NEA’s leftist, anti-Israel agenda bills guised as ‘education’ likely to pass

This week, 7,000 loyal National Education Association activists have gathered in Philadelphia for the union’s annual meeting — and, as is depressingly predictable, student achievement and school improvement aren’t their top concern.

Instead, a recently formed group of radical activist teachers has set the agenda with a series of 10 new business items centering on the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza .

NEA delegates are voting on these measures through Sunday as part of a gathering that began July 4.

Fittingly for an organization funded by deductions from teacher salaries, several of the resolutions pledge to aggressively “educate” the union’s 3 million members by soaking them in leftist rhetoric.

For example, New Business Item 6 would use the union’s digital communication tools to school America’s teachers on “the history of the Nakba,” the term used by opponents of the founding of the Jewish state.

If passed, NBI 7 would proselytize on “the difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism,” NBI 8 on the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign “and its relationship to the labor movement” and NBI 42 on “genocide.”

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If you’re wondering whether the group sponsoring these business items, Educators for Palestine, is putting forth any resolutions about building schools or training teachers in Gaza, keep dreaming.

Their goals don’t involve humanitarian aid; their aim is pure indoctrination.

Not content to radicalize kids in their own individual classrooms, these extremist teachers seek to brainwash millions of their fellow educators, in order to further the reach of their extreme views nationwide.

Educators for Palestine may be radical, but it isn’t fringe: It has real sway within the influential union.

In February, the NEA’s board of directors issued a demand for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas — and Educators for Palestine took the credit.

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“Educators for Palestine had everything to do with NEA releasing this statement,” the group posted on its Instagram page .

President Biden had been scheduled to speak at the conference on Sunday to energize this critical Democratic constituency on the heels of his shaky debate performance — but abruptly canceled Friday, as the union grappled with a strike called by its own staffers.

Also: Any Biden show of labor solidarity could’ve blown up in his face, because the NEA, egged on by Educators for Palestine, may be poised to un-endorse him.

The group’s first action when it launched publicly in January 2024 was to tweet out a petition encouraging the NEA to revoke its endorsement of President Biden until a “permanent cease-fire” is achieved — and until Biden forced Israel to agree to “the release of all political prisoners and hostages,” the “dismantling of the illegal apartheid wall” and “the right of return for Palestinian refugees.”

Given that laundry list of demands, the caucus is pushing members to “divest” their personal political spending from the NEA PAC this election year — and redirect that cash toward their terror-loving friends at UNRWA.

That’s the UN agency under fire after several of its employees joined in Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks and other evidence showed it has long been actively allied with the terrorists.

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In other words, these American teachers have found allies not just in pro-Palestinian circles, but in pro-terror ones as well.

The NEA’s anti-Israel, pro-Palestine activism goes back to at least 2018, although it’s received scant press coverage.

In 2022, for example, a proposed business item called on the NEA “to educate members and the general public about the history, culture, and struggles of Palestinians, including the detention and abuse of children in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

The 2022 conference ended before the item received a vote, but that’s unlikely to happen this year.

With 10 anti-Israel business items on the docket, the sheer number of initiatives — as well as the repetition of topics — means passage of at least some of them seems inevitable.

And while these activists will first be radicalizing educators, America’s schoolchildren are the true targets in their crosshairs.

Bethany Mandel is the co-author of “Stolen Youth” and a homeschooling mother of six. Nicole Neily is the president and founder of Parents Defending Education.

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