Scottish school textbook teaches that Israel is ‘apartheid, colonial regime’

Classroom materials published by the largest teachers’ union in Scotland are riddled with hostile depictions of Israel, a JC investigation has revealed.

They include one book that juxtaposes images of suffering Palestinians  with scenes of blissful Israeli life, such as a farmer harvesting Jaffa oranges.

The same text, published by Educational Institute of Scotland (EIS), posits Palestinian children as innocent victims of Israeli military aggression and their Israeli counterparts as privileged youngsters who fear violence.

Another, non-EIS resource promoted by a Scottish local authority says “antisemitism is a European phenomenon” and accuses Israel’s “apartheid and settler colonial regime” of “genocide”.

Separately, in recent years Jewish schoolchildren in Scotland have reportedly faced a wave of antisemitic attacks and bullying over their perceived connection to Israel, forcing many families to consider leaving the country. One boy aged eight was called “evil”, accused of “stealing land” and physically attacked after a teacher played a CBBC Newsround segment on the Israel-Palestine conflict in 2021. Another was targeted with swastikas and Hitler salutes for expressing support for Israel.

Distraught parents of Jewish pupils who have suffered attacks and verbal abuse told the JC many had moved their children to different schools, while others were looking to move to Israel. There is no suggestion that there is any direct, causal link between the teaching materials and the violence.

The parents all said that their children’s schools taught about Christianity and Islam but not Judaism. “School leadership seemed completely ignorant about the deeper issues of antisemitism,” said Edinburgh mother-of-two Elisheva Abramson, who works for pro-Israel media watchdog Camera.

Now both of Abramson’s children attend a fee-paying school. She said: “It is so expensive to send them private and we would not have done it if it were not for the antisemitism.”

The family are now planning to leave Scotland. “I don’t want to be part of a society that doesn’t consider us worth protecting,” she said.

Abramson also said her son had experienced attacks because of his Jewish identity and said that her recent decision to pull her children from their state school followed a series of incidents.

Besides the episode when her son was accused of “stealing land” and attacked after a teacher played a CBBC Newsround segment, he was grabbed by the neck by a child and shoved against a wall, while being told, “My parents say we are not allowed to play with dirty Jews,” his mother said.

Her daughter faced similar bullying, with classmates calling her an “ugly Jew” and teachers refusing to talk about Jewish festivals, even when Abramson repeatedly offered to speak to pupils in assembly.

Another mother described how her son, the only Jewish pupil at his primary school, had swastikas drawn in his exercise book and was subjected to Hitler salutes in the playground. When he moved to secondary school, the hostility escalated. When he expressed support for Israel, students told him they would “jump” him after school. “High school is a violent place anyway, teenage boys are unpredictable, all it takes is one of these boys to decide that today is the day to do something for Palestine and attack my son. I send him to school every day thinking that something terrible could happen,” his mother said.

Another mother told the JC: “The situation in Scotland is very hostile. I am thinking about [moving to] Israel because I don’t see where else we could be safe… Half of the Jewish families in Scotland that I know are thinking about it too.”

Despite appeals from the Board of Deputies (BoD) to withdraw the biased resources and hold urgent discussions, EIS defended the materials, which it said amount to “education for peace”, and continues to recommend their use in primary and secondary schools across Scotland’s 32 local authorities.

The founder and co-chair of the Scottish Jewish Teacher Network (JTN), established after October 7, told the JC that they felt completely “alienated” by the education system.

Anti-racist educational initiatives repeatedly ignore Jewish issues, the JTN claimed. The network said it was rebuffed by EIS when it raised concerns over a tweet reposted by a Scottish teacher that defended October 7. In “Palestine and Israel: Understanding the Conflict,” on the EIS website, an 11-year-old Palestinian girl is quoted as saying, “The soldiers don’t see me as a child. They see me as an enemy. I don’t like them, but I’m not their enemy. I just want to go to school.”

She adds, “You don’t have to be a bad person to get shot by them. Mostly, it is good people who get shot.” An Israeli child says: “We have guards at our school to keep the Palestinians from blowing us up.” Another Israeli child states: “The occupation is bad.”

In another activity, pupils are given a “fact card” about Israel-Palestine. “There has been a Jewish presence in Palestine for thousands of years,” children are told in the Israel section of the fact card. The Palestine section states: “Palestine is an ancient land and Palestinians have lived there for thousands of years.”

The BoD has been repeatedly refused meetings with EIS, which reportedly dismissed its concerns. According to JTN, the union will only meet Jewish teaching members, not a representative body, but many Jewish EIS members quit the union following October 7.

An EIS spokesperson declined to comment on its alleged refusal to meet the BoD. EIS said: “‘Palestine and Israel, Understanding the Conflict’... has been co-created by various partners, including Education Scotland, and has been independently academically reviewed. The EIS now has ownership of the resource and facilitates its distribution. The EIS reiterates our support for a just, comprehensive and lasting peace that is consistent with international law and based on a two-state solution, with security for both Palestine and Israel. The EIS is committed to equality, peace and social justice and to challenging all forms of racism and prejudice, including antisemitism and Islamophobia.”

Education Scotland said: “There can be no place for racial or religious intolerance in Scotland’s schools. Decisions on the use of education resources is a matter for local authorities.”