The Massachusetts Teachers Association’s leaders are dealing with warmth after the MTA board known as for a cease-fire within the Israel-Hamas struggle, and mentioned Israel’s authorities is finishing up a “genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
Jewish teams are slamming the MTA Board of Directors for the movement that helps a cease-fire, and an area academics union is urging the MTA Board of Directors to retract its “antisemitic dog-whistling” assertion.
The MTA board not too long ago accredited the next movement:
“The MTA will join in solidarity with the UAW, CTU, and other labor unions across the country, in calling for an immediate and permanent cease-fire. The MTA President and Vice President will urge the president of the NEA to pressure President Biden to stop funding and sending weapons in support of the Netanyahu government’s genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza.”
The Anti-Defamation League and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston are actually condemning this assertion from the MTA board.
The MTA movement “camouflages within its call for a cease-fire an ill-founded attack on Israel — a perverse position given that Israeli civilians were the victims of the heinous Hamas-led terrorist attack on October 7,” mentioned Rabbi Jonah Steinberg, the ADL New England regional director.
“The MTA has a responsibility, as representative of educators in our Commonwealth, to do its homework,” Steinberg added. “In this instance, it has not.”
Any cease-fire decision ought to embrace an express condemnation of the Hamas terrorist assault, a name for a return of the Israeli hostages, and for the elimination of Hamas as a controlling actor in Gaza, in keeping with the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston.
“The MTA’s cease-fire resolution does not address any of these realities,” JCRC added. “We expect better from our educational partners.”
The Newton Teachers Association is disassociating itself from the MTA board’s assertion and “in particular from its antisemitic dog-whistling,” mentioned Newton Teachers Association President Mike Zilles. Newton has a big Jewish inhabitants and is residence to a number of synagogues.
“The motion and rationale approved by the MTA Board captures how the tragedy impacts many innocent Palestinians in Gaza,” Zilles mentioned. “But the statement fails completely to hold in mind the atrocities against Israelis on October 7, the complexity of the situation, and the trauma, pain, and fallout the Israeli, American, and international Jewish communities are experiencing.”
The movement will “provoke further antisemitism, and it is callous,” added Zilles, who mentioned the Newton Teachers Association is asking on the MTA Board to retract its assertion.
Last month, the MTA Executive Committee voted to affix different labor unions in calling for a cease-fire and a return of the Israeli hostages, whereas condemning any hate crimes in opposition to Muslims, Jews, or anybody else.
“The Massachusetts Teachers Association abhors the atrocities and terrible loss of life occurring in the war between Israel and Hamas, beginning with the horrific attack of Oct. 7,” MTA President Max Page and MTA Vice President Deb McCarthy mentioned in a joint assertion this week.
“Our Board of Directors voted to support our members and students by promoting education about this difficult history and the present situation, as well as to call on the National Education Association to support a cease-fire, which it has now done,” they added. “These decisions stem from a belief that human suffering in the region must end and we must all work together to support a rapid move toward lasting solutions for peaceful co-existence in the region.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”