© www.channelnewsasia.comRally in protest of school discrimination funding cuts.
Staff in 47 Christian schools serving Palestinians within present-day Israel
have gone on strike to protest against funding cuts imposed on them by the government. They say they may
escalate their protest by seeking the closure of Christian holy sites that attract thousands of tourists each year.While the State of Israel
previously funded up to 70 percent of the budget for these schools, it has sharply reduced its contribution during the past few years.Today, the state
pays only 29 percent of their operating costs. Palestinian citizens of Israel perceive the cuts as an attack on their culture and identity.
The Christian schools — which teach 30,000 children — are among the few Palestinian institutions in present-day Israel that
survived the Nakba, the ethnic cleansing conducted by Zionist forces during and after Israel's establishment in 1948. Run on a semi-public basis, they follow the core Israeli curriculum but also give lessons on religion and Palestinian history.
The funding cuts appear discriminatory.
Schools for ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel have similarly been run on a semi-public basis, even though they focus on religious instruction, rather than the Israeli curriculum.Yet the Israeli government has steadily increased its funding for such schools in recent years to the extent that they are
almost totally financed by the state's budget.Palestinian Christians comprise
less than 2 percent of Israel's population. Their schools — which accept Muslims and Druze students, too — are high-performing, with a large number of their pupils later attending university.
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