Palestinian students from Bedouin Arab communities in 1948-occupied Palestinian territories appeared Tuesday in a video riding camels and donkeys en masse heading to their remote schools.
With sarcastic smiles on their face and bags covering their backs, primary school students were riding, early this morning, two on a donkey or camel led their way to the tent-based schools in the farthest areas of the West Bank, defying thereby the repulsive racism of the Israeli government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.
The students had no choice but to do so, for the hardcore Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has decided not to release the financial budgets allocated for Arab municipalities, which are still under Israel’s control, in the 1948-occupied territories.
Instead, he transferred hundreds of thousands of shekels to resume the construction of new settlers’ rooms, Jewish gardens, and colonial settlements in the occupied West Bank.
… In #Israel 2023, the Cahenist racism led by the religious government of Benjamin #Netanyahu, Arab school students in Israel go to their remote schools on camels and donkeys…The reason is that Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel #Smotrich did not transfer the financial budgets… pic.twitter.com/KimOC3rqqv
— سعيد بشارات Saaed Bsharat (@saaed_bsharat) September 5, 2023
At the Expense of Palestinian Rights
Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, head of the far-right Religious Zionism party, has recently drawn accusations of racism from even opposition lawmakers over his irrational decision to freeze millions of shekels budgeted for Bedouin communities in 1948-occupied territories.
He had taken flack for refusing to release NIS 200 million ($55 million) for serving the economic development in 1948-occupied Palestine’s municipalities and maintaining a hold on a higher education program for residents in the eastern side of Jerusalem.
In a bid to steal more Palestinian lands to construct settlement and Judaizing projects, he has pushed for $180 million in new funding for colonial settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Hebrew Channel 12 also reported that Smotrich advanced a plan last month to legalize 155 settler outposts throughout the West Bank.
Longstanding Suffering
Palestinian students are not like any other students around the globe, for they have been living under one of the most racist and unethical apartheid regimes on earth.
As the new academic year has just kicked off, Palestinian students have been subjected to many repressive and arbitrary measures carried out by the Israeli government and its forces.
At military checkpoints, Palestinian students are always being subjected to daily maltreatment and searching, leaving them unable to catch morning classes.
Early morning of Monday, September 4th 2023, 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 only found in a student’s bag and confiscated immediately.
Since the start of 2023, the Israeli occupation demolished three Palestinian schools, and threatened some 53 Palestinian schools with demolition, making the fate of more than 1,000 male and female students uncertain.
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