Topic | Title of Document | Summary |
Jewish and Arab both had desires for a homeland | The Jewish State (1896) by Theodor Herzl | Jews in Europe were being persecuted in the 1800s and Hertzl advocated for the creation of a Jewish country (aka Zionism) |
First Zionist Congress (Basel, Switzerland, 1897) | Jewish leaders from around the world met and created several goals to promote Zionism | |
All Arabs share a common language and history that should unite them | ||
First Arab Congress (Paris, 1913) | Arabs met to create goals for how the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) would treat Arabs | |
World War 1 caused the European countries to make promises to the Arabs and Jews | What-a-man Ottoman readers theater | A short play; Lawrence of Arabia leads Arabs to help defeat the Central Powers in World War 1, but then Britain will not pay the Arabs |
A British leader in Egypt (McMahon) agreed to support an Arab leader’s (Hussein) request for Arab independence in exchange for Arab support against the Ottoman Empire in World War I. | ||
Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) | A secret agreement between Britain and France to divide the Ottoman Empire after WW1. | |
The Balfour Declaration (1917) | The British government wrote a letter supporting the creation of a country for Jewish people. | |
Arabs and Jews supported each other | Feisal-Weizmann Agreement (1919) | An Arab leader and a Jewish leader agreed to support an independent country for each group. |
After WW1, European countries took control of the land from the losing countries | The League of Nations (predecessor to the United Nations) said that the lands of the Central Powers in WW1 should be under the control of the Allied Powers. | |
The British took control of land that they had originally promised to the Arabs during WW1 | ||
Britain created a plan to give land to Arabs and Jews | The Peel Commission (1937) | In order to stop conflict in Palestine, the British government advocates dividing the land between Arabs and Jews. |
Britain created a plan to give land to Arabs only | The White Paper (1939) | The British government changed their mind -- they decided the best solution would be an Arab country in Palestine with legal protections for Jews. Jews did not agree. |
The UN created a plan to give land to Arabs and Jews | The United Nations decided to divide Palestine between the Jews and Arabs. Arabs did not agree. | |
Major events in the conflict between Jews and Arabs after Israel was created | From the time Israel was created in 1948 to the present, there have been many conflicts between Jew and Arabs. Students read about several:
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A Palestinian (Arab) teenager and an Israeli (Jewish) teenager each write a letter expressing their view on the conflict | Both sides have valid reasons to claim the land | |
A story about how important the land is to people in the Middle East | The Worse of Two Choices (or The Forsaken Olive Trees) by Najwa Qa’war Farah | An Arab man agrees to move to his children, who are in another country and cannot return home because of the conflict between Jews and Arabs. He has to leave his homeland, and the heartbreak of leaving his land causes him to die. |