A GROUP of Scottish educators have said they will “not be intimidated into silence” after pro-Israel lawyers accused them of the “political indoctrination of children”.
We told how Educators for Peace (EFP), a voluntary group of teachers and lecturers advocating for peace in Palestine, have been forced to seek legal advice after UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) sent a 50-page dossier to numerous Scottish public authorities.
The group has now sought to mobilise grassroots support with an open letter and urged educators to back them and engage with their teaching materials in defiance of the attempted “distortion and misrepresentation” of their position.
It comes after The Times ran two stories about EFP in recent days.
One, published on Sunday, was based on claims from UKLFI that the group is pushing “anti-Israeli and arguably antisemitic” materials into Scottish classrooms.
UKLFI claimed in the newspaper that EFP “appears to be using its extensive educational and political connections to bring highly partisan anti-Israel activism into Scottish schools”, adding that the teaching materials they provide are “not balanced”.
Another, from Monday, described co-founder of EFP Sara El-Awaisi as a “teacher accused of political indoctrination of children”.
Her attendance as a local hero at the opening of the Scottish Parliament, a guest of Scottish Greens MSP Q Manivannan, was framed by UKLFI as highlighting concerns that an “organised network promoting a highly partisan ideology” is “acquiring respectability and influence at the heart of Scotland’s educational and political establishment.”
A spokesperson for UKLFI told The Times: “They erase Israel from maps, present contested allegations as established fact and contain links to external resources which cross the line into what is arguably antisemitism. Children should be taught to think critically, not subjected to political indoctrination.”
On Tuesday, August 4, EFP released a public statement that they “categorically and wholly reject” the allegations in the dossier UKLFI sent to the Scottish Government, all of Scotland’s 32 local authorities, and other education bodies, and their recent public comments.
EFP also criticised UKLFI’s “core allegation” that the group rejects “the need to hold impartiality in the classroom”.
“This is a distortion and misrepresentation of our position. In the last year, we have held professional learning sessions exploring the concepts of neutrality and impartiality vis-a-vis educators’ responsibilities to uphold social justice in the classroom,” the statement said.
“This is a legitimate and necessary professional learning exercise in the current political climate.
“Our work with educators has found that impartiality, which demands consistency, fairness, and evidence-based reasoning, is often conflated with a form of neutrality that would require treating all factual and non-factual claims and ethical positions as equally valid. Herein lies the tension with the requirement for educators to also uphold a social justice disposition.
“Impartiality is a standard applied daily in courts and public institutions without requiring neutrality on questions of fact or established law; the same distinction needs to be clearly articulated for Scotland's teaching profession.”
EFP pointed to teaching about the Holocaust, Rwanda or Srebrenica genocides, which does not “teach with a view that is partial to the perpetrators of these crimes”.
“The same principle of evidence-based teaching applies to Gaza, where the UN's Independent International Commission of Inquiry concluded in September 2025 that there are reasonable grounds to find that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians,” the statement added.
“Educators are entitled – and, we would argue, professionally obliged – to teach from the weight of the evidence and the findings of credible international bodies, while supporting young people to understand where findings remain contested by some states and subject to ongoing legal proceedings.”
In September last year, a UN inquiry found that Israel has committed genocide in Palestine.
UKLFI dispute this, writing in the 50-page dossier that the claim of genocide is a “serious and inflammatory accusation that is strongly disputed”.
It then claims that there is “no evidence” that members of the IDF have “conducted operations with … intent” to commit genocide under Article II of the Genocide Convention.
