Involved as it is in a political conflict that remains unresolved
through peace negotiations, Jerusalem today is a city divided
economically, culturally and socially. Even the provision of
municipal services is a highly political issue in the city. This
article assesses the situation of access to public education for
Palestinian children living in East Jerusalem, which is under
Israeli jurisdiction.1 In this context, it is essential to question
whether Israel's practices in the educational field are a realistic
reflection of its legal obligations.
Legal jurisdiction and policy affect the everyday lives of
Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, many of whom are not
citizens but only permanent residents of the State of Israel.2
While the revocation of residency rights from Palestinian
Jerusalemites has justifiably received wide public attention,
documentation and analysis, the problems encountered by their
children are given less consideration.3 Parents struggling to
"prove" their residency in Jerusalem confront added barriers when
attempting to register their children in municipal schools. Thus,
children pay the price of the political conflict in Jerusalem,
where education and other activities that elsewhere constitute the
normal pattern of life for children are disrupted by political
struggles and civil strife. When in 1967 Israel "extended its
jurisdiction" over the Palestinian citizens of Jerusalem, the state
undertook the responsibility to fulfil its obligation regarding the
children's right to education. However, implicit problems are
encountered by Palestinian Jerusalemites when they attempt to enrol
their children in public schools in East Jerusalem, due to the
policies pertaining to the status of Palestinian Jerusalemites that
impinge on their children's right to education.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) adopted in 1989 by
the UN General Assembly, specifically Article 2 (non-discrimination
in provision of rights to all children), Article 4
(implementation), Article 7 (name, birth registration,
nationality), and Article 28 (the right to education) cover the
basic principles upon which this enquiry is based. Israel ratified
the CRC in 1991 and has, in addition, its own Law of Compulsory
Education (1949). These existing education laws further bolster the
principles of the Convention with regard to education and
non-discrimination. The Compulsory Education Law mandates that any
child who resides in the jurisdiction of a municipality (or other
local authority) must be registered in school and provided with
free education (articles 3(a) and 6(a)). Thus, the right to
education is not contingent on citizenship or other legal status,
neither of the children nor of their parents.
Policies and Practices
Several Israeli policies and practices limit the access of
Palestinian Jerusalemite children to free and compulsory education
in the Jerusalem Education Authority (JEA) schools in East
Jerusalem. Among the most serious are the following:
Permanent Residency
Palestinians holding permanent residency in East Jerusalem must
prove that they actually reside in the state and within the
municipal borders of the city. The Ministry of the Interior has the
power to cancel the residency permit of a Palestinian for reasons
of prolonged periods of absence from the country (seven years and
more).4 Many families who had left the city and returned to it
within the seven-year limit, or have moved to neighborhoods just
beyond the municipal borders of Jerusalem, have had their residency
permits revoked. In order for a child to be registered in school,
the JEA requires proof of residency in the city,5 and thus children
whose parents have had their residency status revoked by the
Ministry of the Interior, yet remain in the city, are often denied
their right to public education.
Although Natan Sharansky, who was minister of the interior in the
Barak government until his resignation in July 2000, is claimed to
have officially ended the "center-of-life" requirement of Jerusalem
Palestinians, it is still unclear how this will affect the
registration of children in JEA schools, particularly with the
advent of the new Sharon government. Thus far, there is no recourse
for those children who have already been denied access to these
schools.
Child Registration
A child born in the country, whose parents are both permanent
residents of Jerusalem, or whose father is a permanent resident, is
legally entitled to permanent residency. In cases where the mother
alone is the permanent resident in Jerusalem, the child will
normally receive the status of the foreign father.6 In 1992,
ministry officials declared that their policy was to allow a
Jerusalem resident mother to register her children in Jerusalem, on
condition that she prove she actually resides in Jerusalem and that
the father agree in writing to the request. Such an application is
considered at the discretion of the minister of the interior. This
information, however, was never published, and the procedures
remain unclear.
While the Ministry of the Interior currently provides an
application form to register a child in accordance with the
mother's residency status, considerable obstacles remain. The
process of providing documented proof of residency in Jerusalem is
costly, and time-consuming (specific requirements have not been
listed anywhere in the law or regulations, but include such papers
as tax receipts, school registration papers of siblings of the
child, utility bills, etc). The application may take months or even
years to process, and, in the interim, the child is not registered
in any "state" and subsequently has no access to health care or
other benefits.
Even if mother and child are living in Jerusalem, children have
been denied Jerusalem residency status and registered instead on
their father's Jordanian, West Bank, or other identity card, or
have not been registered anywhere. To this day, a substantial
population of children in East Jerusalem are not registered in any
population registry,7 in direct contravention of the Convention on
the Rights of the Child.8
A child must have his/her birth registered in order to be
recognized by the state. By denying or restricting the birth
registration of Palestinian Jerusalemites, the state can
effectively disclaim their rights to any benefits or services,
including that of access to and provision of education.
Facts on Registration and Admission to Schools of the Jerusalem
Education Authority (JEA)
Former Israeli minister of education, Yossi Sarid, once said: "The
East Jerusalem educational system's situation is shameful, and it
has been suffering from deprivation and discrimination for years"
(Ha'aretz, August 10, 1999).
The JEA has 169 schools in West Jerusalem (excluding ultra-Orthodox
schools), as against 35 in East Jerusalem.9 Three of the latter are
educational institutions for children with special needs.10 In
addition, there are 20 kindergartens under the supervision of the
Ministry of Education and Culture. Palestinian students comprise
one-third of the school age (5-19 years) population in the city.11
According to the JEA yearbook, approximately 60 percent of the
children resident in East Jerusalem attend municipality schools.
There are some 900 classes in the Jerusalem Municipality's Arab
education system, 457 of which are in primary schools (1st to 6th
grade).12 The education department allocates to Arab neighborhoods
a mere 12 percent of the total budget received from the Ministry of
Education and Culture,13 though the Palestinians account for over
30 percent of the population of Jerusalem.
Since the administration of schools in East Jerusalem came under
Israeli jurisdiction in 1967, only one new school has been built
for the Arab population, whereas the school age grew some 6.5
percent from 1998 to 1999 alone, with a 6.2 percent increase at the
primary level.14 Schools in East Jerusalem lacking sufficient
classroom space for the expanding student population of Palestinian
children have had to rent rooms in apartment buildings (classrooms
are extremely cramped, with an average of 33.6 students per class;
in West Jerusalem the average is 24).15
Interviewees for this article expressed frustration that, while the
Palestinian Jerusalemite population has been growing, this increase
has not been matched by a concomitant increase in the number of
schools, nor even classrooms. They spoke of how much they dread the
humiliation and hardship they face when attempting to register
their children in municipal schools. While the declared policy of
the Municipality of Jerusalem is to accept any child resident in
Jerusalem to its schools, regardless of their residency status,
there is a blatant discrepancy between official policy and actual
practice.
School principals in East Jerusalem do not have the authority to
admit students without prior approval from the municipality, though
some of them have considered it a moral obligation to accept some
who are not registered on the Jerusalem identity card of one of the
parents. However, such students have no rights in the schools they
attend: they have no insurance should any harm befall them, nor do
they receive recognition for their achievements. This practice also
taxes a school's limited budget, which is allocated according to
the number of children enrolled there. When some school principals
lobby the municipal authorities, the JEA will at times yield to
their demands in order to avoid negative publicity or to set a
legal precedent. Nevertheless, many Palestinian children in East
Jerusalem - those whose residency status has been revoked, children
with only one Jerusalemite parent, unregistered children, or
children who have moved from one neighborhood to another - are
denied education in Jerusalem's municipal schools.
Faced with threats to their security and legal status in Jerusalem,
parents often do not appreciate their children's right to
education. They fear that by bringing the attention of the Israeli
authorities to their cases, they will prejudice their rights as
residents of Jerusalem, endangering other benefits they receive or
hope to receive in the future. Many decide not to pursue their
children's right to free and compulsory education within the public
municipal system, and opt to register their children in schools in
the West Bank - a move that ironically may jeopardize their future
residency status in Jerusalem. Thus, political uncertainty over the
future of Jerusalem spills over into the daily lives of Palestinian
families in the city and affects the decisions they make.
Conclusion and Recommendations
While it is not uncommon for countries to evade their
responsibility for providing minority populations with free and
compulsory basic education, all states, including Israel, are
obligated to do so.
As regards the provision of education to all children under its
jurisdiction without discrimination, Israeli law, court cases and
official declarations of policy conform to these obligations.
However, these are largely normative statements. Research has shown
that the principle of non-discrimination is violated through
unwritten guidelines and practices. In its unwritten practice, the
Israeli Education Authority in Jerusalem denies Palestinians equal
access to education, with the result that only children who are
recognized residents of Jerusalem, and who hold an Israeli identity
number, may attend the municipal schools without a legal and
administrative struggle.
Child registration is a basic right (CRC, Article 7) that must be
implemented in East Jerusalem. Israeli policies must be clearly
stated and their implementation monitored. Regulations should be
published to enhance people's awareness of their rights and to
eliminate confusion among Palestinian Jerusalemites. People's
ignorance of their rights and entitlements, and of the existence of
organizations that can help them, makes it easier for the Israeli
authorities to deny them their basic rights, including the right to
education for all children in Jerusalem without
discrimination.
1. Public schools in East Jerusalem have been operated by the
Jerusalem Education Authority since the Six-Day War in 1967.
2. See the Law of Entry into Israel (1952) Article 2(a)(4).
3. See Y. Stein (1997), The Quiet Deportation: Revocation of
Residency of Palestinians in East Jerusalem; and (1998), The Quiet
Deportation Continues: Revocation of Residency and Denial of Social
Rights of East Jerusalem Palestinians (Jerusalem: B'Tselem &
Ha-Moked); Usama Halabi, "The Legal Status of Palestinians in
Jerusalem," Palestine-Israel Journal, Vol. IV No.1, 1997.
4. In 1985, the Regulations of Entry into Israel (1974) were
amended to add articles 11(A) and 11 (C) stating the conditions
under which a permanent residence permit "expires" as the holder
"settles in a state outside Israel." The conditions include: a
sojourn out of Israel for more than seven years, the acquisition of
a permit of residency in a foreign country and the acquisition of
foreign citizenship by naturalization.
5. In a vicious bureaucratic circle, the Ministry of the Interior
requires school registration forms as proof of residency that is
under investigation.
6. While a child is legally entitled to the permanent resident
status of his/her father, the child is not entitled to this status
through the mother. This regulation is gender-based
discrimination.7. Even when a child is denied Jerusalem residency
status, s/he does not automatically register with a parent from the
West Bank. When the Ministry of the Interior has revoked the status
of permanent residency from one or both parents, their children's
status is also revoked, and a newborn child will not be registered
in the Israeli Population Registry, even if the family lives in
Jerusalem.
8. See Article 7 (the right to be registered & the right to
citizenship), Article 8 (the right to preserve identity), Article 9
(the right not to be separated from the parents), Article 10
(family reunification), and Article 30 (children belonging to a
minority or indigenous group).
9. The Jerusalem Education Authority runs a complex system, in
which official institutions maintained by the Israeli government
(Ministry of Education and Culture) and/or local authority
(Jerusalem Municipality) include state education, state-religious
education (Jewish) and the Arab educational system. An official
institution for Arab education is defined as an institution owned
by the municipality and under the supervision of the Ministry of
Education and Culture. Following a resolution of the City Council
in 1993, the ultra-Orthodox educational division was separated from
the Jerusalem Education Authority.
10. M. Choshen & N. Shahar (1999), Statistical Yearbook of
Jerusalem No. 16 - 1998 (Jerusalem: The Jerusalem Institute for
Israel Studies), p. 297.
11. S. Dershkovitz & S. Fairmont-Rafiah (1997), Jerusalem:
Urban Characteristics and Major Trends in the City's Development
(Jerusalem: Municipality of Jerusalem), Tables 2 & 3.
12. Choshen & Shahar (1999), op. cit., p. 305.
13. A. Cheshin (1998), Municipal Services in Jerusalem: An Account
from Within (Jerusalem: Palestinian Academic Society for the Study
of International Affairs), p. 67.
14. It should be noted this increase in population is due purely to
natural growth. Choshen & Shahar, op. cit., pp. 47 &
305.
15. Ibid., pp. 299 & 305.
