Farmington Public Schools said they are reviewing concerns raised by Muslim groups after a Farmington High School teacher allegedly provided false information on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict during a history lesson.

The National and Connecticut chapters of the Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the Farmington Board of Education Wednesday to investigate the teacher’s alleged conduct, describing the information as inappropriate, inaccurate and a danger to Arab and Muslim students.

“We urge the Farmington, CT Board of Education to investigate an allegedly false, anti-Palestinian lesson given by a teacher at Farmington High School,” CAIR National said in a tweet Wednesday. “Not only does this propaganda misguide students, it could lead to attacks on Muslim & Arab students.”

CAIR-CT obtained and shared a 2-minute audio clip of the alleged lesson.

In the clip, the teacher reportedly states that Palestine’s geographic origins are in modern-day Jordan and Syria, not Israel.

“It’s in Jordan,” the teacher can be heard saying on the recording. “Seventy percent of Palestinian land is located in the modern country of Jordan. A tiny piece of it is in Israel.”

Later the teacher added, “Syria too. Part of the land is in Syria, but most of the land is not in Israel.”

The teacher asked students “Are we going to protest against Jordan? ‘Jordanians give back the land,’ No. Are they going to give back the land? No, they’re not. Are they going to let Palestinian refugees go into Jordan? No, they’re not. Do they even let Palestinians who live in Jordan now work? No, they don’t.”

In the second half of the clip, the teacher shifts the conversation, speaking about the “Promised Land” covenant between the Hebrew prophet Abraham and God, as well as the biblical conflict between the Philistines and the Israelites.

“What do the Hebrews have to choose to do?” the teacher asked.

As students filled the silence with their own answers the teacher presented two options: “They either fight them …or they don’t.”

CAIR-CT’s analysis of the audio hears the second option as “or they go.” The Courant hears the same phrase as “or they don’t.”

Khamis Abu-Hasaballah, the president of the Farmington Valley American Muslim Center, said the audio was provided by a non-Muslim student who felt compelled to record the lesson.

Abu-Hasaballah, who is also the parent of a Farmington High School student, called the alleged lesson “blatant ignorance.”

“If it’s intended or unintended, it doesn’t really matter,” Abu-Hasaballah said. “Clearly these are young minds who don’t know anything about the conflict and to be teaching them in this manner is really counterproductive.”

Historically, the idea that “Jordan is Palestine” has been purported by right-wing Israelis but repeatedly rejected by Palestinian and Jordanian leaders.

At the end of World War I, the League of Nations granted Great Britain control of land formerly occupied by the Ottoman Empire. From 1923 to 1948, “The British Mandate” ruled two separate territories, Transjordan, the site of modern-day Jordan, and Palestine, which consisted of modern-day Gaza, the West Bank and Israel, as cited by the Anti-Defamation League.

According to the United Nations, after Israel was established in 1948, more than 50% of Palestinian Arabs were displaced as Israel took control of 77% of the former Palestinian territory.

“Palestinians who were expelled, who were displaced by force to Jordan and Lebanon and Egypt, those countries are not their home,” Abu-Hasaballah said. “Palestine is not part of Jordan.”

Abu-Hasaballah said the teacher’s alleged comparisons between Palestine and Israelites’ biblical enemy, the Philistines, are also dangerous.

“The majority of Muslims feel very strongly and sympathize with the Palestine cause, which would be putting them in that camp (of) ‘Now I am identified as a Philistine, and now people can go and now hurt me,’” Abu-Hasaballah said.

Abu-Hasaballah said this rhetoric has consequences.

“We had a 6-year-old Palestinian who was murdered in Chicago. His mother was stabbed multiple times. This is not the time to be provoking and evoking this style of emotions in a classroom, in a school where it’s supposed to be a safe haven for our students,” Abu-Hasaballah said.

Abu-Hasaballah said it’s up to local communities to “tone things down” during this period of rampant antisemitism and Islamophobia.

CAIR-CT and the FVAMC said they have witnessed an increase in reports of bullying, harassment and marginalization in Connecticut classrooms since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.

“Our students are really feeling very, very vulnerable right now,” Abu-Hasaballah said. “We had a student two weeks ago whose hijab was pulled down on the bus … My own daughter has relayed to me that Muslim students, when they ask questions that kind of contradict what the teacher was saying regarding what’s happening, she said, in her own words, ‘They were silenced and or they were ignored.’”

Abu-Hasaballah said the mainstream media and political attitudes have fed what he views as a one-sided anti-Palestinian narrative of the conflict. As a student in the classroom, Abu-Hasaballah said, “You feel that — it’s in the air.”

“A lot of the statements that were coming out from schools earlier on in this war were tremendously one-sided towards Israel and that alienated a lot of Muslim and Arab students,” CAIR-CT Chairman Farhan Memon said.

“There’s a tremendous amount of pressure that Muslim and Arab students are feeling, and schools aren’t really living up to their obligation to create a safe environment for all,” Memon added.

In a Facebook post CAIR-CT urged the Farmington Board of Education to suspend the teacher immediately, pending an investigation, saying that the “biased rhetoric” and inaccurate representation of Palestinian history could “promote discrimination against Arab and Muslim students” or “cause them to face harm.”

“I am deeply concerned about the abuse Arab and Muslim students could face as a result of this teacher’s flawed portrayal of Palestinians as land usurpers needing to be pushed back,” Memon said in a CAIR-CT press release. “Inaccurate narratives that engender hostility infringe on students’ rights to an equal, discrimination-free education. Young people should feel safe and included in school — never vulnerable to marginalization based on their identity.”

In addition to calling for an investigation, Memon added that the Farmington Board of Education should “recommit to classrooms that embrace equity and human rights for every student.”

The Courant reached out to Farmington’s nine Board of Education members, all of whom did not respond to requests for comment.

In a joint statement shared with the Courant, Farmington High School and Farmington Public Schools said they “are reviewing the concerns outlined by the CAIR-CT” and that they encourage the school community to bring forward concerns.

“We are currently supporting students, faculty and staff and connecting with community organizations as well as our FHS Social Justice Council to be responsive to concerns shared and ensure safety, belonging and care for all,” the district said. “As world events have unfolded, we have provided resources culled by educators and shared by the Connecticut State Department of Education to our teachers and families to support students.”

In the statement, the district said Farmington schools are committed to cultivating environments where all community members feel safe and respected and can engage “in meaningful conversations.”

Whether and how schools should engage in discussions of the current Middle East conflict is a matter of debate, Memon said.

While some argue that places of worship and family settings are more equipped to handle these divisive conversations, Memon said he recognizes that students see what is happening and want to talk about it with their friends or teachers.

Memon said that when conversations take place in the classroom, educators have to present information that is unbiased.

Waqas Shaikh, the FVAMC liaison for schools, agreed.

“It’s important that teachers, academics serve as a central point of fact-based discussions,” Shaikh said. “These schools and others like it need to be purveyors of truth, of objective academic realities.”

Shaik said FVAMC leaders have met with the FHS principal about the alleged lesson and that the conversations have been productive. He said that leaders continue to push for an investigation and emphasize the need to take corrective action and move forward. Overall, Shaik said the experience has been positive.

Abu-Hasaballah said he is looking forward to working more collaboratively with Connecticut schools.

“We are trying now to be proactive with the school systems to help create a line of communication with them so that if something happens in the future, they actually would be reaching out to us first instead of us reaching out to them,” Abu-Hasaballah said. “This is not about us ‘fighting’ Farmington or Simsbury or Avon or any school system — this is really about working together to create an amicable atmosphere where all students, not just Muslim students, (but) all students of all backgrounds can really feel comfortable and feel welcomed.”