Brooklyn Public School, Using Maps Provided by Qatari Royals, Commits 'Jew Erasure'

Early in 1991, as the guy in charge of supply, food service, and the motor pool for an Army Medical company that had people scattered over several hundred miles of the Area of Operations (AO), my people and I needed to know where I was going on my weekly thousand-mile odyssey to deliver supplies, parts, and equipment. Being a support unit, we were on the low end of the priority scale where things like maps were concerned, and so I exercised my "field expedient" skills, stopped in a gas station in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and bought every highway map they had to hand out to my platoon. When we examined the maps we noted that, where we had expected to see "Israel," the map was marked "Palestine." That was a different country, the Saudis had attitudes that differed from ours, and besides, at the time we had bigger fish to fry — namely, kicking some and taking some, which we did.

I still have my map, heavily marked up with Military Supply Routes (MSRs,) fuel points, and unit locations. And it still says "Palestine" where "Israel" ought to be.

But that map was printed in Saudi Arabia, to be used by Saudi Arabian drivers. That's one thing. But when a map of the Arab-speaking world appears in an elementary school in Brooklyn, a map provided by the Qatari royal family, that likewise erases Israel and, by association, the Jewish people in that part of the world, that's an entirely different cup of tea. "Give me the child for seven years and I'll give you the man," as the Jesuits say, and the Qataris and this teacher seem determined to do just that.

The map, labeled the “Arab World,” appears in a classroom at PS 261 in Brooklyn, where Rita Lahoud gives students lessons in the Arab Culture Arts program — which is funded by Qatar Foundation International, the American wing of the Qatar Foundation, a nonprofit owned by the country’s wealthy ruling family.
It was manufactured by Arab education company Ruman and features Islamic landmarks in each of the countries in northern Africa and the Middle East.
At the school, the map is posted under the heading “Arab World” with hand-drawn labels marking each country, except for Israel which Lahoud labeled “Palestine.”
“It’s not just that we’re experiencing Jewish hate in NYC public schools, we’re actually experiencing Jewish erasure,” Tova Plaut, a New York City public school instructional coordinator for preschool through fifth grade, told the Free Press.
“And here is proof of that.”

It's bad enough that Biden administration staffers and even sitting members of Congress seem determined to erase Israel, now an Arab nation is reaching into American schools to try to inculcate the erasure of Israel into American kids.

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Here's the kicker:

When reached for comment, the principal of PS 261 directed the Post to the Department of Education.
But when the Free Press asked the department whether the map was still up following Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, a spokesman wrote back, “Why would it not be?” the outlet reports.
Spokesman Nathaniel Styer also reportedly added that “this is a map of countries that speak Arabic.”
Meanwhile, it was revealed that QFI has donated over $1 million to the Department of Education between 2019 and 2022.

This is happening in an American school, to American kids, with a teacher who is clearly anti-Israel, very likely antisemitic, and who is teaching American children. And the blinding arrogance of that reply: "Why would it not be?" That's staggering. Why it would not be, of course, is that this map, which was provided to an American school by a foreign power, an absolute monarchy, and a theocracy, erases America's best ally in the Middle East and by association, essentially erases the Jewish people from the region.

Why is Qatar donating money to the New York City Department of Education? What is their goal? Why do they want to influence American children at all, much less bias them against one of America's allies, a nation that is, by the way, one of the few representative republics in the Middle East?

While it's tempting to do a lateral arabesque into the need for removing government from schools altogether, the fact is that we do have public schools, funded by the taxpayers. As long as that is the case, the curricula must reflect American values; not Qatari values, not Saudi values, and, for that matter, not Israeli values. The New York Department of Education should not be allowed to accept funding and educational materials from a foreign power, nor should a teacher be allowed to teach outright falsehoods.