Georgia teacher arrested after allegedly saying he would cut student’s head off after she objected to his Israeli flag
A schoolteacher in the US state of Georgia was arrested after allegedly threatening to behead a student who expressed taking offense over his Israeli flag, according to authorities.
Benjamin Reese’s arrest at the middle school named after the town of Warner Robins occurred on after a student approached and told him she was offended by the Israeli flag hanging in his classroom, the local news station WMAZ reported, citing a police account of the case.
Reese, a seventh-grade social studies teacher, allegedly replied that he was a Jew and had relatives who lived in Israel. The student said “Israelis killing Palestinians” made the flag offensive, which prompted Reese to accuse her of being antisemitic.
Holy shit, thank goodness that teacher was removed from the classroom and hopefully permanently removed from teaching before they did something REALLY regrettable!
When I worked in technology at a middle school campus, the teachers would sometimes ask me to come into the classroom and teach the students about my family members who died in the Holocaust. I don’t know if you’ve ever met a teenager before, but they sometimes say rude or horrible things without considering the effects their words could have.
The correct response to this kind of stuff is to reach the kids, speak truthfully, and give them credit that they have the ability to grasp such difficult concepts. I would list my family members who died in concentration camps, show interviews with family members who survived, read excerpts from family members who escaped, but I’d never tell a child they were antisemitic because they didn’t understand how much their questions sometimes hurt me.
When I’d discuss my family who live in Israel and they’d ask how I feel about the Israeli conflict with Palestine, I’d essentially tell them that if it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, then it’s probably an apartheid state. I’d tell them to not discredit their feelings just because they’re young: if something seems wrong or feels wrong about how someone is treating someone else, then it probably really is wrong and you should absolutely say something about it. I would frequently remind kids that history doesn’t always repeat itself but it frequently rhymes and would mention that, if you listen carefully, you’ll notice that “no one wants to the Palestinians, even other Muslim countries refuse to take them as refugees” almost perfectly rhymes with “die juden sind unser ungluck.”
Side note: anyone who tells you that surrounding countries don’t want to accept the Palestinians doesn’t seem to understand that accepting refugees so that you can bomb an entire country is essentially giving approval to bomb an entire fucking country
Finally, to my Zionist relatives and any other Zionists I know: you are wrong — granting peace and recognizing Palestinians will not lead to your demise. Every single one of my cousins who say that the Palestinians overbreed and will take over the elections might as well get “14/88” tattooed across their foreheads. And if you find yourself in a situation where you’re being called an antisemite because you oppose a fucking war and literal genocide without exploring further discussion, I suggest you respond with this quote:
Incredibly profound and succinct quote from a pretty fucking horrible human of an author. Those are instructions for propaganda taken from Mein Kampf.