EXCLUSIVE: Seattle Public School Employees Accused Israel of ‘Colonialism,’ ‘Genocide’

FIRST ON THE DAILY SIGNAL—In the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, an employee of Seattle Public Schools accused Israel of “colonialism” and “genocide, email obtained by Defending Education and shared with The Daily Signal reveal.

Defending Education submitted a public records request to Seattle Public Schools in October 2023 asking for emails discussing Hamas’ terrorist attack against Israel for the two weeks after it happened.

A Seattle teacher accused Israel of “colonialism,” “ethnic cleansing,” “occupation,” and “genocide” in an email dated Oct. 18, 2023.

“This is an apartheid regime based on dispelling and eradicating the Palestinians who are resisting settler colonial encroachment,” he said in his email. “You can’t say you value Indigenous Peoples Day and our resistance to settler colonialism while staying silent about the massacre of Palestinians that have been taking place for the last 80 years.”

The teacher promoted a boycott of Israel and cited the “Boycott, Divest, and Sanction” movement. He used a controversial phrase associated with the elimination of Israel as a country: “From the Land to the Sea, Palestine will be Free.”

Seattle Public Schools did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment.

On Oct. 17, 2023, another teacher urged her fellow educators to sign a resolution calling for Israel to agree to a ceasefire.

“I am writing to share that I would like you to add your name to the Ceasefire NOW resolution introduced by [then-Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo.], et al. calling for an immediate ceasefire by Israel and the opportunity for humanitarian assistance to be allowed into Gaza,” she wrote.

A first-grade teacher penned an email just three days after the terrorist attack claiming that “colonialism” created Israel.

“Without going into detail of who was there first etc., the Jewish people were placed in the Middle East because the UK, U.S., and other Western country did NOT want to take them in and so ‘agreed’ to let them be in that space without concern for the people already there,” the teacher of 6-year-olds wrote. “This is a problem caused by colonialism and selfishness by larger nations, not caused by the Jewish or Palestinian people.”

Another employee emailed colleagues to express the belief that “Hamas was created and funded by Israel, and it was during this period that Hamas was loudly antisemitic.”

“Their plan was to pay off the Islamic fundamentalists to drive a wedge between the religious and secular Palestinian liberation movement, and it worked for a time,” the employee wrote in an email without a date.

That employee’s job title is “Senior System Engineer” for Seattle Public Schools, according to LinkedIn.

He identifies as transgender, and his crowdsourcing campaign for his transition procedures raised only $435 out of a $10,000 goal.

In an Oct. 10, 2023, email, an employee now listed as the district’s “Social Studies Program Manager” explained that her team “created a document for [grades] 6-12 [English language arts] and Social Studies teachers and presented to school leaders” called “Teaching Racially Sensitive History.”

“The Guidance for Teachers Using Racially Sensitive Texts provides instructional supports, strategies and tools for social studies teachers to support the intentional design of inclusive, safe, racially and socially just, classroom environments,” the document’s introduction says.

That guide goes on to tell teachers to “consider your own identity,” “know students’ identities and histories,” “seek histories of marginalized peoples,” “prepare to teach hard history,” and “interrogate institutional and structural systems.”