Schools in the occupied Jerusalem stage strikes over Israeli occupation’s attempts to Judaize curriculum

OCCUPIED AL-QUDS, Sep.19, (ST- Palestinian schools in the occupied East Jerusalem witnessed on Monday a general strike in rejection of the Israeli occupation’s attempts to impose the Israeli curriculum and distorted textbooks on the schools, according to local sources.

They said that all schools in the occupied city witnessed a general strike, which was organized by the nationalist forces, to call on the Israeli government and municipality to stop their intervention in the academic life of the Palestinian students in the occupied city and to assert their right to learn their narrative and history as it is rather than distorted according to the narrative of the Israeli occupiers, according to WAFA NEWS Agency (SANA).

Last July, the Israeli Ministry of Education decided to revoke the teaching license from six schools in East Jerusalem for a period of one year and it also sent letters in August to several other schools in Jerusalem threatening to revoke their license in the event any school is caught teaching the Palestinian textbooks.

In the same context, WAFA reported that students in West Bank schools and Minister of Education Marwan Awartani today expressed their solidarity with schools in the occupied East Jerusalem, which went on strike to protest Israel’s attempts to force Palestinian students in East Jerusalem to learn from distorted and deformed textbooks.

Students in the West Bank schools carried banners denouncing the Israeli violation of the right to education in East Jerusalem as they rallied in their schools in support of their colleagues in East Jerusalem.

Awartani, speaking from New York where he is attending the Transforming Education summit, called on the international community to act to protect the right to education for the Palestinian students in East Jerusalem.

“At a time when the world is meeting today at the Education Transformation Summit in New York to lead and coordinate global efforts to develop education and help students recover from the repercussions of the Corona pandemic and the challenges facing education, Palestinian children in Jerusalem are living a situation imposed on them by the Israeli occupation that forced their parents to declare a strike and not go to schools to protest the practices of the occupation against their national, historical and educational identity,” he said.

“The parents reject all forms of financial blackmail practiced by the so-called Israeli Ministry of Education and the municipality of West Jerusalem against the school administrations and the open and implied threats to assert that the right to education and study the national curriculum is an inalienable right of a people under occupation to choose their curriculum taught to their children, in line with the Palestinian narrative, history and national identity as a sovereign issue, and they are now in their homes deprived of their right to education due to the policies of this occupation,” said the education minister.

In another development, the Israeli occupation forces penetrated Palestinian lands in the northeastern besieged Gaza Strip.

Wafa news agency reported that 10 military vehicles and bulldozers of the occupation penetrated the agricultural lands in the east of the town of Beit Hanoun, northeast of the Gaza Strip, and bulldozed areas of it.

Basma Qaddour