Strikes likely as Israel forces curriculum on East Jerusalem schools
\nJillian Kestler-D’Amours – The Electronic Intifada – Jerusalem – 12 July 2011<\/p>\n
OCCUPIED EAST JERUSALEM (IPS) – Widespread strikes could be in store for East Jerusalem at the start of the next school year as an Israeli-controlled municipality moves ahead with its plan to implement an Israeli curriculum in Palestinian schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect that the beginning of the new school year will not be a normal one,\u201d Samir Jibril, director of the East Jerusalem Education Bureau said. \u201cThere will be lots of problems. There will be lots of demands, strikes. All [Palestinian] institutions are going to stand hand-in-hand against this implementation.\u201d<\/p>\n
In March of this year, the Jerusalem municipality sent a letter to private schools in East Jerusalem that receive financial allocations from the Israeli authorities. The letter stated that at the start of the 2011-12 academic year, the schools would be obliged to purchase and only use textbooks prepared by the Jerusalem Education Administration (JEA), a joint body of the municipality and the Israeli Ministry of Education.<\/p>\n
Imposing an identity<\/p>\n
These textbooks are already in use in East Jerusalem schools managed by the JEA. According to Jibril, however, Palestinians in East Jerusalem have at all levels rejected the plan to use them in private schools since it is viewed as being politically motivated.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe real reason behind all this story of the curriculum is actually political,\u201d Jibril said. \u201cWe\u2019re talking about a radical [Israeli] government that is trying to impose its own identity on the Palestinians in East Jerusalem. Knowing that Israel doesn\u2019t recognize Palestinian identity, it is a political reflection rather than [for] any kind of educational or pedagogical [reason].\u201d<\/p>\n
The move to introduce the Israeli curriculum came after an Israeli parliament (Knesset) member Alex Miller from the far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party, who heads the Knesset\u2019s education committee, stated during a meeting about unauthorized curricula in the education system that, in East Jerusalem, \u201cthe whole curriculum should and must be Israeli.\u201d …more<\/a><\/p>\n