Education
Page last updated 30 Oct 2015
Introduction
Education is a key issue within the Occupation where its policies act as a stranglehold on Palestinians’ capacity to obtain all levels of education. Checkpoints, segregated roads, Israeli army protection of settlers who harass and abuse Palestinians students on the way to school, and limited resources, all combine to undermine their fundamental human right to education.
Articles and Analysis
1. Impact of the Israeli Occupation on Palestinian Education
By Mai Abdul Rahman, Presented at the 18th Annual Conference of the Global Awareness Society International, May 2009
This paper examines the stifling impact of Israeli occupation and policies on educational access to elementary, secondary, and tertiary education of the Palestinian population in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
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2. Students Suffer as Israel Denies Palestinian Freedom of Movement and Education in the Occupied Territories
By James Elliot, Mondoweiss, Jan 2013
“Israel’s network of segregated roads and checkpoints as well as barriers to entry such as visa denials and the closure of the Gaza Strip represent gross violations of the right to education as enshrined in international law. The policy of targeting education amounts to a collective punishment of young Palestinians, negating their fundamental human rights, and ought to draw greater attention from academics and universities worldwide”.
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3. Young Palestinians Fight for Equal Right to Higher Education
Sawsan Khalife’, Electronic Intifada, JfJfP 26 Feb 2013
Israel and its institutions are heavily militarised, and they discriminate in favour of Jews. The result is that Israeli-Palestinians receive a poorer education from the start and, if they do get into university, face further obstacles by the entwinement of universities with the state priorities of militarisation and Zionist hasbara. Young Palestinians are challenging this – see the first of a series of reports by Academic Watch.
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4. Only for Palestinians: Blocks to Higher Education
Maysoon Zayid, Open Zion/Daily Beast, JfJfP 27 Jun 2013
Anyone would think Israeli and Palestinian authorities are afraid of the prospect of a large class of educated young Palestinians with high expectations. This is the aim of most modern societies – but it’s an impossible dream for many young Palestinians. Maysoon Zayid explains why.
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5. What Palestinians Need from Education
Faysal Mikdadi, London Progressive Journal, JfJfP 14 Aug 2013
Education needs to be more than a door out of poverty writes Faysal Mikdadi. “What we Palestinians need is an education that will equip us to live in a free and democratic Palestine.” We need critical and courageous thinkers with a schooling that is liberal and liberating.
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6. Education Under Occupation
Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), Aug 2010
This brief fact sheet highlights some of the key issues relating to the struggles for Palestinians to obtain an education: the policies put in place that are to blame for that struggle; resource limitations of Palestinian schools; and the harassment and abuse pupils face on their way to and from school.
Contents of this section
a) Maps of the occupation
b) Occupation and the Fourth Geneva Convention
Israel’s human rights violations – an introduction
Settlement building and land issues
Restrictions on movement
House demolitions, forced displacement, denial of residency rights
Justice
The Wall
The Green Line
Water
Health
Education
The economics of the occupation