BCTF’s idea of balance

Editorial

The British Columbia Teachers Federation (BCTF) is fending off criticism that it “has, and continues, to intrude upon the capacity of the B.C. College of Teachers to be properly regarded as an independent entity responsible for the self-regulation of the teaching profession,” with the accusation that Don Avison’s recent report for the provincial government, A College Divided: Report of the Fact Finder on the B.C. College of Teachers, is “highly biased and politicized.”

Well, not to take sides, but if any organization knows about bias and politics, it’s the BCTF. Take, as but one example (there are many others), an article in the November/December issue of Teacher, the federation’s newsmagazine. Retired Surrey teacher Bob Rosen’s article is called “Is it antisemitic to criticize Israel?” Rosen already knows the answer he’s looking for, so it’s really a rhetorical question, but he writes 1,209 words on it anyways.

It begins, “The conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has once again been thrown into high relief by the action of Israeli forces in boarding a relief ship bound for Gaza to attempt to break the crippling land and sea blockade of that territory by the Israeli military. Israel’s actions have earned it an unprecedented degree of international condemnation.”

The next sentence “just doesn’t belong,” as in the Sesame Street game song, “One of these things is not like the others / One of these things just doesn’t belong....” The sentence is, “Recently, the BCTF Representative Assembly called for the development of a curriculum unit that allows a fair and comprehensive all-sided discussion of the Israel/Palestine issue.” What makes it a non sequitur is the part about developing a unit that “allows a fair and comprehensive all-sided discussion.” These several words are surrounded by some 1,200 others that illustrate Rosen’s – and, as history has shown, the BCTF’s – desire for anything but a “fair and comprehensive all-sided discussion.”

As illustrations, because we only have 800-plus words available to us, all of the following come from Rosen’s article:

• “In the past year, there has been a spate of actions by government bodies in Canada in an attempt to brand critics of Israeli policies as antisemitic.”

• “Currently, an ever-greater number of Jews in Canada and around the world are distancing themselves from the policies of the Israeli government....”

• “Conflating criticisms of the actions of the state of Israel with attacks on Jewish people in general is utterly false.... In Canada, organizations such as Independent Jewish Voices, Jewish Outlook Society ... and Not in Our Name are increasingly vocal critics of Israeli policy.... There is also a growing number of organizations of dissenting Jews in the U.S., England and elsewhere who are speaking out in opposition to the actions of the state of Israel.”

• “Israel’s continuing illegal occupation of territories it captured in the 1967 war has given rise to many human rights concerns.”

• “In addition, there are more than 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails.”

• “Currently, the Israeli military has been enforcing a blockade in Gaza since 2005. This aggressive action sharply limits the import of vital goods....”

There is much, much more, but the coup de grâce is in Rosen’s penultimate paragraph, in which he states: “Many in Palestine and elsewhere are proposing the idea of a single state inhabited by Jews and Palestinians who have full equality under the law. This is now seen by many supporters of the Palestinian cause as both a more practical and more principled solution than trying to establish a state in the fragmented Occupied Territories.”

Such “analysis” doesn’t bode well for the BCTF’s ability to create an educational unit that encourages “fair and comprehensive all-sided discussion.” Besides, don’t B.C. teachers have more pressing issues to address, given budget deficits, pressure to close schools, the lack of resources for English-as-a-second-language and special needs education, etc., etc., not to mention the “dysfunction” in the B.C. College of Teachers, as reported by Avison. His conclusions note, among other things, the lack of consistent balance “between the ‘public interest’ and the more dominant ‘interest of members,’” the college’s continued resistance to “taking responsibility for the competence and currency aspects of self-regulation that other similar bodies consider core to their role in protecting the public interest” and infighting, which “has been common.”

BCTF president Susan Lambert claims that Avison’s report is “laced with unsubstantiated allegations” and that “teachers have always been committed to rigorous criteria for the self-regulation of their profession and take their responsibilities for the safety and well being of students extremely seriously.”

We wonder what Lambert thinks of Rosen’s views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “fair and comprehensive all-sided discussion” or “laced with unsubstantiated allegations”? More importantly, we wonder how she would go about protecting Jewish students’ safety and well being if his ideas for a curriculum were ever implemented.

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