Political Conflict and Exclusion in Jerusalem: The Provision of Education and Social Services

The political conflict over the city of Jerusalem has resulted in the breach of Palestinian Jerusalemites’ civil, political and social rights. While Israel claims sovereignty over East Jerusalem, it neglects to provide adequate services to the Palestinian residents of the city. The Israeli Jerusalem Municipality provides insufficient and highly politicised educational services to the Palestinians residents of the city, at the same time discriminating against the other Palestinian systems that provide educational services. Political Conflict and Exclusion in Jerusalem offers a detailed description of the structure of the education sector in East Jerusalem with its four main providers; the Palestinian Authority through Awqaf schools, the Israeli Authority through municipal schools, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency and private schools. Its study reveals that there is no single body that oversees the provision of educational services in the city to ensure that the services provided are sufficient and of quality. Employing a qualitative research strategy with semi-structured interviews and focus groups in Palestinian and Israeli schools, this book offers a comprehensive and revealing comparison of the educational services provided to both their students. It explores how Palestinian and Israeli students routinely receive vastly different learning opportunities, in terms of school funding, qualified staff, school facilities and school programmes, which as a result disempowers Palestinians and ensures an Israeli Jewish hegemony over the city. One of the few academic books on a highly pertinent topic, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of Middle East Studies, and a key resource for those studying the social impacts of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.