CAIR-NJ School Guide Promotes One-Sided Palestine Narrative, Lists Bin Laden Manifesto in 9/11 Curriculum
CAIR-NJ's 2025-26 Back to School Guide directs educators to teach "relentless violence" by U.S. and Israel against Palestinians; lists Bin Laden's "Letter to America" as a teaching resource
Following Jewish Onliner’s investigation into the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ coordinated effort to influence K-12 education across six states, Jewish Onliner has identified a copy of CAIR-New Jersey’s 2025-26 Back to School Resource Guide, which instructs educators to focus exclusively on Palestinian suffering while ensuring students advocating for “Palestinian liberation aren’t accused of supporting terrorism or antisemitism.”
The guide directs teachers to CAIR-NJ’s separate 9/11 curriculum, developed in partnership with Teaching While Muslim, which lists V for Vendetta — a film depicting bombing government buildings as heroic resistance — and Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” as recommended teaching resources.
The Back to School Resource Guide
CAIR-NJ’s 2025-26 guide contains a section titled “Discussing Palestine in The classroom,” which provides explicit instructions to educators on framing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The guide instructs: “Educate yourself on the situation in Palestine and stick to the facts, particularly the violence Palestinians have been subjected to at the hands of the Israeli military and the imbalance of power dynamics involved.”
The section continues: “Promote open dialogue: Maintain that all students shouldn’t agitate each other over the relentless violence the US and Israel have been inflicting on Palestinians for decades.”
The guide explicitly tells educators: “Allow students to express support for Palestine and ensure those calling for Palestinian liberation aren’t accused of supporting terrorism or antisemitism.” The curriculum references “the ongoing violence Palestinians have faced, especially since October 2023” without mentioning the October 7, 2023 Hamas massacre that killed over 1,200 Israelis and triggered the war in Gaza to free Israeli hostages. The guide makes no mention of Hamas, Palestinian terrorism, rocket attacks on Israeli civilians, or the use of human shields throughout the Palestine section.
The 9/11 Curriculum
The Back to School Guide directs educators to access CAIR-NJ’s comprehensive 9/11 curriculum, developed in collaboration with Teaching While Muslim, featuring lesson plans for elementary, middle, and high school levels. CAIR-NJ states, “[The curriculum was developed] To help teachers adopt a more nuanced approach to 9/11 in their classrooms.”
The curriculum describes the 9/11 perpetrators as: “A group self-identifying as AlQaeda hailing from the mountains of Afghanistan, launched an attack on civilians in the United States,” without mentioning terrorism. This description is the same across all three grade levels — elementary, middle, and high school.
The curriculum list the movie, “V for Vendetta“ under “Background Resources” for elementary, middle, and high school levels with a link to the movie’s IMDB page. The 2005 film depicts a masked vigilante protagonist who bombs government buildings to inspire revolution against a totalitarian regime.
The background resource list also includes former Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden’s “Letter to America.” The letter, published in 2002, is commonly known as Osama bin Laden’s Manifesto, and includes his justifications for the 9/11 attacks and calls for jihad against the United States.
The middle and high school sections of CAIR-NJ’s guide explains that Al Qaeda executed the 9/11 attacks, which 3,000 people were killed, as a “response to America’s support of Israel, their involvement in the Persian Gulf War, and the vast presence of the US military in the Middle East.”
CAIR’S Coordinated National Effort to Influence Education
Jewish Onliner previously reported that CAIR Philadelphia’s educational offerings to Pennsylvania and Delaware schools included a workshop titled “American Jews and Political Power: Myth or Reality?” and guidance instructing teachers to avoid terms like “Islamic terrorists,” “jihadists,” or “radical Islamic terrorists” when discussing 9/11.
Following the reporting, Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) petitioned the Department of Education on September 9, 2025, stating that CAIR “should never have access to our nation’s children. The U.S. Department of Education must ensure that CAIR is not given an opportunity to push its radical, pro-terrorist, anti-Israel ideology on American schoolchildren.”
Jewish Onliner subsequently uncovered evidence that CAIR chapters in New Jersey, Oklahoma, Florida, and Illinois were distributing similar materials, with documents bearing CAIR’s national headquarters address, indicating centralized coordination.
House Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) previously told Jewish Onliner in an exclusive statement:
“Credible reports that CAIR is partnering with K-12 schools to push a radical curriculum are deeply troubling given CAIR’s ties to terrorism and antisemitism. Given the nation’s recent disappointing student test scores, we need our schools focused on teaching, not indoctrinating.”
CAIR’s Alleged Terror Ties And Subsequent Federal and State Action
CAIR was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a 2007 federal terrorism financing case related to Hamas, and a 2013 FBI Inspector General report revealed evidence allegedly linking CAIR leaders to Hamas during the Holy Land Foundation trial. The FBI subsequently developed policies to “significantly restrict the FBI’s non-investigative interactions with CAIR.” Additionally, Several state legislatures, including those of Florida and Arizona, have enacted resolutions urging public institutions to refrain from collaborating with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) due to its alleged ties to designated terrorist organizations
Beyond the findings in CAIR-NJ’s educational materials, Florida State Representative Randy Fine has submitted legislation to designate CAIR as a terrorist organization, while Senator Cotton and Representative Elise Stefanik have sent a letter requesting the Treasury Department investigate CAIR’s non-governmental organization status.