Israel revokes licenses of six schools in East Jerusalem
Israel has canceled the permanent licenses of six Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem, alleging that their textbooks contain "incitement" against it and its army.
RAMALLAH, West Bank — Israeli Minister of Education Yifat Shasha-Biton revoked on July 28 the permanent operating licenses of six Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem, under the pretext that their curricula contain “dangerous incitement” against the Israeli government and army. The six schools will be granted a conditional one-year license to amend their curriculum or lose their license entirely.
The schools teaching the Palestinian curriculum and targeted by the decision are Ibrahimieh College and five schools run by the Al-Eman Schools organization. Together, the schools have around 2,000 male and female pupils.
On this matter, the Israeli Education Ministry said in a statement that the textbooks content of the targeted schools involves “the glorification of prisoners and their armed struggle against the State of Israel, conspiracy theories about withholding treatment from patients and intentional harm to medical staff, accusations of [Israel] being responsible for the water crisis in the Palestinian Authority (PA), and grave claims about killings, displacements and military massacres.”
The Israeli decision unleashed Palestinian condemnation. The Palestinian Ministry of Education held that revoking the licenses of six private schools in the city of East Jerusalem because they are teaching the Palestinian curriculum falls within the framework of the Israilization of education.
