American Federation of Teachers - San Diego issues an anti-Israel statement filled with antisemitism and lies

Right before Rosh Hashanah, the American Federation of Teachers in San Diego, Local 1931, issued an anti-Israel statement. 

This statement is worth reading in full, because not only does it say that Jews have no right to self-determination, but it relies on lies in nearly every sentence to make that point. 

Teachers who teach bigotry and lies would appear to be supremely unqualified to be teachers.

Here is the statement:

WHEREAS, the AFT Guild condemns the forced removal of Palestinian residents in West Jerusalem,

West Jerusalem? This must be talking about 1948, and Arabs in West Jerusalem were not forcibly removed from their homes.  

the bombing of civilian areas in the besieged Gaza Strip,

Every target in the Gaza Strip, in every war, was pre-determined according to the laws of armed conflict to have been military targets. Every one. 

and the continued human rights violations committed by the Israeli government during its 73-year occupation of this land.

By saying "73-year occupation" the statement says that all of Israel is "occupied." Even the UN doesn't make that claim. It is a statement not against occupation but against the very existence of a Jewish state and the concept of Jewish self-determination. It is pure antisemitism.  

It is unfortunate that civilians on both sides have suffered casualties, yet Israel’s use of advanced weaponry in its indiscriminate bombing of the Gaza strip has claimed a significantly greater and disproportionate number of Palestinian lives and destroyed essential infrastructure in the already oppressed occupied territories.

Here the statement switches its definition of "occupied," showing that the teachers that drafted this statement are completely unconcerned with consistency, let alone truth. 

The bombing of Gaza has never been indiscriminate, which can be proven by a modicum of research.

The statement evokes a violation of international law with its use of the term "disproportionate" but in fact Israeli actions are not in the least disproportionate, and no army in history has taken more care to protect the civilian population of an area where they are used as human shields by the enemy as Israel has.

WHEREAS, the recent forced removal of Palestinian civilians from homes they occupied in Shaikh Jarrah for generations follows a 73-year pattern of disenfranchising Palestinians of their rights, property and the opportunity to live with dignity.

The Palestinians who have fought a losing legal battle for homes they do not own have not been forcibly removed. 

Since 1967, home demolitions, land confiscations, systemic denial of building permits, and massive illegal settlement building (a violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Convention) on virtually every part of the occupied Palestinian territories, have become official Israeli policy, despite repeated condemnation by the international community.

It would take multiple articles to show how many lies are in this sentence, but all of the things listed here have been approved by the Israeli High Court - not to mention many things that the Israeli legal system did not approve  - and one would be hard pressed to find a sober legal analysis of their rulings finding that they violate international law. 

Building settlements is not a violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions. It says nothing about building on disputed land.

WHEREAS, since the 1967 War, 48,488 Palestinian homes and other structures have been demolished compared to none belonging to Israelis. The United Nations has condemned Israel’s continued occupation of territory after the 1967 war. The International Court condemns the settlements, and Israel has repeatedly snubbed efforts to limit the settlements, which are viewed as an obstacle to peace.

Notice how the timeframe suddenly changes from 1948 in the first paragraph to 1967 here, to avoid noting the many Jewish-owned homes and structures - i.e., synagogues - destroyed by Arabs. Yet even with this attempt at sleight of hand, the statement is a complete lie: every single Israeli structure in the Gaza Strip has been destroyed - over 2,800 home and synagogues. 

Israel has also destroyed - and continues to destroy - scores of homes determines to have been built illegally in the West Bank, such as in Amona, Givat Baladim, Maoz Esther other places. 

WHEREAS, in 2018 over 40 Jewish groups worldwide signed onto a statement opposing the “dangerous conflation of anti-Jewish racism with opposition to Israel’s policies and system of occupation and apartheid.” Their statement read, “This conflation undermines both the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and equality and the global struggle against anti-semitism. It also serves to shield Israel from being held accountable to universal standards of human rights and international law.”

The statement referred to is simply another set of lies, that claims without any proof that Zionists call legitimate criticism of Israel antisemitism. It is a straw man - no one makes that claim. But statements like this one that use a provable litany of lies to target the world's only Jewish state as illegitimate using standards that are way beyond those expected of any other state are clearly antisemitic.

WHEREAS, although we consider the targeting of civilians by all sides to be inhumane, the absence of an evenhanded U.S. foreign policy, in addition to massive unrestricted military aid to Israel, emboldens Israeli militarism, contradicts our policy regarding the status of the occupation of the Palestinian lands, and dooms the two-state solution to failure.

Here is another contradiction, where the AFT switches from advocating the destruction of Israel to pretending to want a two-state solution. 

US aid to Israel is not unrestricted - it has many restrictions, from where the money can be spent to what it can be spent on, in line with US laws on foreign aid to every country. And none of it is spent on "occupation." 

WHEREAS, we condemn the recent spate of anti-semitic attacks in the United States and other parts of the world, just as we condemn white supremacy and violence against Blacks, and members of the AAPI, LatinX, and LGBTQ communities. We also unequivocally condemn anti-semitic violence wherever it occurs. However, let us be clear that condemning Israel for its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, occupation, apartheid and war crimes is not anti-semitism.

The AFT thinks that declaring itself to be free of antisemitism is a "get out of jail free' card. It isn't. Saying that Jews have no right to self determination or self defense, and that time should be turned back to the 1940s when no nation protected the Jews from genocide is supremely antisemitic. 

Also, spelling "antisemitic" as "anti-semitic" is arguably bigoted, as it gives a pretense of allowing an argument that antisemitism is against Semites. Major Jewish human rights organizations and experts have adopted the spelling without the hyphen, and by adopting this spelling, the AFT is showing its disregard to the wishes of the organized Jewish community itself. For an organization that pretends to be "woke" it is rather disrespectful towards Jews.

BE IT RESOLVED, we urgently call on our government to put an end to the occupation and oppression of Palestinian people, and we call on the White House and the Department of State to hold Israel accountable for its complete disregard of international law and a prompt reassessment of military aid to Israel.

Besides the lies enumerated above, this is a demand that Israel not be allowed to defend itself from Gaza rockets, tunnels meant to kidnap Jews, sophisticated missiles used by Hezbollah and other groups, the genocidal Syrian regime, and Iranian plans to destroy Israel. 

No state besides Israel and no people besides Jews are denied the right to defend themselves, but these teachers say the Jewish state has no such right - again, contradicting the UN principles it pretends to respect. 

Only when Israel treats Palestinians inside Israel as equal citizens, recognizes the right of the Palestinian refugees to return, and the right of the Palestinians to live free of colonization and occupation, will there be hope for peace and reconciliation in historic Palestine.

Most Arabs in Israel do not identify as Palestinian, so this statement is disrespectful to them even as it lies and claims they are not treated as equal citizens. 

The demand to "return" is a transparent demand to destroy Israel, and Arab leaders haven't even tried to hide that fact.

The term "historic Palestine" is a misnomer, unless one believes that history began with the creation of borders by Western powers a century ago. The term "Palestine" never referred to the borders that Palestinians today claim - the areas that are controlled by Jews, and not the areas of Jordan or Lebanon that were considered part of Palestine in every map before the twentieth century.

The statement was accompanied by a graphic:

The AFT, pretending to care about peace in the Middle East, accompanies its statement with a graphic of a raised fist - hardly the logo of someone who wants all peoples of the Middle East to live in peace and harmony.

Literally every paragraph and practically every sentence of this statement is a lie, and many of them are quite antisemitic. This is besides the fact that this statement gives a green light to attack Jewish teachers who believe that Israel has the right to exist in contradiction to the beliefs of the union. This statement chills free speech. 

Teachers in San Diego are now open to being censured or attacked by their own union for telling the truth.

This is an outrageous litany of lies, supported by people who are supposed to care about the truth. It is a statement of bigotry written by those who are supposed to teach children to treat people equally. It is hypocrisy in its purest sense. 

And every minute that this bigoted statement filled with falsehoods is not denounced by the national union of teachers, the lies and antisemitism are condoned by those who are teaching every American child.

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