Ir Amim, the left-wing Israeli Association for Jerusalem Affairs, warned Monday that since the new Israeli government had come into power, Palestinian education in East Jerusalem has been confronting fierce Israelization attempts.
“Doing so, Israel is either enforcing legislative proposals of the ministerial committee, or holding meetings of the education committee at the Knesset, or by halting parents’ meetings at the order of Israel’s National Security Minister Itmar Ben Gvir,” the Israeli association reported.
Jerusalem’s education sector has encountered perilous challenges since the occupation in 1967, stumbling its evolution.
“Former Israeli governments relied on the five-year plan as a fundamental condition to allocate Jerusalem’s educational budget needed in the bid for imminent transition to the Israeli curriculum,” Ir Amim revealed.
What Is Five-Year Israelization Plan?
The bulk of Israel’s five-year plan goes for Jerusalem’s educational system, for Judaization projects have been stretching out across the city, which work out any Israelizing trials. The plan allocates NIS 800 million to Israelize Jerusalem’s education by moulding the minds of Palestinian students and stripping them of their national identity.
Israeli occupation authorities formulated a (2018-2022) five-year plan to take control over education in occupied Jerusalem. The plan is chiefly based on emptying the Old City of schools, taking control of its historical buildings and turning some of them into tourist attractions.
Private schools rejecting to teach the Israeli curriculum must be closed according to the plan, while UNRWA will also face an indefinite future as its schools will be closed and its students will be absorbed in schools teaching the Israeli curriculum.
Regarding private kindergartens, Israeli municipality-run kindergartens will be opened. The plan, furthermore, concentrates on opening community centres, which aim at normalizing with Israel through various activities targeting children and youth.
“Citizen police” will be deployed in Jerusalem neighbourhoods just to work in conjunction with the Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs.
Daily Harassment
Early morning of Monday, Israeli occupation forces stopped Palestinian teachers at the entrance to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem and searched them along with their students to make sure they had no Palestinian textbooks in their possession. A Palestinian flag was found in a student’s bag and confiscated immediately.
On the first day of the new academic year 2023, a strike was staged in Jerusalem’s Jabal Al-Mukabber neighbourhood in protest against the Israeli municipality’s arbitrary measures against students.
Among these measures is the relocation of school students from one place to another, additionally to the suspension of transportation buses.
On August 31st of last year, Israeli forces confiscated a number of textbooks that were en route to a private school teaching the Palestinian curriculum in the Old City of Jerusalem. They arrested the vehicle’s driver and a school employee.
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