Arab East Jerusalem school embracing Israeli curriculum set on fire

An Arab school in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Kafr Aqab was set on fire on Sunday.

There is currently no official information on who is behind the arson, however, it appears to be ideologically motivated since the school, named Ilya, was the first in the Arab neighborhood to teach an Israeli curriculum. The arson also comes merely days after armed Arab terrorists opened fire on the school.

Israel won parts of East Jerusalem from Jordan during the Six-Day War in 1967 and formally annexed the territory in 1981. However, in practice, Israeli law enforcement in the area is limited.

Most Arab schools in East Jerusalem neighborhoods follow the curriculum of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to prepare students for their final matriculation exams, known as the tawjihi, which are required to attend Palestinian and Arab universities. The equivalent mandatory exams to enter Israeli universities are called the bagrut, and East Jerusalem schools have more recently been adopting the Israeli curriculum, with the help of the Ministry of Education and the Jerusalem Municipality, so their graduates can pass the bagrut and be able to attend Israeli universities.

In addition, in June 2022, the Israeli Education Ministry revoked the license of six Arab East Jerusalem schools that had reportedly been inciting their students against Israel. Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Fleur Hassan-Nahoum warned that East Jerusalem Arab schoolchildren received the same anti-Israel indoctrination as Arab children in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.

“For years I have been lobbying the government of Israel and foreign countries to make educational funding in East Jerusalem conditional on the reform of the school books to remove hatred and incitement,” Hassan-Nahoum said at the time.

While the Kafr Aqab neighborhood is officially part of the metropolitan Jerusalem area, it is located outside the security barrier that separates much of East Jerusalem from neighboring Arab West Bank towns and villages.

The State of Israel officially views the entire city of Jerusalem as its undivided capital. However, most of the international community does not recognize Israeli control over areas of East Jerusalem. In addition, the PA claims East Jerusalem as the capital of its potential future state.