Why Israel is interfering in Palestinian education

What the report says

Al Jazeera’s Ehab Jabareen argues that Israeli authorities are expanding their influence over Palestinian education in occupied East Jerusalem and beyond, with the school year starting under new pressure on textbooks and staffing. The article says about 45,000 Palestinian children in East Jerusalem are now studying an Israeli-produced curriculum, while Christian schools opened with a strike after many teachers from the occupied West Bank were denied permits to enter the city.

The piece frames this as part of a wider effort to reshape Palestinian identity through schooling. It says Israeli-edited textbooks have been shown in studies to remove or alter references to Palestinian national symbols, sovereignty, history and the occupation. The author contends that Israel justifies the changes as a response to alleged hate in Palestinian materials, but cites research, including a study involving Palestinian and Israeli scholars, saying Palestinian textbooks do not promote hatred of Israelis.

Jabareen also places the issue in the broader context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He says the dispute is not only about curriculum content but about control over land, movement, institutions and historical narrative. The article notes that scrutiny is often lighter on Israeli schoolbooks, citing academic work that describes ethnocentric framing and limited space for Palestinian narratives in Israeli curricula. This makes education another arena in the struggle over national identity and legitimacy in the occupied territories.