Palestine’s Teachers: Its Last National Resource

By Samah Jabr


	On Sept. 2, 2006—the first day of school for Palestinian children—an empty classroom in Hebron with “teachers on strike” written on the blackboard shows the result of a strike by teachers and other public sector employees (AFP photo/Hazem Bader).

ON THE FIRST day of the new academic year, and in response to a call by the Fatah-based Palestinian Teachers’ Union, teachers in the occupied Palestinian territories launched a strike to protest the fact that they have not been paid since last February—a month after Hamas won free and fair democratic elections and, in response, the U.S. and Israel joined forces to impose a political and economic blockade on the new government.

Teachers represent the largest sector of government employees, which includes health care workers and office employees, who also joined the strike. As a result, some 40,000 teachers and 1,250,000 students found themselves at home instead of in school, and patients were unable to receive medical treatment.

It was Palestinian teachers who, in January, monitored the election process and ensured that it was untarnished by cheating and manipulation. At the onset of the international embargo, Palestinian employees came together in support of their government, surviving on food coupons and aid instead of salaries. As time went by, however, people began to lose patience—
and one cannot deny their right to demand an end to their financial predicament.

Even the youngest school child in Palestine is aware that the responsibility for their plight lies not with the Hamas-led government, but with the Israeli-American siege imposed on the Palestinian people. In response to people’s dire financial situation, the government decided to make school fees optional—thus further depleting funds available to pay teachers.

Despite the new government’s best efforts to conserve public funds, President Mahmoud Abbas allocated a portion of it to Palestinian television and the PLO—the very institutions which have continued to campaign against the new government.

Indeed, the media’s anti-government statements are evidence of the strike’s political nature. Perhaps the goal is not the stated one of recouping unpaid wages, but rather a strategy to impose conditions on talks for the formation of a national government.

Some of the methods used to enforce the strike were violent, including threatening teachers, vandalizing the cars of those who worked, and shooting at students going to school. Armed men roamed the streets of the West Bank cities of Jericho and Tulkarm, forcing owners of shops open for business to close. An attack on governmental grounds in Gaza City by PA security men is further proof that civil servants were being exploited to serve the political ends of certain factions.

Accusing the striking teachers or questioning their intentions, however, is as counterproductive as the strike itself. Teachers and other public servants have the right to protest—just as those who agree with the government have the right to work without facing threats and constraints. Surely, however, there are other tactics for stressing the importance of paying teachers that would enable them to resume classes, rather than deprive our children of their right to an education.

Teachers, after all, are not the only ones living under financial constraints due to the political situation. Since the beginning of the current intifada, some 300,000 Palestinian laborers who used to work in Israeli-controlled areas have lost their jobs. Innumerable Palestinian farmers have had their lands confiscated, ancient olive trees uprooted, or homes demolished—not to mention the thousands of lives lost or bodies maimed as a result of Israel’s war on us. In fact, it has never been the government that kept us going, but our own conviction of the legitimacy of our cause and our determination to resist against all odds.

This strike is especially harmful because it targets a very important value of the Palestinian nation, education, and adversely affects our children, the most vulnerable members of our society. Indeed, researchers on mental and psychological health in Palestine have noted the importance of schooling in contributing to the resilience of our young people. In one such study, 96 percent of children suffering from a variety of occupation-induced torments believed that progressing in their studies was the solution for their personal and national problems.

Given the impoverished and dangerous environment in which Palestinians live, school is a vital lifeline to these children who are living at the edge of death. In addition to the prestige accorded teachers by our culture, their number and proximity to our children make them a very important resource for the mental and psychological rehabilitation of the youngest generation. Without education for our children today, we cannot hope for change in future generations.

While the public sector certainly should take measures to expose the difficulties and harm caused by the economic siege, especially in the education and health sectors, it must take care not to compound poverty with ignorance and disease, thereby leading to a permanent paralysis in the Palestinian territories. Instead of closing schools and hospitals, it would be more effective and to the point to protest in a civilized and democratic way outside the offices of international organizations, in front of foreign embassies and the United Nations—which, after all, are much more responsible for the current wage crisis than is the Palestinian government.

Samah Jabr is a Jerusalem-born physician currently studying in Paris.