East Jerusalem's Empty Classrooms: When Licensing Law is used to Disrupt

Anne Jacob | Middle East Fellow

Image sourced from Salah Darwish via Unsplash

Dozens of private schools across East Jerusalem did not open on schedule this September. The reason was not a checkpoint, a demolition order, or a raid; rather, it was a stack of unrenewed paperwork. Since January 2026, Israeli authorities have withheld entry and work permits from a large share of the West Bank teachers who staff these schools, while a new Knesset law bars anyone holding a degree from a Palestinian Authority (PA) accredited institution from teaching in Israeli-regulated schools at all. The result is a teacher crisis severe enough to shut down classrooms serving roughly 15,000 students.

While this has since scaled back in the last few weeks, following significant protests and strikes, it shows a pattern of systemically weakening Palestinian identity where a daily commute becomes a political act.

A permit system three years in the making

Palestinians from the West Bank have needed entry and work permits to reach Jerusalem since Israel’s 1967 annexation of the city’s eastern half, a move not recognised under international law. But the scale of restriction has shifted sharply in recent years. According to a 2025 report by Gisha, an Israeli NGO monitoring Palestinian freedom of movement, permits issued to West Bank workers across all sectors fell from over 100,000 to around 8,000 in a three-year period.

This broader tightening on permits has now collided directly with East Jerusalem’s education sector. In March 2026, Israel’s Ministry of Education declined to issue work permits to 171 West Bank teachers for the 2026-2027 school year. Roughly 40 percent of teachers in Jerusalem’s Palestinian private schools, majority of them Palestinian Christians, live in the West Bank.

The new law

Layered on top of the permit denials is legislation the Knesset passed in January 2026, the Bill to Prevent Employment of Teachers with Academic Degrees from the Palestinian Authority. The bill passed its second and third readings, amending Israel’s State Education Law and Supervision of Schools Law so that a PA degree is no longer recognised as a qualifying academic credential for teaching, principal, or superintendent roles. This treats holders as if they lack the required degree entirely.

The bill’s explanatory notes state its rationale is that academic training within the PA takes place in an environment involving “incitement against Israel”, and that this training is therefore unsuitable for education staff within the Israeli system. The law’s stated purpose is to prevent what it calls the PA’s “harmful influence” and to safeguard the educational character of the Israeli state. The PA’s official news agency, WAFA, has disputed that framing, arguing the law’s criteria are not based on individual academic competence but amount to a categorical exclusion on political grounds. Because roughly 60 percent of East Jerusalem’s approximately 6,700 Arab educators hold PA degrees, the law’s practical reach is extensive.

The law does include carve-outs. Teachers already employed or who had completed a full year of PA-based degree study are exempt. The Ministry’s director general retains discretion to approve individual cases, and those denied employment are entitled to a hearing and an appeal. However, the law's exemptions only cover the degree-recognition problem, not the entry-permit problem. This means that while the current workforce may be protected, the future workforce is not.

Classes suspended

The “General Secretariat for Christian Educational Institutions in Jerusalem”, representing 15 schools announced a suspension of classes beginning September 1, stating it would resume instruction once the necessary permits for teachers and staff were reissued in full. The permit denials and legislative changes are a systematic pressure campaign aimed at reducing the number of West Bank staff able to work in Christian and private schools generally.

For the roughly 15,000 students enrolled at those schools, the suspension has no fixed end date. Recommencement is tied to permits being reissued, not to a date on the calendar, leaving families unable to say whether they have lost a week or a term of instruction. Nor is transferring elsewhere a neutral option for most; the municipal alternative teaches the Israeli curriculum rather than the Palestinian one, so many families are left weighing an indefinite delay against a curriculum their community has already rejected on principle.

Jerusalem Governorate spokesman Marouf al-Rifai characterised the developments as a threat to Palestinian control over education and national narrative in the city. These changes coincide with a separate Israeli policy expanding the Israeli curriculum into East Jerusalem’s municipal schools. Israeli officials have not, offered a direct rebuttal to the “systematic pressure” characterisation specifically, though the law’s own explanatory notes ground the measure in stated educational and security concerns rather than an intent to reduce staffing.

Why this is hard to see, and hard to appeal

What distinguishes this dispute from more visible flashpoints in East Jerusalem is its form. There is no single arrest or closure order to document. Instead, the disruption accumulates through individually unremarkable administrative acts: a permit not renewed, a degree not recognised, an appeal filed and pending. Each act is defensible in isolation on the criteria the law sets out; the cumulative effect on East Jerusalem’s teaching workforce is what has produced empty classrooms this term.

Whether that effect reflects the law’s intended function or an unintended consequence is a matter of ongoing dispute between Israeli authorities and Palestinian and Christian educational bodies. While these debates continue to fester, the students in Jerusalem are left waiting, their education held hostage to a bureaucratic process with no end date.

Anne Jacob is an Australian-qualified lawyer with experience in complex commercial litigation, international arbitration and regulatory matters across the energy, oil and gas, and financial crime sectors. She spent six months working in the Middle East where she developed a keen interest in the region's rapid economic and infrastructure transformation, its growing influence in global energy markets, and the legal and policy challenges arising from labour migration.

Her principal areas of interest are public international law, human rights and international dispute resolution, and currently volunteers with legal counsel at Amnesty International Australia.

Through this fellowship, Anne hopes to explore Australia's engagement with the Middle East and make complex legal and policy issues accessible to broader audiences.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Young Australians in International Affairs. AI tools were used by this author for grammar checks and idea refinement, but all content is original, and no plagiarism has been used in the preparation of this article.