Teaching Terrorism in American Classrooms

Should American K–12 students be taught, without informing their parents, to sympathize with terrorists? Of course not.

But that’s exactly what’s happening in K–12 schools across the country, thanks to instructional materials supplied by the California-based nonprofit Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA) and unearthed by Defending Education.

MECA’s Teach Palestine lesson plans reach up to 160,000 American teachers who go on to share those materials with young, impressionable students. The curriculum, distributed under the auspices of both Rethinking Schools and the Zinn Education Project—a progressive nonprofit publisher and advocacy organization, respectively—whitewashes Hamas terrorism and promotes anti-American narratives.

Forget reading, science, and arithmetic—the new fundamentals are revolution, systems of oppression, and anti-Semitism.

In California’s Sequoia Union High School District, an ethnic-studies teacher, whose 2023 lessons on the Israel-Gaza war sparked widespread community backlash, attended an in-person MECA event, “Palestine in our classrooms,” in January 2024, which focused on “building content knowledge about Palestine, including history and culture, and provid[ing] pedagogical approaches and resources.” An email invitation from organizers noted that “Palestine is not just the subject of an ongoing colonial project; it has a rich and beautiful culture that should be shared. In the face of ongoing domestic attacks against the inclusion of Palestine in K-12 curriculum and instruction, we believe we must also practice resistance, resilience, and sumood in our dedication to bring Palestine into our classrooms.”

In Arlington Public Schools in Virginia, a teacher’s assignment accused Israel of “genocide” and asked students leading questions like “How does Israel use [sic] the Holocaust to victimize themselves show an example of a logical fallacy?” The lessons brought the teacher into conflict with school administrators, one of whom asked her how the material corresponded with the state’s English/Language Arts standards. The teacher shared MECA links on an all-staff listserv, encouraging others to use the organization’s materials.

The Portland Association of Teachers and Oregon Educators for Palestine encouraged members to use Teach Palestine resources in their “Know Your Rights” guide, published in May 2024.

A Chicago-area teacher, who led an effort to get the National Education Association to rescind its endorsement of President Biden because of his support for Israel, recommended that her school use Teach Palestine resources (as well as those of American Muslims for Palestine, an organization under investigation by Virginia attorney general Jason Miyares for ties to terrorism).

Earlier this year, a report by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) revealed multiple points of contact between MECA and radical terrorist organizations. MECA’s director of Gaza programming once served as deputy director of the Union of Healthcare Worker Committees (UHWC), recognized by USAID in 1993 as a smokescreen for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. MECA’s founder reportedly conducted meetings with Leila Khaled, a PFLP member perhaps better known for her role in two airplane hijackings.

MECA’s tax filings raise similar red flags. Over the past 37 years, it has sent donations to PFLP-affiliated unions and groups known for openly glorifying terrorism. On the domestic front, MECA has allegedly partnered with U.S.-based extremist groups, including Shut It Down for Palestine (SID4P), and allegedly received $100,000 from Fergie Chambers, a self-declared far-left militant.

Parents everywhere should be made aware that nonprofits like MECA are far from a benign force in education. Indeed, they are actively working to unravel America’s social fabric and misleading children.

School administrators should exercise greater oversight of the materials that teachers bring into their classrooms, and states should pass curriculum-transparency laws so that families can see what their children are being taught.

We’re judged by the company we keep. Nonprofits that maintain relationships like these shouldn’t be allowed to teach children in America’s schools.

Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post via Getty Images