Why School Choice May Help Save the US-Israel Relationship

It's in greater jeopardy than you may think

Antisemitism

WHY SCHOOL CHOICE MAY HELP SAVE THE US-ISRAEL RELATIONSHIP

It's in greater jeopardy than you may think

Dumisani Washington

In this article, I discuss two separate yet related topics—the latest Israeli study on global antisemitism and the personal experience of an Arab-Israeli journalist on U.S. college campuses—in order to motivate my thesis that school choice represents an important line of defense against an American education system that is becoming increasingly antisemitic.

Antisemitism in American Education

As an introduction to the Israeli study on antisemitism, allow me to quote my own article, “What the pro-Israel Community Got (and still gets) Very Wrong About Black Lives Matter,” from an April 21st post on IBSI’s Substack, Africa-Israel Weekly:

As for the ongoing battle against antisemitism and Israel-hatred, a study from Tel Aviv University reveals that [anti-semitic activity] rose dramatically in 2021, and suggests that the fight against global antisemitism ‘is failing.’  Though some dispute it, others are even reporting a drop in young evangelical support for Israel. Many believe that woke politics and theology could be at the forefront of this shift, and no entity embodies that mindset more than BLM. 

As to the experience of an Arab-Israeli journalist on U.S. college campuses: In 2009, award-winning journalist Khaled Abu Toameh traveled to the U.S. to deliver a series of lectures on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict on various campuses across the country. What he witnessed was so shocking that he returned home to Jerusalem and wrote a piece entitled, “On Campus: The Pro-Palestinians' Real Agenda”:

What is happening on the U.S. campuses is not about supporting the Palestinians as much as it is about promoting hatred for the Jewish state. It is not really about ending the “occupation” as much as it is about ending the existence of Israel.

Many of the Palestinian Authority and Hamas officials I talk to in the context of my work as a journalist sound much more pragmatic than most of the anti-Israel, “pro-Palestinian” folks on the campuses.

If Khaled had stopped there, it would be sobering enough. It’s what comes next that completes the framing of my article and is an indictment of the American education system.

Over the past [28] years, much has been written and said about the fact that Palestinian school textbooks don’t promote peace and coexistence and that the Palestinian media often publishes anti-Israel material.

While this may be true, there is no ignoring the fact that the anti-Israel campaign on U.S. campuses is not less dangerous. What is happening on these campuses is not in the frame of freedom of speech. Instead, it is the freedom to disseminate hatred and violence. As such, we should not be surprised if the next generation of jihadists comes not from the Gaza Strip or the mountains and mosques of Pakistan and Afghanistan, but from university campuses across the U.S.

How did U.S. colleges and universities become such hotbeds of Jew-hatred? Why are American college students being subjected to anti-Israel, antisemitic brainwashing? And most importantly, what can we as parents do about it?

To truly understand the indoctrination American college students face, we must first understand the genesis of that indoctrination—which, in reality, has as much to do with hatred for freedom and critical thought as with hatred for Jews and Israel. Illogical, irrational groupthink has captured our institutions of higher learning and is well on the way to doing the same in our primary schools. Dr. Lyell Asher, Professor of English at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, uncovers this tragedy in his lecture, “Why Colleges Are Becoming Cults.” Host Peter Boghossian introduces Dr. Asher, saying that he explains, “how higher education became corrupted” and “how the woke virus leaked from universities to society at large.”

In his lecture, Dr. Asher unpacks a 2009 essay, “Developing Social Justice Literacy,” co-authored by Robin DiAngelo, who would go on to author the unfortunate best-seller, White Fragility, in 2018:

So, what does it mean to be “literate in social justice”? The first thing it means is becoming fluent in newly concocted definitions of words. Racism is now, “white racial and cultural prejudice and discrimination.” Black people (or people of color) can be prejudiced but they lack the institutional power that transforms it into a racism. Reverse racism doesn't exist owing to power relations that are historic and embedded.

So, if a student who’s been labeled an oppressor because of her skin color tries to defend herself against what she calls “reverse racism”, she doesn’t have to be listened to at all. […] If she then just calls it “racism” she can be ignored again because racism is only something white people can be guilty of. Check mate.

Now, simply insert Jewish or Israeli for White, assume Arab Palestinian for person of color, and you understand how every debate about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays out within this social justice framework.

Bear in mind that, according to Dr. Asher, it is not necessarily the students who are enforcing these Orwellian rules about language. It is the Education School-trained professors and administrators that are imposing them. This means that the antisemitism in American colleges is not growing because of the amazing organizational work of campus groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) or the Muslim Students Association (MSA). Campus antisemitism is a wholly integrated part of psychological programming tools like social justice literacy and the binary world of “White = bad” and “Black/color = good.”

In 1968, Dr. King addressed this very fallacy in explaining to the Rabbinical Assembly what was then the emerging, new phenomenon of anti-Israel bias among some in the Black community.

There are some who are color-consumed and they see a kind of mystique in being colored, and anything non-colored is condemned. We do not follow that course in the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and certainly most of the organizations in the civil rights movement do not follow that course.

Dr. Asher goes on to note how the new “woke” approach to learning is particularly harmful to the most vulnerable demographic, poor or working class Black and Latino students.

As far back as 1995…writer and scholar Lisa Delpit reported that many black school teachers she’d spoken with concluded that the progressive educational schemes imposed on black and poor children made so little sense that they could only be explained by, and I quote, “a desire to ensure that liberals’ children get sole access to the dwindling pool of American jobs.” In other words, for these black educators, it looked like self-interested sabotage.

The perfect storm of social justice literacy and old fashioned Jew-hatred manifests itself in faux-academic works such as early drafts of California’s Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC), also known as Critical Ethnic Studies. In the 2021 second edition of my book Zionism & the Black Church, I explain the implementation and potential impact of ESMC.

In August 2020, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law the Critical Ethnic Studies program for the California State University (CSU) system. This curriculum is part of bill AB-1460.

Spearheaded by the AMCHA Initiative [an organization that raises awareness about antisemitism in higher education], 90 education, civil-rights and religious groups had called on Newsom to veto…AB-1460.

The groups noted that vetoing AB-1460 was necessary because anti-Zionist advocacy and the promotion of BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions against Israel] are an intrinsic part of critical ethnic studies; critical ethnic-studies faculty have repeatedly demonstrated a willingness to promote BDS and anti-Zionist advocacy in their academic programming and classrooms; and faculty support and promotion of BDS are linked to the harassment of Jewish students.

Note that leaders of Black Lives Matter strongly support CSU’s anti-Israel Critical Ethnic Studies. Earlier in this chapter [i.e., chapter five], we introduced Cal State professor Melina Abdullah, leader of BLM in Los Angeles. As a reminder, during the nationwide protests and riots following the killing of George Floyd, BLM LA targeted the Jewish neighborhood of Fairfax in which five synagogues were vandalized. Ms. Abdullah is campaigning to become the dean of CSU’s ethnic studies faculty. 

Versions of California’s ESMC are spreading across the country and receiving promotion from the Liberated Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum Consortium (LESMCC). Just Google: critical ethnic studies other states and see for yourself. As for the potential impact of this anti-Israel curriculum on poor and working-class Black students—which is the go-to group for Israel propagandists, I quote my Zionism & the Black Church again.

According to California’s Department of Education’s 2017 statistics, 75% of Black boys cannot read at grade level. They are functionally illiterate. This level of illiteracy is a scale not seen since the end of the Civil War and the evidence of the most pressing yet most neglected civil rights issue of our day. This problem of epic proportions must be addressed at home and in the school. Not only are three out of four Black boys in California’s public schools unable to read and write proficiently, soon they may be taught anti-Zionist propaganda so they can blame Israel and the Jews for their lot in life. This is something a colleague of mine calls the Palestinization of the Black community. Just as Palestinian children in Gaza are taught to hate Jews, so will be the effect of California’s Critical Ethnic Studies on California’s students.

In other words, as it pertains to Jew-hatred in our schools and college campuses, we have not even begun to see the worst. Again, consider the words of Arab Israeli journalist Khaled Abu Toameh.

Much has been written and said about the fact that Palestinian school textbooks don’t promote peace and coexistence and that the Palestinian media often publishes anti-Israel material.

While this may be true, there is no ignoring the fact that the anti-Israel campaign on U.S. campuses is not less dangerous.

School choice

So, what can be done about the situation in which we find ourselves? Two words: school choice. Simply stated, parents of all socioeconomic backgrounds must be empowered to choose the best education option for their child. In my opinion, the primary grade and collegiate education system in this nation are so corrupted that they cannot be reformed. And even if they are reformed, it will take years—years that parents cannot wait while their sons and daughters are fed lies and disinformation.

As I watched Dr. Asher’s lecture, I wondered what his solution would be. He said the same. School choice:

In the long term, I believe the only real solution to the problems in our schools will come in the form of competition. That is school choice — allowing all parents, not just the wealthy ones, to send their children to good schools, whether traditional public schools, public charter schools, or private schools with a track record of academic excellence.

Dr. Asher also goes on to give solid, detailed advice to parents on what they can do in the short term, including the names and websites of organizations that are valuable resources.

The ability to actively choose high academic standards for their children allows parents to scrutinize both curricula and instructors. Voters demanding school choice from their state and local governments—regardless of political party—underscore the importance of quality education to their political leaders. Interestingly, the educational choice of home schooling is exploding in the U.S., especially since the social turbulence of 2020. Within which ethnic group is homeschooling growing the fastest? The same group that is being done the most harm by our failing education system: Black Americans. (Please see also this piece.)

If American students are taught to think critically, open-mindedly, objectively, and dispassionately, we won’t have to worry about them falling victim en masse to anti-Israel extremism—or extremism of any kind. As Dr. King said, they won’t be “color-consumed” but rather consumed with a desire to learn and understand. I’m convinced that parental school choice is the only viable path to this outcome. Among many other things, the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship may depend on it.

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Dumisani Washington is the Founder and CEO of the Institute for Black Solidarity with Israel (IBSI) and the former Diversity Outreach Coordinator for the over 10 million member Christians United for Israel (CUFI). He is a pastor, graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and professional musician, and author. His latest book is Zionism and the Black Church: Why Standing with Israel Will be a Defining Issue for Christians of Color in the 21st Century (now in its second edition). He and his wife, Valerie, have been married nearly 34 years and have six children and three grandchildren. He has published previously with Journal of Free Black Thought here.

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A previous version of this essay appeared on IBSI’s Substack, here.