The House Education and Workforce Committee released its <a href="https://url.avanan.click/v2/r01/___https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=413825__;!!PxibshUo2Yr_Ta5B!17xeTktcMPKHjtEYVLuyULHcFOklQ23W4weMPw9TV98H24Xj6x-X8mb1dcSFwN7_K2-AENLsm2e7G8zRx-Byjj6s$___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YTpvOmVjNGFhNTE5MGVjNzU5MTdjYmE1YTRiNzZhYzM2MjQwOjc6ZmE5Njo5ZmU5ZTQ0ZGRmODBmMDFkYTdiNTZjOGU2YjRlZmEyMjdhN2YxNzlmNjEzNmIxMmUyZDIyNTg0OGE4Mjg2YmE1Omg6VDpG">report</a> on antisemitism in K-12 schools this week, and it’s a bombshell. The report details structural antisemitism – not merely incidents – in the Philadelphia and Berkeley school districts as well as in the National Education Association (NEA), the largest teachers’ union in the country. There are horrifying examples in the report of students as young as second grade being indoctrinated to view the world through an oppressor-oppressed lens, units on “resistance” and “decolonization” that glorify violence, and the use of politically radical materials from organizations with long histories of antisemitism.
The report also finds NEA internal documents saying a 2025 push by union members to boycott the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the Jewish community’s oldest and best-known antisemitism watchdog, was unnecessary because the NEA was already boycotting them. ADL, it seems, had been critical of Black Lives Matter leaders after the co-founder had called for the destruction of Israel and numerous chapters had defended Hamas’s actions on October 7. Interestingly, the ADL, in late August, put out a report on antisemitism in teachers’ unions that found more than 70% of Jewish teachers reported hostile treatment and a lack of adequate union leadership action. Little did they know how widespread the problem was.
While the report only documents antisemitism in two school districts, the reality is that the problem is a national one. Too many primary and secondary schools around the country are in the grasp of activists masquerading as educators. Some of them are in classrooms. Some are administrators. Some are union leaders. Some are college professors who write curricula. All of them are working together to undermine what America means to our kids.
The report outlines an appalling narrative about the United States. It says we are nothing more than a settler-colonial entity endlessly oppressing everyone around us. Our foreign policy is evil. Our economic policies are evil. Even the principles on which we were founded are evil. And the opportunity to criticize these evils arises because, today, the leading perpetrator of them is the Jewish state. But rest assured, America is the real target.
It is now inescapable that the root of our problem is decay at the core of American self-confidence. Nearly every other dangerous social and political malady traces back to it. We no longer agree on, believe in, or understand our history, our Founding principles, or our mission in the world. For generations now, teaching children to be informed patriots has been confused with indoctrination or jingoism, only to have patriotism replaced entirely with the indoctrination outlined in the House Education and Workforce Committee Report. This is no longer simply another issue requiring our attention. It is a five-alarm fire burning our country to the ground. It requires immediate mass mobilization.
The problem is, frankly, enormous. It defies the short attention spans that have come to characterize our political and civil institutions. It requires the kind of broad agreement — even to admit the existence of the problem, let alone its scope — that proves elusive in virtually every other aspect of American life. Well-organized, well-financed, well-credentialed people will oppose us every step of the way, committed to their narrative and intent on continuing their long march.
Despite these obstacles, we have two very clear advantages. First, Americans still broadly love and respect the country, even if many are hazy as to why they should and increasingly susceptible to arguments that they should not. We have a limited amount of time to capitalize on that still-open door. Second, we’re selling the greatest product ever developed by man: a system of self-government that has resulted in the wealthiest, most powerful, and freest society in human history. Results we can point to.
Patriots on the Left and Right need to accept that our institutions of learning have been corrupted by enemies of our civilization and begin behaving accordingly. But it starts with admitting we have a problem. Chairman Walberg and the House Education and Workforce Committee have given us another round of evidence. Will we have the wisdom to finally see it?
***
Jonathan Greenberg is an ordained rabbi and the Director for Combatting Antisemitism at Defending Education.

Los Angeles high school students walkout to protest President-elect Donald Trump

A Five-Alarm Fire In American Education

antisemitism

education

house education and workforce committee

national education association

opinion

school curriculum

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On Tuesday, the dozens of us who tuned in to watch the United Nations Security Council&#8217;s 8,183rd meeting (yes, that&#8217;s the real number) were rewarded with a great breakthrough in the long hoped-for dream of peace between Israelis and Palestinians!
Just kidding. With the exception of the truly remarkable American ambassador, Nikki Haley, it was a bunch of self-satisfied bureaucrats engaged in a farcical insult to the United States and Israel in particular and liberal democracy in general.
As different countries&#8217; ambassadors spoke, I checked their ratings with Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the expansion of freedom and democracy around the world. For reference, the United States scored an 89 of 100 in 2017. Israel scored an 80. China scored a 14.
The Ambassador from Russia (Freedom House rating: 20) &#8212; a man representing a country reportedly currently using chemical weapons against Syrian civilians &#8212; expressed concern about the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Not the ones in Syria, though. They&#8217;re (ahem) fine.
The Ambassador from Equatorial Guinea (Freedom House rating: eight. That&#8217;s not missing a &#8220;y.&#8221; It&#8217;s just eight.) referred to the need for justice and fairness. Not for his own people, though. They&#8217;re also (ahem) fine.
The Ambassador from Kazakhstan (Freedom House score: 22) was very concerned about cuts to the budget of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, an organization that has been <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/unrwa-the-greatest-obstacle-to-peace/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1519325830750000&amp;usg=AFQjCNHVIPhDkVFuBPEm06Oio5bNkZgttQ" href="http://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/unrwa-the-greatest-obstacle-to-peace/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">called</a> &#8220;the greatest obstacle to peace.&#8221; Worth noting: the Kazakh government isn&#8217;t concerned enough to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/donor_ranking_with_un_agencies_overall.pdf&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1519325830750000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGNIlY8AXQuSn2smotzg60O1PCGNA" href="https://www.unrwa.org/sites/default/files/donor_ranking_with_un_agencies_overall.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">contribute to UNRWA&#8217;s budget</a>, but, rest assured, they&#8217;re concerned.
As the parade of kleptocracies, paper tiger strong-men, and penny-ante dictators rolled past, one could be forgiven for laughing a little. But only a little. Interspersed among the knaves and ne&#8217;er-do-wells were some of the greatest democracies in the world. All of them mouthing the same empty pieties. All of them still married to the same disastrous fantasies that have failed for 25 years.
They all thanked Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for his courageous dedication to peace despite the fact that he is a Holocaust-denying dictator who incentivizes terrorism and claims Jews have no historical connection to Jerusalem. Thanking a man for utterly failing to prepare his people culturally or institutionally for a future of peaceful coexistence is an odd way to promote peace. And thanking him after he&#8217;s already left the room to avoid hearing the presentation of the Israeli ambassador is an odd way to promote dialogue.
The British Ambassador urged the Israelis and Palestinians to abide by previous agreements, which, he said, have brought us closer to peace. The Swedish ambassador claimed that the root cause of the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians is what he called &#8220;the occupation&#8221; of Palestinian territory. The French ambassador claimed more than once that the conflict is the oldest in the region. All of them took issue with Ambassador Haley&#8217;s correct assertion that the conflict is not the lynchpin of strife in the Middle East.
But none of these positions stand up to any reasonable scrutiny. One only needs to look around to see that we are not, in fact, closer to peace then we were in the 1990s. Jewish homes in the disputed territories are not the cause of the conflict. And one would expect the heirs of Francois Georges-Picot at least to pretend to some sort of proper historical context.
But, alas, there are talking points to reiterate. An ossified thought process that freezes the world in 1995 and pretends that the last two decades simply didn&#8217;t happen.
The only way to make peace is to face the conflict as it is today &#8212; not as it was then. If the great democracies of the world &#8212; the United States being the lonely, Churchillian exception &#8212; cannot accept that the Oslo process has died, we will remain hostage to Peace Process Cartel wishful thinking.
Jonathan Greenberg is an ordained reform rabbi and the senior vice president of the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. Follow him @JGreenbergSez.
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GREENBERG: U.N. Bureaucrats Stick To Blame Israel Talking-Points, Ignoring History And Facts

israel

Palestinians

united nations

The United States has taken the welcome step of cutting half of our planned $125 million in funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. UNRWA, which provides aid to Palestinians displaced by the Israeli War of Independence and their descendants, has been <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://fathomjournal.org/unrwa-an-obstacle-to-peace/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1516297456994000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGDPezVirmpYpahCHH-zOH1UxQzUA" href="http://fathomjournal.org/unrwa-an-obstacle-to-peace/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">referred to</a> as &#8220;one of the greatest obstacles to peace.&#8221; Despite the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://twitter.com/RichardHaass/status/948367723117113345&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1516297456994000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE33Ie-BxEgkT9ll8Bgf-NWH1XW6Q" href="https://twitter.com/RichardHaass/status/948367723117113345" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">jeremiads</a> of people who who believe U.S. aid is charity <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://twitter.com/RNicholasBurns/status/950015109954498560&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1516297456994000&amp;usg=AFQjCNGGb4trl8Dr43rzjbnBMnj9l18U-Q" href="https://twitter.com/RNicholasBurns/status/950015109954498560" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">untethered</a> to policy outcomes, this is a <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/05/nikki-haleys-diplomacy-of-revenge-targets-u-n-relief-agency/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1516297456994000&amp;usg=AFQjCNEhixM4WByYkoQ3fWlciwFgs4IqNQ" href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/05/nikki-haleys-diplomacy-of-revenge-targets-u-n-relief-agency/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">peace-encouraging</a> development toward dismantling UNRWA entirely, folding its operations into those of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, and ending international maintenance of the Palestinian &#8220;refugee crisis&#8221; now reaching into its fourth generation.
UNRWA says its mission is &#8220;to carry out direct relief and works programmes for Palestine refugees.&#8221; UNRWA claims it &#8220;protects and assists Palestine refugees, seeking to help them achieve their full potential in human development.&#8221; According to its website, &#8220;when the Agency began operations in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, some 5 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services.&#8221;
That last sentence should shock you. Its name notwithstanding, UNRWA has not &#8220;relieved&#8221; the refugees&#8217; situation. It has encouraged and exacerbated it. No other program to assist refugees has overseen and, in fact, helped create a 650% increase in the population it serves. Unfortunately, UNRWA has made Palestinian refugee status hereditary. Rather than moving on with their lives, UNRWA has locked generations of Palestinians in permanent victimhood. UNRWA&#8217;s definition of a Palestinian refugee as including descendants is partly a strategy to ensure organizational continuity, but it also serves the Palestinian victimization narrative both within their society and beyond. What it does not do is create any incentive for Palestinians to resettle, move on, or build the kind of institutions necessary for statehood.
If the worst thing UNRWA was guilty of were the worsening of the problem it was created to alleviate, it would be unremarkable among U.N. agencies &#8212; especially those in the Middle East. Unfortunately, UNRWA has become part of the violence ecosystem in Palestinian society. It is infiltrated, manipulated, and openly exploited by Palestinian terror groups. It has a history of <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/UNRWA-suspends-employee-allegedly-elected-to-Hamas-leadership-482665&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1516297456994000&amp;usg=AFQjCNF7b_Il4iqxJSFlMz6Et4Raai46Eg" href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/UNRWA-suspends-employee-allegedly-elected-to-Hamas-leadership-482665" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">hiring</a> members of terror groups, of its properties being used as <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://www.timesofisrael.com/rockets-found-in-unrwa-school-for-third-time/&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1516297456994000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFkO4uklKumKRKweQGYxAZn7kzUnA" href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/rockets-found-in-unrwa-school-for-third-time/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">munitions dumps</a> and <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/10/30/world/israel-slams-terror-tunnel-u-n-gaza-school-slams-hamas-war-crimes/%23.WlONyf5y7IU&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1516297456994000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFtCRBjVYm_-LZiUe3knM4vlHMJ6w" href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/10/30/world/israel-slams-terror-tunnel-u-n-gaza-school-slams-hamas-war-crimes/#.WlONyf5y7IU" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">staging areas</a>, and its schools being used to <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/New-UNRWA-textbooks-display-extreme-anti-Jewish-and-anti-Israel-sentiments-study-shows-506174&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1516297456994000&amp;usg=AFQjCNFe25tuXlSrgj_qoxZYNTT8zryJiA" href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/New-UNRWA-textbooks-display-extreme-anti-Jewish-and-anti-Israel-sentiments-study-shows-506174" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">teach</a> the hatred that fuels and perpetuates the conflict. Predictably, the <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/statement-unrwa-commissioner-general-pierre-kr%25C3%25A4henb%25C3%25BChl-1&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1516297456994000&amp;usg=AFQjCNE31sCk33mnatytAYHS3zoXFur-XA" href="https://www.unrwa.org/newsroom/official-statements/statement-unrwa-commissioner-general-pierre-kr%C3%A4henb%C3%BChl-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">statement</a> by UNRWA&#8217;s Commissioner-General responding to the cuts fails to recognize any problems in the agency.
Even if these problems didn&#8217;t exist, UNRWA would still make no sense from a policy standpoint as every other refugee crisis in the world is handled by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). You read that right: 17.2 million refugees around the world are cared for and (importantly) resettled by a single U.N. agency. One &#8220;crisis&#8221; alone has its own agency.
The interests of the international community in assisting refugees are both altruistic and tactical. We want to help people, but we want to do it in a way that promotes peace and stability. UNRWA miserably fails at both. In so doing, it strengthens some of the worst forces in Palestinian society, makes peace harder to achieve, and directly participates in the deaths of innocent civilians.
The Trump Administration, in a unique position to cause the kind of disruption that is both necessary and frowned upon in the offices of foreign policy think tanks and newspaper editorial boards, would take an enormous step toward creating the conditions for a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by using our financial leverage to dismantle UNRWA. Last year, U.S. taxpayers provided about 30% of the agency&#8217;s annual budget (about $360 million of $1.24 billion).
This is an opportunity for the White House to positively engage with the international community while promoting U.S. interests. We should demand an end to the UNRWA mandate and offer to shift our funding to the UNHCR to take up responsibility for necessary humanitarian relief efforts. A cut in funding to UNRWA is a great start, but to prevent the simple fix of someone else stepping in to fill the budget hole, the U.S. needs to couple this expression of our principles with a push for structural change.
Jonathan Greenberg is an ordained Reform rabbi and the senior vice president of the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center.

GREENBERG: Trump’s Decision To Cut UNRWA Funding Is The First Step Toward Middle East Peace

Former State Department official Aaron David Miller, who helped execute American Middle East policy throughout most of the last 25 years, including much of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&amp;q=https://twitter.com/aarondmiller2/status/939988042097610752&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1513351576527000&amp;usg=AFQjCNG5GT1IFn33Gu8Kp2HW3osybbzncg" href="https://twitter.com/aarondmiller2/status/939988042097610752" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">wrote</a> earlier this week regarding President Trump&#8217;s announced recognition of Jerusalem as Israel&#8217;s capital: &#8220;Arab state helplessness in the face of Trump&#8217;s decision is an indication of how much region has changed and loss of centrality of Palestinian issue. Palestinian street is exhausted; the Arab street has disappeared.&#8221;
The impotence that has characterized the Palestinian, Arab, and broader Muslim reactions to the announcement shouldn&#8217;t have been a surprise. Yet many foreign policy &#8220;experts&#8221; predicted a much different outcome. If nothing else comes from Trump&#8217;s announcement, it should force a broad reconsideration of the efficacy of continuing to listen to the same people making the same bad calls they&#8217;ve made for years.
Before the announcement, analysts told us to expect extensive violence and targeting of U.S. interests. According to former Obama Administration official Ben Rhodes, &#8220;Trump is risking huge blowback against the U.S..&#8221; Did you hear that? &#8220;Huge blowback!&#8221; And there have been some protests. My favorite was the one in Bethlehem &#8212; in Manger Square, no less! &#8212; during which some four guys unenthusiastically stomped on pictures of Donald Trump.
By Thursday, the day after Trump&#8217;s speech, 23 U.S. embassies around the world had warned of possible violent protests in response to the announcement. The State Department issued its first &#8220;worldwide caution&#8221; since 2003 &#8212; the start of the Iraq War. Scary! I&#8217;m sure our foreign service would never cry wolf to help drive a media narrative as payback for a president not taking their advice, but it crossed my mind.
On Friday, the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem issued a warning to U.S. citizens traveling to Jerusalem, the West Bank, or Gaza to &#8220;maintain a high level of vigilance and take appropriate steps to increase their security awareness.&#8221; Oh, if only we could go back to the way things used to be &#8212; way back last week &#8212; when an American could stroll around Gaza without a care in the world.
But as concerned as everyone was about the safety of our embassies and citizens, the gravest head shakes and sincerest hand wrings were reserved for the future of the peace process. Unfortunately, Foggy Bottom lifers, former administration officials, United Nations and European bureaucrats, Aspen-Davos sophisticates, NGO pedants, and international journo-tourists cling to the fictions that, not only is there a peace process, but that there is some formula just out of reach that might make it bear fruit.
These are the partisans of Oslo, Taba, Wye River, Sharm el-Sheikh, Camp David, the Road Map, and probably some others I&#8217;m forgetting. The members of this Peace Process Cartel have in common a dogged commitment to the preservation of a vision that has demonstrably and spectacularly failed. And it has failed to the detriment of everyone it was supposed to serve with one exception: the Cartel itself.
Like any cartel, this one colludes to keep prices high and discourage competition. It creates and maintains a false and risible frame in which the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only the key to regional stability but, arguably, the most important conflict in the world. The Cartel attempts to discredit any analysis or alternative viewpoint that challenges its orthodoxy or monopoly.
They have managed to make themselves indispensable in the central international drama of the day. But their approach has utterly failed. In the almost quarter century since the process resulting in the Oslo Accords began, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is demonstrably worse in virtually every aspect.
If President Trump&#8217;s announced policy does nothing else &#8212; and it doesn&#8217;t actually do much &#8212; we can hope that it is the beginning of a broader campaign to disempower and break up the Peace Process Cartel so that whatever will come next can come. Again last week we watched them be gloriously, flamboyantly wrong. How many times will it have to happen before we decide that, just maybe, the Peace Process Cartel doesn&#8217;t have any idea what it&#8217;s talking about?
Jonathan Greenberg is an ordained reform rabbi and the senior vice president of the Haym Salomon Center. An expert in Middle East policy and former staffer at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, you can follow him @JGreenbergSez

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Jonathan Greenberg

A Five-Alarm Fire In American Education

GREENBERG: U.N. Bureaucrats Stick To Blame Israel Talking-Points, Ignoring History And Facts

GREENBERG: Trump’s Decision To Cut UNRWA Funding Is The First Step Toward Middle East Peace

GREENBERG: Middle East Peacemaking Cartel Has Failed. It’s Time for Change