School Board Member Calls Israel a ‘Right-Wing Apartheid Force’

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—Emails obtained by Parents Defending Education, a watchdog group, present a Seattle college board member known as Israel a “right-wing apartheid force” and praised the Black Lives Matter motion six days after Hamas’ terrorist assaults left over 1,200 useless within the Jewish state.

Eliza Rankin, the college board member for Seattle Public Schools, identifies herself as Jewish within the electronic mail despatched Oct. 13 underneath the topic line “hate speech.” 

The terrorist group Hamas, which is the elected authorities of the Gaza Strip adjoining Israel, massacred over 1,200 civilians within the Oct. 7 incursion into southern Israel. Hamas additionally kidnapped over 200 Israeli, American, Argentinian, Thai, Filipino, French, German, and Irish residents.

In the aftermath of the terrorist assaults, Black Lives Matter chapters all through the United States praised what they described as a righteous pushback in opposition to Israel’s “colonialism.”

In a “Superintendent Talking Points” doc dated Oct. 11 and obtained by Parents Defending Education, Seattle Public Schools describes Filipinos as “Filipinx,” a time period described by many Filipino nationals and immigrants as extraordinarily offensive.

Black Lives Matter’s Chicago chapter posted imagery on X praising Hamas paragliders who jumped into the Nova music competition on the Israeli aspect of the Israel-Gaza border and mowed down attendees with computerized weapons.

After prompting worldwide outrage, the BLM chapter deleted its tweet.

Other BLM chapters posted similar celebrations of Hamas’ terrorist assaults and tried to attract parallels between what they see as oppressed Palestinians in Gaza and blacks within the United States.

On Oct. 12, 5 days after Hamas’ terrorist assaults in Israel, Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Brent Jones posted a message about “International Conflict” for folks and college students in Washington’s largest college district.

Jones described the “situation” in Israel and Gaza as “complex” and “emotionally and politically charged.” The college superintendent didn’t condemn any terrorist act, as a substitute suggesting that “it is acceptable that we as individuals hold different opinions about the conflict and complex history of Israel and Palestine.”

Jones then wrote: “Antisemitic or Islamophobic speech or acts will never be tolerated in our district.”

According to emails obtained by Parents Defending Education underneath the Freedom of Information Act, one dad or mum reached out to Seattle’s college superintendent to ask concerning the college district’s connections to Black Lives Matter following the BLM chapters’ pro-Hamas posts.

Rankin, the college board member, responded within the Oct. 13 electronic mail that she is “a Jewish person who fights for racial equity” and that Seattle Public Schools “has no affiliation to the [Black Lives Matter] organization.” 

In the e-mail, Rankin calls Hamas “a terroist [sic] organization that does not represent the Palestinian people.”

She proceeds to pledge her support for the Black Lives Matter motion and describe “the Israeli government” as a “right-wing apartheid force that does not represent the Jewish people.”

This assertion is objectively false, in response to information stories.

On Oct. 11, liberal and centrist Israeli occasion leaders and officers joined Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a conservative, to form a “unity government” through the Israel-Hamas conflict that erupted after the assaults.

Hamas was elected in 2006 by fashionable vote in Gaza and continues to obtain majority support of the civilian inhabitants, in response to every available poll. 

The response by Seattle Public Schools officers to the terrorist assaults and Israel’s navy retaliation seems to be a part of a growing trend of an anti-Israel revision of historical past in America’s public colleges. Similar incidents  embody Berkeley High School’s anti-Israel social studies lessons in California.

But this isn’t the one time that Seattle Public Schools has been on the heart of an antisemitism controversy.

Ian Golash, social research chairman at Seattle’s Chief Sealth International High School, was suspended April 19 after a report by Adam Guilette of Accuracy in Media, a conservative investigative group.

Guillete recorded Golash as he stated Hamas’ Oct. 7 assaults in Israel had been justified and that there was no proof of rape on the Nova music competition, the place Hamas terrorists killed a minimum of 370 attendees.

Erika Sanzi, director of outreach for Parents Defending Education, described the anti-Israel sentiment as a results of college districts deciding that it’s “OK to vilify and demean certain groups.”

In a written assertion Thursday to The Daily Signal, Sanzi stated:

Ok-12 schooling has an anti-Israel downside that usually slides into antisemitism. It’s not that each college board or college administrator holds anti-Jewish views—the issue is that sufficient do for it to be a actual downside. 

I’m not shocked by what this [Seattle school] board member stated as a result of there have been numerous comparable examples since Oct. 7, and even lengthy earlier than that. When governing our bodies view Jews as oppressors, it turns into a disaster for that faculty district. We are seeing what occurs when college districts determine that it’s OK to vilify and demean sure teams. Seattle has allowed this to fester far too lengthy.

Seattle Public Schools has not responded to The Daily Signal’s request to confirm the emails and paperwork offered by Parents Defending Education by publication time.