ABSTRACT
The issues in the Israel-Palestine conflict come down to a question of land, who can live there and who controls its use. This has been overlaid with issues of human rights and international law, coloured by mutual bitterness and mistrust after decades of violence. The Israeli settlement in the West Bank started in 1968. By the start of the 21st century there were 400,000 Israelis living in Gaza and the West Bank including east Jerusalem. The issue for Palestinians is not simply the presence of settlers in the West Bank and until 2005 in Gaza. Israel justifies this through the needs of security, but the consequence is to make daily life harder for Palestinians, making commerce more difficult and leading to the collapse of the economy during 2006-07. Israel does not accept Hamas as a legitimate voice of the Palestinians and is supported in this by the USA and European governments.
