Hawkish Right-Wingers Hurting Teachers, and Your Kids

By Stephen Zunes, AlterNet. Posted May 13, 2009.

This was also apparently an effort by the AFT to discredit human rights groups like Human Rights Watch, which published detailed empirical reports rejecting the Bush administration's claims that Hamas and Hezbollah used human shields or were otherwise responsible for the large numbers of civilian deaths.

The AFT has refused to respond to requests to provide evidence countering the findings of these reputable human rights organizations.

The AFT also went on record claiming that the aims of Hezbollah and Hamas are to "carry out the agendas of Iran and Syria."

Most analysts familiar with the parties, however, argue that the provocative actions by these indigenous Islamic groups were based upon their own issues and that neither the Iranian nor Syrian governments -- despite some limited financial and military support -- had any operational control over these militias.

Passing a resolution claiming that these militias were somehow being directed by foreign governments -- governments that happened to be targeted by the Bush administration for sanctions, diplomatic isolation and possible military action -- appears to have been part of an effort by the AFT leadership to give credence to the administration's efforts to further its broader Middle East agenda, despite the lack of evidence to support such accusations.

Similarly, in an effort to undermine Syrian efforts to reopen negotiations with Israel and the United States, the AFT resolution claimed that both Hezbollah and Hamas were attacking "Israeli cities and civilians with rockets, mortars and other heavy weapons supplied to them by ... Syria."

In reality, the Hezbollah rockets fired into Israel were exclusively of Iranian origin, and the smaller less-sophisticated Hamas rockets fired into Israel were largely homemade, with components smuggled in from Egypt.

Again, the AFT has refused to provide evidence to back its claims of Syria supplying Hezbollah with rockets or its claims about Syrian or Iranian control of Hezbollah and Hamas.

While the AFT has done an admirable job of pushing the need to close the learning gap between middle-class white children and low-income children of color here in the United States, the union rejects such notions of equality when it comes to young Israeli and Arab victims of political violence.

While categorically denouncing Hezbollah and Hamas for the deaths of Israeli civilians, at no point has the AFT ever expressed any concerns over the far greater number of civilians, including hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinian children, who have been killed in recent years by U.S.-supplied weapons and ordnance provided to Israel during that period.

To the AFT, the deaths of innocent civilians in Gaza or Lebanon, like the hundreds of thousands of civilians who have died as a result of the AFT-backed U.S. war on Iraq, are apparently not of concern to them.

AFT's New Leadership

Last year, McElroy was succeeded as president by Randi Weingarten, who had led the important New York City chapter of the union.

Weingarten -- the first openly lesbian president of a major American union -- has put forward an agenda that not only pushes for improved benefits for teachers and support staff in the nation's public schools, but advocates increasing state and federal funding for education and making it possible for schools to serve as community centers that could offer health and nutrition services for needy children (both of which are critical for the learning process).

Such a progressive agenda has been damaged, however, by her support for AFT's militaristic foreign policy, as well as her anti-Arab racism

In 2007, she contributed to a racist smear campaign that led to the dismissal of a newly appointed Arab American school principal who had previously worked in an office in which some young volunteers printed out T-shirts that read "NYC Intifada."

In the face of vicious right-wing attacks falsely accusing her of supporting terrorism, the principal -- a native Arabic speaker -- had correctly pointed out that intifada simply means "shaking off" and does not connote violence.

However, Weingarten -- who does not speak Arabic -- writing on the opinion page of the New York Post, falsely claimed that the use of the word was actually an endorsement of "rampant violence and bloodshed" and constituted warmongering.

In reality, the word came into common usage in the West during the first Palestinian intifada (1987-93) against the Israeli occupation, which -- while it included well-publicized incidents of stone-throwing and several slayings of suspected collaborators -- was largely nonviolent, consisting primarily of peaceful demonstrations, strikes, boycotts, tax refusal, occupations, blockades and the creation of alternative institutions.

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Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics, chairman of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of San Francisco and serves as a senior policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus.

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