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Why Is a Teacher’s Union Butting into the War with Hamas?
View of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) building in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Photo: Abed Rahim Khatib / Flash90.
JNS.org – When it meets this week at its annual convention, the American Federation of Teachers will not be focusing on the need to improve teaching in American schools. Sadly, instead of figuring out ways to raise student scores in language, math and science so our public school graduates can enter college, technical schools and the workplace, the AFT is weighing in on Israel and its war with Hamas.
In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 massacre and given Israel’s need to defend its citizens, I find myself shaking my head in disbelief more frequently than ever before. Pro-Hamas college students rioting and making life difficult for Jewish students on campuses, Jews being harassed and attacked on American city streets, the vandalizing of synagogues and Jewish schools, and hostage posters being torn down make my head spin. Now comes the AFT.
Those attending the convention in Houston will be treated to several anti-Israel resolutions, such as “Opposing the Weaponization of Antisemitism,” “For an End to the War in Gaza and Lasting Peace, Security and Self-Determination for Israel and Palestine,” “Sell State of Israel Bonds,” “AFT Divestment from State of Israel Bonds” and “Stop Enabling Genocide: Halt U.S. Military Aid to Israel.”
While you’ll find mention of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack in a resolution, there’s no mention of the corruption of Palestinian schools that use children’s education as a weapon against Israel. Nor will you find a condemnation of the Palestinian school system’s glorification of terrorism and martyrdom.
Maybe the AFT has to be shown the reports about textbooks used in Palestinian classrooms. According to Palestinian Media Watch, it’s the Palestinian Authority and Hamas who are “pulling the strings” and “putting the content in the schoolbooks” glorifying terrorists and inculcating students in Jew-hatred.
Among the AFT resolutions, you won’t find a condemnation of UNRWA, which permits its school buildings to be used by Hamas for weapons storage or as launching pads for missiles, rockets and mortars aimed at Israeli civilians. Nowhere in the list of resolutions will you find any criticism of the P.A.’s treatment of teachers, including mass arrests of teachers on strike. Nor will there be any mention of the P.A.’s decision to spend money on salaries for convicted terrorists and stipends to their families rather than education.
Instead of targeting the P.A. and Hamas with its resolutions, the AFT calls for U.S. aid to Israel to “be used only for purposes that conform with American and international law: American military aid cannot be used in ways that facilitate the seizure of Palestinian land, the violent dispossession of Palestinian communities and the annexation of occupied Palestinian territory. Nor can U.S. military aid be used to harm civilian populations.”
While it puts a modicum of blame on Hamas, which the AFT admits “has demonstrated a readiness to sacrifice Palestinian life on a massive scale when it thinks it will serve its ends,” the union nonetheless goes on to claim, “Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and his far-right government are an obstacle to achieving lasting peace, freedom and security.”
America’s schoolteachers have, at a minimum, a bachelor’s degree. Many have master’s degrees and Ph.D.s. They’re educated. We expect them to be rational and enlightened. That’s why we entrust our children’s education to them. We also expect them to know when they’ve crossed the line between areas of their expertise and international politics.
I’m not saying that these terrorist-defending teachers are typical of the entire public education community. I’m certainly not suggesting they should be deprived of their legal right to adopt immoral positions. But parents have rights too; including the right to ensure their children get a first-rate public school education from teachers who focus on education, not politics.
The post Why Is a Teacher’s Union Butting into the War with Hamas? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Readies for a Nationwide Strike on Sunday

Demonstrators hold signs and pictures of hostages, as relatives and supporters of Israeli hostages kidnapped during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas protest demanding the release of all hostages in Tel Aviv, Israel, Feb. 13, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Itai Ron
i24 News – The families of Israeli hostages held in Gaza are calling on for a general strike to be held on Sunday in an effort to compel the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to agree to a deal with Hamas for the release of their loved ones and a ceasefire. According to Israeli officials, 50 hostages now remain in Gaza, of whom 20 are believed to be alive.
The October 7 Council and other groups representing bereaved families of hostages and soldiers who fell since the start of the war declared they were “shutting down the country to save the soldiers and the hostages.”
While many businesses said they would join the strike, Israel’s largest labor federation, the Histadrut, has declined to participate.
Some of the country’s top educational institutions, including the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University, declared their support for the strike.
“We, the members of the university’s leadership, deans, and department heads, hereby announce that on Sunday, each and every one of us will participate in a personal strike as a profound expression of solidarity with the hostage families,” the Hebrew University’s deal wrote to students.
The day will begin at 6:29 AM, to commemorate the start of the October 7 attack, with the first installation at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square in Tel Aviv. Further demonstrations are planned at dozens of traffic intersections.
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Netanyahu ‘Has Become a Problem,’Says Danish PM as She Calls for Russia-Style Sanctions Against Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks to the press on Capitol Hill, Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
i24 News – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has become a “problem,” his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen said Saturday, adding she would try to put pressure on Israel over the Gaza war.
“Netanyahu is now a problem in himself,” Frederiksen told Danish media, adding that the Israeli government is going “too far” and lashing out at the “absolutely appalling and catastrophic” humanitarian situation in Gaza and announced new homes in the West Bank.
“We are one of the countries that wants to increase pressure on Israel, but we have not yet obtained the support of EU members,” she said, specifying she referred to “political pressure, sanctions, whether against settlers, ministers, or even Israel as a whole.”
“We are not ruling anything out in advance. Just as with Russia, we are designing the sanctions to target where we believe they will have the greatest effect.”
The devastating war in Gaza began almost two years ago, with an incursion into Israel of thousands of Palestinian armed jihadists, who perpetrated the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
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As Alaska Summit Ends With No Apparent Progress, Zelensky to Meet Trump on Monday

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky speaks at the press conference after the opening session of Crimea Platform conference in Kyiv, Ukraine, 23 August 2023. The Crimea Platform – is an international consultation and coordination format initiated by Ukraine. OLEG PETRASYUK/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – After US President Donald Trump hailed the “great progress” made during a meeting with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky announced that he was set to meet Trump on Monday at the White House.
“There were many, many points that we agreed on, most of them, I would say, a couple of big ones that we haven’t quite gotten there, but we’ve made some headway,” Trump told reporters during a joint press conference after the meeting.
Many observers noted, however, that the subsequent press conference was a relatively muted affair compared to the pomp and circumstance of the red carpet welcome, and the summit produced no tangible progress.
Trump and Putin spoke briefly, with neither taking questions, and offered general statements about an “understanding” and “progress.”
Putin, who spoke first, agreed with Trump’s long-repeated assertion that Russia never would have invaded Ukraine in 2022 had Trump been president instead of Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump said “many points were agreed to” and that “just a very few” issues were left to resolve, offering no specifics and making no reference to the ceasefire he’s been seeking.