Israel's Occupation

By Neve Gordon

Book Overview

This first complete history of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip allows us to see beyond the smoke screen of politics in order to make sense of the dramatic changes that have developed on the ground over the past forty years. Looking at a wide range of topics, from control of water and electricity to health care and education as well as surveillance and torture, Neve Gordon's panoramic account reveals a fundamental shift from a politics of life--when, for instance, Israel helped Palestinians plant more than six-hundred thousand trees in Gaza and provided farmers with improved varieties of seeds--to a macabre politics characterized by an increasing number of deaths. Drawing attention to the interactions, excesses, and contradictions created by the forms of control used in the Occupied Territories, Gordon argues that the occupation's very structure, rather than the policy choices of the Israeli government or the actions of various Palestinian political factions, has led to this radical shift.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520255313
• ISBN13: 9780520255319
• Release Date: October 2008
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 344 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A good anlaysis of the matrix of control in the OTs.

Neve Gordon does everyone a service by meticulously explaining the complex matrix of control Israel started laying down weeks after the Occupation began. It draws on sources in Hebrew that have not been translated into English. Some observations/criticisms: 1)Since it is more scholarly than polemical (and hence some of its strength and validity) it makes at times for a slightly difficult read. Some of this has to do with the book layout , fonts etc, mostly with the way the subject matter is addressed. 2)It could have done with more maps. B'Tselem and other human rights groups in the Occupied Territories (OT) have some excellent ones. Their liberal inclusion would have been a more tangible reminder of how moth-eaten and non-viable the possibility of a 2-state solution now is. 3)A separate chapter on East Jerusalem would have been helpful. Gordon addresses EJ throughout the book but I have always been struck by how even the most knowledgeable observers of the scene (the recent attention to the issue notwithstanding) do not make it clear that EJ is Occupied Territory whose 'final status' has been subject to creeping and constant unilateral manipulation. All-in-all a powerful and precise book whose conclusions only the most rabid nationalist (and there'll be plenty even on this forum) would bother to deny.