High school education within conflict and war zones, as studies confirm, is deeply political. These formative school years are critical for how students decipher their values as they begin to develop a coherent sense of self. What is taught in school curriculums and the methods of instruction shape students’ sense of identity, belonging, and collective historical memory.1

As different examples from across the world show, high school history instruction can have significant impacts on students’ developing political viewpoints. Curriculums that use textbooks that regurgitate and glorify national narratives often entrench hostility toward demonized others.2 In the context of occupied East Jerusalem, school curriculums are deeply politicized; they are ideological battlegrounds seeking dominance and control (see Education).

For decades, Israeli officials have claimed that Palestinian textbooks incite students against Israel and the Zionist narrative. However, experts in the field state that these allegations have been grossly distorted and overstated, with studies finding no evidence that the Palestinian curriculum encourages violence or war.3 More often than not, these studies emphasize that Israeli claims to Palestinian incitement are based on the mere presentation of symbols of Palestinian history and identity, including the display of the pre-1947 map of Palestine, or the mention of the Arab names of villages and what became of them. Even if historically accurate, such representations are forbidden and criminalized under Zionist policy.4

On the other hand, education experts have shown how Israeli textbooks themselves aim to erase or delegitimize Palestinian presence, reduce Arabs to threatening and biased stereotypes, and embed a systematic “othering” within the educational pedagogy of a military state.5 

Professor Maram Masarwi, distinguished lecturer, researcher, and dean of the Faculty of Education at al-Qasemi Academic College of Education in Haifa, explores this subject in her extensive research and publications.

In her book Creeping Israelization: Education in East Jerusalem (1967–2022),6 Masarwi explains that, since its takeover of East Jerusalem on June 7, 1967, Israel has seized all public schools and proceeded to systematically erase the city’s indigenous Palestinian identity by manipulating cultural heritage, distorting history, discounting the Arabic language, and undermining people’s national awareness. These policies of Israelizing Jerusalem by suppressing its Palestinian identity, as she describes, include confiscating properties, renaming streets, enforcing the Hebrew language, altering textbooks, and imposing Israeli curriculums on all high schools in the city.

A major transformation, Masarwi explains, came in 2018 with Government Decision No. 3790, a five-year Israeli government plan that largely targeted the Palestinian education system in East Jerusalem. Through this plan, officially known as the plan for the “Reduction of Socio-economic Gaps and Economic Development in East Jerusalem,” almost 89 percent of schools in East Jerusalem today adhere to the Israeli curriculum, a considerable jump from just a little over a couple of years ago, when it was about 51 percent.7

Masarwi shows that, between 2018 and 2022, the Israeli government spent around NIS 2.8 billion to execute Government Decision 3790. In order to ensure the provisional implementation of the Israeli curriculum in all schools in the city, it threatened to otherwise withdraw licenses and funding from recalcitrant schools. As Masarwi describes, the aim of the plan was “to connect cities, impose the Hebrew language, Judaize Arab neighborhoods, confiscate properties and institutions that have an Arab nature, and transform all into Israelized entities . . . thereby fully erasing its [the city’s] Arab features.”8

The schools of Jerusalem were affected in different ways, Masarwi explains, depending on the authority under which they fell. As a starting point, it’s important to clarify that the educational system in Jerusalem is an odd patchwork of conflicting authorities, due to the political history of the city and the central place of education in the Palestinian community’s resistance to occupation in its initial phases (see Education). Figure 1 summarizes this situation at a high level.

For example, Israeli municipal schools supervised by the Israeli Ministry of Education with a Hebrew-centered education were hardly impacted by this decision. However, Islamic waqf schools, private schools, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools, which affirm the Arabic language as well as Palestinian culture and identity, were placed under intense scrutiny and pressure to integrate the Israeli curriculum. As part of this crackdown on Palestinian schools, six UNRWA schools were recently shut down altogether by the Israeli police—an illegal closure under international law (see Israel Closes All UNRWA Schools in East Jerusalem).

Masarwi points out that the very act of imposing the Israeli curriculum on East Jerusalem schools violates the terms of the Oslo Accords, which determined that Palestinian schools in East Jerusalem would follow Palestinian curriculums—a right afforded to residents of an occupied city by international law, Masarwi clarifies. As of 2018, however, Israel imposed its curriculum with the intention to Israelize Palestinian education and erode Palestinian national identity and cultural heritage.

Masarwi considers the five-year plan (which was subsequently followed up with a second plan, Government Decision 880) as more than an educational objective. In the context of Israel’s broader goals for Jerusalem, she sees it as a security goal involving the Israeli Jerusalem Municipality, the Ministry of Transport, the police and intelligence services, and the Prime Minister’s Office, among others. In essence, she confirms, the curriculums distort—if not altogether deny—Palestinian history, ultimately developing a consciousness of exclusion within sites of surveillance and control.

Indeed, over the course of the last few years, and especially since Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza, Israeli forces have been increasingly subjecting students to random and invasive searches, including of their school bookbags.9 This terrifying climate of censorship and daily violations, Masawri explains, is not merely an administrative decision but rather, a policy to forcibly control and dominate the Palestinian people and their narrative. “The Israelization of education in East Jerusalem,” she argues, aims to “engineer the Palestinian student’s personality.”

“Unlike any other city,” Masarwi stresses, “Jerusalem is under the full control of the Jerusalem Municipality and Israel’s Ministry of Education.” This exceptional situation reflects the complex political structure of Jerusalem.

The precarious legal status of Palestinians in Jerusalem (see The Uniquely Impermanent Resident Status Israel Gives Palestinians in Jerusalem) creates specific challenges for the entire population. Much like every other aspect of life, education in Jerusalem is largely influenced by the inconclusive legal status of its Palestinian residents, hundreds of thousands of whom “find themselves political orphans . . . stuck in political limbo.”10

Masarwi argues that Israeli educational policies in Jerusalem reflect institutional bias that marginalizes and disenfranchises Palestinian Arab communities, thereby exhibiting structural discrimination and inequality. From her viewpoint, these policies are violent in nature, for they use an aggressive and coercive approach marked by intrusive surveillance, administrative pressure, heavy monitoring, intimidation, distortion of information, and delegitimization tactics to discredit Palestinian educators and institutions, breed fear and mistrust, and undermine educational autonomy.

It is no surprise, Masarwi elaborates, that there is a high dropout rate of more than 50 percent of students in East Jerusalem, not to mention the massive unemployment rate of the non-Jewish population in Jerusalem. Added to the social, economic, and political pressures of life under occupation, the education system that is geared toward discrediting educational qualifications earned at Arab institutions and invalidating non-Israeli degrees leaves Palestinians in Jerusalem deprived of agency and autonomy in their city. As Masarwi describes it, East Jerusalemites find themselves trapped and constrained, cornered with no way out, and forced to choose from unacceptable options on how to eke out enough to buy a crumb of bread.

Masarwi mentions that some of the amendments made to the curriculums could have a positive impact on the students. For example, the subjects of science and mathematics had relied on rote learning under the Palestinian Authority (PA), while the Israeli-administered curriculum focuses more on conceptualizing than memorizing, and this is advantageous for students.

Other important subjects, however, namely, history, Arabic, and civics, were modified in ways that directly aimed to erase the sense of agency of Palestinians. Although the ostensible premise was to remove so-called hateful or inciteful messaging, any signs or symbols of Palestinian identity itself are treated as hateful and inciteful acts. Examples of this include removing symbols of sovereignty, like the Palestinian flag; distorting facts through changing or omitting the map and names of Palestinian streets and cities (and replacing them with Hebrew ones); as well as forbidding mentions of Palestinian detainees.11

The Zionist narrative and slogans are thus forced upon the students and educators alike. Most importantly, the involvement of the Shin Bet in surveilling Palestinian schools violates Israeli law and constitutional rights, fostering a climate of fear and oppression that treats Palestinian students and educators as security threats rather than participants in a protected educational system.12 

As a result, many students, teachers, professors, and reputable academic institutions are forced to wage legal battles in Israeli courts to preserve recognition of their certifications and to not be shut down.13

The education of Palestinians in Jerusalem has become a critical subject in light of recent Israeli Knesset decisions:

• In early July 2025, the education committee approved for final reading a bill that would prevent the employment of teachers who obtained degrees from academic institutions and universities under the jurisdiction of the PA.14 
• In its second and third readings, the Knesset approved the draft law prohibiting the employment of teachers who studied at Palestinian universities, despite it being harmful for the education system and a limitation for the employment for Arab youth, which Israel ostensibly wishes to avoid.15

Raya, an education expert in East Jerusalem,16 shared that this decision is detrimental to East Jerusalemites in particular, where over 60 percent of graduates receive their degrees from Palestinian institutions. “This directly harms 10 Palestinian universities,” she says, including Birzeit University—the oldest Palestinian higher education institution that began as a small college in 1942 and became a fully recognized university in 1975—and Bethlehem University, the first university established in the West Bank in 1973 at the request of the Vatican. Most Palestinian Jerusalemites have been pursuing their higher education at Bethlehem University since the early 1970s.

“Such decisions have an immediate effect on high schools in Jerusalem,” Raya explains, for they push them to opt for the Hebrew Bagrut (Israel’s high school matriculation examination) and disengage from the Arabic Tawjihi (the Jordanian equivalent), thus eroding traces of Palestinian identity and sense of belonging within educational institutions. “They also directly influence the higher education of Palestinian Jerusalemites,” Raya adds. She continues:

The consequences of war on Palestinian Jerusalemite students also cannot be underestimated. As of October 2023, Israel implemented a state of emergency, which conferred upon the state the authority to suspend, expel, or arrest Palestinians, including students, for sharing opinions that may be perceived as defiant of state authority.17 This atmosphere ultimately generates a repressive academic environment fostering self-censorship, discouraging students from authentically expressing their identities or viewpoints due to a pervasive fear of punitive consequences.

As well, several new laws passed in the past year have severely curtailed freedom of expression.18 This is in addition to long-standing barriers to Palestinian students, such as limited access to counseling and guidance, insufficient preparatory support for studying in Hebrew, steep costs for education, and restricted admission to certain fields of study.19

Masarwi argues that the Israeli threats to withdraw recognition and licenses from Palestinian high schools that do not adhere to the Israeli curriculum largely worked. A major reason is due to the extreme shortage from which Palestinian-run schools suffer in terms of providing students with basic school facilities, including bathrooms, water tanks, ventilation systems, playgrounds, laboratories, and even classrooms.

“There is a need for 800 new classes each year! Over 10,000 students do not receive full services,” Masarwi explains. Teacher salaries would also be gravely affected, bearing in mind that teachers’ salaries in the West Bank are two to three times lower than those in comparable positions in Jerusalem.

Notwithstanding these harsh realities of operating Palestinian schools in Jerusalem, Masarwi finds that Palestinian collective consciousness continues to prove impervious to Israeli suppression and erasure. She argues that this is due to Israel’s discriminatory policies and brutal treatment of Palestinians: the systematic state-sanctioned abuse of Palestinians has worked against its own goal of fostering assimilation and instead has deepened and stiffened resistance.

Israel’s zero tolerance toward anything Palestinian has backfired, Masarwi stresses, leaving an indelible cognitive and emotional imprint on Palestinian students that they and their city are Palestinian, regardless of what they are forced to learn or disallowed from learning in high schools. As Masarwi describes it, what happens in the streets has an impact that far exceeds the school curriculums, and the streets are now full of violent armed Israelis who regularly threaten and attack Palestinians.