Apartheid

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on the other hand, aid from the EU and from Arab charities is still keeping several private
schools for Palestinians above water. A petition to the Israeli High Court of Justice on July 2,
2001, however, demanded that Palestinian children be given equal access to state schools. 534
The structural ethnicism in Israeli schools can be found spread out over the country as
well. Almost every school for Palestinian children in Israel ‘proper’ is underfunded,
underresourced, overcrowded and understaffed. Children with Arabic as a mother language
make up a quarter of Israel’s schoolchildren. Their schools have 20 per cent more pupils per
class as well as fewer teachers, with fewer qualifications and lower salaries. Their schools
have less or no computers, libraries, science labs and recreation space. Not surprisingly, dropout
rates at Palestinian schools in Israel are much higher than in schools for Jewish children.
Especially Palestinian children with special needs are ignored, whereas Jewish children with
the same special needs receive ample support from the state of Israel. Several subsequent
Israeli governments have acknowledged the gaps, promised to do something to improve the
situation but failed dismally to deliver on those promises. 535
The raids and massacres perpetrated by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank in the spring
of 2002 were accompanied by successful efforts to destroy Palestinian education
infrastructure, higher education, science, and culture in a wider sense within the ‘autonomous
Palestinian areas’, as Edward Said points out:
It is significant of how Sharon’s intention went far beyond ‘rooting
out terror’ that his soldiers destroyed every computer and then carried
off the files and hard drives from the Central Bureau of Statistics, the
Ministry of Education, of Finance, of Health, cultural centres,
vandalising offices and libraries, all as a way of reducing Palestinian
collective life to a pre-modern level. 536
The violence and damage wrought by Israeli armed forces had now indeed reached
new heights, as the Palestinian minister for higher education stated in 2002. During the first
23 months of the Second Intifada, moreover, 239 Palestinian school pupils were killed by the
Israelis and more than 2,500 were injured. 166 students and 75 teachers had thus far also been
arrested during the revolt. Additionally, many schools had been taken over by Israeli troops,
many were shelled and many vandalized by them. 537 During the numerous curfews, many of
the one million school-age children in the West Bank and Gaza did not receive any education,
and those who did were often dependent on untrained volunteer teachers, such as unemployed
parents and pensioners. They also widely lacked proper facilities, classrooms, pens, paper,
schoolbooks, etc. 538
In October 2002, Pierre Popard, the United Nations International Children’s
Emergency Fund. (UNICEF) Special Representative in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, stated:
‘A generation of Palestinian children is being denied their right to an education.’ He said that
more than 226,000 children and over 9,300 teachers were unable to reach their formal
classrooms and at least 580 schools had been closed due to Israeli army curfews and closures.
Israeli officials had no immediate comment when asked by journalists about their
534
Carney: Arabs in East Jerusalem Demand Access to Education, 2001. According to McGreal, February 6,
2006, the Israeli education ministry does not release figures on how much it spends on Jewish students and how
little on Arab students, but a 1992 government report revealed that the average Jewish student received nearly
twice as much as the average Arab student at that time.
535
Gordon, N.: Apartheid in Israel’s Schools, 2002: 32
536
Said, October 10, 2002 (see footnote 156)
537
Ass’adi: Back-to-School Means Hard Lessons for Palestinians, 2002
538
Ass’adi: Under Curfew, Palestinians Go to Makeshift Schools, 2002; Giacaman & Abdullah: Schooling At
Gunpoint: Palestinian Children’s Learning, 2002