(CNN) -- My eyes stung, I was coughing, my nose was running. Along with cameraman David Hawley and freelance producer Kareem Khadder, I had just been tear-gassed -- not for the first time last Friday -- during a day-long clash between Palestinian kids and Israeli soldiers in the West Bank town of Na'alin, on the West Bank.



An Israeli soldier confronts Palestinian protesters during a demonstration Friday in the West Bank village of Jayyus.



We had gone there to gauge the Palestinian view of Tuesday's Israeli elections. Na'alin, and many other towns and villages like it in the West Bank, are in the forefront of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Here, it all comes down to the most basic element in the century-old conflict: control of the land.



Na'alin is an old town, with factories and workshops, surrounded by olive groves. But in recent years neighboring Israeli settlements, built since the June 1967 war, have increasingly encroached on Na'alin's farmland, and Israel, on grounds of security, has built its security barrier around the town.



As a result, Na'alin residents say they have lost access to much of their land, their water sources, in short their livelihood. Beginning two years ago, every Friday they hold protests against Israel's settlement expansion and barrier building.



Most Na'alin residents are not ideological hotheads; before the outbreak of the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in September 2000, many worked in Israel. Most are still fluent in Hebrew and do business with Israelis looking for a good deal on car repairs and other services.



For that reason I thought Na'alin would be a good place to see what Palestinians were thinking. What I heard was universal pessimism.



No one I spoke with expressed the slightest hope that any of the leading candidates --Likud's Benjamin Netanyahu, Kadima's Tzipi Livni, Israel Beitenu's Avigdor Lieberman and Labour's Ehud Barak -- would do anything to remove the settlements that are slowly closing in on Na'alin.



As we sheltered from the tear gas behind a house, Na'alin resident Hani Khawaja told me, "I don't expect anything to come out of the elections that will please the Palestinians. Just killings, expulsions and land confiscations."



Another man, Ayub Srour, had a slightly different approach. He prefers Israeli leaders to be honest about their intentions, and not raise hopes only to dash them later. He wants Likud leader and long-time hardliner Benjamin Netanyahu to win. "At least he's honest. He says he'll expel us, and he will expel us. He says he's slaughter us, and he will slaughter us."



I've covered almost every Israeli election since 1996. With each election, the Palestinian feeling of despair and hopelessness only deepens.



Since the last election in the spring of 2006, Palestinians have seen Israel and Hezbollah go to war, West Bank settlements continue to expand, Hamas and Fatah fight it out in Gaza with Hamas taking control in June 2007.



They've also seen a series of Israeli incursions into Gaza, culminating recently in the 22-day Israeli offensive that left large parts of the strip in ruins.



Meanwhile many Palestinians say their leadership -- often described as moderate and pro-western -- in Ramallah is incapable of reversing the trend of settlement expansion.



The same leadership has been unable to convince Israel to remove few of the hundreds of roadblocks and checkpoints that make travelling around the West Bank a test of patience and endurance.



In short, when Palestinians look back over the last 15 years since the Oslo Accords were signed, they've seen their lot only go from bad to worse.



As a result, more and more Palestinians are convinced the only way to beat the Israelis is to join them, to discard failed attempts at creating a Palestinian state in an ever smaller, ever more economically unviable territory, and go for what is known as the one-state solution.



That would mean Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza relinquishing their dream of an independent Palestinian state, and instead insisting on equal rights in the territory between the Jordan River
When did Israel vote? Who does Israel oppose? What was the mood in West Bank town?
Tuesday's the Palestinians. universal pessimism.
question: When did Israel vote?, answer: Tuesday's | question: Who does Israel oppose?, answer: the Palestinians. | question: What was the mood in West Bank town?, answer: universal pessimism.