While the American media often concentrate on the political level – leadership and negotiations – the reality of this conflict is played out in the day-to-day experience of average Palestinians and Israelis. For this reason, this section will focus on the effect of the conflict on Palestinian and Israeli life, and particularly how it affects their basic rights to food, life, property, safety, and freedom.
Although we hear a great deal about Israeli ‘security’ concerns, Israeli daily life is far less impacted by this conflict than that of Palestinians. The basic power dynamic is responsible for the vastly different experiences of these two populations. Israel, with the fourth strongest military in the world, and empowered by US support, has occupied the West Bank and Gaza Strip (or ‘Palestinian Territories’) since 1967. The Palestinians have no military, few weapons, and no powerful allies.
Israel’s occupation controls almost all aspects of Palestinian life. Children have difficult getting to school, parents to work, the sick and injured to hospitals, because Israel has erected hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks obstructing Palestinian movement around their own country.
In addition to the daily difficulty posed by roadblocks, Israel has the ability – which it uses with disturbing frequency – to completely shut down parts or all of the West Bank and Gaza. Sometimes Israel imposes, by force of arms, a ‘curfew’ for an entire city or village. Heavily-armed Israeli troops enter civilian cities in tanks and armored vehicles, to prevent all inhabitants from leaving their houses for weeks or months at a time (only broken up by occasional hour-long respites, to allow residents to obtain food).
In 2002, Israel began constructing a barrier through the Palestinian West Bank, confiscating huge tracts of land, demolishing many homes and crops, cutting off many Palestinians from their means of survival, and making travel even more difficult for the entire population.
Every so often Israel ‘re-invades’, a section of the West Bank or Gaza strip, wreaking havoc above and beyond the ‘normal’ obstructions to movement described above. In the course of these invasions, much of the infrastructure for a future Palestinian state has been destroyed, many people have been killed, and much personal property – cars, homes, etc. – has been stolen or obliterated.
All of these policies are the result of the underlying ideology of Israel: Zionism. Palestinians, whether citizens of Israel or subjects of the occupation, face policies of discrimination at every level of Israeli beaurocracy.
Israel-Palestine Timeline: The human cost of the conflict records photos and information for each person who has been killed in the ongoing violence.
History of the Israel Lobby
Alison Weir's book Against Our Better Judgement: How the U.S. was used to create Israel brings together meticulously sourced evidence to outline the largely unknown history of U.S.-Israel relations.
Israel has constructed hundreds of checkpoints and roadblocks on Palestinian land, which restrict all movement, even to school, work, and hospitals. Fact Sheet | Articles
The Israeli military often puts entire towns under ‘curfew.’ This means that no one may leave there home until the curfew is lifted. Fact Sheet | Articles
Americans almost never hear about many of the disturbing tactics that make this conflict so bloody and seemingly intractable. moreFact Sheet | Articles
