A history of educational control: scholasticide in Palestine

This thesis critically examines the systematic control exercised by the Israeli regime over Palestinian education, situating it within the broader framework of settler colonialism. Drawing on historical, legal, and theoretical sources, the study demonstrates that education has been weaponized by Israel not merely as a site of governance, but as a tool of erasure, fragmentation, and suppression of Palestinian national identity. From the imposition of censored curricula and bureaucratic restrictions to the physical destruction of schools and universities, particularly in Gaza, the Israeli policies amount to a sustained assault on the Palestinian capacity to learn, teach, and remember. Through engagement with theorists such as Patrick Wolfe, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, and Paulo Freire, the thesis highlights the epistemic dimension of this violence and the forms of resistance cultivated within Palestinian educational spaces. The study introduces and applies the concept of scholasticide to describe the intentional destruction of education as a form of colonial warfare. It concludes by arguing for the legal recognition of scholasticide as a crime and an essential step toward justice. Education, in the Palestinian context, is not merely a right, it is a terrain of resistance, memory, and political survival.