A Palestinian activist called on third grade students in Ithaca, New York to “become freedom fighters for Palestine” during a highly controversial presentation that critics have said amounts to classroom indoctrination.

In a video recently released by the Legal Insurrection blog, Bassem Tamimi and local activists Ariel Gold and Mary Anne Grady Flores can be seen speaking to students at the Beverly J. Martin Elementary School on September 18, 2015. Purportedly organized to raise awareness of human rights, the event was condemned as “politically skewed” and “inflammatory” by Dr. Luvelle Brown, superintendent of the Ithaca City School District.

The program featured anti-Israel speeches and clips, including one featuring Palestinian youth activist Janna Jihad. At least one of the children exposed to the material suffered from nightmares following the event, according to a complaint by the student’s parent.

“I think that Israel is wrong to think that Palestine could be theirs because they already have a lot of land and they shouldn’t just take more thinking they own the world,” one of the students is heard saying in the video, which shows the end of the presentation. Another third grader declared, “When I grow up, I’m going to go to Palestine and protest.”

The program ended with Tamimi saying, “The wall that we would like to build to protect ourselves is your solidarity, you’re important, what you can do for us. You are all defend us, you can do a lot for [us], and to be the freedom fighters for the Palestine.”

The video was released by the Ithaca City School District in response to a Freedom of Information Act suit filed by Cornell Law Professor William Jacobson, who initially broke the story about the event on his Legal Insurrection blog. When it became evident that the presentation was meant to expose young children to anti-Israel propaganda, Jacobson waged a year-long battle to get the school district to release relevant documents in court.

“In and of itself it was bad, but it is a reflection that the anti-Israel activists recognize no boundaries, not even as to children,” Jacobson told The Jerusalem Post. “If this had been a presentation to high school students, I think a lot of people would have complained it wasn’t balanced, it wasn’t fair, etc., but the fact that they manipulated eight- and nine-year-old children, I think [that] makes it so outrageous.”

“If this were them doing it at home, they can teach their children whatever they want to teach their children. If they want to teach their children to hate Israel, they have a parental right to do that,” he added. “They don’t have the right to force this on students in a public school, unless it is part of the officially approved curriculum, which it’s not.”

Jacobson faulted the teachers involved for both agreeing to the event and failing to speak up after its conclusion.

“I don’t blame the activists as much as I blame the teachers and staff at the school. Because the activists do what they do, you expect inappropriate conduct from the activists,” the professor said. “You don’t expect it from teachers. Their job is to protect the students and to follow the curricula, not to inject their personal politics into the classroom.”

Tamimi and his family have a record of making highly inflammatory statements about Israel. Last year, he shared a Facebook post falsely accusing Israel of stealing the organs of Palestinian children and claiming that the media is controlled by “Zionists.”

In How a Family Became a Propaganda Machine, which was published in the November 2015 issue of The Tower Magazine, Petra Marqadt-Bigman profiled the disturbing ideology driving the Tamimi clan’s media stunts and activism.

The organizers of Bassem Tamimi’s recent U.S. speaking tour describe him as “an internationally recognized Palestinian human rights activist from the West Bank farming village of Nabi Selah [sic], where weekly nonviolent demonstrations are held in opposition to illegal Israeli settlement construction and military occupation.” …

But the carefully nurtured image of the Tamimis as activists dedicated to promoting a peaceful popular uprising crumbles quickly if one examines their statements cited in published interviews and reports, as well as their publicly accessible social media activity. The Tamimis are not fighting to end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, but to end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state; they harbor intense anti-Semitism and openly support terrorism. While Amnesty wholeheartedly supports the Tamimis’ “tiny village on a small hill,” the Tamimis have enthusiastically embraced the recent wave of Palestinian terror attacks against Israelis as the “third intifada” they have hoped and worked for so long.

[Photo: Legal Insurrection / YouTube ]