Hundreds of New York City schoolchildren walked out of class Friday to stage a pro-Palestinian protest backed by their radical teachers.
“Some 350 students had descended on the Department of Education headquarters at the Tweed Courthouse in Lower Manhattan starting by 4 p.m.,” the New York Post reported.
“They were seen waving signs on the front steps of the building calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and describing Israel’s military offensive on the region following the Oct. 7 terror attack as ‘genocide,'” according to the Post.
Here’s the scary part of it all: The protest was organized by several teachers’ groups, including Teachers Unite and NYC Educators for Palestine.
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In addition to promoting the walkout, the teachers’ groups also reportedly handed out a toolkit containing a “sample walkout plan” and a list of the students’ alleged “rights” to “protest.”
“I’m fighting for humanity. I don’t care what they do,” a student from Stuyvesant High School told the Post, saying that he didn’t care if he faced any school discipline for attending the walkout.
Of course, given that teachers themselves promoted the walkout, the chances of any students facing consequences for leaving class seemed extraordinarily slim.
According to Abraham Fenton, a senior at the Essex Street Academy, he and his fellow students attended the walkout not only to show love to the Palestinians but to also protest U.S. leaders for “continuously [trying] to repress the student movements.”
Sofya, a senior at Edward R. Murrow High School, meanwhile told the New York Daily News that though teachers supported the walkout, they haven’t been teaching much about “Palestine.”
“I think this is a great opportunity for New York students to speak their minds, because a lot of students haven’t been able to do that,” she said. “Our teachers unfortunately are not ever bringing up the subject of Palestine in classes. It feels … like you’re in this bubble universe where everyone’s blind and doesn’t want to see what’s happening.”
Aubrey, a senior at Central Park East High School in East Harlem, reported the opposite about her school.
“In my history classes, we’ve never shied away,” she said. “They know that we’re young, but they know that youth voices are actually voices. So they give us the space to talk about Israel-Palestine, Black Lives Matter.”
High school students across New York City walk out to demand a liberated Palestine! Join us at Tweed Courthouse! pic.twitter.com/V8ju2NaVAJ
— Writers Against the War on Gaza (@wawog_now) May 31, 2024
During the walkout/protest, students reportedly called on their schools to back a teacher-led campaign to divest their pension funds from Israel.
Salem, a Palestinian-American sophomore at the City College Academy of the Arts, claimed she was the only one who walked out of her school for the protest. But she didn’t seem surprised by this.
“It’s only me that’s affected,” she said. “Whenever I wear a keffiyeh to school, I’m always asked to take it off. But I keep it on. This hasn’t just started this year. I’ve always expressed myself being Palestinian.”
The walkout coincided with a separate group of anti-Israel zealots storming the Brooklyn Museum and setting up an encampment within the building.
According to various reports, hundreds of anti-Israel zealots congregated at the Barclays Center this Friday afternoon as per an event organized by Within Our Lifetime, an anti-Israel group.
From there, the group marched to the Brooklyn Museum specifically to “de-occupy” and “shut it down” until the museum chose to “disclose and divest” from Israel.
“The intruders — who were the vanguard of a massive demonstration nearly 1,000 people strong — scaled the building and rappelled down inside of the art museum with climbing equipment,” the New York Post reported, citing law enforcement sources.
Some of the activists reportedly fought with security guards.
“Our public safety staff were physically and verbally harassed,” a museum spokesperson later told the Post, adding that some of the artwork within and outside the museum was likewise damaged.
Anti-Israel zealots storm Brooklyn Museum, set up encampment and damage artwork https://t.co/qX0zGZ11hV via @BIZPACReview
— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) June 1, 2024
All this also happened on the same day that President Joe Biden began promoting a sketchy Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal that critics say would only prevent Israel from finally eliminating the terrorist group.
The deal would require Israel to withdraw all its forces from Gaza and release hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them violent.
“Israel’s conditions for ending the war have not changed: the destruction of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities, the freeing of all hostages and ensuring that Gaza no longer poses a threat to Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
“Under the proposal, Israel will continue to insist these conditions are met before a permanent ceasefire is put in place. The notion that Israel will agree to a permanent ceasefire before these conditions are fulfilled is a non-starter,” he added.
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V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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