History is filled with examples of people displaced by edict, conflict and war, and there have always been questions about what should happen with such populations. Today, one of the most contentious debates over displaced persons is the one over the fate of Palestinians. Some believe that Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was passed by the United Nations General Assembly in the aftermath of World War II, guarantees Palestinians the right to return to land that they owned or lived on prior to the 1948 creation of the State of Israel. Others interpret the article differently. In this lesson, students will interpret the text of the declaration for themselves, and they'll do so having looked at the story from the perspective of a real family whose members were displaced.

Video clips provided with this lesson are from A World Not Ours.

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