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It depends on the particular conflict, but the two territories most in contention between the Israelis and Palestinians are the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem). There is much contention between Israelis and Syrians over the Golan Heights and between Israelis and Lebanese there is some contention over the Shebaa Farms and the area south of the Litani River.
It is important to note that while Israel is the Jewish State, its soldiers and citizens are Israelis and have important non-Jewish components. (This is why the word Jew has not been used above in favor of Israeli.)
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Do Israeli Arabs have the right to live in West Bank settlements?
Israeli Arabs have the same rights as Israeli Jews and therefore can choose to live wherever they want within Israel or Area C in the West Bank. Unlike Jews however they can also settle in Areas B and A where Jews are prohibited to enter by law. However few Arabs choose to live in settlements, except for Ariel where many Arabs study in the Shomron Academic Center, and few Jews in Judea and Samaria would like to have Arabs for neighbors.
What is Balfour Declaration and why was it important to the eventual creation of Israel?
In the autumn of 1917 the British Army was advancing into Palestine, then in the Ottoman Empire. The Balfour Declaration (dated 2 November 1917) was a statement that the British government viewed 'with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, ... it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine ...' (It should be noted that Palestinereferred to the area now covered by both Israel and Palestine). After World War I the area was placed under British rule. There were difficulties from an early stage (the 1920s) because the establishment of a 'national home for the Jewish people' was widely seen as in conflict with promises made to the Arabs in the area. Soon fighting started between Arabs and Jews.
Why are the Israelis and the Jews fighting?
There are isolated skirmishes between Religious Zionists and the Israeli Army. These come as a result of the Religious Zionists belief that Jews are promised all of the territory of the Land of Israel by God and therefore Palestinians are not entitled to any of it whereas the Israeli government has made concessions to the Palestinian Authority for peace. However, most of the confrontations are not between Israelis and Jews, but between Israelis (who are themselves mostly Jewish) and Palestinians. This conflict is described in more detail in the Related Question.
Is Israel an illegal country?
The State of Israel is not an illegal country. Nor was it established by force. The British took contol of the Region called Palestine (the name was given by the Romans) after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. The British set aside the current state of Israel (including Judea and Samaria (known to some as the West Bank) in the Balfour Declaration in 1917. It took another 30 years before the United Nations declared two states for the region on November 29,1947. A state for Jews and and a State for the Arabs who lived in the Area.
Why is the state of Israel opposed by many Muslim states in the region?
After WWII, Jews were settled in a state controlled by Palestinian Arabs, a move supported by most of the European nations and the US. in the 1960's, the Jews took over the state militarily and turned it into the current Jewish state of Israel, driving many of the Palestinians out of the region and turning the rest into a largely disempowered minority. Most Arabs see the state of Israel as an illegitimate state imposed on the region by western powers in an effort destabilize the surrounding Arab/Muslim states and believe it should be removed (much the way the US saw the Iraqi take-over of Kuwait as illegitimate and took steps to remove it). add several centuries of conflict between Arabs and Europeans (the various European crusades and expansions of the Ottoman empire), where Jews are largely considered by Arabs to be European rather than semitic. =========================================== The following facts were apparently dropped from the above account because of some sort of computer error: 1). the continuous Jewish presence in the area since roughly 1200 BCE; 2). the stated policy of the British government 20 years before WWII that some part of the mandate administered by the British in Palestine ought by rights be re-designated a modern Jewish homeland; 3). the resolution by the majority of the UN General Assembly in 1947 to partition the western extremities of the British mandate into regions administered respectively by Arab and Jewish interests, in endorsement of the British policy; 4). the declaration of independent statehood by Israel in 1948 (not "the 1960s"), and its subsequent recognition by all but about 30 UN members; 5). the property, economic, voting, and legal rights of the "largely disempowered minority", including its several elected representatives in the national parliament.
