The conflicts in the Middle East are not confined to a geographical area but have both a global and a local dimension. International conflicts, crises and acts of terrorism have consequences in the classroom practice, partly because current events are part of the content in social studies subjects, but partly because an increasing number of pupils have personal experiences and/or personal views on different aspects of these conflicts, also in relation to nationalist, xenophobic and islamophobic discourses. The overall aim in this paper is to investigate and compare how the Middle Eastern conflicts and related topics are raised within Religious Education and Civics. Are there differences in content and ways of talking in Religious Education compared to Civics and, if so, how? What implications have different subject framings for discourses and perspectives and hence, what becomes possible to learn? The study is based on participatory classroom observations of Religious Education and Civics at six Swedish upper secondary schools. Interviews with 8 teachers and 15 focus group interviews with 51 pupils have been conducted. The preliminary analyses indicate that migration, terrorism, antisemitism, islamophobia and swedishness were major themes raised in relation to the conflicts in both subjects. Experiences of pupils largely affected the classroom discourse. However, there were differences between how the conflicts were framed and discussed, but also the role of religion as an explanatory factor. In Civics, the conflict perspective was central but remained unproblematised. In the Religious Education, the conflict perspective was largely absent.