In a bizarre and disturbing incident at a middle school in Warner Robins, Georgia, a teacher was arrested after issuing a series of vile threats at a 13-year-old Muslim student after she made a comment about his Israeli flag. The episode reflects heightened tensions related to the Israel-Hamas war and its impact on the rest of the world.

Multiple witnesses reported to the authorities that Benjamin Reese, a 51-year-old social studies teacher at Warner Robins Middle School, went ballistic on a student after she said the Israeli flag was offensive.

Warning: coarse language

A Warner Robins teacher is accused of threatening to behead a student after she made a comment about his Israeli flag, according to the Houston County Sheriff's Office.

Benjamin Reese is a 7th-grade social studies teacher at Warner Robins Middle School. He was arrested on Dec. 8.

Several witnesses said they overheard Reese shouting "You motherf*****g piece of s**t! I'll kick your a**. I should cut your motherf*****g head off," around students on Friday.

According to the incident report, at around 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 7, a deputy was on duty when he was informed Reese threatened a child's life. It happened in the 7th-grade technical hallway when students were on their way back to the 8th-grade hallway.

It did not end there. The teacher continued railing against the student, and became even more graphic with his threats of violence against her.

After that, several different witnesses independently said they heard Reese say, "he would kick her f*****g a**, slit her god***n throat and drag her a** outside and cut her head off."  

A faculty member says she heard Reese say, "You don't make an antisemitic comment like that to a Jew." The witness says the student responded negatively to Reese but was not yelling.

The educator was heard cursing and screaming, saying that he “should not be spoken to like that because he is a Jew,” and that he would drag the girl “into the parking lot, slit her f*****g throat and kill her.” (Forward the video below to :45.)

The incident started after the student asked Reese about the Israeli flag. The teacher told her he displayed it because he is Jewish and has family in Israel. The student indicated she found the flag offensive because of “Israelis killing [Palestinians],” which prompted Reese’s outburst.

When confronted by the school’s principal and the sheriff’s deputy, Reese initially “got defensive,” questioned why the deputy was present and denied speaking to anyone, the report stated. Eventually, however, Reese told the principal a student came into his classroom to tell him she found the Israeli flag offensive, the report says. Reese claimed he told the student she was being antisemitic but denied saying “anything racist.”

Reese became angry and “kicked the door stopper in an aggressive manner” when asked to discuss the incident further, the report says. He then asked in what capacity the deputy was present – whether as a school resource officer or a member of the Houston County Sheriff’s Office, to which the deputy responded, “Both.” Reese then told the deputy he had “nothing further” to say and “invoked his civil rights,” according to the report.

Reese was later arrested on December 8 and has bonded out of jail. The Houston County School District issued a statement noting that the teacher has not been seen on the campus since December 7.

This development comes at a time when tensions over the war in Gaza have sparked many incidents involving antisemitism and Islamophobia across the country. For example, there is the story about an Illinois landlord who stabbed a six-year-old Palestinian boy to death shortly after the war began. He had been arguing with the boy's mother about the war before the attack. Then in November, a pro-Hamas protester killed a Jewish man in Ventura County, California, who was attending a pro-Israel rally.

The Georgia story further highlights the effect the war is having on people living in the West – especially those who happen to be Jewish or Palestinian.

The situation in Gaza has brought about great tragedies for those involved, and Americans who have family in the region are understandably on edge. However, threatening a child for making ignorant comments on the matter is not the type of behavior one would expect from an educator.