Israel has made several attempts over the years to impose its curriculum on Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem. It has recently been trying again. Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem are now being asked to adopt Israeli curriculum if they want extra resources. It is a funding proposal that would only benefit schools that drop the Palestinian curriculum in favor of an Israeli equivalent. The offer is enticing. The Jerusalem affairs and heritage minister is set to give $5.3 million to schools in East Jerusalem on the condition that they teach the Israeli curriculum. East Jerusalem schools could certainly use the money. There is a serious shortage of classrooms in East Jerusalem schools, while some of the buildings rented by the municipality to be used as schools are crowded and unfit. For 2016, Arab schools received $2.1 million for renovations compared to $11.1 million allocated for national schools. If the Arab schools want more of that money, the Israeli Education Ministry has the answer. Its plan offers extra resources for teaching and other services such as counseling and recreation to schools that offer the Israeli curriculum in full or in part. The extra funding will entitle Palestinian schools that switch to the Israeli curriculum to more classroom hours as well as music and art classes, teacher training and student counseling services, most of which are currently lacking in East Jerusalem's Palestinian schools. The vast majority of schools in occupied East Jerusalem, where almost all the city's Palestinian residents live, follow the Palestinian curriculum. Israel cannot condition the allocation of its education budget by imposing the Israeli curriculum on Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem. This is an occupied area, and based on international law, the local population has the right to maintain its regular way of life without interference from the occupying power. Israel is required under international treaties it has signed to provide a public education that respects the occupied population's heritage, identity and culture. It is often claimed that Palestinians teach their children to hate Israelis, that Palestinian schoolbooks teach anti-Semitism, while Israelis teach love thy neighbor. But Palestinians, including Palestinian citizens of Israel, are mentioned in Israeli textbooks in an overwhelmingly negative, demeaning light. The books represent Palestinians in racist images such as terrorists, refugees and primitive farmers. The books present Israeli-Jewish culture as superior to Arab-Palestinian and Israeli-Jewish concepts of progress as superior to the Palestinian-Arab way of life. Palestinians are often referred to as "the Palestinian problem". None of the textbooks include any positive cultural or social aspect of Palestinian life — neither their literature or poetry, history or agriculture, art or architecture, customs or traditions. The Israeli version of events is always stated as objective facts, while the Palestinian-Arab versions begin with "According to the Arab version..." This is part of intensified efforts by Israel to disconnect East Jerusalem from the neighboring West Bank and entrench its control over the 300,000 Palestinians in the city. An Israeli curriculum, Israel hopes, will reduce nationalist sentiment following the months of angry Palestinian protests that focused on Jerusalem and which were at one time dubbed the third intifada. Israeli schoolchildren are brainwashed by the state into hatred and contempt of Palestinians and Arabs, just in time before they enter the army as young conscripts. Palestinian schools might have little choice but to submit to the Israeli scheme if they do not want to face further budget cuts in an East Jerusalem education system already chronically underfunded by Israel. Palestinian pupils will be presented with a curriculum that denies their history and identity, and places a strong emphasis on Israel's official position that all of Jerusalem is its "eternal, unified capital" when peace efforts have long been premised on Israel ending its occupation of East Jerusalem and recognizing the city as the capital of a future Palestinian state. Israel believes it can change the next Palestinian generation's mentality in the classroom. Through blackmail, it is on its way.
