Teaching Palestine on an Israeli University Campus: Unsettling Denial

The word occupation is not heard in classrooms on the Hebrew University campus, at the heart of Palestinian East Jerusalem. The war outside is not spoken of. Israeli and Palestinian students unsettle this denial for the first time in a practice-led course on human rights in the reality around them.

Readers join the students for a walking tour of the Palestinian neighborhoods surrounding the Mt. Scopus campus. They explore the complex relations between education, civil engagement, and the occupation, which present themselves in the Palestinian neighborhoods of Issawiyye, Sheikh Jarrah, and Lifta. These relations then make their way into the classroom where Palestinian and Israeli students engage with one another for the first time.