ISRAELI occupation forces on Tuesday and Monday night detained at least 14 Palestinians from various parts of the occupied territories, six of them from East Jerusalem.
Local Palestinian sources report that the Israeli occupation forces barged into the Jerusalem neighbourhood of al-Tur and seized six Palestinians.
Israeli forces also arrested two former prisoners after storming their family homes in Biddu town, along with one from al-Qubeiba village and another from Beit Duqqu village, all northwest of Jerusalem.
In Bethlehem district, the sources confirmed a raid in Ashawawra village, northeast of the West Bank city, where another Palestinian was detained.
And in Ramallah district, a convoy of army vehicles stormed Beit Rima village, which is northwest of the city, forcibly entered and searched a house, and seized one person.
Soldiers manning a flying checkpoint at the northern entrance of Birzeit town, north of Ramallah, stopped vehicles on their way out of the town, checked passengers’ ID cards and eventually detained one identified as a resident of Qalqiliya city.
They also briefly held an anti-occupation activist from Deir Nidham for several hours at the checkpoint and assaulted him.
On Monday night, soldiers manning the permanently staffed checkpoint adjacent to the Jabal al-Rahma neighbourhood in Hebron, stopped and detained one person.
Meanwhile on Monday, some 150 Palestinian schools in occupied East Jerusalem closed their doors to protest against attempts by the Israeli occupation government to impose the Israeli curriculum, or parts of it, as an alternative to the Palestinian curriculum in what educators and parents fear is an attempt to distort and obliterate what their children learn about their history, society and political narrative.
About 100,000 students refused to attend their schools in compliance with the strike, a warning step after the Israeli government began taking punitive measures against schools to force them to drop the Palestinian narrative from the curricula they teach and to include the Israeli narrative only.
This is seen by many as a distortion of facts and realities, and an attempt to brainwash the young students in favour of the Israeli occupier’s story.
Parents’ committees organised two protests at Beit Hanina’s al-Eman school and in Silwan school in rejection of the Israeli attempt to distort the Palestinian curriculum and impose the Israeli one in Jerusalem schools.
‘No to Israelisation of education,’ said one of the signs held by the protesters. ‘We will not accept the Israeli curriculum’, ‘We have the right to choose our children’s books’, ‘Yes to the Palestinian curriculum’ and, ‘No to the distorted curriculum’ were some of the signs raised in the protests.
The head of the Union of Parents of Jerusalem Schools Students, Ziad Shamali, told Palestine news agency WAFA that ‘the official and popular position in Jerusalem is to refuse to teach the Israeli curriculum, or the distorted curriculum, to our students.’
He added: ‘The message of the protests and the strike is clear: insistence on teaching the Palestinian curriculum in Jerusalem.
‘This is a right guaranteed by international law.’
Speaking on behalf of the Palestinian Teachers Union in Jerusalem, Ahmad Safadi told WAFA: ‘The Jerusalem schools’ strike is a clear message that says: “No to the continuous assault on Palestinian awareness and identity”.’
He said that the general national position is not to teach the distorted and deformed curriculum that the occupation authorities are trying to impose on Jerusalem schools.
‘The distorted curriculum is dangerous. It deletes all Palestinian symbols, such as the Palestinian flag, and distorts facts, such as using the name “Temple Mount” as a substitute for the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the celebration of Israel’s so-called Independence Day as an alternative to activities to commemorate the Palestinian Nakba (1948 catastrophe).
‘This is intended to poison the Palestinians’ minds,’ said Safadi.
‘The occupation authorities are waging a relentless war against Palestinian education in Jerusalem, a war focused on identity and narrative, not only by imposing the distorted curriculum, but they also use other tools, such as preventing the restoration of Jerusalem schools or opening new Palestinian schools, or even adding classes to existing schools,’ he added.
Israel has not stopped attempts to Israelise education in East Jerusalem, as part of its narrative war.
Ahed al-Risheq, a member of the Fatah movement in Jerusalem, told WAFA on Monday that for years, the West Jerusalem Israeli municipality has been fighting education in the occupied part of the city in all sorts of ways in an effort to impose the Israeli curriculum.
‘Today’s strike is a warning, and if the occupation does not go back on the imposition of the distorted curriculum, there will be several other strikes until there is an open-ended general strike in all the schools.’
Member of the Student Parents Committee in Isawiyya neighbourhood, Mohammad Abu al-Hummus, told WAFA: ‘This strike is a step in the right direction in order to protect our students in a battle targeting their awareness.’
Iyad Bashir, member of the Parents Committee of Jabal al-Mukabber schools, stressed to WAFA his rejection of the Israeli curriculum. ‘We will not accept a curriculum that distorts the Palestinian narrative and history,’ he said.
‘It is a poison that the occupation wants to introduce into the minds of our children.’
Among the latest decisions targeting the Palestinian curriculum in Jerusalem was that of the so-called Israeli Ministry of Education, last July, to revoke the licences of six schools in the occupied city and to grant them just a temporary licence for one year under the pretext they were teaching ‘incitement in school books’.
Other schools were also warned their licenses would be revoked if they were found to be using specific Palestinian textbooks containing what the Israeli Ministry called ‘inciting materials’.
The attempt to Israelise the educational curriculum in the schools of occupied Jerusalem is not new.
It started with the occupation of the rest of the city in 1967, which was then met with a Palestinian rejection and resistance that lasted for years, eventually forcing the occupation authorities to reverse this step in the 1974-1975 school year and allow the Jordanian curriculum to continue to be taught in Jerusalem schools – since Jordan was ruling the West Bank before its occupation in 1967.
However, the occupation authorities did not close this file, and over the following years kept their eyes on the textbooks introduced by the Palestinian Authority, which assumed rule in parts of the West Bank and Gaza in 1994 following the signing of the Oslo Accords.
These textbooks were also used in Palestinian schools and by students in Jerusalem. Thus began a new round in this battle at the beginning of the millennium under the title ‘censorship of the Palestinian curriculum’.
- Palestinian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, Riyad Malki, met with his Polish, Belgian, Slovenian, and Venezuelan counterparts on the sidelines of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly meetings in New York on Tuesday, where he discussed the latest political developments, including the ongoing Israeli measures and its persistent violation of the rights of the Palestinian people in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Malki urged the Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau, the Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib, and Slovenian Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon to work through the European Union to take steps toward recognising the state of Palestine and support its bid to gain full membership in the United Nations.
The ministers affirmed their countries’ continued support for the state of Palestine and the two-state solution.
The Belgian minister stressed that it was only a matter of time before Belgium recognises the state of Palestine, and expressed her country’s readiness to help revive the peace process.
She further condemned the illegal and racist Israeli policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly its settlement activities, in which Belgium has been at the forefront of countries to label products manufactured in the illegal Israeli settlements.
She also denounced the Israeli occupation’s repressive policies against Palestinian civil society organisations.
For her part, Slovenia’s foreign minister affirmed her country’s support for Palestinian efforts to gain full state membership of the UN and stressed the need for friendly states to support these efforts.
- A committee representing the Palestinian cinematic sector workers on Tuesday nominated the Palestinian film ‘Mediterranean Fever’ for the Oscar race.
The committee, mandated by the Ministry of Culture, selected the film as the country’s official entry for the 95th edition of the Oscar award ceremony which is scheduled for 12th of March 2023 in Los Angeles.
Palestine has submitted 15 entries for Best Foreign Language Film since 2003.
In an interview with the Variety news website, Palestinian director Maha Haj revealed that ‘Mediterranean Fever’ tackles the dynamics of male friendship and the strain of living under occupation.
The subtly tender film follows family man Waleed, whose chronic depression hinders his dreams of a writing career and leads him into the path of neighbour and petty criminal Jalal, where tragedy awaits.
‘Mediterranean Fever’ is a co-production between Palestine, Germany, France, Cyprus and Qatar, with sales handled by Luxbox.
She said that the idea came to her five years ago, and ‘it is partly about the frustration that we Palestinians live with daily, whether we’re in Gaza, the West Bank, inside the state of Israel or exiled.
‘It’s the sense of being imprisoned and not knowing when you’re going to be free, if you’re going to be free.’
Commenting on the film’s setting, the city of Haifa, Haj explained that she is not representing Haifa as a site of coexistence between Jews and Arabs (Palestinians), but as ‘the historic Haifa that was occupied in 1948, when so many neighbourhoods were left neglected, like ghost towns, and the people who lived there were forced to leave. This is the Haifa that I wanted to show.’