Navigating the TDSB: An investigation into the document's aims and source (part 5)

Systemic APR in the TDSB--for shame! But first, show us the evidence.

Jan 26, 2025

Intellectually honest people understand that long geopolitical and ethnic conflicts, which in the case of the Jews and Israel require an appreciation of history over 3000 years, are nuanced and complex. When someone talks about such conflicts or writes about them, you can easily get a sense of their knowledge and bias by the degree to which their statements, spoken or written, reflect the nuances, moral and ethical conflicts and tradeoffs, heartfelt acknowledgements of limitations or exceptions to positions they wish to defend, and so on.

There is a psychological construct called integrative complexity, which captures this tendency quite well.1 It involves being able to differentiate distinct ideas or claims and also, at a higher level of complexity, to integrate those distinct elements, especially those that appear to conflict with one another. In speech acts, markers for integrative complexity might include words like “but,” “whereas,” and “however”, which signal an appreciation of conflicting views, and phrases that signal a tolerance of uncertainty, such as “it is possible” or an awareness of subjectivity such as “in my view,…” An integratively complex argument doesn’t mean it is right or even more likely to be right than an integratively simple argument. However, the complex argument is less likely to use crass methods such as outright lies or acts of omission (i.e., leaving out vital information that might not support one’s preferred narrative) as methods for influencing others’ attitudes toward the subject.

The author of Navigating the TDSB presents a cognitively simple narrative with virtually no nuance. We’re told the following:

These aren’t calls for inquiry into possible APR or alleged APR. No. APR, we are told is “deeply entrenched.” It’s been entrenched “for many years now.” It’s been entrenched for so long and “at ALL levels of the TDSB” (emphasis added). In other words, there’s a long history of systemic APR in the TDSB. Bring on the shame. Feel the stigma. Mobilize for change before paralysis sets in.

Conveniently, writes the author, “it would be impossible to provide a comprehensive history of APR.” Instead, the author points to three parents who delegated at TDSB board meetings in support of taking APR seriously.2 Once again, we are presented with extraordinary claims of system racism by the TDSB without feeling troubled to present the evidence (as if there is no middle ground between “comprehensive history” and three anecdotal reports). Those delegations better have some teeth. Let’s take a look at each of them, shall we?

Here’s the transcript of Iman’s story3:

To this end, for over a year, we have been calling on the TDSB to demonstrate leadership and ending Palestinian exceptionalism. Supporting the inclusion of Nakba Remembrance Day in the days of significance can be a gateway to learning about Palestine so the tragic events unfolding today, have a historic context, and children and staff who show solidarity with Palestinians are not criminalized.

Do Iman’s statements constitute evidence of APR? No, they don’t. Iman is merely claiming that the TDSB is guilty of APR and she is calling for the TDSB to institutionalize Nakba Remembrance Day—that same Nakba I analyzed in my last post; namely, the Nakba that Constantin Zureiq coined to describe the catastrophe caused by the pan-Arab failure to obliterate the Jews in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Also, don’t you just love how she slips in at the end that we must be on guard against children and TDSB staff being “criminalized” for supporting the anti-Zionism she demands of all of us? Where is the evidence of the criminalization that she insinuates? It’s certainly not in her testimony. Could it be that it is lacking because it doesn’t exist? Could it be that such claims merely reflect a tactic to navigate the TDSB by maligning its image as a systemically racist organization? And by the way, there is ample evidence that many “pro-Palestinian” organizations are criminal, by designation, in Canada. The obvious example is Hamas, which is banned as a terrorist organization in Canada and many other countries. Samidoun is another example, which until it was recently designated as a terrorist organization in Canada, was also openly promoting the so-called “pro-Palestinian” narrative. Are we to turn a blind eye to this reality? Not on our lives!

The video of Iman’s story also includes a still image above the video that reads “Toronto Palestinian Families (TPF) speak out against racism at the TDSB. Listen, read, take action.” The clip ends with another still image:

Not only are we meant to accept that the Nakba means something different than what Zureiq intended (namely, that narrative transfiguration from the Arab armies’ failure to oppress the Jews to the claimed victimization of Palestinians, which I discussed here), but now we are also led to believe that the Nakba is ongoing. If so, it is not only a historical event dating back to 1948 at least, but a current geopolitical event, much like the Russian-Ukrainian war, which of course, we all expect TDSB children to focus on from junior kindergarten on up. Surely, we want and trust TDSB elementary and secondary school teachers to be handling these complex and multi-perspectival issues, albeit with the help of activist Palestinian families such as those representing TPF. Are you getting the picture?

Let’s move on. The next story is by none other than the TPF founder, Zaid Zawaidei, who I discussed in Part 2:

Uttering the words, “I am Palestinian” elicits strong reactions, attempting to silence us and erase us from the conversation. We are labeled too political. Telling the story of how our parents and grandparents were made refugees in the Nakba and what they did to rebuild their lives afterwards is not political. We deserve to have our identity and history affirmed. If the person telling the story had any other identity, you wouldn’t have labeled this political. But you know what makes it political? Politicians—like those behind this motion. Politicians who want to erase my kids’ Palestinian identity to suit their political agenda; politicians who are afraid of a children's book that simply references Palestine. My child sharing with their class that their great grandparents came from Yaffa, Haifa, Nabulus, and Jerusalem is inconvenient to your political position. Shame on you. The board is not only playing with Palestinian families, the board is also failing teachers and staff by providing them with no resources or guidance on how to affirm their students identities and talk about world events without fear. Had the board provided these resources from the get-go, they wouldn't be labeled as political opinion, and teachers and staff wouldn't have to fend for themselves, covering for the failure of the board and providing them with appropriate resources.

Once again, we must ask whether the author has given us something via Mr. Zawaidei’s deputation that constitutes evidence of APR, let alone systemic APR within the TDSB And once again, the answer is no. No evidence has been received—only more complaints of the very charge the author is making as if the repetition of allegations adds new pieces of evidence to the original allegation. Although repetition does not add new evidence, it does increase the believability of claims, a cognitive tendency known as the illusory truth effect.4 Perhaps the various “navigators of the TDSB” have at least an intuitive sense of this phenomenon and how to use it to their political advantage.

Something, however, does accrue across these testimonies, and that is the attempt by the speakers to accuse the TDSB of being anti-Palestinian and systemically racist without a shred of evidence. It is a baseless charge, for if it had teeth, the author and these speakers would surely have brought forth at least some credible evidence, but they don’t.

I wonder also do the books that Mr. Zawaidei refer to, the ones that speak of Palestine, negate Israel’s existence or cast it in a negative light as a “colonialist oppressor.” If so, then he should understand why such material has no place in TDSB classrooms. Are such omissions (i.e., wiping Israel off the map) okay in his view? Is this something that all Canadian children ought to be exposed to?

What is perhaps most remarkable is Mr. Zawaidei’s statement, “We deserve to have our identity and history affirmed.” Affirmed? Affirmed! No, Mr. Zawaidei, this is not something you or anyone else deserves. You are entitled to believe your narrative and I may believe mine. No one else must affirm either yours or mine. Moreover, there is no universal human right that entitles you, carte blanche, to inject your narratives wherever you like. For instance, if you work for the Vancouver Public Library, you cannot don a watermelon pin on your lapel or any other political symbol. That may be part of your narrative but you must restrain your impulse to force others to attend to it, let alone agree with it. You may not like that. Tough luck.

Let’s move on to the third and final story from Ameena Sultan, a member of the Arab Canadian Lawyers Association (ACLA), which as I described in Post 3 in this series, is the organization that developed the APR construct. Here’s what she had to say in her TDSB deputation last year as the Board was mulling over whether to adopt APR (a horrible decision, which imperils the Jewish community, and which I predicted they would make):

Since October of last year, our family has watched in horror as children in Gaza who look like our children are displaced starved, maimed, orphaned and killed. More than 15,000 children have been killed and over 80% of all schools in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, and our board has been silent, but worse, has contributed to a climate where our grieving and traumatized families are dehumanized and are experiences erased. I have three stories to share with you quickly.
First, this year we learned that our school’s advisory council had invited the Friends of Simon Weisenthal Center for anti-racism and, later, antisemitism training. We were stunned that, at this particular time, a school community would consider bringing in an organization that clearly states on a website “fighting antisemitism, standing with Israel” and that smears those who support Palestinian human rights as hateful and antisemitic, and we weren’t wrong. The session spread misinformation and conflated those who support Palestinian human rights, like our family, with neo-nazis. So we've tried to raise our concerns in our school, but have been silenced at every turn—and why?—by the fact that this organization is a board-approved vendor, it's openly invited to our schools with the clear approval of the board despite the fact that it spreads false information and dehumanizes Palestinians and their supporters.
Then, in advance of Nakba day, a day that commemorates the forced displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in 1948, our son's grade 8 teacher suggested that he might mention the day in the announcements, but he wasn't allowed to do so. Our son was upset and his younger siblings kept asking, why couldn't he mention the Nakba? And what answer could we give them about not talking about a historical fact, except to say that this is racism, silencing, and erasure. But then I want to tell you about our daughter's grade 3 teacher, who invited her to talk about the Nakba, and that day our eight-year old talked about this historical event that has deeply affected her family. She felt proud and heard, and full credit goes to her teacher for allowing her to talk about her lived experience.
What I'm asking today is for the board to make meaningful, its commitment to end all racism, including anti-Palestinian racism; to take concrete steps of (sic) ending partnerships with organizations that propagate this racism; to recognize Nakba day, and openly allow and encourage learning and teaching about Palestine so that schools can be a place of openness and our families and children can truly be part of their schools and larger community. Thank you.

Well, for better or worse, I am well acquainted with the first of Ms. Sultan’s three stories, as I was on the opposing side trying to keep her and a handful of other anti-Zionists from cancelling the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center (FSWC) antisemitism workshops, which we successfully did, albeit with more difficulty than it should have required had the TDSB not exhibited such a high degree of fecklessness in response to the allegations brought forth by Ms. Sultan and others. You can read about that case here. Her overriding accusation is that the TDSB committed APR simply by allowing an organization that openly supports Israel to speak to parents, no less at an optional, online evening workshop.

It would seem that Ms. Sultan regards any organization that supports Israel as racist and any organization that would allow such an organization to speak to its members as also racist. The last I checked, however, Israel is a country in the family of nations and one that represents a Canadian ally. For Ms. Sultan and others who share her animus towards Israel, those in the former group must be labelled as anti-Palestinian racists. We see what she is after: full delegitimization of organizations that support Israel and full access within the TDSB to tell her one-sided narrative about the Nakba, ignoring the fact that it refers to the failure of the Arab states that attacked the Jews to successfully carry out their exterminationist plot to make the land Jew-free.

But wait, you might be saying. What about the misinformation that Ms. Sultan claims was spread at the workshop? What about the conflation of neo-nazis and people who support Palestinian human rights like her family? That sounds serious. Well, I attended the workshop and there was only one slide in the presenter’s deck (which I have) that even made a reference to “Palestinian” and that was this image and caption:

Unedited image from a slide presented by the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center to parents who opted to attend an evening online workshop on antisemitism

Since demonization (not mere criticism!) of Israel and Holocaust inversion are clear-cut cases of antisemitism, there is no conflation here. The girl shown in the image holding up a sign saying, “Well done Israel, Hitler would be proud” is an antisemite. There is nothing to conflate here, no smearing, as Ms. Sultan alleged, unless, of course, Ms. Sultan has evidence that the girl pictured was not at a pro-Palestinian rally. If she had such information, one would think she would mention it to make her claim substantive, but she didn’t. Let’s assume it is, as claimed, a photo taken at a pro-Palestinian rally. Anyone who would do what that girl is doing is a blatant antisemite—not by my definition, but by the definition outlined by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which is the definition that Canada, Ontario, and yes, the TDSB adopts (more on this later). So, the FSWC presenter was not conflating pro-Palestinianism with antisemitism but demonstrating their strong connection. He was showing how “pro-Palestinians” conflate Nazi Germany with Israel today. That is antisemitism, plain and simple, and also a terrible lie. Terrible not only because of how far from the truth it is but also because of the evil intent that motivates its spread. Ms. Sultan should stop spreading misinformation about the contents of the workshop. Some of us have all of the workshop slides and can easily verify that her statements are false.

What is remarkable in all these statements is the utter disregard and omission of what Jews and Israelis have gone through, first, with the brutal crimes against humanity committed by Hamas on October 7th, 2023—Hamas, a terrorist organization that, yes, the majority of Arabs in Gaza support—and, second, with the exponential rise in antisemitism from October 8th on. Ms. Sultan, for instance, cannot fathom why “at this particular time, a school community would consider bringing in an organization that clearly states on a website “fighting antisemitism, standing with Israel”.” Given that Jews experience, by far, the greatest per-capita hate crime, and given the explosion in the rate of increase of antisemitic crimes, is it any wonder why antisemitism education is necessary? Does she not understand this, is she indifferent to it, or worse, does she relish it? Frankly, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we do not fall for such nonsense. It is not the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center that are causing harm, it is those who are willing to lie to malign Israel at every opportunity. Their anti-Zionism has poisoned their hearts and their minds, and they now wish to poison our schools.

Ms. Sultan also states that she cannot understand why her son couldn’t mention the Nakba in class. I will explain why. Because what she calls the Nakba, to the vast majority of Jews and Israelis is what they call the War of Independence, the war where five Arab armies set out to annihilate the Jews and, thankfully, lost. Already in 1947, Jamal Husseini, the Arab Higher Committee’s spokesman, vowed before the United Nations had even voted on the partition that the Arabs would drench “the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our [Jewish] blood.”5 Does she and her fellow travellers not understand that there are multiple perspectives and that her children’s classrooms also have Jews and Zionists (not all of them Jews either) in them who do not see what she calls the Nakba as a catastrophe but as an improbable victory over evil? Of course, they do, but they do not care about creating harmony for classes of young children. Instead, they demand control of the narrative and if they don’t get it, they will accuse the system of systemic racism. This is a form of bullying that we must stand up to.

So much for the evidence brought forth to support the serious charge of systemic racism against Palestinians in the TDSB. The truth is it is bogus and the only thing the TDSB is guilty of in this regard, is being duped into adopting APR. In so doing, it has violated its obligation to protect Jews and non-Jews alike from encroaching antisemitism in its classes, in its equity department, and the broader community. By failing to do the right thing and stand up to bullies who don’t want what is best for children but rather want to navigate the TDSB to serve their ethnopolitical obsessions, it has thrown Jews and their Zionist allies under the bus at a time of great danger to this community. By pandering to their fake victimism designed to pull at the heartstrings of critical race zombies who have infiltrated the TDSB, the TDSB has enabled harm to real victims of hate. For that, the TDSB must be held accountable.

Accusations of systemic racism against Palestinians are not an end in itself for activists like the author of Navigating. The aim is to delegitimize Israel as a means of enabling its international isolation and eventual decapitation. What other nation on earth is targeted in this way? Not one. Is that due to Israel’s disproportionate evil, or is it because the world remains disproportionately antisemitic? The author of Navigating is so consumed with hatred of Israel that lying about the definition of antisemitism comes easy. Canada, Ontario, and, yes, even the TDSB, as I noted earlier, have adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which states that while criticism of Israel is fine, just as it is for other nations (or for Palestinian narratives, for that matter), actions that seek to demonize and delegitimize Israel are not fine—they are antisemitic. Israel is the Jewish state and, yes, to call for it to be isolated from the family of nations so that it withers and dies is not only antisemitic, it is eliminationist antisemitism.

So when the author of Navigating states that “this definition cites “contemporary examples” that draw a false equivalency between criticism of Israel and antisemitism,” the author is lying. The IHRA declaration clearly states on page 1 that “manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic” (italics mine).6 The author accuses IHRA of “silencing advocacy for Palestinian rights” when it does no such thing. It is simply that Palestinian rights do not extend to the demonization of Israel as a means of fostering its overthrow. That is antisemitism, but the so-called “pro-Palestinians” (aka anti-Zionists) don’t like to hear that. It’s a bad look, so off with IHRA’s head too, if they could achieve it.

“Some trustees,” the author notes, “continue to push for its further integration into the Board’s policies.” Good. Send me the names of those trustees so that I can write them a letter to thank them for doing the right thing.

If they had something better than bald-faced lies and empty claims of systemic racism for which they cannot muster a shred of credible evidence, they would be the first to bring it. They have nothing but hatred towards the Jewish homeland. Please, keep it in Gaza. We don’t want it in Canada, Ontario, Toronto, Davenport, or the TDSB. Stop pretending that this is for “the children.” Stop using children as a cover for your political shenanigans. Stop trying to shame others and organizations like the TDSB when it is you who should be ashamed. Stop crying “racism!” when the streets are awash with torn posters of Jewish hostages and scrawled swastikas… when “pro-Palestinians” chant for Israel’s destruction… when they lie about Israel’s “genocide”… when university campuses are unsafe for Jewish students and teachers… when the police and university administration choose to send the victims home or bar their entry into public spaces rather than hold those threatening them accountable… when Jewish schools are shot at multiple times in a year… when Jewish businesses are vandalized and Jewish neighbourhoods are terrorized. To all that and more, you are perfectly willing to turn a blind eye. “Gas the Jews” and “send them back to Poland” doesn’t phase you, but should we fail to commemorate the Nakba, well, that’s a racist crime.

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