Abstract

Palestine is fast disappearing. Over many decades Israel has developed and refined policies to disperse, imprison and impoverish the Palestinian people in a relentless effort to destroy them as a nation. It has industrialized Palestinian despair through ever more sophisticated systems of curfews, checkpoints, walls, permits and land grabs. It has transformed the West Bank and Gaza into laboratories for testing the infrastructure of confinement, creating a lucrative 'defence' industry by pioneering the technologies needed for crowd control, surveillance, collective punishment and urban warfare. In this insightful and authoritative new book, leading journalist Jonathan Cook examines the many different guises in which these experiments on the Palestinians are being carried out. Accessible and comprehensive, this is a powerful analysis of one of the most enduring and entrenched conflicts in contemporary world politics.
Jonathan Cook is the only western journalist to be based in Nazareth, the capital of the Palestinian minority in Israel. He was previously a staff journalist on the Guardian and Observer newspapers, and has written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict also for the Times, Le Monde diplomatique, the International Herald Tribune, Al-Ahram Weekly, Counterpunch and Aljazeera.net. He is the author of Blood and Religion (2006) and Israel and the Clash of Civilisations (2008).
'I have been reading Jonathan's work on the internet for years. On Palestine and Israel, I can think of no more reliable source.' - John Pilger 'This is an impressive and timely book written by one of the most knowledgeable writers on the Palestine-Israel conflict. Its insight into the devastating impact of Zionist settler colonialism and its account of the current reality on the ground are unique. A must read for those seeking peace and justice in the Middle East.' - Nur Masalha, Director of the Holy Land Research Project, St Mary's University College (UK), and author of The Bible and Zionism (2007) 'No one is a keener observer of Zionism's true goals, from its bald usurpation of land and resources to its bad faith about seeking real peace. The book provides an unusual depth of evidence and sharp analysis, and a devastating indictment of Zionism. It is a penetrating piece of scholarship and a gem of easy readability.' - Kathleen Christison, former CIA analyst and author of Perceptions of Palestine (1999)