Schools Open; Few Arabs Attend

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Transcribed from the clipping

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel reopened Arab schools in the Israeli-held west bank region Monday for the first time since the June Middle East war. But many Arab teachers refused to show up and two educators were arrested. First reports also indicated some Arab parents kept their children home, apparently following an Arab leaflet campaign urging them to resist Israeli authority.

There are 200,000 Arab children and 6,500 teachers in the west bank territory. When the 855 schools were to begin classes, at least 100 of them were without teachers and many that did open had small turnouts by staff and pupils. Some hours before the Arab schools were to reopen, military authorities arrested two senior Arab educators, an Israeli government spokesman said.

They were suspected of inciting Arab teachers not to hold classes, he added. The two were identified as Husni Ashab, a former Jordanian Education Ministry inspector for Jerusalem, Jericho and Bethlehem, and Youssef Jalajil, former ministry inspector for the Ramallah district. Informed Arab sources said two other senior Arab school officials also were arrested.

There was no official confirmation. Israeli sources said if the resistance continued, strong measures likely would be taken against the boycotters. Refusal of Arab teachers to work was in protest at Israeli expurgation of anti-Zionist material in Arab textbooks and the occupation of the area, officials said. Israeli educators cleared only 56 of 114 Arab books.

The rest are being edited and reprinted to omit anti-Zionist passages.

How this transcription was made

Date confirmed on the page (masthead). Filed under the archive’s spelling; the page prints “Daytona Beach News Journal”.

Context added by this archive

SCHOOLBOOKS THREAD — second printing of the arrests dispatch, and the headline is the thing. s109_1 'Many Arab Teachers Boycotting Schools' s107_1 'Schools Open; Few Arabs Attend' <- this one Same copy. One desk headlined the teachers' action; the other headlined the attendance figure and made the Palestinians the absent party rather than the acting one.

Neither headline mentions the two arrests, which are in the lede of both. Content as at s109_1: who is censoring — 'Israeli educators', and the word the wire uses in its own voice is 'expurgation'. What was removed — the rest of the 114 books 'are being edited and reprinted to omit anti-Zionist passages'.

The teachers' stated reason is given plainly and it is two reasons, not one: 'in protest at Israeli expurgation of anti-Zionist material in Arab textbooks AND the occupation of the area'. Is any Palestinian quoted — no.

Husni Ashab and Youssef Jalajil are named, arrested, and never heard from; 'Informed Arab sources' report two further arrests and the paper immediately adds 'There was no official confirmation', a qualifier it attaches to no Israeli claim in the piece.

This is the clipping with a masthead, so it is the one to cite for the date of the reopening and the arrests: Monday 4 September 1967.

Cite this clipping

"Schools Open; Few Arabs Attend," Daytona Beach News-Journal, 5 September 1967, p. 9. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1967-074. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1967-074