In an unprecedented move since the city’s occupation in 1967, all newly opened grades in East Jerusalem's public schools are set—starting from the 2026/2027 academic year—to fully adopt the Zionist curriculum. This step is a prominent escalation within the ongoing process of the "Israelization" of the educational sector and the tightening restrictions on the Palestinian curriculum.
According to the Zionist newspaper Haaretz, approximately 44,000 Palestinian students are scheduled to study the Israeli curriculum during the new academic year, accounting for roughly 38% of East Jerusalem’s total student population of about 120,000. These figures highlight the accelerating pace of Israelization plans, compared to fewer than 13,000 students six years ago, and only a few hundred around 15 years ago.
This development recalls the attempts to impose Zionist curricula following the 1967 occupation, which were met at that time with widespread public rejection and strikes involving teachers, students, and parents. That resistance forced the occupying power to back down and continue teaching the Jordanian curriculum, which was later replaced by the Palestinian curriculum in the 1990s. However, recent years have witnessed the adoption of a gradual policy based on pressuring educational institutions and providing financial incentives to schools that comply with the new plan.
The gravity of this step extends beyond administrative dimensions to target the memory and national identity of Jerusalem’s generations. The substitution of the occupation's curricula aims to reshape collective consciousness by erasing key concepts and themes in Palestinian history, foremost among them the national cause, the Palestinian Nakba, and Jerusalem.