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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Laurie Cardoza Moore</title>
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		<title>Teach Your Children Well</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/laurie-cardoza-moore/teach-your-children-well/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=teach-your-children-well</link>
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		<pubDate>Tue, 25 Mar 2014 04:03:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurie Cardoza Moore]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anti-Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[human geography]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palestinian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Pearson]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[text book]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=221818</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A band of committed parents and activists take a stand against anti-Israel education. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/11-20-Article-1.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-221823" alt="11-20-Article-1" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/11-20-Article-1-450x262.png" width="270" height="157" /></a>Following the horrific attacks on 9/11, I began to ask, like most Americans, what happened to our country.  As I researched and talked to experts, the issues of radical Islam and the attacks on America and Israel became extremely personal to me.  In response, I founded <a href="http://www.pjtn.org">Proclaiming Justice to the Nations</a>, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating Christians about their biblical responsibility to stand with and for the people and land of Israel. I established PJTN as a powerful Christian voice for Israel in the media using my years of experience in broadcasting and film. Christians were for the most part silent during the first Holocaust &#8212; I believe we cannot be silent again.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Little did I realize I would be fighting anti-Semitism in my very own backyard. For the last twenty-five years, we have resided in Williamson County, TN, a county with a long tradition of being one of the top ten most conservative counties in the U.S; a county in the very center of the Bible belt; a county where Christians should not stand by in silence. I discovered that behind our backs, a liberal school board agenda had taken hold and was indoctrinating our children. Several controversial incidents and troubling educational materials have been cause for great alarm.</span></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Anti-Semitism in a Pearson Published Textbook</span></strong></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In November of 2012, a concerned Williamson County parent contacted PJTN about a controversial human geography textbook (</span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">The</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Cultural Landscape</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">) being used in her son’s high school.  The immediate problem involved a section under the title, “Terrorism by Individuals and Organizations,” that asks students to consider the following question on why terrorism has increased: </span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">&#8220;If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant,</span> is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">During the same class, an anti-Israel handout and a guest speaker influenced her son to question his faith and the accuracy of the Bible concerning Israel and her rights to her ancient homeland. This led to the concerned parent contacting me. It was also discovered that another student had remarked that “had he not taken the class, he wouldn’t have known about the dangerous Zionist agenda.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Meetings with the school’s faculty led nowhere, so I filed an official complaint with the school district requesting the textbook’s removal due to the highly objectionable statement. With the help of several parents, nearly a dozen other objectionable passages, descriptions and word choices were also found in the book.  Not only was the textbook anti-Semitic and anti-Israel, but it was replete with anti-Christian, anti-Western and pro-Marxist propaganda as well.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Despite gathering over 1,300 signatures protesting the book, other parents’ outcries, and repeated school board meetings, Williamson County Schools Director, Mike Looney, encouraged the board to vote to continue using the book. Looney</span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;"> </i><a style="line-height: 1.5em;" href="http://radio.foxnews.com/toddstarnes/top-stories/parents-call-textbook-anti-semitic.html"><i>defended</i></a><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> the use of this textbook because it had been used for several years with no one ever filing a formal complaint. He further stated, “I personally don’t get that anti-Semitic perspective from reading the question in context. I respect other people’s viewpoints and understand they might read it differently.”  He also felt that one passage in a 500-page book could not justify discontinuing its use.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Nashville Jewish Federation supported PJTN’s leadership on this matter and agreed that the textbook needed to be removed and issued this statement:</span></p>
<blockquote><p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">“To create moral equivalency between specific acts of terror and legitimate territorial disputes  that are political in nature serves to legitimize wanton and premeditated violence against innocent civilian victims. To further allow distorted, unbalanced and prejudicial content to stand as a form of academic inquiry is a perversion of our educational system and a disservice to all the children who learn in that system.” </span></p>
<p>- Mark Freedman</p>
<p>Jewish Federation Executive Director</p></blockquote>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">In October 2013, I took the issue to the Tennessee State Legislature where my advocacy against anti-Semitism is well recognized among the state’s legislators.  In a state that has passed several strong pro-Israel resolutions, legislators shared my concern about the material being presented to students. I testified before the Tennessee Senate Education Committee to address their concerns about this textbook material.  This testimony was instrumental in the Tennessee legislature introducing bills this year related to textbook issues.</span></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The Double Standard in the Williamson County School District</span></strong></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Mr. Looney and other county officials refuse to acknowledge the detrimental effect of textbook and curriculum materials containing subtle and not-so-subtle expressions of anti-Semitism and Jew hatred. Under his leadership, the doctrine of anti-Semitism has permeated into the students and faculty of the school district.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">For example, in September 2013, two male students at a Williamson County Middle School stood at the front of my car giving me a “Heil Hitler” salute in response to a “Defend and Protect America and Israel” bumper sticker on my vehicle.   After contacting the school’s principal to make her aware of the incident, it was discovered that the students were from nearby Ravenwood High School.  Despite identification of the students from viewing the school’s security camera tape, no action has been taken to address this incident. To date, my request regarding disciplinary action continues to go unanswered by Ravenwood’s principal.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This is the same high school that in 2009 permitted a Palestinian Arab booth at the school’s Cultural Heritage Fair to distribute venomous anti-Semitic propaganda. The “Arab-Palestinian” booth was displaying anti-Israel hate propaganda that included “doctored” pictures of Israeli soldiers shooting babies and the security fence labeled as an “apartheid wall.”</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This year, during the school’s Cultural Heritage Week, Muslim students claimed offense because of a pamphlet that was being distributed by a local Jewish organization at the event.  The pamphlet contained accurate information about the anti-Semitic hatred that is taught to children in U.S. funded Palestinian schools. The double standard and hypocrisy at Ravenwood High School and the school district at-large should outrage students and parents.  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">The pamphlet in question was published by “StandWithUs (SWU), an organization that is dedicated to publishing accurate educational information about the Arab – Israeli conflict for use in a high school/university environment.  On a page that describes the problem in the Arab culture under, “Teaching Peace,&#8221; it describes the incitement to hatred and violence against Israel and Jews that is pervasive in Arab/Palestinian media, schools, and mosques.  “In fact, it is this incitement that disturbed then Senator Hillary Clinton in 2007, and that continues to disturb peace makers because the incitement leads to violence and has always been an obstacle to peace,” stated Roz Rothstein, President of SWU.</span></p>
<p>The truth is that <span style="line-height: 1.5em;">this particular pamphlet </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">is entirely educational</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> and appropriate for this event.  It is PJTN’s opinion that in Williamson County and at a school like Ravenwood, where anti-Semitic incidents have occurred and anti-Semitic textbook materials have been found, this educational pamphlet, should be required reading. To provide accurate information about the conflict in the Middle East should be welcomed in the “educational” environment of a high school. Accurate and unbiased resources about the Middle East allow our children to use their critical thinking skills concerning this ongoing conflict. </span></p>
<p><strong><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Double Standards and Double-Speech</span></strong></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This situation leads me to ask the question: what are we teaching the immigrants that come to Tennessee, especially from the Middle East?  Israel is our only true friend and ally in the Middle East.  We, as a Judeo-Christian nation, share the same values of freedom and faith as our Jewish brethren in Israel.  It is that freedom that allows people of all faiths and nationalities to live without fear of persecution not only in our country, but in our </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">county</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> as well. It is critical that we provide accurate and unbiased textbooks to the immigrants that make Williamson County their home. I fear if we do not, we may find similar horrific justification for terrorist attacks here.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Finally, as a result of this whole issue, a deeper-rooted problem has surfaced.  What does it say about our local leaders when school officials will censor pamphlets with </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">accurate</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> information that Muslims find offensive but refuse to remove </span><b style="line-height: 1.5em;"><i>inaccurate</i></b><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> anti-Semitic/anti-Israel and anti-Western textbooks at the request of Christian and Jewish parents?  </span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">This obvious double standard must not stand unchallenged and must be dealt with at the voting booth.  This growing threat further illustrates how critically important local elections are, especially when those elected leaders will be influencing the future direction of our nation.  With elections quickly approaching, I hope more Williamson County citizens will join me in some crucially needed “spring cleaning” on this school board, which refuses to uphold the values of the citizens of this great county.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">Ironically, as a result of the national and international media attention generated by PJTN, Pearson Publishers agreed with the parents and removed the anti-Semitic quote from future editions of the </span><i style="line-height: 1.5em;">Human Geography</i><span style="line-height: 1.5em;"> textbook. This is certainly a small and important victory, but the battle continues.</span></p>
<p><span style="line-height: 1.5em;">To save our country, we must retake it one small county, one small election at a time. As we have slept, the progressive agenda has penetrated every strata of our government and our educational system. It is a long road ahead but we can no longer afford not to walk it.</span></p>
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		<title>&#8216;Bible Belt&#8217; County Schools Promote Terrorism Against Jews?</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/laurie-cardoza-moore/bible-belt-county-schools-promote-terrorism-against-jews/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=bible-belt-county-schools-promote-terrorism-against-jews</link>
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		<pubDate>Thu, 09 May 2013 04:05:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Laurie Cardoza Moore]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[palestinians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[schools]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Terrorism]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=188812</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Jihadist talking points find their way into classrooms in the American heartland. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0321677358.jpg"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-188837" alt="untitled" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/0321677358-290x350.jpg" width="203" height="245" /></a>The Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum. Germans and world leaders turned blind eyes to the growing anti-Semitism in Germany while Adolf Hitler incrementally executed his evil agenda. Despite annual reminders to “never forget,” schools across the United States, and specifically in the State of Tennessee, are once again oblivious to the anti-Semitic rhetoric that has infiltrated our schools.</p>
<p>One such community is Williamson County, Tennessee that sits in the “belt-buckle” of the Bible belt and is one of the 10 most influential conservative counties in the country.  One must ask, how could this have happened in a region of the United States that is heavily populated by Evangelical Christians, including Christian educators?</p>
<p>In November 2012, a Williamson County parent was concerned over the content in her son’s geography textbook for his AP Human Geography class. The passage in question is taken from &#8220;The Cultural Landscape Curriculum &#8211; An Introduction to Human Geography,&#8221; under the subject heading, &#8220;Why Has Terrorism Increased?&#8221;</p>
<p>The author states:</p>
<blockquote><p>Distinguishing terrorism from other acts of political violence can be difficult. For example, &#8220;If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?&#8221; Competing arguments are made:  Israel’s sympathizers denounce the act as a terrorist threat to the country’s existence, whereas advocates of the Palestinian cause argue that long-standing injustices and Israeli army attacks on ordinary Palestinian civilians provoked the act.</p></blockquote>
<p>The “Arab/Israeli” conflict is used as an example of why terrorism is on the rise and the difficulty one has in distinguishing terrorism from acts of violence. The writer suggests through implication that the Palestinians are justified in murdering innocent Israelis because they have chosen terrorism as “their” legitimate right to wage war.</p>
<p>Although the author chose the “Arab/Israeli” conflict, why did he not use 9/11?  After all, it is relevant to students’ understanding of the threat America faces in the global war on terrorism.</p>
<p>When applied, the same logic articulated in the textbook legitimizes terror attacks against Jews in Israel as a result of &#8220;political violence.&#8221;  Were the 19 terrorists who attacked the U.S. in general, and Americans specifically, justified because of U.S. policies in the Middle East?</p>
<p>Regarding the recent bombing in Boston, were the terrorists involved justified in attacking innocent U.S. citizens at the Boston Marathon because of U.S. policies in the Middle East, Iraq and Afghanistan?</p>
<p>Not only does the curriculum promote terrorist attacks against innocent Israeli civilians, but it is factually inaccurate. The historic and archaeological evidence of the Jewish presence in the land of Israel dates back almost 4,000 years.  Furthermore, the textbook defines Hezbollah and Hamas as &#8220;political organizations.&#8221;  In fact, they are classified as terrorist groups by the U.S. State Department.</p>
<p>A situation arose last year when a high school student in Franklin, Tennessee began to question Israel’s legitimate rights to the land.  Upon further questioning, the parents discovered that Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was at the United Nations in New York City. The Franklin High School Human Geography teacher invited a guest speaker to the class to discuss the Middle East conflict on November 29, 2012, the same day as the UN&#8217;s vote on the Palestinian Authority&#8217;s non-member state status.</p>
<p>As a result of comments made by the guest speaker, the textbook, the teacher’s comments and additional handouts on the topic, the student assumed that Israel did not have a legitimate right to the land.  The parent then questioned another student from the class who stated, “If it weren’t for this class, we wouldn’t know anything about the dangerous Zionist agenda.”</p>
<p>The parents met with the Franklin High School faculty in December to present the concerns articulated in the curriculum and requested that the school take action by providing an alternative textbook that would offer factually accurate information. Not only were their requests denied, they were also insulted when the Williamson County superintendent of curriculum, Tim Gaddis, suggested they were bigots at the close of the meeting.</p>
<p>The Williamson County superintendent, Dr. Mike Looney, repeatedly stated that the parents are taking the quote in the textbook out of context.  However, other Jewish and Christian leaders have also stated that the quote is unacceptable.  For example:</p>
<p>Russell D. Moore, president-elect of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, says he uses provocative questions to help “teach people how to wrestle through difficult questions and identify motives behind actions.”  He said, “I use provocative case studies when teaching ethics.”   However, Moore said he believes the passage “crosses a moral line beyond intellectual provocation.  The [killing of] innocent civilian Israeli teenagers by terrorist groups is not a morally complex question, it is clearly evil,” he said.  “This is compounded by the horrific anti-Semitic violence the world has seen over the last century.  If I were a parent of a child in this school system, I would be upset also.”</p>
<p>Mark S. Freedman, Executive Director of the Jewish Federation of Nashville and Middle Tennessee, stated:</p>
<blockquote><p>It has come to our attention that a textbook currently being used by the Williamson County Schools seeks to balance acts of terror with legitimate political disputes.  We are extremely concerned that Williamson County public school students are being led to believe that terrorist acts of Palestinian suicide bombers can be justified as “wartime retaliation” against Israeli government policies.  In our view such a question should never have been asked in such an inappropriate manner, as is evidence in this textbook.  To create moral equivalency between specific acts of terror and legitimate territorial disputes that are political in nature serves to legitimize wanton and pre-meditated violence against innocent civilian victims.</p></blockquote>
<p>Arnold Cohen, Chair of the Knoxville Jewish Federation states:</p>
<blockquote><p>Do not think that your child is protected if they are in a “Christian” or “private” school.  This curriculum is being peddled to our children around the state and across this nation.  Parents must take action and demand accountability of our educators to remove this type of biased curriculum from our elementary, junior and senior high schools, as well as our schools of higher learning.</p>
<p>The Holocaust did not happen in a vacuum, and in the words of Holocaust survivor, Elie Wiesel, &#8220;Indifference to evil is evil.&#8221;</p></blockquote>
<p>Parents of students in Williamson County Schools are calling on the Williamson County School Board to remove the textbook in question and implement stricter guidelines with regard to the selection of curriculum in adherence to the highest achievement standards that parents expect for students in Williamson County.</p>
<p>Tax-paying citizens have made tremendous financial investments to send their children to Williamson County schools.  Mistakes such as these are unacceptable. The public should expect nothing less than excellence from all schools and certainly from those employed to produce the next citizens of a free, fair and independent nation.</p>
<p><strong>Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&amp;field-keywords=david+horowitz&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;ajr=0#/ref=sr_st?keywords=david+horowitz&amp;qid=1316459840&amp;rh=n%3A133140011%2Ck%3Adavid+horowitz&amp;sort=daterank">Click here</a>.</strong></p>
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