Erasing Palestine: Maryland's new Zionist education standards

CLASS WARFARE: history is RE-written by the victors

Jul 13, 2025

State education officials eliminate Palestinians from 2025 Maryland College and Career Readiness Standards for Social Studies

Welcome to Class

Whether you’re left, right, or center, you agree — conservative or communist — that America’s education system is fundamentally broken. I envision this series as a multifaceted critique of the American education system with prescriptions for teachers, students, administrators, policymakers, concerned citizens, and more. This is Class Warfare!

Standards for Practice

Let’s start at the beginning: an education standard is a written objective that clearly communicates what the state ed dept/legislators believe students should be taught, and, hopefully, eventually know. Taking them at face-value, then, these are what the state deems important enough to force students to learn in order to become productive members of society.

A closer analysis of this process reveals more: the initial ideological state apparatus (ISA) for the reproduction of capitalist production1 (the school) establishes for its agents (teachers) the ideological line to follow and affirm.

Changes to curricula do absolutely have impacts on society — as shown by the overwhelming sea change in the Democratic party regarding Palestinian solidarity. Thirty years of liberal humanitarian education turned young Americans against our genocidal client state, Israel.

These standards either create or restrict discursive space within the classroom: if a teacher is ‘not allowed’ to cover a topic, and they do, they could be subject to discipline for not following pacing guides or district curricula. Given the precarious nature of teaching in the country in contemporary America, more often than not, standards can be used to discipline teachers who ‘stray’ from the pre-approved texts or topics, discouraging teachers from doing anything other than assigning the required material. Teachers are turned into babysitters watching students work on their computers; straying from the costly narrow curriculum purchased by the district is verboten.

Why do I care about Maryland’s social studies?

Fair question, but important to address. Not only does this change in standards highlight the cross-party consensus on erasing Palestine, it also occurs in a blue state with a relatively strong teachers union2 where teachers have been reprimanded and have faced disciplinary actions for their support of Palestine. I’m sure, say, Texas’ standards are bad, yes, but it’s telling that this is the liberal response to perceived antisemitism.

That’s not to discount the all-too-real issues with antisemitism that do exist in Maryland. One Montgomery County high school dealt with an incident in which students performed an “antisemitic salute” — and this was before 10/7. Actually Existing Antisemitism is a problem, but the answer to that should be radical, empathetic education, not obfuscation or retreating.3 As many commentators have pointed out, the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism — and the work of organizations like the Anti-Defamation League to quash all critiques of Israel as antisemitic — actually will likely lead to more antisemitism.

Origin of this new process

Back in 2024, Maryland lawmakers wanted to address their concerns about “unprecedented levels” of “hateful4 sentiment,” due to the alleged recent increase of antisemitism. Their solution? A bill called “Educate to Stop the Hate” which specifically mandated the teaching of the Holocaust in both American history and world history, as well as to “revise” and “enhance” the high school history curriculum to include instruction on the history and contributions of 7 groups of Americans: “African-Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, Hispanic Americans, Jewish Americans, Arab Americans, and ‘other historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic groups.”

Now, I don’t read a lot of legislation, but it struck me as odd that the bill did not cite any evidence of this increased antisemitism. Despite another education standard — in this case, and English-Language Arts (ELA) standard — stating that in order to be “career-ready,” students should be able to cite evidence for their claims, the lawmakers who wrote the bill provided none!

Outlets reporting on the bill and the standards revision include data expressing that ‘antisemitic incidents’ have increased by “261%” which is quite alarming — until you look further. That data is from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and their ‘antisemitic incidents’ include anti-Zionist actions and rhetoric, muddying the water about actual increases in antisemitism. Although there are examples of antisemitism in 2025 America — like the President5 calling bad bankers “shylocks” — more common is the weaponization of antisemitism claims in order to silence criticism of Israel’s ongoing genocide and settler-occupation, like the examples previously provided that happened in Maryland! Yet, without concrete data, or even any data, the narrative was accepted.

Maryland’s State Department of Education (MSDE) took control of the process, asserting that educators should make education decisions, and that historically they have.

MSDE then formed a special committee to work on the revisions: co-chairing the group were MDSE Social Studies Supervisor, Phineas Ramsey, and Howard Libit, Executive Director of the Baltimore Jewish Council.

Stop. Remember, this bill was intended to “enhance” education surrounding seven different groups of people — why is only one of these communities represented in the leadership of the committee?

For context, here are screenshots from the BJC’s homepage:

Baltimore Jewish Council, unlike a large majority of Americans, stands with Israel

The BJC explicitly wants to ‘promote strong support for Israel’ through ‘education and action.’

With this information in mind, the reason for these revisions becomes immediately clear: indoctrination, plain and simple. The State of Maryland wants its students to support Israel, and is re-writing the history curriculum to do so.

Close-Read of the New State Standards

Now we get to the important part: reading through the changes and analyzing the potential impacts of this language. Because these changes will impact teachers and students. The ultimate goal, remember, is to warp history itself.

Erasure of Palestine

Unit 7 of Grade 7’s Indicator and Objectives (right column above) featured the heaviest editing: the topic, timeframe, indicator, and objectives were massively altered.

Topic:

The topic of Grade 7 Unit 7 was originally “Jerusalem,” to highlight the importance of the holiest city to Abrahamic religions. This was changed to the ambiguous “The Middle East.” This generalization is harmful, as we will see in the following section.

Timeframe:

Interestingly, the timeframe for the unit is compressed: instead of looking at the history of the “Middle East” up until the present day, the standards abruptly end in 1994. Also, instead of beginning from 900 CE, the topic of “Middle East” now begins in 1900, in effect flattening the history of an incredibly diverse and storied region into the small window of time modern Europeans have sought to dominate it, even using the British Empire’s term for the region. Choosing these dates is intentional — starting the clock at 1900 and leaving off at 1994, before the Second Intifada (2000), before the murder of American Rachel Corrie (2003), before the March of Return (2021), before Hind Rajab’s assassination (2024), before literally countless6 others, yet, conveniently, after the first Zionist settlement (1879), after the father of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, wrote The Jewish State, asserting that Zionist colonists should form an “outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism” in historic Palestine (1896). Reducing the timescale of the conflict to the narrow confines of the twentieth century ignores the historic and contemporary social, political, and economic forces that animate the current atrocities — mystifying this ‘conflict’ as intractable.

Indicator and Objectives:

The payoff of re-defining the standard to focus on the “Middle East” lies here: Maryland educators have eliminated the only mention of Palestinians in the state standards. The objective that originally mentioned Palestine (albeit, as the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict,’ a euphemism as strong as Atlas) now reads: “Examining how regional conflicts and diplomacy have influenced efforts toward stability and cooperation in the Middle East.” The framing of a settler-colony’s displacement of the indigenous population as “regional conflicts and diplomacy” is incredibly misleading. If I were to say that early European colonists were engaged in “regional conflicts and diplomacy” with the Native Americans, it is technically true, but does nothing to explain the cause of the ‘conflicts.’ Under this operative frame, Columbus’ genocide of the Arawak peoples of Hispaniola becomes ‘in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.’ Narrative supersedes truth.

Also, this language plays into a particularly Western orientalist approach which frames the ‘Middle East’ as a region that can only take “efforts toward stability,” hinting at the unrest and discord that exists without mentioning its cause, generalizing violence across the entire ‘Middle East,’ rather than specifically naming the ‘Israeli-Palestinian conflict.’ Not only does this standard erase Palestinians, it also reinforces racist, Islamophobic tropes about people of the Levant and Southwest Asia/North Africa — tropes that many Americans are already primed to believe after 25 years of the Global War on Terror. Given that the vast majority of instability in the region is due to Israel and the U.S., this amounts to erasing our own country’s role in aiding and abetting the historic and ongoing crimes against humanity perpetrated against the peoples and regimes who oppose U.S. economic interests in the region.

The Holocaust: Never Again, Except Now

The standards change that is perhaps the most pernicious is Objective #2: “Analyzing how the outcomes of the Holocaust influenced the founding of Israel, alongside migration of non-European Jewish communities in the region.” While this standard initially seems innocuous, we must remember the full timeline, presented perhaps most cogently and succinctly in the article “The Most Important Things for Students to Learn About Palestine,” from the incredible resource Teaching Palestine. In this context, highlighting the Holocaust — but precluding study of pre-1900 Zionist ideology — cynically weaponizes the Holocaust as a justification for the violence of Israel’s settler-colonial project.

The original standard included “analyzing the impact of… World War I and II, the actions of international organizations, [and] the Holocaust,” so it makes little sense to remove these key elements: astute scholars know that, more than the Holocaust, it was the 1917 Balfour Declaration, which pledged British support, which allowed for the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. Then the most powerful country in the world, the British Empire made good on their promise. But, importantly, this colonial process was set in motion long before the Nazis rose to power in Germany.

Additionally, highlighting the “migration of non-European Jewish communities within the region” deliberately obfuscates the truth about the “founding of Israel,” known to those who originally lived in the region as the Nakba or ‘the catastrophe’ in Arabic. By centering Zionist and Jewish migration (most of which occurred as a result of the Nakba), this version of history erases the displacement of between 750,000 and 1,000,000 people from historic Palestine in 1948. Despite having no choice in their ‘migration,’ these hundreds of thousands of people are disappeared from the official history, eerily similar to the Balfour Declaration’s identification of the ‘non-Jewish inhabitants’ of the region, and exactly in line with Herzl’s goal of “discreetly and circumspectly” facilitating the “expropriation and removal of the poor” in Palestine.7

Jerusalem: A land of contrasts?

Finally, Objective #4 describes a goal to “evaluat[e] how ongoing attempts at peace and cooperation define the meaning and status of Jerusalem within the region,” obfuscating the truth about the last 30 years. Since 1994, Israel has aggressively expanded its control over Jerusalem, frequently using holy sites as a battleground. Famously, the Second Intifada began because of Israel’s aggression, when Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount at Al-Aqsa Mosque — which, incidentally, goes against Judaic law, according to the chief Rabbi of Israel. In 2023, months before IOF forces invaded Gaza, Israeli police raided Al-Aqsa, beating worshippers, blinding them with stun grenades, and arresting 350 people — for the crime of celebrating Ramadan. Despite Jerusalem’s significance to world religion, Israel continues to make holy sites into battlegrounds.

Quick Hits: Other Impactful Changes

The Anti-Defamation of The Anti-Defamation League

Adding in the Women’s Suffrage League is an important change in the standards. But it is striking that, at a time when the ADL’s CEO Jonathan Greenblatt is blaming Twitch streamers and graduation speeches for antisemitism, and the national union representing Maryland teachers voted to cut ties with the ADL, we are revising the standards to include a focus on the ADL.

Unfortunately, this unit ends at the year 1920 — but the history of the ADL does not. During the anti-Apartheid movement, the ADL led a spy ring that monitored the movements and activities of “a wide range of individuals and organizations deemed anti-Jewish or hostile to Israel, including Rep. Ron Dellums, the ACLU, New Jewish Agenda, MERIP and many Arab-American, Palestine solidarity and anti-apartheid activists and groups.” Including the historic contributions of the ADL now, when previously unmentioned, is a clear example of attempting to launder the name of the ADL in service of pro-Israel voices.

The Red Scare was about Jewish Americans, actually

The First Red Scare (1917-1920) was largely anti-immigrant, anti-labor activist, anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-radical. The Sedition Act allowed monitoring of radicals and labor leaders while threatening deportation, the Palmer raids targeted leftists, anarchists and immigrants, and the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC8) largely investigated Black artists, radicals, and self-proclaimed socialists. Despite there being overlap between these communities and Jewish Americans, placing this identity category at the fore of the standard makes almost no sense when the determining feature of the crisis was the political ideology, not identity. Not only does this completely erase the hardships faced by the victims of the Red Scare, it also actively hides real antisemitism, like the 1939 Nazi Rally in Madison Square Garden attended by 20,000 Americans.

Equivocation of Zionism

This last change is less flashy, but still does ideological work. Arguing that the “mandate system altered patterns of European colonial rule in Africa and the Middle East and contributed to the rise of Zionism, Pan-Arabism and Pan-Africanism and other nationalist struggles for independence,” we are now speaking of Zionists as a “nationalist struggle for independence,” and not what Zionism actually is: a settler-colonial apartheid project. Equating the nationalist struggles of those peoples oppressed under European colonial rule and the violent ethnic cleansing project of Zionism (before the state of Israel was established!) is a massive warping of historical reality.

The Indoctrination Industry

Clearly, these changes were made in response to Zionist political pressure on lawmakers and state officials. The American state has a problem regarding Zionism: people think Palestinians deserve the right to self-determination.

This poll also reported that a majority of Democrats now support Palestinians rather than the Israelis.

The battle for the hearts and minds of Americans may be going the wrong way for Zionists, but that does not mean that they have given up hope. Zionism, as Theodor Herzl so aptly wrote in his diary, is a project of “the reshaping of world opinion in our (Zionists’) favor,” and the most effective way to do that is to change what’s in the history books.

Now, if this were for a good, just, truthful, and restorative purpose, I would wholly support it! If we were opening up our history textbooks to other countries’ revisions, we should definitely start with Japan, Egypt, Iran, Chile, Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Panama, Korea, Guatemala, Argentina, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, ad nauseam.

History is indeed told by the victors. The Zionists think that they have won. Our solidarity with Palestine and education about the history and contemporary circumstances of Palestine-Israel are the most primitive weapons we have to fight back. So, fight back.

Please share with others — the powerful can only change the narrative if people aren’t aware of the changes they are making!

For Educators:

I highly, highly recommend the book “Teaching Palestine” from Rethinking Schools: not only are there incredible self-education resources, there are engaging, active-learning resources for History/Social Studies teachers to try with their students, as well as works from Palestinians that could easily be supplemented into English/Language Arts classes. I will list some of my favorites from the book below.

“Palestine in the Classroom” by the editors (article): why you should teach about Palestine in American schools.
“Teaching the Seeds of Violence in Palestine-Israel” by Bill Bigelow (teaching resource): a practical activity that provides nuance to the origins of the Zionist project and allows students to wrestle with some of the hardest questions about the history of Palestine-Israel.
“The Most Important Things for Students to Learn About Palestine,” Zeiad Abbas in conversation with Jody Sokolower: absolutely essential reading for everyone, not just students, about the contextual history of the Zionist project.
“Born on Nakba Day” by Mohammed El-Kurd (poem): a poem encapsulating the history of resistance to the occupation. Must read.
“On Teaching the Nakba” by Abdel Razzaq Takriti (interview excerpt): succinct principles for how to teach and speak about the Nakba.
“The United States and Israel” by Stephen R. Shalom (article): critically examining the nature of the ‘special relationship’ between the United States and Israel from its genesis until today.
“What a Gazan Should Do During an Israeli Airstrike” by Mosab Abu Toha (poem): just read this. I can’t even talk about it without crying.
“The Meaning of ‘From the River to the Sea’” by Maha Nassar (article): many people, especially in the media, would benefit from reading this article.
“Israeli Apartheid: A Simulation” by Suzanna Kassouf (teaching resource): simulation in which the laws of Israeli society are applied to students, who are asked to think critically about the efficacy of these laws.
“Educators Beware: The Anti-Defamation League Is Not the Social Justice Partner It Claims to Be” by Nora Lester Murad (article): more information regarding the ADL’s defense of Israel’s occupation and genocide.
“If I Must Die,” by Refaat Alareer (poem): a poem written by professor of world literature and creative writing at the Islamic University of Gaza, which is now destroyed. Alareer was assassinated in December 2023 alongside his brother, nephew, his sister, and three of her children by a targeted IDF airstrike because of his vocal witty and incisive critique.