A pro-Palestine parents group has launched a campaign against government measures designed to help combat antisemitism in schools, the JC can reveal.
Backed by a faction of the National Education Union (NEU), Parents for Palestine are campaigning against Sir David Bell’s review, which it claims risks preventing criticism of the “Zionist settler-colonial project” and creating a “hierarchy of racism”.
Jewish groups have slammed the radical demand for the Bell review to be withdrawn, with Parents Against Antisemitism criticising what it called a “campaign against investigating antisemitism”.
The government commissioned the Bell review after school-related antisemitic incidents were recorded at double the levels seen before 2023.
More than one in five British-Jewish parents say their children have experienced school-related antisemitism, according to JPR, while a survey from the teachers' union NASWUT found more than half of Jewish members had experienced antisemitism in the workplace in the past year.
Despite this, Parents for Palestine, backed by the NEU’s International Solidarity Network and other anti-Israel factions, have urged supporters to challenge the Bell review and submit responses opposing its authority.
A post on the Parents for Palestine group calling for the government to withdraw the Bell review (Photo: Instagram)[Missing Credit]
In campaign material seen by the JC, activists claim Bell’s probe is “not worthy of serious consideration” and risks “weaponising the rise of antisemitism to prevent any criticism of the state of Israel”.
“Such reviews are dangerously misleading and can be used to justify new oppressive policies,” the material goes on.
Parents for Palestine has encouraged its 21,000 followers on Instagram to submit responses to Bell’s review, accusing the consultation of being “undemocratic” and “biased”, and stating that it therefore “cannot be considered reliable for policy making”.
"The heavy focus on identifying, reporting and recording incidents promotes a punitive, surveillance-oriented culture that breeds fear and self-censorship,” the campaign states.
It also objects to requirements for impartiality and neutrality in schools, which activists claim will lead to “the avoidance of essential discussions on contemporary issues, such as the genocide in Gaza and the Zionist settler-colonial project”.
“Schools that shut down these discussions do a disservice to their students’ education and to the goal of creating an anti-racist society,” the campaign states, adding: “Red lines, such as hate speech, must be clearly marked, but open, honest and critical discussion of injustice should be encouraged, not treated as taboo”.
The campaign also condemns the use of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, describing it as “legally and ethically contentious” and “pedagogically harmful”, claiming it forces staff to “police students' political opinions rather than addressing actual hatred of Jewish people”.
It also objects to references to the government’s Prevent counter-extremism strategy, saying the programme “treats racially marginalised students and staff as a suspect community”.
The campaign has been roundly condemned by Jewish groups.
Parents Against Antisemitism said: “It is deeply disappointing to see a coordinated campaign seeking to undermine an independent government review commissioned because of serious and well-documented concerns about antisemitism in UK schools.
“No organisation that genuinely cares about the welfare of children should oppose examining how schools can better protect them.
“Every child deserves to feel safe at school, regardless of their ethnicity or identity. Anyone committed to that principle should welcome an independent, evidence-based review and encourage victims and witnesses to submit evidence – not campaign against investigating antisemitism.”
A spokesperson for the Community Security Trust said the campaign is a “disgrace".
“At a time when antisemitism remains at historically high levels in the UK, including amongst younger people, this campaign is a disgrace. You have to wonder at the motivations of anyone who would oppose efforts to tackle anti-Jewish racism,’ the CST said.
Meanwhile, a wing of Parents for Palestine based in Stoke Newington has separately written to Hackney Council questioning its involvement in the Bell review.
Parents in the leafy neighbourhood asked whether “other forms of discrimination, including Islamophobia and racism” should also be examined by Bell.
Like the national parents' group, the Stoke Newington letter also challenged the IHRA definition, saying it has been “widely critiqued… for stifling legitimate criticism of the state of Israel”.
It objects to one of the review questions asking how staff ensure they remain politically impartial.
“Does impartiality then mean ignoring or, even worse, denying a genocide, against all evidence?”
The letter adds that many Hackney parents are “Palestinians, Iranians, and Lebanese, their home countries suffering from continuing Israeli attacks”.
Parents consider it a “moral duty,” the letter goes on, “to raise their voices against injustice.”
The parents also object to the review’s reference to the Prevent strategy, saying this “goes against one of the commitments of the Hackney Green Manifesto”.
Ahead of May's local elections, Hackney Greens indeed pledged to “Lobby for the end of the Prevent duty,” which it claimed led to “discrimination against Muslim students.”
Elsewhere, Parents for Palestine campaigned in support of Palestine Action ahead of the group’s proscription as a terrorist organisation.
Current campaigns listed on the activist parent group website are against Sudocrem antiseptic cream and school trips to London’s Science Museum.
Parents for Palestine also campaigns against Sudocrem (Photo: Parents for Palestine)[Missing Credit]
The group argues that buying the nappy rash treatment, which is owned by Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, helps fund “occupation, displacement, the destruction of Palestinian lives and genocide”.
According to the campaign, purchasing the cream, widely used for changing nappies and treating eczema, amounts to complicity “in the occupation and the genocide” because of the ownership of Teva.
Around one in seven prescription packs dispensed by the NHS is supplied by Teva.
The group’s campaign against school trips to the Science Museum is over its partnership with the Indian conglomerate Adani Group, which the group claims is a “major producer of arms and military equipment to Israel, including in partnership with Elbit Systems.”
Parents for Palestine previously campaigned in support of Palestine Action (Photo: Instagram)[Missing Credit]
Parents for Palestine allege the South Kensington museum is not a “legitimate place for education” because it is promoting a “genocide enabler”.
In 2024, the group staged a protest inside the museum, unfurling a banner reading “Stop arming Israel” and dropping hundreds of leaflets with the names of dead Palestinian children from an upper floor.
Parents of Palestine and Parents for Palestine Stoke Newington have been approached for comment.
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