Montco School Board Member Calls For Peace In Gaza, Resigns Amid 'Anti-Semitic' Labeling

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA — The recent uproar that led to the resignation of a Colonial School District board member over claims of anti-Semitism establishes a dangerous precedent for both free speech and an accurate understanding of geopolitics in the Middle East, advocates and analysts warn.

Jamina Clay shared a Facebook post weeks ago calling the Israel Defense Forces a "terrorist organization," citing the worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the deaths of 12,700 people and some 5,000 children, according to the Associated Press. The perspective that Israel is committing an unspeakable barbarism is shared not only by the United Nations and relief organizations around the world, but by many Jewish people who want peace.

"International agencies have fully established the violations of international law and human rights abuses that the Israeli army is conducting in its war against Gaza," Ahmet Selim Tekelioglu, the executive director of the Philadelphia area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told Patch. "If comments that criticize Israeli institutions and its right-wing government are misconstrued and weaponized against individuals, we lose an opportunity to talk about the real possibility of peace as well."

Clay's post ended with the hashtag "ceasefireInGazaNOW," calling on the Israeli military to pause or end the war. To many parents in the Colonial School District who attended a heated public school board meeting this week — some of whom equated Clay's call for peace with broader claims about liberal conspiracy in the curriculum and Critical Race Theory — that amounted to hate speech.

"So much hate," one parent said. Another compared the post to "Heil Hitler" graffiti seen in the past. Some said, after the post, that they didn't feel their children were safe in school. Others denied facts published by the United Nations and watchdogs organizations about Israeli military targets in Gaza, which have included hospitals and refugee camps, according to the World Health Organization.

Still another suggested that growing numbers of Palestinians in recent years absolved Israel from the accusation it might be behind the current crisis.

"Over the past two decades, the population of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank has increased substantially, " said Mark Wolfheimer, a Lafayette Hill resident and the president of Congregation Or Ami. "This is hardly genocide."

When asked by Patch to clarify the district's position on Clay's resignation and whether or not they believed her post calling for peace was hate speech, Superintendent Michael Christian declined to elaborate. He pointed to the district's already released, prewritten statement following Clay's resignation, which acknowledges the Facebook post's impact, but not the district's actual stance on it.

"The post was offensive to many and resulted in numerous emails calling for her resignation or censure, as well as a call for many to attend (this week's) School Board meeting to voice their concern," the statement reads. "We condemn all forms of hatred and violence and remind all that we have counseling services available for anyone who may be struggling."

The inability to differentiate between support for noncombatant Palestinian civilians and children on the one hand, and support for the terrorist group Hamas and outright Nazism on the other, is not native to the Colonial school community. High school and college campus protests calling for peace and restraint in Gaza have been routinely pilloried by pro-Israeli voices as hateful. And the University of Pennsylvania has been under fire from its own faculty and students for "one-sided" support of Israel that critics say has impacted academic freedom and student learning.

As actual instances of both anti-Semitism and Islamophobia are on the rise and have left Americans dead, how language is used, construed, and misconstrued can be deeply powerful, advocates for peace say.

"At a time when every 10 minutes a child is killed in Gaza, everyone needs to stand for peace and humanity," Tekelioglu said.