תגית: Swedish Schools

Swedish Teachers Use Schools for Spreading Political Propagand

Swedish school curriculum and school laws require factual accuracy, objectivity, and scientific basis from all teachers. Nevertheless, more than once or twice, Swedish teachers who are also political activists use tax-funded schools for spreding their political propaganda.

Published in Swedish in Svenska Dagbladet: https://www.svd.se/a/vg1455/larare-utnyttjar-skolan-for-propaganda

It was an ordinary Friday in January at an ordinary high school in Stockholm. At the end of a religious studies lesson, which was dedicated to self-study in preparation for a test, the teacher asked the students to direct their attention to a film.

The film showed a speech lasting about 20 minutes. Although it was supposed to be a lesson about Judaism, the film strangely wasn't about Jewish theology, Jewish traditions, Jewish texts, Jewish holidays, or Jewish history. Instead, it showed a radical political speech given in France in May 2024. It was about 'Israel's genocide, ethnic cleansing, and war crimes in Gaza' and Zionism as a murderous ideology that specializes in killing women and infants. The speaker also claimed that the USA, the UK, and France are 'fascists, neo-Nazis, and Israel’s best friends' and that 'there is no freedom of speech in Europe.'

The speaker, a self-declared 'anti-Zionist Jew' from the UK, referred to Hamas terrorists as 'real freedom fighters.' About Israelis, he said, 'they are not only not Jewish, they are also not human,' adding that 'a nation like Israel has no right to exist.'

Of course, the speaker did not mention the genocidal-like Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, nothing about the women, children, and elderly taken hostage, nothing about the lack of democracy and human rights in the Palestinian autonomous areas, or about Islamist terrorism and antisemitism, which have been characteristics of the Palestinian national movement since the 1930s.

Given all this, it is clear that the film did not belong in a religious studies lesson. However, according to a student who was there, the film was shown without context, without discussion, without questions, and without any explanation (except for the claim that it showed 'not all Jews are Zionists').

Moreover, the teacher's deep involvement in the issue and the teacher's personal views became clear as the students watched the video. It included sections with standing ovations from the audience. Belive it or not, one of the people seen cheering in the film was the Swedish teacher, making it clear where the teacher stands politically. When asked about it, the teacher confirmed this.

The incident appears to be yet another case of political activism in a Swedish school, which harms individual students and involves the misuse of the taxpayer-funded school system to spread extreme ideologies. In this case, the teacher is also a union representative and one of the organizers of a discussion evening about Gaza, held in Stockholm last May. As one of 'the union’s internationally responsible officers,' the teacher gave the other teachers an introduction and explained the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The teacher, who has also expressed extremely radical views in other contexts, is clearly not suitable to present a balanced view of the conflict. Yet, the teacher was allowed to do so for other teachers. This may be one of the reasons for other cases where extremist political views have been part of teaching in Stockholm's schools.

Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Swedish schools have seen many such cases. Last May, SvD published an article about preschool teachers who imposed their political activism on 4- and 5-year-olds. At one preschool in Stockholm, for example, the children made jewelry with paint and beads in the colors of the Palestinian flag and handprints, which they placed on white sheets of paper with the heading 'Support Palestine.' According to a post on social media, the preschool was also involved in collecting money for Palestinian groups. In Jönköping, a couple of preschool teachers had children draw watermelons to 'show love and solidarity with Palestine.'

Older students in 39 Swedish schools were given their share of political propaganda from another direction. According to another article in SvD, these schools are 'partner schools' of Amnesty, an organization deeply involved in political activism focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and far from impartial. These schools use the 'Amnesty model' for teacher training, themed days, reading materials, and lectures. They even participate in global campaigns. Amnesty is known as an organization that disproportionately criticizes Israel, supports boycott campaigns against Israel, almost completely ignores attacks on Israeli civilians, uses information from Hamas propaganda, and some of its overseas partners have connections to terrorist organizations and Islamist movements.

A student at a high school in Stockholm shared that since the lessons on the Israel-Palestine conflict started, they feel 'I have to go to school to defend Israel. It's not that the teacher is lying, but it is very one-sided. For example, we had two lessons on the Palestinian Nakba and only half a slide about the expulsion of Jews from Arab countries.' When students were given texts on the subject, they received study questions like: 'What support is there to describe Israel as an apartheid state?' 'It’s uncomfortable,' says the student, who is concerned about their classmates. 'I feel like I need to present the other side. The others in the class don’t know the full picture.'

A mother of another student shared that her son had lost motivation for his social studies because of how the war was presented. The teacher continuously referred to all of Israel as occupied land and presented Hamas as one of what seemed to be two reasonable alternatives: a terrorist organization or an anti-colonial liberation movement.

Sometimes, Swedish teachers have not spoken about the topic at all but failed to protect students from politically motivated attacks. A few weeks after the war began, classmates of a Jewish boy in a primary school in southern Sweden asked him who he supported in the war. The 10-year-old boy replied that he supported Israel. The two others drew a crossed-out Israeli flag, crumpled it up, and threw it at him while saying, 'We hate Israel.' The teacher present in the classroom did nothing until the student’s mother contacted them.

The mother of a 16-year-old boy from a Jewish family attending a high school in western Sweden shared another disturbing story. She says a girl stood up in class and screamed, 'Slaughter, rape, and torture all Jews' at her son. The teacher did not react, did not stop the girl, or report her to the principal. The other students were also silent

Returning back to the Stockholm case from January, the school refused to disclose what sanction, if any, was taken against the teacher who used a high school classroom to spread extreme propaganda against Israel. The school’s principal says that the school does not comment on potential actions regarding individual staff matters. But it was confirmed that the teacher is still teaching at the school.Thus other teachers, students and parents will have to keep guessing – they know that the teacher exploited authority, a power position, taxpayer money and school infrastructure to advocate for political views that have nothing to do with the subject matter of the teaching. They also know that school curriculum and school laws require all teachers to be factual, objective, and based on scientific foundations. Still, we'll all have to stay in the dark when it comes to the implications of not doing so.

It is important to emphasize that the problem here is not discussing sensitive topics or censoring anyone. Different opinions are welcome, discussions in schools are important, and teachers, like everyone else, have the right to their political beliefs. The problem is the abuse of Swedish schools for pure political propaganda at the expence of the students and Swedish society.

One of the students who took part in the lesson in January has a Jewish background. She is now being taught by another teacher in religious studies. Since the school in this case reacted by separating the teacher from the student, even though it is clear that the problem lies with the teacher and not with the student, one must ask: would propaganda in teaching go unchallenged or without consequences if it concerned something other than Israel and Jews?

Should Swedish Teachers be Forcing Their Activism on School Children

Don't teachers know that getting school and pre-school children involved in their "support Palestine" is against Swedish school laws and regulation?

Published in Svenska Dagbladet: https://www.svd.se/a/rPW3RA/kulturdebatt-ska-forskolebarn-patvingas-politisk-aktivism

It was a regular day at a regular Stockholm pre-school. The children arrived in the morning and after the parents rushed off to work, they got busy making cute creations using paint and beads. But this day had a special theme – the bracelets the children made were all in the colors of the Palestinian flag, as were the hand prints that they put on white sheets of paper titled "Support Palestine". According to a social media post, the pre-school was also involved in raising money for the Sewedish Palestinagrupperna NGO.

This wasn't just a local initiative. It turns out that a self-titled "preschool teacher and lecturer who fights to strengthen the preschool's mission", who has tens of thousands of followers on social media, has been giving ideas and inspiration for what he called "pre-schools for Palestine day". The content itself was hardly impressive, but it made an impression on some pre-school teachers who decided to impose their political activism on 4 and 5-year-olds. In Jönköping, for example, a couple of pre-school teachers got children to draw watermelons to "show love and solidarity with Palestine". in Upplands-Bro, a pre-school teacher claimed on social media that "the children have been given beads and crafts in the colors of the Palestinian flag" and went on to say that the children will ask their parents to buy food for Palestinians and let Palestinians live in their homes.

Where is all this coming from? Surely, Swedish educators know that political activism in schools is opposed to the school law. In order to understand the phenomena, I went to a teacher's union meeting dedicated to a discussion about the union's policy concerning Gaza. Since the teachers attending the meeting, some of them wearing so-called Palestinasjals, didn't know who I was, they spoke freely about their concerns.

One spoke passionately about the disgrace of Swedish teachers supporting the Nazis in the 1940s. She then said "in twenty years someone will write – 'my teachers were silent!' I don't want to bear that shame". Another spoke about the cowardly silence in Swedish schools and said that many teachers are willing to speak out and show civil courage. The use of "civil courage" is interesting here. Civil courage means that there's a price for your actions. Otherwise, why is it courage? Raoul Wallenberg saved tens of thousands of Jews in Budapest 1944. The price – death in a KGB prison. Nelson Mandela fought for equality in apartheid South-Africa. The price – 27 years in prison. Miss Gunilla promotes Hamas narratives. The price – a reasonable salary from the Municipality of Stockholm funded by Swedish tax payers. There is, of course, a real price too, but it's not paid by the teachers. It's paid by children who feel unsafe and unwelcome when they encounter pro-Palestinian activism where there supposed to feel protected and appreciated.

In the union meeting, however, the teachers claimed that it's not about being pro-Palestinian, it's about values. "we have the Children's Rights Convention in our curriculum, human rights, children's rights", one of the said, "children are being slaughtered, burned to death in tents, and we cannot even make a statement". This claim is worth addressing since human rights are, and should be, part of the school plan. But since the world is a complicated place, school programs stick to values, history and social sciences and generally avoid ongoing, political conflicts. If schools would deal with this war, they'd have to deal with others. There are active genocides, civil wars and massacres going on in dozens of countries and still, Swedish schools don't dedicate their resources to Tigrayans, Darfurians, Curds, Uyghurs and Rohingya people and they certainly didn't discuss the victims of the October 7th massacre in Israel. Should Gaza be an exception just because it's a fashionable topic in Swedish activist circles? Even if the Palestinians were defenseless victims of a one-sided genocide and even if drawing watermelons could somehow save them, the result of turning Swedish schools into a political Hyde-Park will be even less time left for mathematics, Swedish, arts and science. Do Swedish students really excel in these subjects so much that they can allow themselves this righteous indulgence?

But even if they did, focusing on Gaza would be problematic. The current war in Israel and Gaza has victims on both sides. Israeli children as well as Palestinians were killed, Israeli teen-agers were raped and kidnapped, Israeli students also lost their homes and became orphans and their schools are being bombed and destroyed too. Swedish activists who publicly "support Gaza", don't see this as an equally important issue. The teacher's union leadership even explained that solidarity help funds only go to UNRWA because Israel "can take care of itself". This comes from believing in a specific narrative: Israel is a colonialist state based on ethnic cleansing of indigenous Palestinians who are now victims of a genocide.

There are, however, competing narratives. For example: the Jewish national movement (aka Zionism) and the Palestinian national movement both have justified claims on the same territory and they're involved in a bloody conflict which can only be solved by compromise. And here's another: Iran is using its Palestinian and Lebanese proxies in order to annihilate Jews while it's engaging in an influence campaign in Europe which is designed to acquire western allies (such as Swedish teachers) who'll support its antisemitic genocidal aggression. The battle between these narratives is important, it's what politics are all about, and it should take place in many places, but not in schools, and aiming at 4-year-olds is a particularly cheap shot.

And finally, there's antisemitism. A Malmö school report (2021), a Stockholm school report (2022) and a government report (2024) all clearly show that Jewish students and Jewish teachers in Swedish schools are victims of antisemitism and that one of the reasons for this is that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is present in classrooms and schoolyards. Does anybody seriously believe that even more of it will help addressing antisemitism? Of course not. But fighting antisemitism isn't as fashionable as it used to be, and it's not only about schools anymore.

It's happening everywhere. Political activists preach against indifference and demand that teachers, nurses, midwives, and social-workers "stand up for Palestine". That's all very well, but here's another option; perhaps teachers can stand up for their students, midwives can stand up for future mothers and nurses for their patients. Political activists can arrange demonstrations, write op-eds and promote the "global intifada" in their spare time, just like people with similar hobbies burn the Quran or shave their heads and march for "white power" after work and not during office hours. At the end of the union meeting, one of the teachers said: "I'm a child of the revolution. I came to Sweden from Iran and the revolution there started from the teachers". Sweden's teachers can exercise their freedom of speech because they live in a democracy, but considering the results of the revolution in Iran, perhaps it's best if they do it as far away from children as possible.