Education

‘It’s Dangerous’: McCarthy Demands Investigation Into California’s ‘Anti-Semitic, Anti-Israel’ Curriculum

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House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California is demanding an investigation into a proposed California Department of Education curriculum that he called “blatantly anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israel.”

Several people involved in making the high school curriculum have been anti-Israel, and some are Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement activists who have tried to start an economic war on Israel, The Washington Free Beacon reported Wednesday.

McCarthy wondered how a curriculum such as this “made its way through” the education system. The committee overseeing the curriculum will be taking a second look and altering it, according to the Free Beacon.

“While I am relieved that California made the obvious decision to revisit this wholly misguided proposal, we need to know why and how a blatantly anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, factually inaccurate curriculum made its way through the ranks of California’s Department of Education,” McCarthy told the outlet.

“Taxpayer dollars should never be approved to fund a curriculum that whitewashes Israel’s history while simultaneously promoting the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to destroy the state of Israel,” he added. “This was not simply an oversight — the California Department of Education’s attempt to institutionalize anti-Semitism is not only discriminatory and intolerant, it’s dangerous.”

Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and it always will be. So grateful to President @realDonaldTrump for officially acknowledging that fact by moving the US embassy here. pic.twitter.com/guOTqx70Yz

— Kevin McCarthy (@GOPLeader) August 14, 2019

McCarthy has asked the state to look into the matter, the Free Beacon reported.

Around 83 pro-Israel and anti-discrimination organizations wrote a letter to the state demanding parts of the curriculum be removed.

“The anti-Jewish, anti-Israel bias of the proposed [Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum] — including its implicit portrayal of Jews and Israel as part of ‘interlocking systems of oppression and privilege’ and its endorsement of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement as a form of ‘direct action’ or ‘resistance’ that students are encouraged to engage in — clearly exposes the politically motivated and directed nature of the curriculum and its drafters,” organizations wrote, the Free Beacon reported.