Most high school yearbooks feature club photos and class superlatives. Funniest Laugh. Most Likely to Succeed. But at Bellaire High School in Houston the yearbook dedicated a section to the Palestinians.
The section was titled, “Times of Palestine” and it was filled with perspectives of Arab students – not Jewish students.
As a matter of fact, the yearbook staff dismissed the October 7th terrorist attack on Israel by writing, “what happened, happened.”
What happened is that more than 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered – including many high school students and children.
And what about the perspective of Jewish students at Bellaire High School?
The New York Post received a reply from Principal Michael Niggli, who apparently was caught off guard by the Palestinian pages.
“Although the yearbook staff and their sponsorship are charged with editing the content of the publication as they have been for many years, as principal of Bellaire High School I will need to make some adjustments to that process.“We will be enforcing new editorial protocols for all student publications in the coming weeks as we prepare for 2024-25.”
Parents, students and alumni were justifiably outraged.
“As a Bellaire High School graduate and proud Jew, I’m mad, sad, disappointed (and more) about the inclusion of a ‘Times of Palestine’ page in the 2024 BHS yearbook,” one alumni wrote. “The student interviewed glossed over Hamas’s brutal, unprovoked attack on Israel by saying, ‘… what happened happened.’ This is shameful ignorance on the part of the yearbook staff, teachers, and the administration.”
Only in America would the instigators of a horrifying terrorist attack against the people of Israel be considered victims – worthy of coverage in a high school yearbook.