Inside the Battle Over Palestinian Education and Curricula in East Jerusalem

As the school year began in occupied East Jerusalem, 45,000 Palestinian children started studying a curriculum introduced by the Israeli authorities. This figure represents more than a third of the Palestinian students in the territory and nearly doubles the count from the previous year. Concurrently, Christian schools initiated a strike after numerous teachers living in the occupied West Bank were denied entry permits to the city.

For the Palestinian community in occupied East Jerusalem, this situation is viewed as another encroachment on national rights by occupation authorities. Conversely, Israel maintains that the intervention is justified because Palestinian textbooks produced by the Palestinian Ministry of Education and teachers trained in Palestinian Authority (PA) institutions allegedly promote hatred.

According to international humanitarian law, an occupying power is obligated to facilitate the normal functioning of educational institutions and refrain from interfering in their operations. Updated commentary by the International Committee of the Red Cross specifies that occupying powers must not substitute existing educational structures with their own or impose new curricula.

Despite these legal frameworks, Israeli interference extends beyond occupied East Jerusalem into the occupied West Bank and parts of the Gaza Strip. Successive Israeli governments have consistently pressured the United States and European governments to leverage aid in order to force the PA into revising its textbooks. In Gaza, the disruption of the educational infrastructure has similarly enabled NGOs backed by Western donors to implement curricula sanctioned by Israel.

Official Israeli claims that these curriculum adjustments are necessary to stop the promotion of hatred in schools face significant pushback. Academic research, including a study funded by the US Department of State and conducted jointly by Palestinian and Israeli scholars, concluded that Palestinian textbooks do not foster hatred or dehumanize Israelis.

Comparative studies analyzing Palestinian textbooks alongside Israeli-edited versions used in occupied East Jerusalem reveal that modifications involve the removal or alteration of national symbols, including the national flag, anthem, sovereignty, and history. A 2025 study on primary-school textbooks highlighted that changes included substituting "Palestine" with "Israel" in select contexts and eliminating discussions regarding the occupation.

Critics argue that Israel targets references to the occupation, Palestinian history, and self-determination not due to concerns over hatred, but because these topics foster Palestinian national consciousness. This dynamic explains why Palestinian resistance to curriculum changes in East Jerusalem extends beyond educational concerns, reflecting deeper fears regarding the acceptance of the Israeli annexation of Jerusalem and the erasure of Palestinian identity.

Conversely, analysts note a lack of Western scrutiny regarding what Israeli curriculums teach Israeli children. Research by Israeli philologist Nurit Peled-Elhanan for the book Palestine in Israeli School Books identified the presence of racist tropes and the omission of Palestinian perspectives in post-Oslo Israeli history and geography textbooks. Additional studies by Israeli scholar Yael Teff-Seker and academic Roy Weintraub similarly highlighted ethnocentric framing, predominant narratives of Jewish victimhood, and justifications for military actions during the 1948 War within Jewish Israeli school materials.

Ultimately, analysts argue that the conflict over education is fundamentally a struggle over power and authority. When one party controls land, movement, permits, budgets, and institutions, the classroom becomes an additional arena of political conflict.