On a wall of the mosque, a portrait has been taped up of Abu Ali Mustafa, the head of the Popular Front for the Liberation Palestine who was assassinated by Israel last month. It is incongruous for two reasons: First, because Mr Mustafa was not a religious man; the PFLP is a Marxist organisation. And second because the mosque where he is being remembered is not in the West Bank but inside Israel - in the northern Arab town of Umm al-Fahm.
Devout Muslims were not the only ones using this mosque and others in Umm al-Fahm this week. Desks and chairs and blackboards were moved in, as teachers and parents protested the inadequate classroom facilities in the town.
A statement from the Education Ministry blandly dismissed the protest as "political", but the local council's findings show that 80 of 110 classrooms for three-to-five-year-olds, for instance, are flawed - unsafe, over crowded, housed in buildings never intended to serve as schools, and so on. Secular parents say they had no desire to send their children to lessons in the mosques - but that the ministry's disinclination to allocate appropriate funds left them with no choice. The ministry approved a plan for three new elementary schools and a special education school three years ago, they note, but has never implemented it.
The Umm al-Fahm school protest is merely one sign of a deep frustration among Israel's Arab minority - one million out of Israel's overall six million population.
The poster identifying Mr Mustafa is merely one sign of its potential implications. Israeli Arabs have long charged that they are discriminated against - in everything from government funding for their local councils, to the status of their political representatives. Israeli governments, from left and right, tend to acknowledge the truth of many of the community's complaints. But they have been slow to tackle the issue.
The frustration boiled over a year ago: when the Palestinian intifada erupted, protests spread to the Israeli Arab community as well. Thirteen Israeli Arabs were killed in clashes with the police. An investigation into that violence, the Or Commission of Inquiry, is still continuing.
Testifying this week before the Or Commission, Mr Alik Ron, the police commander who was in the thick of last year's violence, indicated that little had been done to prevent its recurrence, or to ensure that it did not end with the same bloody result.
As that first anniversary of the intifada, which began on September 29th, looms into view, police chiefs have been holding emergency meetings to gear-up for potential riots - but attempts at coordination with local Arab leaders are proving extremely fraught. Israeli Arab Knesset members have been demonstrating ever-closer ties to Palestinian leaders - several actually attended Mr Mustafa's funeral in Ramallah last month - and their community appears to be moving with them.
Adding one more incendiary ingredient to the mix is Israel's plan to expropriate Arab land in the north of the country for the construction of a massive Trans-Israel Highway. This expropriation is scheduled to take place in the next few weeks; the national police commissioner, Mr Shlomo Ahronishky, is pressing for a postponement - at least until the high-tension anniversary season is over.
Confusion still surrounds plans for talks between the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli Foreign Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, aimed at achieving an intifada ceasefire and a resumption of peace negotiations. Some Palestinian officials say the two men will meet tomorrow at the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel. But others indicate that no talks can be held until after tomorrow's meeting of Arab Foreign Ministers.