Palestinian schools in al-Quds protest Israel’s plan to distort textbooks

Teachers and students in al-Quds have held a general strike against plans by the occupying authorities to impose Israeli texts on Palestinian curricula.

All schools across the occupied city remained closed on Monday. Protesters demanded that the Israeli regime stop interfering in the academic affairs of Palestinian students.

The Palestinian National and Islamic Forces (PNIF), a coalition of the Palestinian political factions, had called for the strike.

Earlier this month, Israeli authorities printed new textbooks, which contain distorted Palestinian history, culture and national symbols.

Israeli authorities have revoked the teaching license of several schools in East al-Quds under the pretext of teaching provocative textbooks against the occupying regime.

The controversial steps by the Israeli regime have sparked a wave of protests across the occupied territories over the past few days.

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Meanwhile, students at schools across the occupied West Bank carried banners and chanted slogan denouncing the Israeli violation of the Palestinian right to education.

Palestinian Minister of Education Marwan Awartani, speaking from New York, where he is attending a summit, called on the international community to act to protect the right to education for the Palestinian students.

“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 al-Quds 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,” said the minister.

“The parents reject all forms of financial blackmail practiced by the so-called Israeli Ministry of Education 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."

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, thousands of Palestinian children, staff and teachers are “attacked” by either Israeli settlers or soldiers each year.

The United Nations says Israeli attacks are “incidents of interference in schools by Israeli forces,” which include “threats of demolition, clashes on the way to school between students and security forces, teachers stopped at checkpoints, and the violent actions of Israeli forces and settlers on some occasions.”

According to the UN, over half of the “verified incidents involved live ammunition, tear gas and stun grenades fired into or near schools by Israeli forces, impacting the delivery of education or injuring students.”

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