The Arab League has warned against Israeli attempts to Judaize Palestinian education curricula.
It stressed on Sunday the need to provide Arab support for Palestine’s educational process.
“The Israeli occupation government's attempt to ban teaching the Palestinian curriculum in Jerusalem constitutes new violations of the Palestinian people’s rights and international conventions and treaties, especially the Fourth Geneva Convention and its texts on the educational situation in the occupied country,” said Arab League Assistant Secretary General for Palestine and Occupied Arab lands Said Abu Ali.
“According to international treaties, the occupying state shall provide students with the appropriate educational environment without interrupting the course of the educational process or preventing its continuation,” Abu Ali added.
His comments were made during the opening of the five-day 100th session of the Committee of Educational Programs for Palestinian Students in the Occupied Territories, which is currently taking place at the League’s headquarters in Cairo.
He pointed to the various challenges facing education in Palestine, noting that this sector has always been a target for the occupation power’s destructive policies.
Abu Ali also highlighted the obstacles put by Israel along with its practices against the educational process and schools, especially in the so-called area (C), the Jordan Valley, the Old City of Hebron and Jerusalem’s Old City.
The Israeli occupation also targets educational institutions in the Gaza Strip, Abu Ali said, adding that it continues to destroy them and hinder the arrival of reconstruction materials.
“It impedes the arrival of textbooks to students in the Strip and deny them access to universities in the occupied West Bank in light of the tight Israeli siege for the 12th consecutive year.”
In addition to that, Abu Ali said, occupation authorities distort the Palestinian curricula by deleting all texts that bear the meaning of defending the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause as well as national poems and figures, lessons on the history of Palestine and all what is related to Palestinian identity.
He called on the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) to examine and uncover such practices and demand their elimination in line with the international efforts to combat racism and racial discrimination.
The Palestinian Authority is ready to cooperate with an impartial international committee to evaluate the educational curricula, he stressed.
"It wants to prove its keenness to promote just peace, respect the Palestinian people’s civilized history, identity and national rights as well as the Palestinian leadership’s position in renouncing violence, terrorism and hatred," Abu Ali explained.
