The story began when Charles Jacobs of Americans for Peace and Tolerance began taking a closer look at some of the textbooks being used in Newton schools in Massachusetts.
The ads cover research by concerned parents and students that has revealed the presence of anti-Israel texts in Newton schools including “The Arab World Studies Notebook,” which claims that Israeli soldiers murdered hundreds of Palestinian nurses in Israeli prisons; “A Muslim Primer,” which claims that astronaut Neil Armstrong converted to Islam, but that the anti-Muslim U.S. government warned him “to keep his new religion to himself or he could be fired” from his government job; “Flashpoints: Guide to World History,” which asserts that Tel Aviv, not Jerusalem, is the capital of Israel, and that Jerusalem is the capital of “Palestine”; and other materials.
With Open Newton Schools, Americans for Peace and Tolerance challenged parents to look at the hateful material for themselves.
How bad are some of these materials? Take a look at A Muslim Primer which claims that…
Apparently women, like Jews and Christians, really like Islamic oppression. And Muslim Brotherhood propaganda is the best way to understand Islam.
And then there’s the Arab World Studies Notebook
Violent bigotry and revisionist history together at last… in Newton schools. And some antisemitism too in the Flashpoints Country Briefing: Israel-Palestine.
Those pesky Zionist settlers and their high profile terrorist attacks. Not like that nice Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat.
So the ADL jumped into action to… claim that nothing was wrong.
Controversy continues to swirl over a statement released by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Combined Jewish Philanthropies (CJP) and Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston ( JCRC) claiming that charges by Americans for Peace and Tolerance (APT) President Charles Jacobs of anti-Israel material in the Newton Public Schools were groundless.
Neither ADL nor JCRC has agreed to release its findings in order to support their joint statement in a Letter to the Editor in the Nov. 15 issue of The Advocate, where the organizations’ leaders wrote that they have done a “careful review of the materials at issue,” concluding, “We trust that this is reassuring to members of our community.” In a subsequent interview reported in this newspaper, ADL New England Regional Director Robert Trestan only reiterated that “the [APT] ad is misleading. It is taken out of context.”
I’m not sure what kind of context, “Women’s testimony is worth half of man’s. This is an attempt to forego distraction from family responsibilities and protect women from the rigor and discomfort of prolonged trials. It also reflects a feeling that woman’s emotional nature may prevent her from being as objective as men.” would be good in.
Perhaps the ADL could educate us on that. Or it could just boycott the Jewish newspaper reporting what is going on.
Despite being hit with an ADL boycott – ADL pulled all their advertising when they learned the paper was going to print an article questioning their “report” on the Newton schools – the Advocate continues to cover the story straightforwardly
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