The teacher’s union representing educators across the province of Manitoba is coming under fire for making a donation to an extremist Palestinian group that promotes open discrimination against Israelis and whose leader has allegedly met with senior terrorist operatives.
On December 9, the Manitoba Teachers’ Society, which represents 17,000 teachers, announced a gift to a foreign organization funneling money to Palestinians, with little transparency and even less accountability.
According to the press release, “in solidarity with educators in Palestine” (sic), the union was making a $5,000 donation to a group called Education International’s Solidarity Fund. The release stated that the Manitoba Teachers’ Society was “committed to strengthening the role of public education as a force for peace and lasting social change,” even as it made no attempt to qualify where the funds would be spent, what mechanisms would be in place to ensure that it did not go to Palestinian terrorism, or what approval took place among the union’s membership.
Education International is a Belgium-based group that, despite claiming to be an educational organization, promotes anti-Israel content on its website. It is not a registered charity in Canada, and there is no public record of its funding or activities in Canada.
But the rot goes even deeper.
Education International lists among its affiliates the ‘General Union of Palestinian Teachers,’ the ‘Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees,’ and others.
The General Union of Palestinian Teachers, or GUPT, is a fanatically anti-Israel group that falsely accuses Israel of “genocide,” claims the country commits “colonial violence” against Palestinians, and has promoted the hateful and discriminatory Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) movement against the Jewish State.
The union’s leader, Saed Erziqat, has reportedly compared Israel to Nazi Germany and met with representatives of Palestinian terrorist groups. Its logo, meanwhile, completely erases Israel.
Another of Education International’s affiliates is Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees, which has called for universities around the world to discriminate against their Israeli counterparts in an overt call for discrimination.
According to a December 9 article in Winnipeg’s The Free Press, the ultimate destination of the $5,000 donation was the General Union of Palestinian Teachers, funneled through Education International.
The article quoted one teacher, left anonymous for fear of retribution, castigating the union for the donation, noting that despite its donation to a shadowy Palestinian group that has advocated for open discrimination against Israelis, anti-Jewish hate crimes remain the most prevalent form of hate crimes in Canada, which they say the union has not meaningfully addressed.
The decision of the Manitoba Teachers’ Society to send funds to a hateful Palestinian organization – apparently without the approval of its actual membership – is the latest, but far from the first, instance of a public teachers’ union funneling money towards such dangerous and shadowy causes.
In 2024, the Canadian Teachers’ Federation (CTF) sent thousands of dollars, once again via Education International, to “sister organizations in Palestine,” showing that for many teachers unions, promoting Palestinian extremism appears to take priority over fighting anti-Jewish hatred in Canada.
