The Palestinians find themselves locked into a bloody conflict with Israel that has cost nearly a thousand people their lives in one year, mostly civilians, mostly Palestinian.Depressingly, the violence is creating a new generation of desperate Palestinians as fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters are killed and as homes, police stations, hotels and other institutions are destroyed by Israel’s disproportionate and excessive use of military force.But this is not a conflict of equals. While the Israeli army occupies Ramallah and several other Palestinian cities, there is no Palestinian army occupying Tel Aviv. In fact there is no Palestinian army, period.This conflict is about people, not just a piece of land. It’s about the disenfranchised and besieged Palestinians living under the constant threat of collective punishments, military roadblocks, curfews and house demolitions. There can be no peace if the concerns, fears and problems of the people involved are not addressed.While the Palestinians have made a historical, painful compromise, in recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over most of historical Palestine including West Jerusalem, Israeli society does not seem to be ready for accepting Palestinian rights.Americans are the first to understand that there is no halfway state between freedom and slavery and that "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." Palestinians have endured, for over three decades now, the injustice of the longest military occupation in the world.