California Educators Encouraged Anti-Israel Sentiments in Classrooms

Documents obtained through a public records request reveal that California teachers have been pushing anti-Israel views in classrooms, particularly in the aftermath of Hamas’ brutal October 7 terrorist attack on Israel. The revelations have sparked outrage among parents and education watchdog groups, who accuse radical educators of using their positions to spread propaganda to vulnerable students.

One incident, dated October 25, shows a teacher encouraging her students to speak out against Israel’s defense operations in Gaza, just weeks after Hamas terrorists murdered 1,200 Israelis and took over 200 people hostage. “If you’d like to speak out on this important issue, you can sign up,” the teacher wrote to her class, referring to her upcoming appearance at a school board meeting.

Additional troubling examples include:

• Tania Kappner, a teacher affiliated with the radical group By Any Means Necessary (BAMN), offering students extra credit for engaging with anti-Israel materials. Kappner, a longtime critic of Israel, has also been in contact with the Revolutionary Community Party and has run for the executive committee of the National Education Association (NEA).

• Nicoletta Karam, another teacher in Oakland, who distributed pro-Palestinian materials to colleagues for “May 1st Day of Solidarity with Palestine.” Among the resources she shared were maps highlighting “Palestine’s loss of land” and links to Al Jazeera, a media outlet known for its anti-Israel bias.

• A December 6 online “teach-in” for students in Oakland, where participants were prompted to answer questions such as “What does Palestinian freedom mean to you?” and “How are you engaged with the Palestinian freedom struggle?”

Michele Exner, Senior Advisor at Parents Defending Education, called these revelations “yet another data point exposing how the hate we are seeing on college campuses is being taught in K-12 classrooms.” Exner added that these teachers are creating “a generation of students filled with antisemitism and anti-American sentiments.”

These incidents are not isolated to a few radical teachers. The documents reveal that teachers affiliated with BAMN and other far-left organizations have been actively promoting anti-Israel and even pro-communist ideologies. BAMN, which is now pushing anti-Israel rhetoric, had previously protested the reopening of schools during the COVID pandemic, claiming it would lead to “dead children.” Now, BAMN’s website openly supports Hezbollah and calls for the “renewal of the Palestinian intifada.”

Oakland Unified School District spokesman John Sasaki defended the district’s guidelines, stating that teachers are instructed to avoid political pressure in classrooms. However, the ongoing actions of teachers like Kappner and Karam suggest these guidelines are being blatantly ignored.

These revelations come at a time when American universities are already under fire for allowing anti-Semitism to fester on campuses. But as these documents show, the seeds of hate are being planted much earlier, in K-12 classrooms, raising serious concerns about the future of American education.

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