HAMAS IN OUR SCHOOLS: Antisemitic Narratives Are Reaching K-12 Classrooms

The devastating harm of this indoctrination is incalculable. Just today comes a story of North Carolina High School students planningto “kill as many Jews as possible” in North Carolina. These things don’t just happen. They are made to happen.

For years my colleagues and I have reported on the infiltration of jihadis and far left radical anxious to use schools and textbooks to proselytize for Islam.  It fell on deaf ears or was widely derided as conspiracy nuttery.

Many of the Islamic groups that vet American public school textbooks for the accuracy of their material on Islamic doctrine and history are Saudi-funded. They make sure that the Islamic instruction in these textbooks presents a picture of Islam that is so pristine and whitewashed that it sometimes crosses the boundary from mere pro-Muslim bias into outright Islamic proselytizing.

The taboo about teaching religion in the public schools, so zealously established and guarded against Christian prayer by the ACLU and the Supreme Court over the last few decades, is increasingly set aside in American public schools, as presentations on Islam frequently cross the line between teaching facts about the religion and teaching the religion as fact.

• Defund Public Education
• “I’ve been a professor for decades. These institutions pose threats on several fronts”
• Academic Jihad: Hundreds of Newton Residents Petition School District for Proselytizing for Islam, Islam-biased, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Israel Instructional Materials
• The Islamization of the Public Schools

Hamas in our schools? Concern surfaces that anti-Israel narratives are reaching K-12 classrooms

What children learn about terrorism, Israel, and Jewish identity is being shaped in public classrooms, but questions have arisen as to whether schools are vetting the teachers and materials presenting those subjects.

By: Just The News, September 27, 206:

Concerns are surfacing that school districts across the country are indirectly allowing the terrorist organization Hamas — or its agenda — into classrooms, whether through curriculum or, in the case of one Massachusetts town the contested hiring of a teacher with pro-Palestinian sympathies.

Newton, Massachusetts, a town with a 20% Jewish population, recently hired a teacher who previously accused Israel of genocide while downplaying anti-Semitism, a report from the Middle East Forum (MEF) alleged. MEF was the only organization that mentioned the teacher, Maryam Abu-Hasaballah.

Abu-Hasaballah wrote in her 2025 senior thesis at the University of Connecticut about the school’s post-Oct. 7 protests, in which she ignored the atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against Israeli civilians. She instead accused the school of targeting “pro-Palestinian anti-Apartheid” protesters, whom she equated to the civil rights and antiwar protesters in America in the 1960s and 1970s.

“The Pro-Palestinian Anti-Apartheid movements, while prevalent for many decades, blossomed to a new height across campuses all over the country during the 2023-2024 academic year and reflected a great parallel to the anti-war and racial equality movements of the ‘60s and early ‘70s,” she wrote in the thesis posted on UCONN’s Web site. “This movement grew in response to the devastating actions taken by the Israeli government to wage war on Hamas, a militant Palestinian nationalist group.

“In the midst of this war Israel has enacted collective punishment on the civilians of Palestine leading to the deaths of over 50,000 innocent men, women, and children,” her thesis added.

Attempts by Just the News to reach Abu-Hasaballah for comment through multiple channels were unsuccessful.

Hamas Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians at a music festival “was not addressed at all” 

The thesis became a point of concerns for parents.

“The October 7th, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel was not addressed at all,” said Sagit Sade Attia, the National Senior Director of Academic Action at the Israeli-American Council, at a school meeting about hiring Abu-Hasaballah.

“About 1,200 people were murdered that day, including babies, civilians, children, and elderly people. There were also reports of sexual violence, kidnapping of 250 people, and horrific acts of brutality broadcast through telegrams by the terrorists themselves, including attacks on people in their homes and the Nova Music Festival. In addition, over 3,300 were wounded that day.”

Parents in Newton voiced opposition to the new hire on Sept. 14, asking school officials if Abu-Hasaballah could be trusted to accurately teach their middle-school children history and social studies. “What happens when someone whose work reflects highly ideological and deeply one-sided positions is hired to teach subjects directly related to those positions?” one resident asked at the meeting.

“How can an eighth-grade history teacher teach students to critically examine current events and historical conflicts if her own academic work does not demonstrate engagement with essential context and competing perspectives?” Attia asked during her testimony.

Another parent, Josh Krefetz, said the school defended hiring Abu-Hasaballah by saying it also had Jewish staff members.

“When you tell us, ‘Don’t worry, there was a Jew’—imagine telling a black person, ‘Don’t worry, there’s a black man on the Supreme Court, what are you worried about?’” Krefetz said, according to MEF. “Put in any other race or religion, or anything, for the way we’re spoken to by this city, and you might think things need to change a little bit.”

Newton Public Schools’ superintendent did not respond to a Just the News inquiry, nor did the principal of Charles E. Brown Middle School, which hired Abu-Hasaballah.

Not just Newton

Earlier this year, the Trump administration’s Department of Education opened an investigation into New York City’s Education Department after it was alleged that pro-Palestinian teachers had preached support for Hamas while calling Zionists “genocidal white supremacists.” The teachers were part of a group called NYC Educators for Palestine, and, according to reports the DOE said it received, organized a series of teaching seminars that taught children as young as five about “contemporary and historical Palestinian resistance,” as well as support for Hamas.

“No child should be taught by his or her teachers to hate their peers. Neither should Jewish children be taught that being Jewish somehow makes them inherently guilty or proponents of hate and violence,” said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey when announcing the investigation.

“Discrimination has no place in our schools, and, unlike the previous Administration, the Trump Administration will not turn a blind eye to anti-Semitic harassment. OCR will investigate these appalling allegations to ensure the equal treatment of all students,” Richey added.

There have been no updates on the progress of the investigation.

Sen. Cotton: “CAIR’s history makes it clear that its influence will be detrimental”

In Sept. 2025, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., sent a letter to DOE Secretary Linda McMahon about the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ (CAIR) attempts to indoctrinate students.

“Such an organization should never have access to our nation’s children. On August 26, 2025, CAIR Philadelphia announced plans to partner with schools across Pennsylvania and Delaware to make them ‘more inclusive.’ While details of their alleged partnerships are unclear, CAIR’s history makes it clear that its influence will be detrimental and possibly illegal,” Cotton said in the letter.

CAIR has long been accused of having ties to terrorism. The National Review documented its history with Hamas, a terror group designated by the U.S. government. CAIR accepted money from a Hamas front group and raised money for that same group after 9/11. CAIR provides a blanket response to those documenting its history, saying: “We unequivocally condemn all acts of terrorism, whether carried out by al-Qa’ida, the Real IRA, FARC, Hamas, ETA, or any other group designated by the U.S. Department of State as a ‘Foreign Terrorist Organization.’”

“The United Arab Emirates’ ministerial cabinet had listed the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as one of 83 proscribed terrorist organizations,” National Review reported.

Continued…..