I work with secondary school teachers in the New York metropolitan area who are grappling with how to teach about the war in Gaza that is it its seventh month and has been responsible for the death of about 40,000 people, mostly Palestinian non-combatants. Debate in the United States is very heated, especially on college campuses. My primary recommendation is to assemble current event and commentary packages for examination by students and to encourage student questions and comments. As always, student comments should be respectful of others and supported by evidence drawn from the packages and other reliable sources. Students will often ask teachers their opinions. On this issue and other controversial issues, I feel the best response is to explain to students that your job is to provide a safe space for them to share ideas with each other. Your opinions are often included amongst those in the package, but you won’t identify them because the purpose of the class is for students to reach their own conclusions.
On Wednesday at 7 PM teachers can join a Rethinking Schools webinar on teaching about Palestine. Panelists will offer stories, examples, and concrete strategies for teaching truthfully and critically about Palestine-Israel. Link to register.
The first question to consider when teaching about any sensitive issue is “Who are my students?” Are there any students in the class whose families have direct or indirect involvement? How can this topic be taught with sensitivity? I also recommend that teachers review with students class guidelines for respectful listening and responses. Teachers might consider starting the lesson by having students fill out the first two columns of a “What do you know?” and “What questions do you have?” chart that they can complete at the end of the lesson with “What did you learn?” and “What would you like to learn more about?”
Teachers need to be informed before they develop lessons, especially when a topic is as controversial as the war in Gaza. What follows are questions that I have either been asked by teachers and students or just think about myself. I am trying to be informative in my answers to these questions, but I am sure people can uncover my biases in both the questions and the answers. I was part of a Media Watch broadcast on the Manhattan Neighborhood Network where we discussed many of these questions.
1. What is the definition of antisemitism?
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum broadly defines antisemitism as “prejudice against or hatred of Jews,” however there is not agreement on what actions or statements constitutes antisemitism. The House of Representatives recently passed a bill that would make a working definition proposed by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) the official definition in the United States. Many Jews and non-Jews including Jewish members of Congress reject this definition because it seems to equate any criticism of the State of Israel with antisemitism.
2. Is Israel held to a higher standard than other democratic nations?
The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism includes holding Israel to a higher standard of behavior than other democratic countries. This is a problematic criterion because it makes it difficult or even impossible to question Israeli actions in Gaza or in the occupation of the West Bank. In many other parts of the world, countries have been involved in horrific campaigns against their neighbors or against their own citizens and we have not witnessed the level of protests we have seen over the current conflict. The war in Gaza has attracted such an intense response in the United States because the U.S. has been a long-term ally of Israel, provided Israel with armaments, and because there are many Americans with ties to either Israel or Palestine.
3. What is the origin of Israel?
In ancient times Palestine was the homeland of the Jewish people and there has been a continuing Jewish presence there for the last 2,000 years. Supporters of Israel argue that dismissing Israel as a “colonial state” denies the legitimacy of its existence as a Jewish homeland and is antisemitic. Whatever its origins after the Holocaust and whether it was initially a European colonial project, Israel is now the home to about 10 million people, 80% who are Jews, and has the same right to exist as the United States and much of Latin America and the Caribbean that all started as settler colonies.
4. Why are there protests on college campuses in the United States?
The United States has been a strong ally of Israel since its creation and since the 1970s provides the State of Israel with over 3 billion dollars annually, mostly in the form of military aid, including weapons and bombs used by the Israeli military in its assault on Gaza. Many American companies also have close ties with Israel, especially tech and weapons companies and American Jewish organizations remain strong supporters of Israel and have lobbied for continued U.S. military aid during the war. Because of the close ties between the two countries, Americans who support a cease fire in Gaza and who oppose Israeli military action have protested against U.S. government involvement and any ties between colleges and the Israeli government. Recently President Biden put a hold on the delivery of some weapons to Israel because of the way they were deployed in Gaza placing civilians at risk.
5. Are campus protests antisemitic?
Most campus protests have focused on calls for an immediate cease fire and humanitarian aid for the people of Gaza. As the war continued, there have been charges that Israel is committing war crimes and is intent on genocide and demands have expanded to include that colleges divest from any economic relationship with Israel. Some critics of the protests argue that the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is antisemitic because it calls for the destruction of the state of Israel, while pro-Palestine activists respond that the chant is just a call for Palestinian liberation, not an end to Israel. In either case, the chant does not call for the destruction of Jews as a people.
While the bulk of the protesters focus on an end to the war and the future of Palestine, there have been antisemitic comments made by people on the fringe of the protests. A significant number of Jewish students report to feeling uncomfortable because of the protests, slogans, and campus takeovers, but there have been few documented serious incidents of actual threats or attacks against Jewish students. At UCLA, violence broke out at a pro-Palestinian rally, but it was perpetrated by counter-protesters
Antisemitism continues to be a problem in the United States, but principally on the neo-Nazi right. According to the Anti-Defamation League, there were more than 8,800 reported incidents of anti-Jewish violence, harassment, and vandalism, in 2023. This includes a 30% increase in antisemitic propaganda by white supremacist groups. Leading Republican Party officials and elected representatives, while claiming to oppose antisemitism in all forms, have repeated Nazi-era anti-Jewish tropes and stereotypes including the idea that there is a global cabal that somehow controls the world and manipulates world leaders.
6. Have either Israel or Hamas committed terrorism or war crimes?
Sadly, the answer is probably yes. Although it controls Gaza, Hamas is not considered an official government so the slaughter of Israeli civilians on October 7th and the capture of hostages is generally considered an act of terrorism rather than a war crime. Because Israel is a recognized state and its war against Hamas has destroyed Palestinian cities, hospitals, and schools and pushed over two million people to the border of starvation, it is widely considered to be guilty of war crimes, whether the high number of civilian casualties is intentional or not. President Biden cut off rearmament of Israel because of the civilian death toll describing Israeli actions as possibly illegal under international law but stopping short of labeling them war crimes. Some protesters accuse Israel of genocide, a crime against civilian populations that requires intent to destroy. These charges will likely be examined after hostilities end.
7. Are there “good guys” in this war?
I don't believe there are any “good guys” in this war. Hamas is a dictatorial organization that has oppressed the people of Gaza since it came to power there in 2006. It is committed to the total destruction of the State of Israel and precipitated the current conflict when it invaded Israel on October7th targeting civilians, murdering over 1,200 people, and taking over two hundred Israelis back to Gaza as captives. Its leaders knew that Israel would respond with devastating force and the people of Gaza would bear the cost of the attack. They chose not to sacrifice themselves, many live in other countries, but to sacrifice over 40,000 people who had no say in their actions. Israel was unprepared for the attack and left its border with Gaza virtually unprotected because Israeli forces were concentrated on the West Bank where they were guarding settlers illegally ensconced on Palestinian lands that Israel seized in the 1967 war and has occupied since. The current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his allies have been in power for much of the past twenty years. They have obstructed the peace process and Palestinian statehood while promoting and defending settlements designed to make an independent Palestine untenable. They are suspected of allowing Hamas to remain in control of Gaza as a way to undermine Palestinian legitimacy. In a campaign of revenge since October 7th the Israeli military has deployed aerial bombardments and ground forces in urban areas with concentrated civilian populations knowing that there would be high civilian casualties, actions that most likely qualify as war crimes and may cross the threshold to the point where they constitute genocide. The Israeli air force has dropped American-supplied bombs on cities in Gaza that the United States considered inappropriate to use in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan because they could not be precisely targeted.
8. What does the future hold?
The Israeli government says its primary goal is to eliminate Hamas as a threat. There is considerable upset in Israel because many Israelis believe the primary goal should be negotiating the return of hostages held by Hamas since October 7th. Prime Minister Netanyahu has also promised that after the cessation of hostilities there will be a full investigation of Israeli security failures that made the October 7th attack by Hamas possible, but there are questions about his responsibility for the lack of preparedness and skepticism about whether any investigation will he heads the Israeli government will be reliable.
While Gaza has largely been destroyed along with Hamas, it is likely that the destruction caused by Israel in its efforts to root out Hamas will lead to long term anger in the Palestinian world and the emergence of new groups intent on the destruction of Israel. Both Israel and mainstream Palestinian groups have nominally supported an independent Palestinian state as part of a two-state solution. That idea has garnered major international support as the war has continued by lingering rage and distrust may make it difficult to achieve.
The United States will play a major role in the future of Israel, Gaza, and Palestine. The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to accept Palestine as a member state, but the United States blocked the resolution with a veto in the Security Council claiming discussion of full recognition of Palestine should be delayed until after the war in Gaza is over.