The ethnic cleansing carried out by the Israeli occupation authorities in occupied Jerusalem continues and has affected all Palestinian institutions without exception. However, it focuses on the educational and cultural institutions and those with political activities, to remove the Palestinian presence and restrict it in the Holy City, the capital of the occupied Palestinian state.

Currently, the occupation campaign has taken the most dangerous turn to date, i.e. a comprehensive war on Palestinian educational institutions in occupied East Jerusalem and its suburbs, targeting UNRWA schools, Palestinian schools affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, and private schools. The ethnic cleansing began in the UNRWA schools to achieve two goals at the same time, first, to shut down the agency’s institutions, which is a joint American-Israeli goal that seeks to get rid of all of the UNRWA institutions that provide services to Palestinian refugees.

The purpose of this is to stop all services and end the UNRWA’s role. The closure of schools will be followed by stopping operations in the health and other humanitarian services institutions to liquidate the Palestinian refugee issue. This cannot be achieved until after the UNRWA is eliminated. The second goal, which is also dangerous, is to erase the Palestinian memory, along with the convictions, public information, and national archive, as well as the commitment to the cause, homeland, struggle and fight against the occupying enemy. This would be followed by planting misleading and false information contrary to facts and reality to change the authentic Israeli and Palestinian narratives. Palestinian students will be forced to study in Israeli schools and learn Israeli curriculums, which would force the Palestinians to forget their national history, their struggle, and their Palestinian identity through an attempt to erase the Palestinian memory and narrative.

The occupation authorities will prohibit the Palestinians in occupied Jerusalem and its suburbs to build public and private schools, giving the Palestinians two options. The first option is to leave Jerusalem and move to the occupied West Bank, and the second is to succumb to the Israeli desire and study in the occupation’s schools and adopt its curriculums. The Palestinians will have no other choice but to fight a large legal and political battle with the occupation to regain the right to teach and learn Palestinian curriculums and learn in Arabic.

As for the political targeting of Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas, it aims to strip any Palestinian legitimacy in the Holy City. At the same time, it seeks to remove Al-Aqsa Mosque and Muslim and Christian holy sites of their religious legitimacy in an attempt to impose the fait accompli of a unified East and West Jerusalem as the capital of the entity occupying Palestine. This was recognized by the other side of the occupation, Donald Trump.

It is a comprehensive cleansing war waged by the Zionist occupation on Jerusalem and its suburbs, targeting the Palestinian presence in all aspects of life, to establish the Judaism of Jerusalem and to continue the Judaization of all aspects of life.

The occupation authorities are seeking to create a Palestinian generation that could forget its Palestinian homeland, so they are now fighting a memory war with the Palestinian people, but they will surely be defeated.

 

Source: Kamal Zakarneh, Middle East Monitor