Tearing the Social Fabric of East Jerusalem:
Israel’s Wall and Palestinian Education

Hind Khoury, Minister of State for Jerusalem Affairs, 26 October 2005

“We either abandon Jerusalem or my children abandon their schools and friends in Ramallah. That’s the choice we have.” - Jerusalemite residing in Ramallah

While criticism of Israel’s Wall in Occupied East Jerusalem has largely focused on the immediate effects of land confiscations, home demolitions and the isolation of Jerusalem from the rest of Occupied Palestinian Territory, the most devastating impact of the Wall’s construction is the tearing of East Jerusalem’s social fabric. Acting as a political border to consolidate Israel’s stranglehold over Jerusalem’s occupied sector, the Wall will sever the familial, commercial, religious, medical and educational links which allow East Jerusalem and its environs to function as an integrated and cohesive social and economic unit. This report addresses the Wall’s impact on East Jerusalem’s education sector and its contribution to the forced upheaval in the lives of an estimated million Palestinians in the area.

I. Background on East Jerusalem Educational Systems

A. Israeli Government Schools

There are currently 48 government schools[1] in Occupied East Jerusalem operating under the responsibility of the Jerusalem Municipality teaching a separate "Arab Educational System". During the 2002-2003 academic year, approximately 39,000 Palestinian students (approximately 61% of an estimated Palestinian student population of 64,000) attended these government schools. There is a severe shortage of Israeli government schools serving the Palestinian population. In 2001, an Israeli attorney sued the Municipality and the Israeli Ministry of Education on behalf of 915 Palestinian children denied access to the government school system. The Israeli High Court of Justice, recognizing the futility of ordering students into classrooms that simply did not exist, ordered the Municipality to build 245 classrooms within four years. By August 2005, only 13 new classrooms had been built, despite municipal budgeting for 47 new classrooms[2] (still well below the 245 classrooms that had been legally mandated). A new legal challenge is being prepared, charging the Jerusalem Municipality and the Israeli Ministry of Education with contempt of court. [3]

Israeli authorities blame East Jerusalemites for the lack of schools and classrooms, arguing that the Palestinians refuse to sell land to the government to build schools. Yet, despite the alleged lack of land for Palestinian schools, the Israeli government has found enough land to house more than 200,000 settlers illegally residing in Occupied East Jerusalem and settler children do not suffer from a lack of educational resources.

Non-Israeli Government School [4]

	Number of Schools	Number of Students	% of Total Student Population	Comment
Waqf Schools	28[5]	8,889	13.8%	Approximately 52% of teachers and 22% of students hold West Bank IDS. Operated in coordination with Palestinian Authority.
Private	34	12,819	20%	Estimated 20% of teachers and students hold West Bank IDs. Operated by private or religious organizations, including some operated independently by the Waqf (Muslim Endowment).
UNRWA	7	3,446	5.3%

Major West Bank Palestinian Universities Serving East Jerusalem

University	Estimated Percentage of Total Student Population	Estimated Number of Faculty Who Must Cross Checkpoints	Estimated Percentage of Total Full-Time Faculty Population
Bethlehem	27%	40	17.5%
Bir Zeit	7.1%	85	25%
Al Quds-all campuses	40%[6]	Being Researched	Being Researched

II. Wall Impact on Education Sector

Israel’s Wall, deemed illegal by the International Court of Justice in July 2004, is intended to act as a political border dividing Jerusalem from the rest of Occupied Palestinian Territory. The Wall will separate 55,000 Palestinian Jerusalemites (who presently live within Israel’s declared municipal border) from the heart of the city, severing them from critical services, including education. An additional estimated 60,000 Palestinian Jerusalem residents reside beyond the Wall outside Israel’s declared municipal borders. The impacts on education include:

A. Migration Into Jerusalem

Jerusalem ID holders located beyond the Wall risk having their Jerusalem residency revoked for lack of "adequate links" to the city. Due to the impending threat, Palestinian families have been forced to uproot and relocate to Jerusalem within the Wall in order to safeguard their Jerusalem residency. The influx, which is expected to bring thousands of new students, will add further pressure on East Jerusalem schools, including the Israeli municipal school system, which has already exhibited hostile neglect of the non-Jewish student population.

Denial of Free Access to Education

The Wall blocks free access to schools on both sides of the Wall. While Israel argues that students and teachers will still be able to pass through checkpoints, the impracticality and added burdens of traversing checkpoints will eventually cause Palestinians to seek alternatives to crossing the Wall, ultimately playing into the Israeli strategy of dividing populations and destroying the area as an integrated whole. Crossing checkpoints entail:

• Daily commutes of unpredictable duration: student/teacher commutes normally only a few minutes long can extend without warning to waiting for hours at a checkpoint or having IDs checked in public transport, making it impossible to be sure of arriving to school on time or having a teacher present upon arrival;
• Increased gasoline costs for longer commutes: at the New Generation School in Abu Dis for example, students living a few hundred yards away within the Wall are now required to travel 23 kilometers around the Wall; and
• Increased transportation costs between checkpoints: a student living in Ramallah studying in Jerusalem will first take transport to Qalandia checkpoint, a second transport between Qalandia checkpoint and Ram checkpoint, and a third transport from Ram checkpoint to school.

Israeli Refusal to Grant Teacher Permits

Teachers holding West Bank ID cards require permits to access their jobs in Occupied East Jerusalem. In July 2005, permits were sought from Israeli authorities by the Palestinian Authority on behalf of approximately 375 teachers (including approximately 52% of all teachers in Waqf schools). Despite international pressure, Israel has repeatedly delayed the issuance of the permits under the pretext of needing more information (even demanding a complete list of the subjects taught by each teacher). Weeks after the beginning of the academic year, permits have still not been issued. While Israel continues to claim that it is "working on the matter", the message to teachers is clear – there is no guarantee of regularly accessing jobs in East Jerusalem schools and the ability to earn an income is more secure on the "other" side of the Wall. Consequently, Israel will succeed in effectively removing these teachers from Jerusalem while arguing that permits were never officially denied.

Statistics on the Tearing of the Social Fabric in the Education Sector

• In the north of Jerusalem, nearly 2,000 Jerusalemites cross the Wall every day to access schools in Ram and Dahiyet Al-Bareed, while approximately 6,500 Jerusalemites living in the north beyond the Wall cross the Wall every day to access schools in the heart of the city. [7]
• The Industrial Secondary School in Atarot, within the Wall, has experienced a decline in student enrollment from 350 during the 2002-2003 academic year to only 150 students currently enrolled for the 2005-2006 academic year (of which 120, or 80%, are from the West Bank). 44 out of 54 teachers (or 81%) are from the West Bank and the school is now facing legal action for employing West Bank staff.
• More than 8,500 individuals over the age of ten reported crossing the Wall on a daily basis for educational purposes.[8]
• The New Generation School in Abu Dis (just beyond the Wall) reports losing 77 students (out of 230) over the course of the 2004-2005 academic year due to (i) restricted access to the school and (ii) the Wall’s adverse economic impact which made tuition prohibitive.
• Three major West Bank Universities serving Jerusalem students (Bethlehem University, Al Quds University and Bir Zeit University) report steep declines in the number of Jerusalem students since the commencement of the Wall’s construction.

III. The Legal Right to Education

Israel's Wall and education policies violate:

• Israel's own Compulsory Education Law which requires the government to provide free and compulsory education for every child between the ages of 5 and 15, regardless of whether a child has been registered in the Ministry of Interior's Population Registry or even if the child's parents are illegal residents.
• Article 50 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which requires Israel as the Occupying Power to "facilitate the proper working of all institutions devoted to the care and education of children" in the occupied territory.
• The Convention Against Discrimination in Education which expressly prohibits "limiting any person or group of persons to education of an inferior standard".[9]
• The Universal Declaration of Human Rights which affirms that "everyone has the right to education." [10]
• The Convention on the Rights of the Child which affirms that states shall "recognize the right of the child to education . . . on the basis of equal opportunity . . . " [11]
• The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights which affirms the "right of everyone to education" and that "primary education shall be compulsory and available free to all". [12]

The International Community

Is asked:

• To preserve the status quo of Jerusalem prior to the construction of the Wall and to preserve Jerusalem and its environs as an integrated and cohesive single social and economic unit;
• To lend its full support to the issuaand respect for permits for all West Bank teachers and students to freely access academic institutions in East Jerusalem;
• To lend its full support to guaranteeing free movement for East Jerusalemite students and teachers to and from academic institutions beyond the Wall;
• To make clear to the Israeli government its opposition to the Wall to the extent the Wall is built inside Occupied Palestinian Territory.
• To publicly reaffirm its commitment to the rights of East Jerusalemites as a people under occupation.

  Is reminded:

• That it is under a legal obligation to enforce the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention;
• That it is under a legal obligation to enforce the legal conclusions of international law as stated in the Opinion of the International Court of Justice of July 9, 2004 which declared Israel's Wall in Occupied Palestinian Territory illegal and which called on member states of the United Nations to enforce compliance by Israel of the Fourth Geneva Convention;
• That international involvement in bringing peace should be based on ending Israel's occupation in accordance with international law and not on making Israel's occupation more comfortable for the occupied.

Notes