by Nicole Lampert, Daily Mail
The lunchtime bell rang out at a school in east London and both students and teachers alike reached for their bags. Yet instead of grabbing lunchboxes, they proceeded to take out Palestinian flags and drape themselves in keffiyehs before rushing towards the exit.
One Jewish teacher watched in horror: ‘It was like a zombie movie.’
It was just weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel in October 2023, and was the first of many ‘days of solidarity’ with Palestinians led by Britain’s biggest teaching union.
The National Education Union (NEU) has half a million members, and while the issue of Palestine and the demonisation of Israel had long been a focus, in 2023 it became an obsession.
The teacher, who has asked to remain anonymous, says: ‘While children aren’t meant to leave school at lunchtime, you can’t stop them. The doors were locked but they were following staff out of the exits. They escaped wherever they could, pushing open fire doors.’
The mob was heading to a rally at the town hall, where the Tower Hamlets mayor, Lutfur Rahman, spoke. The young children joined in genocidal chants of ‘From The River To The Sea’ and calls to ‘globalise the intifada’ alongside cheers from their teachers.
And they were not alone. Across the country educators led students out to protests like pro-Palestinian Pied Pipers, with shouts calling for a ceasefire and, in squeaking tones: ‘Israel is a terror state.’
More than two years later this madness hasn’t stopped. Just yesterday, the union’s London HQ hosted the ‘Sumud Festival For Palestine’, which involved ‘a day of political and cultural talks’.