Janan Abdu
A quick review of statements by some leaders of the Hebrew State on Palestinian education in the areas of 1948; an examination of some related issues, from the policies that govern the Arab educational apparatus and its administrative structure to the objectives of education in general and Arab education in particular; and a scrutiny of Arab school curricula and their contents and objectives and the parties that draft them and the way they draft them would show the reader the racist, discriminatory, and repressive policies that the Hebrew State pursues toward this group of Palestinians.
This review once again proves a fact that educational specialists have long established: The educational apparatus might turn into one of the most powerful tools of oppression and control in the hand of the State against certain groups, such as the national minorities. This applies to the Palestinians in the areas of 1948. Many Palestinian researchers have stressed that education and the learning process at schools have constituted a socio-political control card in the hand of the ruling Israeli establishment since the creation of the State (Jiryis 1966; Mar'i 1984; Al Haj 1994, 1996; Abu Usbah 1997; Abu Saad 2006; Mustafa 2006; Mar'i 1978; Jiryis 1976), through which the State tried to impose its Zionist ideology and abolish the Palestinian identity.
Critical Reading
In several statements, former Israeli Education Minister Limor Livnat said that the allocation of funds to Arab schools would be determined based on the extent of the Arab students' loyalty and allegiance to the State (2001)! Shimon Shetreet, another former education minister, expressed a similar view when he linked security to education, saying that "education is more important than security" (2006)[1]. For his part, Gid'on Ezra, minister of environment quality and former internal security minister, said: "There should be discrimination and caution that the Arab municipalities not receive all the funds of the educational plan (2006)[2]. In accordance with this concept, the Arabs are "classified", based on security criteria, into "moderates", or loyal to the State, and "extremists", who include those who stick to their Palestinian identity. These statements, retail and wholesale, reflect the policies of the ruling establishment and its spokesmen toward the Palestinian and their education and prove that education is being used as a means of control and racial discrimination.
In another statement, Minister Livnat called for teaching the Arabs the legacy of former Minister Rahba'am Ze'evi, the proponent of the transfer (expulsion) idea (quote from Naffa 2005). Through this, Livnat and her ministry effectively ignore the needs of the Palestinians as a national minority and disregard their individual and collective sentiments and their human and national dignity. The call once again proves that the educational apparatus is being used to implement the Zionist thought through a normalization-based educational process promoting itself as "ordinary and neutral" education. The call is made as a natural demand. Only in a state that defines itself as "a state for the Jews", not for all is citizens, that such a logic is implemented, deriving its legitimacy from its promotion as a normal logic.
The attempt to control the Arab school effectively began before the declaration of the State, when the Jewish Agency began planning to impose tight control on the Arabs in the country, or what would be left of them. Concurrently with the adoption of the UN Partition Resolution in November 1947, the Jewish Agency set up a committee to prepare educational programs for the Arabs in the Jewish State (Al Haj 1996). It refused to grant the Arab education system independence to run its own affairs as it did with religious Jews and others. Although the Arabs have an administratively independent educational apparatus, this apparatus is under the full control of the State. It is modelled on the previous colonial systems devised by the British mandate or the Ottoman rule, which were always used by the ruling groups to weaken the national Arab identity and affiliation and to grant legitimacy to the official ideology (Al Haj 1996; Mar'i 1978). The educational and cultural policies of the Hebrew State
The Administrative Aspect -- The State's policies toward the Arabs were reflected on the administrative aspect of the educational process. This can be summed up in a number of points:
- Disintegrative approach to the national identity and fragmentation of the ethnic groups: The "education of the Arabs" apparatus is divided into three departments: Arab education, Bedouin education, and Circassian education (Mahameed 2006). The administrative structure reflects the low and almost nonexistent status of the Arabs when it comes to the "big" and influential jobs (Al Haj 1996; Second Class-HRW[4]; Mahameed 2006)
- Security and Hebrew control on departments and committees: Several committees and departments emanated from the Education Ministry, and these always coordinated with the security and intelligence agencies and with the advisers to the prime minister. Joint administrations comprising the heads of those departments and representatives of the security services and the various government agencies emerged for this purpose. During the martial law period, the military ruler personally intervened in the educational content, educational appointments, and other administrative issues concerning Arab education.[5]
- Dismissing nationalist teachers and appointing Jews, collaborators, or neutral teachers: Early in its establishment, the State appointed Jews of Arab origin to teach in Arab schools under the pretext of covering the shortage of qualified teachers (Ben-Or 1951, cited by Al Haj 1996). Murqus stresses that "the shortage of Arab teachers was effectively the result of the dismissal policy that the State adopted against the nationalists" (2000: 113-114). Cohen points out that dismissal threats increased "with the increase of the public revolutionary statements in the early sixties" (2006: 153). As a result, there was at that time unemployment among the Arab graduates who were known for their clear political affiliation. Cohen (2006) says that "even if the State succeeded in creating a climate of fear preventing people from publicly expressing their views, it did not succeed in making the Palestinians adopt the Zionist discourse. The strict control drew resistance" (2006: 154) including resistance from the nationalist teachers. The "Loyal Colleagues" movement (Murqus 2000) and the "Union of Democratic Teachers" (Abu Hanna 2006) emerged to confront the policy of "muzzling" people.
- The policy of setting up committees: The Education Ministry adopted the policy of establishing committees to absorb every tension or complaint and to appear before the foreign world as democratic. Although it adopted the improvement recommendations that were made by the committees, such as the curricula committees, it did not allocate the necessary funds and resources to implement them, and so the recommendations remained ink on paper (Al Haj 1996), or it rendered them void and insignificant[6].
- The policy of decreasing budget allocations: Decreased government budgets were not in line with the natural growth of the Arab population. This resulted in shortage of schoolrooms, packed classrooms, accepting fewer students in teacher training institutes, lack of special and auxiliary educational services in Arab schools, and limited technological education for the Arabs[7].
The Objectives of Education and Curricula in Arab Schools: One of the basic questions that researchers in the area of education tried to address is the confirmation or denial of whether there is a policy toward Arab education and, if there is one, how to explain its nature and to what extent it is a public policy (Abdu 2007a). Some researchers stresses that there are no declared objectives for Arab education (Jiryis 1976; Nakhleh 1977) from the legislative point of view because the objectives of the government education law of 1953 basically determined the educational programs for the Jews and made no mention of the Arabs (Habibullah 1994). They say that "although the Arabs were basically absent from the formation of the Jewish-oriented general objectives, no parallel objectives for the Arab educational apparatus were drafted" (Abu Asaad 2006: 25). The demand by Education Minister Limor Livnat (2001, cited in the HWR 2001 report: 158) that "every child in Israel
So what are the objectives of Arab education? Researchers in this field stress that the state drafted special curricula for Arab education with a view toward creating distorted and submissive characters estranged from their national and political reality and from their distinct history. The aim is to implant a sense of inferiority in the minds of the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular, on the one hand, and glorify the superiority of Jews in the fields of thought, science, and culture on the other (Mar'i 1984; Al Haj 1994, 1996; Abu Usbah 1997). These curricula do not mention the Palestinian people or talk about a national minority or the rights of minorities. They stress loyalty and allegiance to the State and talk about general, loose, and unspecific human values of what they call "the Arab civilization." They focus on "the yearning for peace between the State of Israel and its neighbors, the love for the common homeland of all the citizens of the State, and the loyalty to the State of Israel," the state that defines itself as the State of the Jews!
A review of the objectives of the Arab education that were set in 1975[9] shows that they were not different from the previous ones that were reflected in the General Education Law of 1953[10]. The amendments in the law of 2000 changed nothing of the educational objectives of the official government schools, which stress the Jewish values, history, and culture and ignore the Palestinian values, history, and culture (Adalah 2003, cited by Abu Saad 2006: 13). All these marginalize the Arabs and deal with them as if they existed but did not exist.
In 1949, a subcommittee emanated from the Committee on the Education of the Arabs. "Its job was to publish textbooks serving these objectives" (Al Haj 1996: 100-101)
Reflection of Government Policies on Curricula and Textbooks: The objectives of education were applied and reflected in the curricula and the contents of the textbooks that were imposed on the Arab schools, especially with regard to subjects related to the identity and national affiliation, such as history, geography, and Arabic. The Arab schools still apply the curricula issued by the Education Ministry's Curricula Department[11]. To implement this, the ministry took the following steps:
- Abolishing the nationalist content of the textbooks: The ministry cancelled the books and programs that were in use before its establishment, especially the Arabic language books that had a nationalist nature, such as Al-Mushawiq, which was being taught in primary classes (Copty 1990, cited by Al Haj 1996: 101). It banned the use of any unwritten source with a nationalist nature. History and geography teachers were clearly instructed to delete every paragraph with such a nationalist flavour (Ben-Or 1951, cited by Al-Haj 1996)
- Adopting a slow policy on the approval of textbooks: The ministry did not issue and approve alternative books, adopting a slow policy. Arab schools remained without books for long. Compared to 720 books in Hebrew, only 20 new books for the Arab schools were published between 1950 and 1958 (AlHamishmar, cited by Al Haj 1996)! This reflected the policy and objectives of the Arab education[12]. As a result, Arab schools were forced "to use books dating back to the era of the mandate powers, some of which were not occupying us" (Cohen 1951: 132)[13]. Some private national schools, such as the
As it appears, the new programs were built in a way that allows social and political control on the new generations (Al Haj 1996; Abu Usbah 1997; Amara 2002; Mar'i 1978). From his experience as an adviser to the committee for the approval of the secondary stage curricula in the eighties, Abu Hanna (2006, cited by Abdu Makhoul 2007b) points out that the curricula were prepared by those committees within a clear policy seeking to marginalize the nationalist and Palestinian character, and that Arab members were included in the committees only to polish the image of the Ministry.
The Status of the Arabic Language Reflects the Ministry's Policies toward Arab Schools: As an influential factor in the Palestinian national identity, Arabic was seen by both sides as a symbol of the national identity and of the battle to maintain or abolish this identity. The standing of the Arabic language also reflected the relationship between a colonialist power and a colonized, between a party that has control over educational curricula and a party that does not have one. The Zionist movement worked to marginalize the Arabic language and minimize its weight. The issue of the language was also raised in the debate that took place at the beginning of the road between the engineers of the Israeli policies on "the strategies that must be followed regarding the identity of Arab education." "They were busy discussing how to ensure allegiance to the State of Israel through Arab education" (Ben-Or 1951, cited by Al Haj 1996: 100)[14]. At the end, the separation of the two educational systems was approved, provided that the Arab educational system be placed under strict control and monitoring (Al Haj 1996: 98). It was finally decided to teach in Arabic in the Arab schools (Amara 2006).
Imposing Control on the Arabic Language and Marginalizing Its Use in Arab Schools
- Hebrew control on the approval of Arabic language textbooks: The fact that the committees that check the textbooks are chaired by a Jewish person meant the disappearance of some creative reforms in the literary texts that were approved. "Arab students are still being asked to integrate into the Jewish values and the Zionist ambitions at the expense of the development of their national conscience and good affiliation to their people" (Barak 2004, cited by Abu Saad 2006: 19). Today, this committee is chaired by an Arab, but the Jewish members and advisers influence the policy on what is approved, deleted, or postponed.
- Arabic-language textbooks are old and insufficient, and a slow policy is adopted in the approval of Arabic books: In the field of science, Arab schools use books translated from Hebrew because of the slow credibility mechanism of Arabic-language books. This causes delay in the adoption and teaching of new books by the Arab schools. "The time gap between the two curricula is between 2 and 4 years. This negatively influences students in terms of weak use of Arabic, as they learn terms in Hebrew. It, consequently, reflects negatively on their relationship with their mother language (HRW 2001; Mahameed 2006).
- Old books, non-renewable texts, and an inclination toward national nihilism: Abu Saad stresses that "the study of language and literature in the Arab schools is still built around a main curriculum issued in the mid-seventies" (2006: 19). "Texts remain unchanged. The educational secretariat in the Ministry is to blame for this. Curricula for the Jewish community, on the other hand, are renewed every 5 years (Kittani 2006)[15]. Teachers and students complain about the quality of texts and the fact that they are remote from students and their life and living conditions. Researchers are unanimous in their view that the Palestinian identity is ignored or even oppressed (Furani 2006, cited by Abdu-Makhoul 2007b; Mar'i 1978) and that textbooks have no national flavor although they contain local Palestinian literature, as only neutral texts are chosen (Furani 2006, previous source). The special educational character of the Arab students in the textbooks is limited to folkloric aspects, while national affiliation as a basic central dimension is absent. Some schools used this folkloric aspect as a means to introduce and entrench the national identity. Primary school textbooks, for their part, are free from any national or political orientation, serving only pure functional linguistic objectives.
- Reducing the hours of learning in general and the learning of Arabic as a native language in particular: It generally transpires that the number of educational hours offered to Jewish students is more than the educational hours offered to Arab students (Mahameed 2006). Moreover, the hours of Arabic as a mother language in the Arab schools are fewer than the Hebrew hours!
- Weakening Arabic and Strengthening Hebrew: For years, Arab schools have suffered from a clear tendency to strengthen the standing of Hebrew in them at the expense of the mother language. This is reflected in quantity and quality. Arab students start learning Hebrew in the third grade and continue through the 12th grade. Hebrew is taught not as a second language, but as the language of the state (Al Haj 1995, 1996). The aim is to strengthen the positive attitude and evaluation of this language and its culture and entrench the Arab students' acceptance of the Jews' right to the
All this leads to low level functional competence in standard Arabic among students. Various types of school achievement tests show that the Arab educational apparatus failed in its mission to qualify students sufficiently to ensure their ability to continue their above-primary schooling and obtain official degrees with average marks qualifying them to enrol in higher education institutes (the Palestinian National Information Center 2006). The achievement rate list on the understanding of read and written Arabic in the fourth and eighth grades in 1996 shows low results in most of the areas that were tested on the various levels. The older the generation the bigger is the gap (Amara 2002). The situation in the secondary schools is not much different. The results of the regional examinations in the Arabic language remain more or less the same, at an average of 61% (Kittani 2006). Statistics in 1996 showed the same thing (Amara 2004). The situation remained unchanged in 2006, as some research on the subject showed (Sa'ar 2003).
Abu Khadra (2006) maintains that Arab students are not different than any other students in terms of their competence and natural abilities. The gaps and failures in the academic achievement of the Arab students, therefore, can be attributed to the government's educational policies and the deliberate failure of the Ministry and the educational apparatus to develop official Arab education and make it equal to the Hebrew education in the country.
As a result of the policy of weakening Arabic and strengthening Hebrew, Arab students linguistically merge the two languages and sometimes use Hebrew as the medium of expression (Al Haj 1996; Amara 2006) or use Hebrew terms.
Despite all its attempts to control the Arab educational apparatus in its administrative structure and educational programs and content, and despite its efforts to weaken the Arabic language as one of the components of the national identity, the State of Israel did not succeed in obliterating the Palestinian identity of the students or teachers, except for some individuals and sectors that opted for integration and Israelization. The nationalist Arab political movements and parties, Palestinian civil society organizations, and concerned researchers confronted, exposed, and strongly resisted these Zionist policies. In the process, some male and female teachers were dismissed from their jobs or blacklisted. They are not accepted or appointed in government teaching jobs even if there are vacancies. Private schools in the Palestinian cities played a leading role as they are somewhat free from the total control that the government imposed on official schools.
The way Israel
Realizing this fact and resisting this policy prevent the State from achieving its objectives or at least hinder their achievement. The Palestinians have no choice but to continue to resist these policies and work to expose them on the local and international levels and to change them. They must rightfully demand that the objectives of Arab education, including the teaching of Arabic, history, and geography, be reformulated; that the policies concerning the establishment, composition, and structure of educational committees be changed; that these committees be placed under Palestinian control; and that Arab education be independent.
Joint and solidarity work by the nationalist, civil, and party organizations prevents the State from realizing its objectives and implementing its Arab educational policies. The alternative educational models that some nationalist establishments are proposing today might be the ideal way to confront the governmental policies, and they might serve as an example for the Palestinians to emulate in all their places of residence.
Perhaps the ideal solution for the Palestinians lies in the establishment of a higher council for Palestinian education, consisting of representatives of all the Palestinian groups in the 1948 Palestine as well as in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and the diaspora, and assuming the mission of laying out a comprehensive vision on Palestinian education.
Bibliography
In Arabic
Abu Saad, Ismail. (2006) "Arab educational curricula in Israel
Amara, Muhammad. (2002). "The linguistic fabric of the Palestinian minority in the Hebrew State Israel
--------------- (2004). "The Arabic language in Israel Nazareth
--------------- (2006). "The vitality of the Arabic language in Israel
Jiryis, Sabri. (1966). The Arabs in Israel Jerusalem
Habibullah, Mohammed. (1994) "Arab education in Israel Nazareth
Abdu-Makhoul, Janan. (2007a). "Between Arab education and education for the Arabs: the policies of alienation and the possibilities of confrontation." In Journal of Palestine
-------------------- (2007b). "Hegemony on language as a tool of hegemony on people: the experience of the Palestinians in the 1948 areas." In: The language of the Arab child in the age of globalization-documents and studies. Published by: The Arab Council for Childhood and Development, Cairo
Mahameed, Sameer. (2006). "The policy of the Israeli Education Ministry toward Arab education." In: The Second Intellectual Forum-the Arabs in the Israeli literature and educational curricula. Prepared by Ismail Abu Saad, Sameer Mahameed, Ibrahim Abu Jaber, Saleh Ahmed. Published by the Center for Contemporary Studies, Umm al-Fahm pp 7-9.
Mar'i, Sami. (Jan/Feb 1984). "Education, culture, and identity." In: Al Mawakib Magazine.
-----------. (Mar/Apr 1984). "Education, culture, and identity." In: Al Mawakib Magazine.
-----------. (Sep/Oct 1984). "Higher education among the Palestinians." In: Al Mawakib Magazine.
Murqus, Nimr. (2000). Stronger than forgetfulness: Letter to my daughter (1). Tarsheeha.
Mustafa, Muhannad. (2006). Higher education among Palestinians in Israel
Naffaa, Hesham. "Lesson in transfer: unsystematic activity around Ze'evi's legacy". In: Arab Education Issues, No. 4 December 2005. Published by the committee on following up the issues of Arab education, Nazareth
In Hebrew:
Abu Usbah, Khaled. (1997). The educational apparatus in Israel
Eden, Sheebah (1975). Objectives of education in Israel
Al Haj, Majed (1994). Preparing educational programs in the Arab educational apparatus in Israel Jerusalem
------------ (1995). The Arab teacher in Israel Education Research Center , Haifa University
------------ (1996). Education among the Arabs in Israel Hebrew University and Floersheimer Institute for Policy Studies, Jerusalem
Cohen, Hill (2006). Good Arabs: The Israeli intelligence and the Arabs in Israel Jerusalem
In English:
Jiryis, Sabri. (1976). The Arabs in Israel New York & London
Second Class: Discrimination against Palestinian Arab children in Israel Watch , New York , U.S.
Mar’i, Sami Khalil (1978). Arab Education In Israel Syracuse University Press, New York
Nakhleh, E. (1977). The Arabs in Israel Alexandria , Va.
Reports and Articles in Electronic Newspapers and Sites:
Sa'ar, Rali. (2003). "In Israel
"Racist Gid'on Ezra: we must be careful that the Arab municipalities not receive all the funds of the education plan." Al Akhbar - Israeli news, Arabs 48 website. 28 August 2006. www.arabs48.com
"The situation of education for the 48 Palestinians". "The 1948 male, female Palestinians." The Palestinian National Information Center
Interviews:
Abu Hanna, Hanna. Interview on 12/12/2006 within a research entitled: Janan Abdu-Makhoul. (2007). "Hegemony on language as a tool of hegemony on people: the experience of the Palestinians in the 1948 areas." In: The language of the Arab child in the age of globalization. Published by: The Arab Council for Childhood and Development, Cairo , Egypt
Qusayni-Madi, Mona. Interview on 14/12/2006 within a research entitled: Janan Abdu-Makhoul. (2007). "Hegemony on language as a tool of hegemony on people: the experience of the Palestinians in the 1948 areas." In: The language of the Arab child in the age of globalization. Published by: The Arab Council for Childhood and Development, Cairo , Egypt
Furani, Fathi. Interview on 13/12/2006 within a research entitled: Janan Abdu-Makhoul. (2007). "Hegemony on language as a tool of hegemony on people: the experience of the Palestinians in the 1948 areas." In: The language of the Arab child in the age of globalization. Published by: The Arab Council for Childhood and Development, Cairo , Egypt
Papers in Conferences:
Fahd, Abu Khadra. (2006). "The problems of teaching Arabic language at the primary stage." Conference on the crisis of Arabic language teaching in the country, reasons and remedies. Nazareth
Kittani, Yasin. (2006). "Taching Arabic at the secondary stage, between what exists and what is desired." In: Conference on the crisis of Arab language teaching in the country, reasons and remedies. At the initiative of the Arab Culture Society and in cooperation with Regional Union of Arab Students' Parents Committees. Nazareth
[2] News report on 28 August entitled: "Racist Gid'on Ezra: we must be careful that the Arab municipalities not receive all the funds of the education plan." He was speaking in a cabinet session in which the Education Ministry's plan for the reconstruction of the northern region was discussed. www.arabs48.com
[3] A prime minister's adviser in the fifties-statement to Ha'aretz newspaper on 4/4/1961, cited by Jiryis (1966)
[4] See bibliographic reference entitled: "Second Class: Discrimination against Palestinian Arab children in Israel New York , U.S.
[6] Abu Hanna gives as an example the Social Revival Committee in the seventies, which was set up with an official government authorization, and the Arab Culture Committee, which was set up by the culture minister. Under the pretext of budget shortages, the recommendations of those committees were not implemented when they were forwarded to the ministry's director general. The same policy was adopted in the issue of the Arab textbooks and the effort to find sources to finance their deployment and marketing. See HRW 2001: 146-152)
[7] More than 20 years after Mar'i's research, the HRW report explains the suffering of the Palestinians today from these shortcomings and shows that the Palestinians are still facing the same problems in their schools and education.
[9] "The official education in the Arab community in Israel is based on the values of the Arab civilization and on the yearning for peace between the state of Israel and its neighbors, on the love of the common homeland for all the citizens of the state, and on the loyalty to the state of Israel, with emphasis on the common interests of all the citizens of the state, care for the special characteristics of the Israeli Arabs, and aspiration for a society built on the bases of freedom, equality, tolerance, mutual assistance, and love for humans." Cited by Eden
[11] Some divide these curricula into two sections (Habibullah 1994). The first section is general and common, applied to both Jews and Arabs, such as mathematics, English, and science, and the second section is specific to the Arabs, and it includes Arabic language and literature, religion, Arab history, and geography. A special department for Arab educational curricula has recently been added to this section. Others divide the programs into three groups: Subjects like mathematics and science are similar to the subjects in the Jewish schools, as books-curricula are translated from Hebrew to Arabic; subjects like humanities taken from Hebrew and adapted into Arabic; and special subjects for the Arabs such as Hebrew as a second language and Arabic as mother language (HRW 2001: 146)
[12] Jiryis says in his book that only in 1952 the ministry completed preparation of Arabic language textbooks for the first and second grades, and in 1957 for the fourth grade, and in 1959 for the eighth grade. Only in 1967 the textbooks in all subjects for secondary students were completed. (Jiryis 1976: 206)
[15] Remarks on the teaching of Arabic language in the secondary schools in the conference on the crisis of the language teaching; previous source
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