at a time when hundreds of rockets are fired by hamas and islamic jihad from gaza against israel threatening population centers including jerusalem and tel aviv criticizing israels occupation of the west bank would seem inappropriate at best many israelis justify the continuing occupation in light of the intensifying violence they argue that israel cannot allow the west bank to become under any circumstances like gaza a staging ground for rocket attacks that could cause unimaginable death and destruction the repeated acts of violence emanating from gaza and the relative calm in the occupied west bank are used to validate this claim in reality the occupation itself is the root cause behind the unending israelipalestinian conflict and the current deadly flareup between israel and hamas the curse of the occupation