BEFORE YOU WATCH: Conflict in Israel and Palestine - Crash Course World History #223

Before you watch

While you watch

1. John Green describes the life of the musician Wasif Jawhariyyeh. What claim does this evidence support?
2. How did Theodor Herzl’s views on Jewish people’s nation change over time? How might his context have affected his views?
3. What was the principal problem with the British promise of Palestine to the Zionists?
4. How did the British rule Palestine? What happened after the British withdrew from Palestine?
5. What happened in 1948? What different narratives are there about this time?
6. What is an intifada?
7. What are the two contrasting nationalist visions of Palestine and Israel, according to John Green?

After you watch

1. Use evidence from this video to explain how political changes in the period from c. 1900 to the present led to territorial, demographic, and nationalist developments.
2. John Green argues that because the conflict in Palestine and Israel has a recent history and isn’t millennia old, it is not intractable. In other words, understanding the fact that a conflict has specific origins in the recent past makes it more possible to resolve it. Do you find this argument convincing? Why or why not?
3. In this video, John Green talks about the competing nationalist visions of Palestine and Israel. What does this claim tell us about nationalism in the world today, and how does that inform our view of communities today?