A Massachusetts program for middle- and high-school students is coming under fire for its political bent and anti-Israel bias.
According to a report in the publication
The College Fix, the workshop teaches that Hamas and Fatah — which began as the Palestinian National Liberation Movement founded by Yasser Arafat — promote "more peaceful means than intifada"; that Hamas is a political party, not a terrorist group; that Fatah and Hamas are political parties equivalent to Likud and Labor in Israel; that the use of drones to stop terrorists are like high-tech suicide bombers who kill innocents; that Hamas and Jews have equal claim to Jerusalem; and that the Palestinians have equal claim to land where Israel exists today.
The lesson plan has been approved nationally for the Common Core curriculum, The College Fix reports.
The program, "Whose Jerusalem?" is offered through the nonprofit "Axis of Hope," which operates out of the Boston University Global Literary Institute, working with some 25 high schools in various states and three foreign schools, according to The College Fix.
And it is Common Core-approved, "despite its bias and serious flaws," charges Americans for Peace and Tolerance president Charles Jacobs, The College Fix says.
The workshop requires students to play the parts of Arab, Israeli, or American leaders negotiating a "best alternative to a negotiated agreement" for the division of Jerusalem.
Boston University instructor Carl Hobart, who created the program, insists the classes are
simple conflict resolution.
But Americans for Peace and Tolerance released a video April 23 aiming to show the
program's anti-Israel slant.
Story continues below video.
Hobart admitted to Al-Jazeera he hopes the exercises will lead students to "put pressure on our government to create a Palestinian state," The College Fix reports.
Jacobs is incensed, telling The College Fix: "At a time of growing anti-Semitism on U.S college campuses, it is very disturbing that both Boston University and Weston High School would permit or promote such biased educational materials in the classroom."
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