Discrimination in the occupied territories of Palestine is nothing new. But to read the bleak reality, as detailed in our front page report yesterday, of cold, dark classrooms with no equipment and no hope is to understand that the apartheid system that Israel has spent decades constructing in Palestine is deeply entrenched. So entrenched, in fact, that it cannot be dismantled from within.
Palestinians, in their own country, are prevented from gaining a reasonable or even adequate education. They are deprived of books, computers, science labs – and of hope. By contrast, their settler peers are taught in high-quality facilities – many of which, as reports have recently revealed, are built with money funnelled from shadowy groups and charities in the US.
Worse, such deprived educational facilities are the result of outright theft. Israel, not the Palestinian Authority, collects tax in the occupied territories. It is meant to transfer this money directly to the PA, but in reality it seeks any excuse to withhold it, sometimes for months, and levies whatever charges it wishes. There is, of course, no oversight: Israel grabs whatever money it feels like and calls it a “charge”. During one financial quarter last year, Israel refused to return a third of the PA’s taxes, citing unitemised charges.
The end result of this official discrimination is clear. Young Palestinians are being deprived of the opportunity to fulfil their talents. Future doctors, scientists and architects are denied the necessary education. And what happens when young people feel such frustration day in and day out? The reality of Israel’s apartheid state is manifested from the moment they wake up, in homes that are denied planning permission while illegal settlements mushroom. On the way to school, when they are abused with impunity by settlers and the soldiers who guard them. And at school, where they are made to feel like second-class citizens in their own country.
No wonder, then, that some lash out, protesting, throwing rocks or instigating violence against the Israeli state. The fault for violence must lie with each individual. But the context is provided by the apartheid state that is developing around Palestinians. Israelis cannot remake their state; only pressure from the outside world, through protest and sanctions, can do that.
