Many Arab Teachers Boycotting Schools

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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 6,300 teachers in the west bank territory. When the 815 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 26 of 114 Arab books.

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

How this transcription was made

Date and publication rest on the collector's slide label; no masthead, folio or printed dateline appears on this clipping.

Context added by this archive

SCHOOLBOOKS THREAD — the clipping that connects censorship to arrest. Who is censoring: 'Israeli educators'; the word the paper uses is 'expurgation' — 'Israeli expurgation of anti-Zionist material in Arab textbooks'. What was removed: of 114 Arab books only 26 cleared; the remaining 88 'are being edited and reprinted to omit anti-Zionist passages'.

Whose voice: the censorship figures are given flatly in the paper's own voice, unattributed ('Israeli educators cleared only 26 of 114 Arab books'); the motive of the teachers is attributed to 'officials'; the threat is attributed to 'Israeli sources'. Is any Palestinian quoted: NO.

Palestinians appear here only as actors described by others — teachers who 'refused to show up', parents who 'kept their children home', an 'Arab leaflet campaign', and 'Informed Arab sources' who report two further arrests that the paper then undercuts with 'There was no official confirmation.' The two arrested men are named but not quoted, and nothing in the clipping says what became of them.

NOTE for the pattern: this is the single most important item in the textbook thread because it establishes consequence — the other clippings describe a screening process; this one shows men taken into custody over it. It is also the only one that states the Palestinian teachers' own stated reason: protest at the expurgation AND at 'the occupation of the area'.

ON MARIA'S SLIDE-109 NOTE ('a pattern or ig carousel around education/textbook censorship maybe?'): this clipping and its slide-mate are the two strongest in the batch, and they come from opposite ends of the American press — a small AP item and a long Miami Herald–LA Times wire feature — on consecutive days.

Together with s112_1, s112_3, s110_2 and s104/105/106/107 they give a thread, not a one-off. See my report for the count.

Cite this clipping

"Many Arab Teachers Boycotting Schools," Times Record News, 5 September 1967. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1967-075. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1967-075