Is Palestine its own country?
A good starting point to understand the politics of a conflict, is to understand its history. You may be surprised to know that this conflict is neither ancient nor religious. The conflict started in the 20th Century. Israel itself is only 60 years old. This conflict is not about religion either, as Muslims, Christians and Jews lived in peace and harmony in Palestine for hundreds of years before Israel’s establishment in 1948. The conflict was really started during European colonialist times by European Zionists (a group of non-religious Eastern European Jews). I suggest you read the best answer to this question, which gives you a simple and factual history of the conflict: http://answers.yahoo.