Israeli authorities are imposing their curriculum on more than 45,000 Palestinian students in state-run schools in East Jerusalem, as part of a wider crackdown on education in the occupied area of the city.
The new measures mean that around 38 percent of all Palestinian students - a marked increase on recent years - will be taught the Israeli curriculum rather than the Palestinian one from Tuesday. This includes all new first grade and seventh grade classes opening in the state education system in East Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Authority's Jerusalem Governorate spokesperson Maarouf al-Rifai said the decision represented a dangerous escalation and one unprecedented since 1967, the year Israel occupied East Jerusalem.
He called the move a direct attack on the Palestinian national and cultural identity of Jerusalem, saying the imposition of the Israeli curriculum was particularly dangerous given the marginalisation of “fundamental topics regarding the Palestinian narrative and history - foremost among them the Nakba, prisoners, and Jerusalem”.
Al-Rifai said this meant “turning the curriculum into a battleground over consciousness, memory and identity in the city”, and that the decision was part of a “systematic policy targeting the Palestinian education sector in Jerusalem”.
