Anti-Palestinian Racism training is already in our schools: Balboa High School, in SFUSD, had teachers attend a mandatory professional development session on Anti-Palestinian Racism.
In an email to staff, Balboa High Principal hoped the seminar on APR would "bridge some of the division that might have been caused from the earlier presentation on Anti-semitism."
On October 30, 2024, in San Francisco Unified School District, Balboa High School teachers had a mandatory Professional Development training on Islamophobia and Anti-Palestinian Racism. The training was run by the Islamic Networks Group.
It appears the training was organized in response to an earlier training run by the American Jewish Committee on anti-semitism as a response to specific antisemitic incidents at SFUSD.
In an email to staff announcing the mandatory professional development session, the principal of Balboa High School said that “We hope that this PD can help bridge some of the division that might have been caused from the earlier presentation on Anti-semitism.” Antisemitism trainings run by AJC in the San Francisco Unified School District were marred by staff walk-outs, low attendance, disruptions, and even an alternate “anti-semitism” training by an anti-zionist group.
By all accounts, the Anti-Palestinian Racism professional development session met with no such challenges.
On 10/29, the following email was sent from the Balboa Principal to Staff:
Tomorrow we will have a whole staff presentation from the Islamophobia Networks Group (ING.org) on Islamophobia & Anti-Palestinian Racism. This PD was titled: Honoring Our Shared Humanity: Understanding and Combating Islamophobia and its Intersections with Anti-Arab and Anti-Palestinian Bigotry.This PD is part of our Sense of Belonging thread for the year. We hope that this PD can help bridge some of the division that might have been caused from the earlier presentation on Anti-semitism.
Below is a description, speaker bios, and agenda:
Description:
The seminar will begin by defining and combating Islamophobia, which will be followed by defining and combating anti-Palestinian racism. The speakers will close by providing educator tools for combating both forms of bigotry.
Bios:
Maha Elgenaidi is the Founder and Executive Director of the Islamic Networks Group (ING). Maha holds an M.A. in Religious Studies from Stanford University and a B.A. in Political Science and Economics from the American University in Cairo. She has taught classes and delivered presentations on topics such as Islamophobia, and Islam in the modern world.
Dr. Lama Rimawi is a pediatrician and a graduate of the McGill University Faculty of Medicine and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is also a member of the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom’s Board of Trustees. Dr. Lama is the President and Founding Member of the Institute for the Understanding of Anti-Palestinian Racism.
Honoring Our Shared Humanity: Understanding and Combating Islamophobia and its Intersections with Anti-Arab and Anti-Palestinian Bigotry
90-min. Agenda
Intro—Catherine (5 min.)
Understanding Islamophobia—Maha (20-25 min.)
Understanding Anti-Palestinian Racism—Dr. Lama (20-25 min.)
Q&A (10 min.)
Tools for Combatting Both Forms of Bigotry—Maha and Dr. Lama (15 min.)
Q&A (10 min.)
We will see you all in the Buc Room promptly at 2:30pm.
Regular readers of this substack might recognize Dr. Lama Rimawi’s name - she is a founding member of the Institute for the Understanding of Anti-Palestinian Racism. Leaders in the institute include Merrie Najimy, former president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association and founder of MTA Rank and File for Palestine and Dr. Jess Ghannam, associated with the Al-Awda - Palestinian Right of Return Coalition.
The content of the Anti-Palestinian Racism portion of the webinar was similar to past ones given by IUAPR - including asserting that Palestinians are indigenous to Israel because Palestinians constitute Jews, Christians and Muslims; arguing that its racist to claim that Israel is not a settler-colonial state and arguing that its racist to challenge the Palestinian narrative of the “Nakba” or war of 1948.
The first half of the training was on “Understanding Islamophobia” and was led by Maha Elgenaidi of ING. The training portrayed Muslims as victims of colonialism without mentioning the long history of colonialism by Muslims. On top of this, it claimed that Palestinians “bear the brunt” of Islamophobia.
Examples of anti-Palestinian tropes include the idea that Palestinian identity is politicized; that Palestinians are not a distinct ethnic group; are not indigenous to Israel; that the Nakba or ethnic cleansing of Palestinians didn’t occur in 1948 and that Palestinians are inherently violent.
After the session on “Islamophobia” (which clearly dedicated some of its time to discussing Anti-Palestinian Racism), Dr. Lama Rimawi began her portion of the session on Anti-Palestinian Racism. It is unclear whether the slides used by Rimawi were viewed and approved by the SFUSD before the session.
Rimawi repeats the IUAPR line that Palestinians are indigenous to Israel because Jews, Christians and Muslims all lived in Palestine. As with previous IUAPR webinars, Rimawi trots out census data from 1922 British Mandate of Palestine to prove her point.
Rimawi - “As you may recall, Palestinians were also Jewish, so Palestinian Jews are actually indigenous to Palestine, just like Palestinian Muslims, Christians - any religion or no religion at all. And that’s important to understand - it’s not an either/or.”
During the talk, Rimawi mentioned that her grandfather still holds onto the key to his original home in historic Palestine but makes no mention of violence against Jews in 1948 or indeed prior to 1948. This is because any deviation from the narrative of the “Nakba” and deliberate “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians in 1948 is “Anti-Palestinian Racism.”
It is deeply troubling that teachers at Balboa High School were subject to a mandatory training which discourages debate and discussion of historical events.
Rimawi -“Anti-Palestinian racism is denying the existence of the Palestinian people and denying the settler colonialism of Palestine, which is very well-documented in early Zionist literature.”
In line with IUAPR, Rimawi made sure to emphasize that victims of Anti-Palestinian Racism include “allies” of Palestinians. Indeed, IUAPR finds that the majority of APR victims are not themselves Palestinian.
Rimawi - “When you accuse someone of being inherently violent for wearing a pin - that’s a form of racism.”
The primary targets of APR include "people who “simply express support for Palestinian rights” and “allies and advocates for Palestinian human rights” whether they are Palestinian or not. This suggests that any criticism of how “advocacy” for Palestinians is carried out and the narratives advocates may put forward is racist.
Rimawi claims that media bias perpetuates APR. She alleges, for example, that the media use words like “minors” rather than “humanizing” words like children when referring to Palestinian youth. But this fails to account for the fact that journalists often refer to “minors” in Gaza due to Hamas’s documented use of Palestinian minors to fight their battles.
“Who do you connect with? Who do you feel bad for?”
The only slide in the training that mentions violence by Hamas or other Palestinian terrorist groups is a slide contrasting language about victims of violence.
Unlike AJC’s training, which cited specific examples of antisemitic incidents at SFUSD where students were targeted, no examples of anti-Palestinian racism from SFUSD were cited in the training at all.
In the Q&A portion of the mandatory session, Rimawi suggested that using the phrase, “From the river to the sea” did not mean the end of Israel but that Palestinians simply want to be free. She neglected to mention that the original slogan in Arabic is “Water to water, Palestine is Arab.”
She added that the freedom they desire is that Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem would have full citizenship in Israel, “just like Israeli Arabs from pre-1948.” (this is particularly interesting given that her co-founder Jess Ghannam is associated with a group which believes in the right of return for all Palestinians and that they are entitled to live anywhere in Palestine which encompasses present-day “Israel” - effectively advocating the end of the Israeli state.)
Rimawi - “What would happen? You guys know what would happen, right? Before slavery was abolished slaveowners said they’re going to come kill us in our beds. But that didn't happen, right? Nothing happens, right? People just live their lives.”
She also evoked the Holocaust and indicated that Jewish people now live in Germany in peace so, “of course there can be peace” between Israelis and Palestinians. A troubling comparison to say the least.
Balboa High School and SFUSD need to answer for why teachers were subject to a mandatory training that was full of historical inaccuracies, distortions and the goal of which is to silence any narrative that deviates from an anti-Israel, anti-Zionist viewpoint.