Lesson Plan: Settlements and the Status of Jerusalem in the Israel-Palestine Conflict

As students work through the Israel-Palestine Conflict, two of the central topics worth examining are the matters of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and the political past and future of Jerusalem. These two issues are, in fact, closely associated with other topics (e.g. two-state solution, access to the Jordan River, West Bank barrier) revolving around the conflict and raise numerous ethical questions about territorial claims more generally throughout the world.

This lesson provides students an opportunity to analyze and make sense of these developments and their connections. Employing multimedia content from news organizations, it takes around 90 minutes to complete. This lesson is employed in my classes after students engage with the history/background of the conflict. Please also see my lesson plan ("Understanding the Israel-Palestine Conflict through Drama in Education").

Photo by Robert Bye on Unsplash

Part One - Settlements - 45 minutes

As an opening activity, the teacher can elicit the connotations and images that students generally associate with the word "settlement". What might be some of the reasons why new settlements are formed by people?

Once the bell ringer is finished, the class can move on to examining the issue of settlements within the Israel-Palestine context specifically. For this, there is an excellent two-part Vox documentary that explores the history of the settlements, including how they came into being and different perspectives on their existence, and the economic situation of the settlements and the motivations of the Israelis who move to them. An accompanying worksheet has been prepared for this documentary. I especially like to explore the question about the involvement of politics with students and the implications on the two state solution. This enables a discussion on the entanglement between geography, politics, and history in terms of the changing territorial maps, the significance of the Jordan River, and the goals of each side. It is important to point out to students that not all Israelis support the construction of the settlements and that there is a particular divide between residents of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem towards the issue and politics more generally in the country.

Part Two - Jerusalem - 45 minutes

To open up this part of the lesson, it would be beneficial to ascertain what students already know about Jerusalem. Do they know how Jerusalem is currently divided and how it got to be that way? Why is the city important to different religions? How is the Old City managed? What significant sites are found there? After testing students' knowledge, the teacher can present this information to them visually with photographs and maps. This brief video from Vox provides an excellent summary. Now play the Vice News video ("A City Divided: Jerusalem's Most Contested Neighborhood") and provide this accompanying worksheet to students. The video provides an excellent springboard for discussion. My students brought up the indigenous peoples of North and South America as a point of comparison and grappled with the question of place and territorial claims. When is a historical claim to territory just and when is it illegitimate? Is it possible for people of different faiths or ethnic backgrounds to coincide in a confined space and what would make that possible? Why isn't it working out in Eastern Jerusalem?

Further Learning

It would be beneficial for students to explore other issues closely associated with the topic of settlements. The Washington Post, for example, has an excellent article following the daily routine of one Palestinian father as he commutes across a draconian checkpoint through the West Bank barrier on a daily basis. Al Jazeera, meanwhile, has produced a documentary highlighting the ways in which food can be a source of both conflict and cooperation/peaceful dialogue.