Haaretz-Adapted

Over the past years, the Municipality of Jerusalem and the Israeli Ministry of Education have been exerting efforts over the education system in East Jerusalem. These efforts aim to transform the Palestinian curriculum into an Israeli one. In the last school year, the proportion of the students who will study the Israeli curriculum has reached 18%. Most students and parents in East Jerusalem, nevertheless, prefer the Palestinian curriculum which is valid in the West Bank and in the Arab world.

The inappropriateness of educational materials to the citizens of East Jerusalem, who are denied the right to vote, is among the difficulties faced by the Palestinian citizens in the area.

According to the Palestinian Authority and many members of Palestinian society, the shift toward an Israeli curriculum is a threat to students' identities and their relationships with the Palestinian Authority and the West Bank. Unidentified individuals opened fire on a school in the Kafr Aqab, northern Jerusalem, last week in response to the Jerusalem Municipality's intention to open a school there teaching Israeli curriculum, causing significant damage to the school.

Simultaneously, the Parents Committee in Jabal Mukaber, a neighborhood in southern Jerusalem with no schools teaching the Israeli curriculum, went on strike. In addition, hundreds of students in the neighborhood have yet to begin the school year. The strike was called in response to the municipality's intention to implement an Israeli curriculum in a new school in the neighborhood.

The committee also expressed concern about the lack of transportation for students in the neighborhood, as well as the poor condition of another nearby school. "If you saw this school, it looks like a prison, and every year the municipality says they will renovate it in the next year," but it has never been renovated so far.