‘Hands Off Iran’: Chicago Teachers Union Sponsors Anti-US, Anti-Israel Protest

Teachers employed by the Chicago Public Schools system, which serves over 300,000 students, participated last weekend in a protest against the US-Israeli war in Iran, apparently siding with the Iranian regime and its Lebanese terrorist proxy Hezbollah in the ongoing conflict.

The “Hands Off Iran & Lebanon” protest, held in Chicago on March 7, received a generous sponsorship from the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU), along with several socialist and Islamist groups. At least one of the organizers, the Palestinian Youth Movement, is known to hold ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an internationally designated terrorist group that has been involved in armed hijackings of airplanes, suicide bombings, shootings, and assassinations. For decades, the group has attacked Israeli and other Western targets.

“Hey Siri, play: Boom, Boom Tel Aviv,” said one of the signs held up by a protester on Saturday, referencing the song “Boom, Boom, Tel Aviv.” The song, which calls for the killing of Jews and Israelis, includes lyrics such as “Iranian missiles have your entire sky lit” and “How does it feel to have bombs dropping on your civilians?”

Another sign read, “Hands off Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine. Stop the US Israeli war machine.”

At one point, a CTU member addressed the throng of protesters wearing a keffiyeh — a symbol of Palestinian jihad popularized by the late terrorist and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

“The Chicago Teachers Union has made it very clear it wants to put ‘political education’ above actual education. CTU’s priority is radical activism, and it is willing to sacrifice its teachers, its students, and their families to the cause,” Mika Hackner, director of research at the North American Values Institute (NAVI), told The Algemeiner on Friday.

K-12 students have seen a surge in antisemitic incidents in their schools, but teachers have experienced extreme anti-Zionism and bigotry as well, according to preliminary results of a survey conducted by the research arm of the StandWithUs advocacy group shared in January.

The data shows that Jewish K-12 teachers in the US face widespread antisemitic discrimination, harassment, and bullying in both public and non-Jewish private schools. Approved by the leading US scientific ethics committee, the survey found that 61.6 percent of the 584-person sample have been both targets and witnesses of antisemitic conduct in a professional setting. Meanwhile, nearly half suffered antisemitism perpetrated by their teachers unions, purportedly their advocates and representatives in collective bargaining.

School districts, obligated to comply with civil rights laws which proscribe discrimination, fail at prevention, according to the data. Of the 65 percent of respondents who said they are required to take anti-bias trainings, only 10 percent said those trainings address antisemitism.

Other research has argued that public sector education unions turned K-12 classrooms into theaters of anti-Zionist agitation, thereby alienating Jewish teachers and students. According to a report by the Defense of Freedom Institute, several major teachers unions escalated their anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish activity following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel — a series of actions which included attempting to sever ties with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), staging protests in which teachers led chants of “Death to Israel,” and teaching students that Israel constitutes an “settler-colonial” state which perpetrates ethnic cleansing against Palestinians.

In New York City, report author Paul Zimmerman writes, the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) has advanced from fostering popular support for anti-Zionism among students to seeking cover from government by placing one or more of its fellow travelers in high office. The UFT endorsed the New York City mayoral candidacy of Zohran Mamdani in July, calling the avowed socialist and Hamas sympathizer a potential “partner.”

“The historical record shows that, whatever their shortcomings, previous generations of teacher-union leaders stood up to antisemitism in K-12 schools on behalf of their Jewish members and promoted strong US support for Israel in the face of existential attacks on that country,” the report states. “Now, antisemitic activists grossly dishonor that legacy by weaponizing teacher unions to spread antisemitism, intimidate Jewish teachers, and recast the classroom as a battlefield against the West.”

Zimmerman outlines three concepts for reforming union conduct, reserving a significant role for the US Congress, which holds the power to investigate the union bosses and subpoena them before its relevant committees. He also calls on teachers to register their opposition by withholding compulsory union dues which ply union leadership with both resources and legitimacy.

The problem of educators promoting anti-Zionism is present in higher education too. Following the announcement of US-Israeli strikes on Iran late last month, anti-Zionist faculty on college campuses cajoled students to support Islamism, jihad, and terrorism by recruiting them to participate in demonstrations for Iran, a regime which is responsible for killing American soldiers through proxy groups across the Middle East.

The Algemeiner reviewed over a dozen examples of faculty, specifically the Faculty for Justice in Palestine organization, proclaiming solidarity with Iran’s Islamist, authoritarian regime and lambasting the US and Israel for their joint operation.

“These u.s.-backed attacks are designed to spark a regional war, sacrificing the people of Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, and beyond to further amerikkkan and zionist domination [sic],” said a post liked by the University of California Ethnic Studies Council, a body of professors who proposed an ethnic studies high school requirement for UC admissions. Critics have noted that the proposal pushed anti-Zionism in the classroom.

“Every drop of their blood spilled ignites our rage, our grief, and our duty,” the post continued. “We must continue to organize in solidarity with the Palestinian people, until the end of zionism [sic] and the liberation of Palestine.”

In Bronxville, New York, Sarah Lawrence College’s Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP) chapter posted a volley of messages which called for “de-platforming Zionists” and ending military operations in Iran. The group also shared false claims that the US opened fire on Pakistani civilians.

Just miles away, the Saint John’s University FJP group shared agitprop alleging that the US intentionally targeted an Iranian school with an airstrike and has “always … sacrificed” children. The group also called for sabotaging the war effort by refusing to file taxes or to file by paper to delay the government’s receiving revenue. Meanwhile, the post suggested that agents in the government are prepared to participate in the conspiracy.

“The absolute bare minimum those of us in the imperial core should be doing is NOT FUNDING THIS SH—T,” said the post. “For example even just filing your taxes via paper slows down the IRS and makes it easier for other tax resisters to make an impact with their actions as well.”

Bowdoin College, New York University, Bryn Mawr College, and Haverford College all have Faculty for Justice in Palestine groups sharing similar social media content.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.