July 10-23, 2014 Current Events Lesson Plan
Current Event: Death Toll Mounts in Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Hundreds of Palestinians, mainly civilians, and dozens of Israeli soldiers have been killed during the recent Israeli-Hamas hostilities. The current conflict began on June 30 when three Israeli teenagers were found murdered. Israel blamed Hamas, and a Palestinian teenager was subsequently murdered in a suspected revenge attack. An autopsy revealed that the Palestinian boy was burned alive, setting off a public outcry in both the West Bank and Gaza as well as in Israel. After days of heavy air barrages failed to halt Hamas rocket fire into Israel, Israel sent ground troops into Gaza. According to the Israel Defense Forces, the target of the ground operation were Hamas’s network of tunnels, which Palestinian militants use to cross into Israel and carry out attacks.
Objective:
Palestine is a historic land between Egypt and southwest Asia. It is the Holy Land, the site of many events described in the Bible. Muslims, the followers of the Islamic religion, also consider Palestine a sacred place. Palestine has been a center of conflict for thousands of years. Many peoples have invaded and taken control of the region. In the 400 years before World War I (1914-1917), Palestine was part of the Ottoman Empire. During the war, Palestine came under British control. Both the Arab and Jewish inhabitants of Palestine fought for control of the territory. After World War II (1939-1945), a United Nations special commission recommended that Palestine be divided into an Arab state and a Jewish state. The UN General Assembly adopted this plan on Nov. 29, 1947. The Jews accepted the UN decision, but the Arabs rejected it. Since Israel officially became independent in 1948, conflict between the Arabs and Israel has continued to this day. The Behind the Headlines news story and related World Book articles explore Palestine and the Middle East.
Words to know:
- Arab-Israeli conflict
- Arabs
- Gaza Strip
- Hamas
- Israel
- Middle East
- Palestine
- Palestinians
- Six-Day War
- Suez crisis
- West Bank
- Yom Kippur War
Discussion Topics:
1. Palestine is in the Middle East. Ask your students to name the Middle Eastern countries. (The 15 Middle East countries are Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. The Gaza Strip and the West Bank are also in the region. Some people consider Afghanistan, Algeria, Cyprus, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, Sudan, or Tunisia to also be in the Middle East.)
2. Ask your students what they know about the Middle East. (They might say that most Middle Easterners are Muslims, the Middle East accounts for a good deal of the world’s oil production and reserves, Saudi Arabia is the largest country in the Middle East and Egypt is the most populous.)
3. Have your students debate the question, “When is war justified?”
4. Ask your students to use World Book’s Timelines feature to view or add to the Arab-Israeli Conflict timeline.