As social animals, we are the inheritors of a variety of cultural influences that shape our identities, aspirations, values, and tastes. It is not unusual for people of the same cultural influences to feel trust towards one another and to want exclusive association with each other because they feel comfortable around those of the same backgrounds. The result of this trust and association is a satisfaction that comes from participating in culturally specific activities including art, sports, love, and religion. This mutual satisfaction which binds individuals together also separates humanity into distinct cultural groups due to human being's exclusive nature, even within a single place, be it a street, city, or country. This separation results in the mindset of "us" and "them" which creates a binary. This binary, with human being's habit of shifting the blame for misfortunes and anxieties onto others, may lead to suspicion within a community from one group of like backgrounds and cultural influences to another. In times of intense political competition and social turmoil, this suspicion can cause open hatred and persecution. This is the situation in Israel today.

In Israel there exists a binary between two distinct cultures, the Arab-Palestinians and the Jewish-Israelis. Within this binary hatred, violence and persecution exist. The inhabitants of Israel live guardedly with un-welcomed insecurity due to these factors. This unwelcomed insecurity may lead one towards the desire to feel secure. In order to feel secure, one may feel that they truly belong to a place, and can call that place home both metaphorically and literally.

In the religious heartland of the Middle East, people live in a frenzy of insecurity due to the "us" and "them" mentality. Within the mindset of insecurity and uncertainty, fear lives. This fear comes from the possibility of being blown up on a bus going to work, the being displaced from one’s own home, religious persecution, and the fear of one’s own children murdered by bombs or missiles. These fears may lead to the desire for a feeling of security. For most, the feeling of security results in a place where one feels that he or she belongs with others of his or her own kind and there is no worry of military or any other type of endangerment. A place where one really belongs is a land which he or she can call home.

In the ardently sought after land of Israel or Palestine there exist two different groups of people who believe they belong and call the land home. This disputed home is now the country of Israel, a home for the Jewish settlers who faced great religious persecution in Europe throughout the 19 th and early 20 th centuries. This persecution created sentiment that they needed their own Jewish State in order to belong and be safe. They settled in the land they considered holy from their Bible, the torah. This land, Palestine, was already inhabited by the Palestinians, who considered the land holy as well. With each group believing that they solely belong in this land they are not able tolerate the other group’s feelings of belonging as well. They can not tolerate another’s sense of belonging in what they believe to be their land because they can not fathom another people truly belonging where they belong since then it would not solely be their own home. Now, the State of Israel is a symbol of unity for the Jewish people contrasting a symbol of subjugation for the Palestinian people. The Jewish people once tolerated the religious persecution committed against them in the holocaust and believed the only place where they would be safe was a place of their own. They chose Palestine, because it was the land promised to them by their God, their holy land.

In 1947, the United Nations voted to partition the land then known as Palestine into two separate states, a Jewish one and a Palestinian one with Jerusalem as International territory. The Palestinians rejected this Partition because they lived on and owned most of the land which was to become the Jewish State. Arab armies invaded in 1948, and most of the fighting took place on the land which was to become the Palestinian State. Israel’s army won the war and when the armistice agreements were signed the independent Palestinian State had disappeared. Israel was now officially a country and many of the Palestinians were forced to leave their homes or face the subjugation of the Israeli army and government. The Palestinians believed that they belonged on this land and that the presence of a Jewish Homeland at all was and is a complete breach of their homeland. In the late 20 th century Palestinians began to use violence to try to get rid of the Israeli State believed that only when there is no official state then they will truly belong again, and could create a state of their own. They began using tactics such as “smart-bombs” or suicide bombers who believe that they are doing one of the most honorable things possible by sacrificing their own life to kill others in a hope to rid their land of the title Israel.

The Jew’s were once persecuted as villains in Europe because of their religion. Many fled Anti-Semitic attitudes towards them to find a better life. They chose the land promised to their ancestors in their Bible. However, their bible did not tell them what to do if people were already living in this land. The assumption was made that the land should be their own because the Bible stated this, but the Bible did not address what should happen to those living on this land. Based on the traditional values of treating someone as you would yourself in the Jewish bible, if the bible had acknowledged this issue it might have said that the Jews should live alongside those who occupy the land instead of claiming it as their own and creating their country out of it. It would not have condoned claiming a land which is someone else’s and displacing them from their land.