Newton Teachers Union Splits With MA Teachers Association On 'Genocidal War' Vote

NEWTON, MA — The Newton Teachers Association this week drew a sharp divide between itself and the Massachusetts Teachers Association over an MTA Board of Directors vote this past weekend to call for a ceasefire in what the MTA motion called the "genocidal war on the Palestinian people" — calling the motion and vote "antisemitic dog-whistling."

The Massachusetts Teachers Association said in a statement on Tuesday that its Executive Committee and Board of Directors "democratically debated and made decisions responding to this crisis" in voting to call for the ceasefire in what the original motion called "the Netanyahu government's genocidal war on the Palestinian people in Gaza." Tuesday's statement also called for the return of the hostages captured in the Oct. 7 Hamas assault and to stand against the vile spread of antisemitism and Islamophobia.

The motion approved also said that the "MTA president and vice president will urge the president of the (National Education Association) to pressure President Biden to stop funding and sending weapons in support (of the military actions)."

"These decisions stem from a belief that human suffering in the region must end and we must all work together to support a rapid move toward lasting solutions for peaceful co-existence in the region," the MTA said in a statement.

Newton Teachers Association President Miles Zilles responded to the wording of the approved motion and vote in a statement, however, saying that the "NTA unequivocally dissociates itself from" the characterization of the ongoing military action in Gaza as a "genocidal war."

"The statement fails completely to hold in mind the atrocities against Israelis on October 7, the complexity of the situation and the trauma, pain and fallout the Israeli, American and international Jewish communities are experiencing," Zilles said in reference to the approved motion in a statement posted on the NTA social media page. "Some will defend this motion, and deny that to accuse Israel of engaging in a 'genocidal war on the Palestinian people' will provoke further antisemitism, or deny that the very use of the word 'genocide' to characterize the actions of a people who experienced the Holocaust is callous.

"However, the motion approved by the MTA Board will provoke further antisemitism, and it is callous. For that reason, in dissociating itself from this motion, the NTA calls on the MTA Board of Directors to retract its statement immediately."