in this country and are not subject to daily attack.

This really.

No, it doesn’t.

Therefore it seems a bit silly to use the example of British children welcoming Ukrainian refugees into their communities as a reason why children in schools ought to be discussing Gaza.

Well, it should be interesting when Mahmood sets up her safe routes, one for Afghans and one for Palestinians. We'll see an influx of Afghan and Palestinian children into British schools. So the discussions in our schools are likely to intensify.

The point is that British schools aren’t taking Palestinian refugees so it is silly to try to draw comparisons to Ukraine when discussing the situation in British schools.

People really want to justify support for Palestine by comparing to support for Ukraine but it clearly doesn’t work.

I have many many thoughts on this.

But I guess id start with saying that raising Jewish children here has become increasingly uncomfortable. My children are the only Jewish children in both their schools. They are 2/1200 in the primary and high school. The schools are maybe 15% Muslim.

After a class taught by a self explained partisan teacher who thinks it’s important to wear a Palestinian flag and a necklace shaped like Israel but with the name Palestine on it. One of the founders of the ridiculously named ‘Educators for Peace’ (another is the teacher noted in the first response here). So you can imagine the discussion…

So after this class in s1, my then 11 year old Jewish daughter was surrounded by 6 teenage boys - 3 from her class and 3 older siblings or cousins. They chanted free Palestine and wouldn’t let her through. She is autistic and has situational mutism so couldn’t scream for help. She just curled up in a ball until a teacher came by. They said they’d follow her home to find out where ‘the rest of them’ lived so they could tell their families where to find us.

One of the many frightening things about this was that she doesn’t really talk in any new situation so these boys found out she was Jewish from someone else. Someone from primary thought it was important to let these teenagers know there’s a Jewish girl in school.

So this is what partisan teaching leads to. When you are 0.00125% of your school and represent everything on your own. Many Jewish children are the only ones - most of our Sunday school class is in this situation.

So yes it’s super personal to me but I would hope I’d see the same issue no matter the cause. I did raise concerns about the way Ukraine and Russia were being discussed - I have a Russian friend and she and her son did experience some issues at the time. War is complicated and difficult and personal and schools should be safe for everyone. There is plenty to debate right here without bringing this level of trauma into it.

I’m so sorry. That sounds incredibly distressing for you all.
You’re right of course - all children, whatever their race, nationality or religion, should feel safe at school.

Marches against Russians? Don't you mean against the Russian Government ?

There has been protests. Example here-

Protesters to gather outside Russian embassy to demand withdrawal from Ukraine | Morning Star (morningstaronline.co.uk)

Not big. But a protest nevertheless, in 2025. Now, I do suspect there would be more protests if it was considered that the UK government were seen to be supporting the Russian Government. But they are not. They are doing a lot against the Russian Government. In this case, it is Trump who appears to be trying to help Putin. So I daresay there will be anti Trump protests because of that, I suspect they will be in DC.

Now look at this London Protest.

Thousands march in anti-Israel protest in London, call for end to Gaza strikes | The Times of Israel

And a quote from that.

"She says UK-led Western sanctions over settler violence did not go far enough, calling for “full sanctions on Israel.”"

So there is an added thing here. They are also protesting against the UK government. Saying they want them to do more. And they are not the only people protesting against the UK Government. There is also this-

‘A dark day for British Jews’: Chief Rabbi condemns UK sanctions on West Bank settlements - The Jewish Chronicle (thejc.com)

I don't know if there was a march for that, but the pro Palestine marches do have counter protests too. And that does not seem to happen with pro Ukraine protests.

You mention the Green Party. And I think it was a despicable antisemitic vote. And I think the green Party deserve to collapse over it.

But why are you mentioning it? It's a thread about antisemitism in schools? And as I posted above, I am sure it is a good report and the actions it suggests will be taken are acted on.

Are you mentioning it because you are conflating it all? Lumping everyone into the same category ? That is, anti Jewish.

There does seem to be a lot of that going on. Pro Palestine = anti Jewish. Anti Netanyahu = anti Jewish. Pro West bank sanctions = anti Jewish. But that is not really how it works. People have different reasons. And for sure, there are too many core antisemites, and I am sure this school report will try to deal with that, but not everyone who protests is in that group.

For example, there is another antisemitic group. Goodwins alert, the Nazis. And when we get the Tommy Ten Names marches, there are actual Nazis amongst them. But I suspect you don't tar the whole lot of them as actual Nazis. I am sure this report will cover that too.

Orwell wrote an essay on antisemitism in the UK in 1945.

George Orwell - AntiSemitism In Britian - Essay (george-orwell.org)

It's shocking stuff. And I know Orwell is contentious, but his essay is worth a read. Because it shows how deep rooted the issue is. And hope this report will be just as deep and will have good actions proposed.

Wow you had to go back to February 2025 to find a small protest outside the Russian embassy.

I think you just proved the point that we don’t see huge marches and student activism against the Russian government in the UK. We don’t see the war in Ukraine or Russia having a deeply unpopular leader (through our eyes) as being a good reason to indulge in anti Russian stereotypes or hostile behaviour towards Russians living peacefully in the UK.

When I was teaching, I would rather have cut off a limb than debate Israel / Palestine with my class! An incredibly emotive topic and one you can only really debate with a level of emotional maturity. Any teacher thinking that discussion will end well is naive IMO.
I did teach children about fairness, empathy, anti-racism etc. I think that’s well within a teacher’s job. Contentious political issues where you know children’s parents will have different views, not so much.

What is glaringly obvious to me among all these assertions that support for Palestine is just the same as support for Ukraine (and therefore as we have Ukrainian refugees in schools we should be allowed to discuss Palestine even though we don’t have Palestinian refugees) is the complete absence of any mention of Hamas.

How did the war in Ukraine start? Russia invaded. How did the most recent war in Gaza start? Hamas, who are a proscribed terrorist organisation, the government of Gaza and who are Palestinian crossed the border to Israel, raped, tortured, murdered and took hostages including children and the elderly.

If you are pro-Palestinian and talking to kids then one would have to be very careful to separate the civilians from the terrorists, the people from the government. And yet people who are apparently keen to talk to kids about it aren’t even mentioning the issue.

When people were against the war in Iraq they marched to Stop the War. They didn’t declare themselves pro-Iraqi (unless, I guess, they were actually fans of Saddam Hussein). Palestine, like Iraq, is not our ally, Hamas are not our friends.

Teachers wading into this mess would need to be extremely careful to present a balanced view and I certainly don’t trust activists of the Daniel ‘globalise the intifada’ Kebede type who are so keen to criticise Israel that they are concerned that they may breach the IHRA definition of antisemitism to do it.

Quote : "When people were against the war in Iraq they marched to Stop the War. They didn’t declare themselves pro-Iraqi (unless, I guess, they were actually fans of Saddam Hussein). Palestine, like Iraq, is not our ally, Hamas are not our friends."

And the marches were.... anti UK Government. Not in my name and all that. Were there people supporting Hussein ? Yes, George Galloway for example. But the masses were not marching for Hussein. They were against the UK Government taking part in the war. Iraq was already a sovereign country. And a large part of the protests were in support of the Iraqi people. Not the dictator leader.

With Palastine, there is no soverign country, becase the current leader of Israel says no two state. He us saying perpetual occupation.

The same as the current protests for most. It is in support of the people. Not Hamas.

And to the PP who said a small anti Putin protest proves against my point. Did they even read my post? There is no need to march against the UK government, because they are doing loads against Putin, instead of, you know, supporting him. If the UK was selling arms to Putin, do you think we might see big protests about that ?

The same as the current protests for most. It is in support of the people. Not Hamas.

There’s plenty that’s anti the Israeli government, anti Zionist and, yes, pro Hamas. And we’ve also seen chants of support for the Houthis.

You say that the Green Party vote was wrong. Do you suppose that the Green Party members who voted for it or who support it are not on the marches? Where do you think that vote came from?

There was a time when you could argue that the people on the marches were normal people horrified by what was happening in Gaza. I don’t think that is true anymore. A year after the ceasefire normal people are not turning out, it’s mainly the people who really hate Israel who still turn out. And apparently they can’t be trusted not to breach the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Absolutely 💯