Muslim students join Christians in protest at discriminatory education
Articles from JPost, Haaretz, Time magazine.
Palestinian children in Israeli schools have been protesting about discrimination since last spring. This photo at a Christian school in Jerusalem, May 2015. Photo by Emil Salman
Arab schools strike in solidarity with Christian schools protesting lack of funds
Archbishop George Bacouni: We want our rights, we want equality and we want what we deserve.
By Ariel Ben Solomon, Jeremy Sharon, JPost
September 06, 2015
Israeli Arab schools went on strike on Monday, joining with Christian- Arab schools that have been striking since September 1 in protest at education budget cuts for the Arab sector.
Jafar Farah, the director of Haifa’s Mossawa Centre – The Advocacy Centre for Arab Citizens in Israel, told The Jerusalem Post that around 90 percent of Arab schools went on strike in solidarity with Christian schools on Monday.
Farah claimed that the Education Ministry put pressure on mixed schools to open, but said that even Jewish-Arab schools resisted these efforts.
Christian schools account for a third of students in the overall Arab community, he said, adding that half of the pupils in Christian schools are Muslim.
He said that this solidarity from communities within Arab society demonstrates its overall strength.
“This is also a civil struggle that shows that education is becoming a high priority for the community,” Farah continued.
While the government likes to talk about how it protects the Christian community, this episode shows that “it is not doing so,” he argued.
MK Esawi Frej (Meretz) said on Monday that “20% of students in the country are sitting at home today instead of going to school because the Education Ministry closes its eyes in the face of demands from Arab schools in Israel.”
He added that it is “an emergency situation.”
“At this time, when the State of Israel seeks economic growth, it is fatally harming the schools from where most of the Arab academics come from,” he said. “This is discrimination and a total lack of equality on the part of the Education Ministry, ignoring the needs of Arab schools and the demands of parents.”
In response to the strike in the Arab sector, the Education Ministry insisted again that there had been no cuts to the Christian schools network in the current academic year or the year before it, and that “they are funded in an equal manner to other recognized but unofficial institutions in the State of Israel.”
The ministry said it was in a discussion with representatives of the Christian schools and that its proposals were “not coercive.”
The central administration of the 47 Christian schools in Israel pointed out, however, that the haredi (ultra-Orthodox) recognized but unofficial school networks Maayan Hinuch Torani and Hinuch Atzmai – of Shas and Agudat Yisrael respectively – receive 100% of the funding received by fully state-run schools.
Officials from the Christian schools claim that they are receiving in effect just 29% funding at present, which they say has led to a NIS 200 million shortfall for the new academic year.
According to Father Abdul Massih Fahim, director-general of the Christian schools network, the ministry’s claim that it is still providing the requisite 75% funding is technically correct, but only because the ministry has consistently reduced the standard number of allocated teaching hours in the sector from 1.1 hours per student in the 2003-04 school year to 0.66 hours per student for the current year.
Fahim said that the dialogue between the Christian schools and the Education Ministry had ceased in March of this year, and that the proposals made were to turn the schools’ status from recognized but unofficial to fully state run.
“This would mean the confiscation of the schools from the churches [that run them] physically and in terms of the educational content,” he said.
The other proposed solution was to categorize the Christian schools as “special schools,” in order to enable them to ask that parents pay higher fees of up to NIS 7,000 for each child per year, something that Fahim said was not reasonable.
More than 3,500 parents, teachers and schoolchildren from the Christian- Arab sector protested outside the Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday morning against the reduced funding that the Christian school networks have received in recent years.
The 47 Christian schools around the country, teaching 33,000 pupils, have not yet returned to school despite the academic year beginning last week, because of the cuts, officials in the Christian community said.
The schools in question are referred to as “recognized but unofficial,” meaning they are supposed to receive 75% of the funding provided to full state schools, and are obligated to teach 75% of the teaching hours taught by state schools.
Christian schools achieve some of the best results of all schools in Israel, with 69% of Christian pupils matriculating from high school compared to 61% in the Jewish sector and 50% in the Muslim sector, according to the Central Bureau for Statistics.
“The substance of our protest is justice, democracy and equality,” said Bishop Bulos Marcuzzo, [L] the auxiliary bishop and patriarchal vicar for Israel on Sunday. “We are not treated in the same way as similar schools. We deserve and have the right to be treated like all the other schools in Israel.
“How can you speak about democracy when 33,000 children can’t go to school. How can you speak about freedom and human rights when the best and oldest schools in Israel cannot operate properly because the Education Ministry doesn’t give us what we deserve?”
All Israeli Arab Pupils Strike Today in Support of Christian Schools
Islamic Movement MK: Church schools ‘among best in country.’
By Jack Khoury, Haaretz
September 07, 2015
Some 450,000 Israeli Arab students will stay home from school today as Arab schools have called a solidarity strike in support of the church schools. The country’s 47 Catholic schools have been on strike since the start of the school year last Tuesday to protest government budget cuts.
On Sunday thousands of people demonstrated opposite the Prime Minister’s Office to demand additional state funding for the church schools, where some 30,000 students, mainly Arabs, learn. The leaders of the Catholic Church in Israel attended the protest, as did both Christian and Muslim parents and students, Knesset members and Arab mayors.
The church schools fall into the category of “recognized but unofficial,” meaning they are not part of the state school system, but are accredited by the government and receive 75 percent of the funding given to regular state schools. The remainder comes from tuition payments that average 4,000 shekels ($1,000) a year, but can run higher at the most prestigious schools. Both Christians and Muslims attend these schools.
Despite the church schools’ ongoing protests, there has been no progress in their negotiations with the Education Ministry, said Father Abdel Messih, who heads the forum of Christian school principals. The ministry’s proposal that the schools join the state system is unacceptable, he added, because it means “expropriating the schools and their cultural and educational history and heritage, some of which goes back hundreds of years.”
MKs from the Joint List have spoken up for the Christian schools. Above, leader of the Joint List MK Ayman Odeh (centre) with MK Masud Gnaim (left), and MK Ahmad Tibi (right) in the Knesset, Jerusalem. Photo by Miriam Alster/Flash90
MK Ayman Odeh, chairman of the Joint Arab List, noted, “Almost a third of Arab university graduates and an absolute majority of Arab high-tech workers are graduates of the very schools that the government is now trying to paralyze. It’s impossible to talk about development and equal opportunity on one hand, but on the other hand harm the very schools that are succeeding in breaking the glass ceiling.”
MK Masud Ganaim, who represents the Islamic Movement in the Joint Arab List, said the church schools are “among the best in Arab society, and therefore their struggle is our struggle.”
Nazareth Mayor Ali Salem agreed. “This isn’t the schools’ private problem, but an issue for all of Arab society,” he said.
Other Arab mayors and the Arab school parents’ committees echoed this message, stressing that Christians and Muslims alike study at these schools.
All these remarks were in line with the main message the demonstration’s organizers sought to drive home: that funding the church schools is a gain for the country, not a loss.
The Catholic schools say the Education Ministry has been cutting their funding for the last six years, and especially the last two, while simultaneously limiting the amount of tuition they are allowed to charge. The combination, they say, shapes up as a “death blow.”
They also argue that they are being discriminated against in comparison with the two main ultra-Orthodox school systems – Hinuch Atzmai, affiliated with the United Torah Judaism party, and Ma’ayan Hahinuch Hatorani, affiliated with the Shas party. Those school systems are not part of the state system, either, and generally refuse to teach core curriculum subjects like English and math to boot. Yet they receive 100 percent of the funding given regular state schools.
The church schools are demanding state funding of 200 million shekels a year, so that they can cease charging tuition altogether. So far, however, the Education Ministry has offered them only 20 million shekels.
Christian Schools Accuse Israel of Discrimination as Students Strike
Officials believe Israel is trying to take control of Christian schools by restricting funds
By Inna Lazareva / Jerusalem, Time magazine
September 16, 2015
Christian schools have accused the state of Israel of discrimination against them by threatening to cut their funds unless they agree to allow themselves to be controlled by the state.
Staff and 33,000 pupils have gone on strike in protest across Israel. Instead of greeting each other in the school yard, students, teachers and parents are setting up protest tents everywhere from Haifa to Jerusalem as part of a nationwide strike over crippling budget cuts that deal what many term a “death blow” to the future of Christian schools in Israel.
According to a 2011 census, Christians make up just over 2% of the population of Israel but Christian schools also cater for some Muslims and Druze, who make up 18% of the population. The Jewish majority are mostly educated in secular state schools but with a large minority attending ultra-orthodox Jewish schools. Christians are almost all Arabic speaking and their churches include protestant, catholic and orthodox.
The Israeli government see Christian schools as ‘recognised but unofficial’ and provided up to 75% of their funds, with the remainder acquired through tuition fees. But over the past few years, state funding has fallen to 29%, notes Father Abdul Massih Fahim, director general of the Christian schools network. Moreover, the state has imposed a cap on school fees.
“So on the one hand, we have 45% cuts over these years, and on the other, they are putting limitation to raise tuition fees”, says Botrus Mansour [L], the general director of Nazareth Baptist school.
Neither the prime minister nor the education minister have publicly commented on the strike. In response to a query by TIME, the education ministry said that it is “in constant and continuous contact” with representatives of the Christian schools and that last week a meeting was held between them and representatives of the ministry. “The school officials rejected all proposals brought before them,” says Hagit Cohen, a spokeswoman for the ministry.
According to Mansour, the state suggested that the Christian schools assimilate into the state school system — a red line for the church which Mansour says threatens “our very mission as Christian schools.”
“We will lose our control, message and our identity,” he says, adding that under the proposed regulation, the state would be responsible for appointing teachers and principals, as well as choosing the students.
Christian school leaders, Israeli NGOs and politicians accuse the government of discrimination. “We believe it is outrageous how the Israeli establishment is behaving with our schools,” says Wadie Abu Nassar, Advisor to Catholic Bishops of the Holy Land. Several ultra-orthodox Jewish school networks are also classified as ‘recognised but unofficial’ but still receive full funding from the state, Nasser points out, although some do not teach even basic subjects such as maths and science. “There are networks for Jewish ultra-orthodox schools that the state does not dare to touch,” says Nassar. “This is a clear discrimination.”
Although Christians make up just over 2% of Israel’s population, their schools — attended by Muslims, Christians, Druze and even Jews — are among the best in the country.
Whereas most Arab students perform much worse than their Jewish counterparts, Arab students at Christian schools do far better. “Almost a third of Arab university graduates and an absolute majority of Arab high-tech workers are graduates of the very schools that the government is now trying to paralyse”, Ayman Odeh, the head of the Arab faction in the Israeli parliament, told the Israeli daily Haaretz. “It’s impossible to talk about development and equal opportunity on one hand, but on the other hand harm the very schools that are succeeding in breaking the glass ceiling.”
On Wednesday, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin hosted a delegation of European bishops who asked him about the strike. “I’m not so sure that they can get everything that they demand – but most of the things they demand,” Rivlin told a bishop from Prague following the press conference. “These are the best schools in Israel”.
As protests continue, the Christian leadership said it is considering shutting down key Christian sites around the country. On 7th September, 450,000 students from Israeli Arab schools across the country joined the strike in solidarity.
“These schools are not asking for a lot of money,” says Nassar. “We are asking for about 200 million NIS ($50 million) per year [for all 47 schools]”, adding that the state also saves money as the maintenance of the school buildings is provided by the churches.
So far, the Education Ministry has proposed a combined allocation of 20 million shekels ($5 million) for all 47 schools. “The state of Israel just reduced the taxation on beer by 46 percent,” says Nassar. “So come on! […] A state that respects itself behaves differently.”