90 chapter two almost no Arab instructors or administrators with decision and policymaking powers in the Israeli education system. As a result, Arab state-run schools are faced with a discriminatory curriculum which allots more time to learning the Torah along with other Jewish and Zionist texts than to studying the Qur’an, the New Testament or literature produced by Arab scholars.97 Conversely, Jewish state-funded religious schools maintain autonomous control over the design and implementation of their curriculum. In addition, in July 2009, the Ministry of Education launched a program seeking to entrench Zionist thought in the minds of Arab youth in Israel. It distributed ‘national anthem kits’ to schools throughout the country in an attempt to arouse Arab commitment to and empathy for the Israeli national anthem, and its associated values of a Jewish-Zionist state.98 Moreover, in August of the same year, the Education Minister imposed a ban on the teaching of the Nakba, the result of which was a stern rejection and widespread condemnation of this discriminatory ban by the Follow-Up Committee on Higher Education, a public committee established in 1984 to represent the Arab public in Israel with regard to Arab education. Regarding budgetary allocation for religious cultivation, after the 1967 war and the Israeli military occupation of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the Israeli government implemented The Protection of Holy Sites Law (1967). This law aimed to safeguard and preserve sacred spaces from desecration, and from anything that could obstruct access to these places by followers of religious traditions or could offend their religious sensitivities.99 The Minister of Religious Affairs is responsible for the 97 Ibid. University matriculation exams include questions on Judaism, but not on the Muslim, Christian, or Druze faiths, and in addition to such direct discrimination in the classrooms, numerous studies have found that Israeli textbooks contain persistent negative and racialized references to Arabs and Palestinians. For an excellent account of the representation of the Palestinian people in the Israeli education system, see Peled-Elhanan (2012). Further, a source at the Israeli Ministry of Education recently noted an escalation in racism among Israeli students. Citing the racist political discourse as fuelling anti-Arab racism among Jewish-Israeli students in schools, the source states “We’re not talking about a minority, or children from families that have extreme political views, but about normal children who are afflicted with ignorance …. The political discourse in recent years has given them the legitimacy to be prejudiced.” In response to the rise of anti-Arab racism in Israeli schools, a group of teachers signed a petition calling on Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar to take action. See Tomer Velmer, “Student’s answer on civics test: Death to Arabs,” Ynet News, January 19, 2011, http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4015645,00.html. 98 Jonathan Cook, “Palestinians in Israel forced to study Zionist anthem,” The Electronic Intifada, July 28, 2009, http://electronicintifada.net/content/palestinians-israel-forced -study-zionist-anthem/8364. 99 Report by European Center for Law and Justice and American Center for Law and Justice, Religious Freedom and Religious Persecution Issues in Israel and the Palestinian Territories, January, 2008, http://www.eclj.org/PDF/080123_ISRAEL_MEMO.pdf.