The Roots of the Conflict

1. Set Focus
Pose this essential question: Why might an ethnic or religious group want its own nation?

2. List Vocabulary
Share some of the challenging vocabulary words in the article (see below). Encourage students to use context to infer meanings as they read.

• allotted (p. 18)
• partition (p. 18)
• provisional (p. 18)
• contending (p. 20)
• armistice (p. 20)
• retaliatory (p. 21)

3. Engage
Have students think about and predict the potential issues that would need to be considered when dividing a region among two peoples. Explain that students will read about the U.N.’s attempt in 1947 to give both Jews and Palestinians their own nations. As they read, students should think about why it didn’t work and the consequences of its failure.  

4. Read and Discuss
Ask students to read the Upfront article about the founding of Israel. Review why the article is a secondary source. (It was written by someone who didn’t personally experience or witness the events.) Then pose these critical-thinking questions and ask students to cite text evidence when answering them:

• What reasons does the article give to explain why Jews and Arabs disagreed on whether to accept the U.N.’s partition plan? (According to the article, Jews in the region believed that the only way to prevent anti-Semitic persecution, such as what they had just experienced during the Holocaust, was to establish their own nation state. Arabs, on the other hand, did not want to lose territory to a partition plan that they felt did not treat them fairly.)

• What effect did the subsequent conflict have on the region? (The 1948 Arab-Israeli War resulted in the establishment of Israel, as well as Jews gaining a larger amount of territory than the United Nations had proposed in its partition plan. Israel was also able to provide a safety net for Holocaust survivors. Arabs lost a significant amount of territory. Many fled the violence and became refugees, and those who remained in what became Israel-proper feel they are treated unequally.)

• According to the maps on page 19, how does the current geography of the region compare to what was in the proposed in the partition plan? (Both maps look similar,  but the land that is part of Israel-proper is larger than the 1947 proposal. In the plan, the land around Haifa belongs to the Arab state, and the Gaza strip is larger. In the U.N. plan, Jerusalem is marked as an international zone.)

• According to the article, what are some of the obstacles to peace in the region? (Some obstacles to peace include current violence, Hamas’s control of Gaza, fragmentation amongst moderates and hardliners on both sides, a Palestinian Authority viewed as “ineffectual,” and the fact that Israelis have built more than 130 settlements in the West Bank, which “complicates the prospects for a cohesive Palestinian state.”) 

5. Use the Primary Source
Project, distribute, or assign in Google Classroom the PDF The U.N. Partition Plan, which features excerpts from the U.N. General Assembly’s plan to partition Palestine into two nation states. Discuss what makes the text a primary source. (It provides firsthand evidence concerning the topic.) Have students read the excerpts and answer the questions below (which appear on the PDF without answers).

• How would you describe the tone and purpose of these excerpts from the U.N. partition plan? (The tone can be described as formal. The purpose is to explain the reasoning of their plan as well as to persuade the audience to accept it.)

• Citing evidence from the text, why do the authors feel partition is the best solution? (Answers may vary but students may note specific evidence from the text, such as the assertions that both Jews and Arabs have valid claims to the land and are strongly nationalistic. The two sides are “dissimilar in their ways of living,” which would make any solution other than two separate nations unfeasible.)

• The authors call the conflict “a clash of two intense nationalisms.” What do they mean? (The authors believe that both Jews and Arabs feel strong connections to their ethnic and religious identities and that these identities were in such strong opposition to each other that the two groups can’t peacefully coexist and would like their own nation states.) 

• Why was immigration a central conflict at this time? Why do you think the authors thought that partition was the only resolution? (After World War II, Jews were seeking refuge in Palestine. Because Jews wanted them to be able to enter the country and Palestinians wanted immigration limits, the authors believed that granting Jews their own nation state would provide them the power to control the immigration within their borders. At the same time, the authors believed that the size of territory granted to Jews would naturally place a limit on the number of people who could migrate to Israel.)

• Based on the Upfront article and these excerpts from the U.N. plan for partition, do you think events in this region could have played out differently? Explain. (Answers will vary, but students may suggest, and discuss the merits of, the plan being accepted by both sides, the plan being renegotiated to make it more acceptable to the Arab people, or the proposal and acceptance of a single-state solution that constitutionally guaranteed equal protections for both groups.)

6. Writing Prompt
Research one of the events included in the timeline but not discussed in-depth in the article, such as the 1967 Six-Day War or the Second Intifada. Write a brief summary of the event.

7. Quiz
Use the quiz to assess comprehension.

8. Classroom Debate
Was the U.N. right to try to partition Palestine?

9. Dig Deeper
Have students read and discuss additional sections of the 1947 report issued by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (Volume 1). Have them analyze the main points of each section and discuss their implications on the future of Israelis and Palestinians.