Mick Hartley

Predictable, but still depressing:

Britain’s biggest teaching union is to blame Israel for the war in Gaza and publish “educational resources” about the conflict for teachers.

Leaders of the National Education Union (NEU) are calling on their 300,000 members to actively campaign for Palestine and “increase understanding” of the conflict.

The union’s executive board has backed a motion, to be discussed at the annual conference next week, which declares that “Israel’s hard-right, racist government is the main driver of conflict, violence and war in Palestine and Israel”.

Nothing to do with the October 7th pogrom, then? With Hamas using all the resources in Gaza to build up a terror network of tunnels, with weapons hidden in hospitals and schools, in pursuit of their explicit aim of killing Jews and destroying the state of Israel? No – as ever, it's the fault of the Jews.

The motion, which also calls for the NEU to support the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition, will be debated despite laws that forbid teachers from pushing their political views in classrooms.

Gillian Keegan, the Education Secretary, said the motion was “wholly inappropriate” and “completely ignore[s] the horrific terrorist attacks committed by Hamas on October 7”.

She added: “Teachers have a duty to remain politically impartial and to ensure all sides of contested views are presented fairly and without bias or prejudice.

“These proposals will cause significant hurt to members of the Jewish community and the thousands of Jewish children and parents in British schools.”

I'm not a Keegan fan, but she's absolutely right here.

The motion comes after Daniel Kebede, a militant trade unionist and pro-Palestine campaigner took over as general secretary of the union last year.

Mr Kebede, a former teacher in the North East of England, was embroiled in an anti-Semitism row last year when a clip emerged of him speaking at a rally in Newcastle, where participants were heard calling to “globalise the intifada”.