Teacher under fire for alleged anti-Palestinian lesson

Farmington Public Schools said they are reviewing concerns raised by Muslim groups after a Farmington High School teacher allegedly provided false information on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict during a history lesson.

The National and Connecticut chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the Farmington Board of Education Wednesday to investigate the teacher’s alleged conduct, describing the information as inappropriate, inaccurate and a danger to Arab and Muslim students.

“We urge the Farmington, CT Board of Education to investigate an allegedly false, anti-Palestinian lesson given by a teacher at Farmington High School,” CAIR National said in a tweet Wednesday. “Not only does this propaganda misguide students, it could lead to attacks on Muslim & Arab students.”

CAIR-CT obtained and shared a 2-minute audio clip of the alleged lesson.

In the clip, the teacher reportedly states that Palestine’s geographic origins are in modern-day Jordan and Syria, not Israel.

“It’s in Jordan,” the teacher can be heard saying on the recording. “Seventy percent of Palestinian land is located in the modern country of Jordan. A tiny piece of it is in Israel.”

Later the teacher added, “Syria too. Part of the land is in Syria, but most of the land is not in Israel.”

The teacher asked students “Are we going to protest against Jordan? ‘Jordanians give back the land,’ No. Are they going to give back the land? No, they’re not. Are they going to let Palestinian refugees go into Jordan? No, they’re not. Do they even let Palestinians who live in Jordan now work? No, they don’t.”

In the second half of the clip, the teacher shifts the conversation, speaking about the “Promised Land” covenant between the Hebrew prophet Abraham and God, as well as the biblical conflict between the Philistines and the Israelites.

“What do the Hebrews have to choose to do?” the teacher asked.

As students filled the silence with their own answers the teacher presented two options: “They either fight them …or they don’t.”

CAIR-CT’s analysis of the audio hears the second option as “or they go.” The Courant hears the same phrase as “or they don’t.”

Khamis Abu-Hasaballah, the president of the Farmington Valley American Muslim Center, said the audio was provided by a non-Muslim student who felt compelled to record the lesson.

Abu-Hasaballah, who is also the parent of a Farmington High School student, called the alleged lesson “blatant ignorance.”

“If it’s intended or unintended, it doesn’t really matter,” Abu-Hasaballah said. “Clearly these are young minds who don’t know anything about the conflict and to be teaching them in this manner is really counterproductive.”

Abu-Hasaballah said this rhetoric has consequences.

“We had a 6-year-old Palestinian who was murdered in Chicago. His mother was stabbed multiple times. This is not the time to be provoking and evoking this style of emotions in a classroom, in a school where it’s supposed to be a safe haven for our students,” Abu-Hasaballah said.

Abu-Hasaballah said it’s up to local communities to “tone things down” during this period of rampant antisemitism and Islamophobia.

CAIR-CT and the FVAMC said they have witnessed an increase in reports of bullying, harassment and marginalization in Connecticut classrooms since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

“Our students are really feeling very, very vulnerable right now,” Abu-Hasaballah said.