Extremist AROC seeks to reinstate discredited California Model Studies Curriculum

The extremist San Francisco based Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) is attempting to breathe life into the dead horse of the widely discredited California Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.

You may remember Lara Kiswani, head of the AROC,  for her assault on Jewish elders.  Witnesses reported her physically ripping signs from the hands of the elders, and doing a victory lap with the destroyed signs held high over her head.

Lara Kiswani after her assault on a Jewish elder

Does Lara Kiswani seem like the type of person we want influencing curriculum for young people?

From the Progressive Zionists of California, a grassroots coalition of California Democrats:

Lara Kiswani and the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC) have helped sponsor a petition called “Save CA Ethnic Studies” which states, “Will it [the California Department of Education] institute a Ethnic Studies curriculum that uplifts the stories of all communities of color or reject one that includes Arab Americans—bending to the desires of pro-Israel groups [emphasis added]….”

Progressive Zionists points out that it was not "pro-Israel" groups alone objecting to  the "exclusionary and antisemitic Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum".  It widely condemned by a consortium of groups, including Armenian Americans, Greek Americans, Hindu Indian Americans, Assyrian-Americans, Sikh Americans, Korean Americans, on the grounds that it was "not inclusive enough".

They write:

To be clear, diverse communities came together to respond to the curriculum based on their own concerns. Claiming in this petition that they are “bending to the desires of” Jewish groups erases their lived experiences and concerns. This dangerous trope of Jews controlling other minorities deeply motivated the Poway, Pittsburg, New Jersey mass murders and the repeated attacks on Jews in Brooklyn and Monsey. PZC condemns this language as both racist and antisemitic.

We encourage the IQC to continue to reject extremism and antisemitism in the curriculum, and commend them for the progress they have made so far. It is crucial that the kind of hatred and misinformation Kiswani has trafficked in not be allowed to become the norm or sanctioned within any public education curriculum.  

Read the full statement here:

Progressive Zionists of California (PZC) Concerned about efforts to reinstate an exclusionary and antisemitic Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum.