Global Issues in ContextThe Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an ongoing sociopolitical dispute largely related to land rights and jurisdictional authority in the Southern Levant in the modern country of Israel in the Middle East. Though control of the affected regions has been contested throughout history, the conflict specifically refers to hostilities between Zionists and Palestinians that date back to the nineteenth century. Zionists are Jewish nationalists who believe Jewish people should have political control over the region as their ancestral homeland.