Abstract

Discussion of Israeli policy toward Palestinians is often regarded as a taboo subject, with the result that few people - especially in the US - understand the origins and consequences of the conflict. This book provides an indispensable context for understanding why the situation remains so intractable.

The book focuses on the Gaza Strip, an area that remains consistently neglected and misunderstood despite its political centrality. Drawing on more than two thousand interviews and extensive firsthand experience, Sara Roy chronicles the impact of Israeli occupation in Palestine over nearly a generation.

Exploring the devastating consequences of socio-economic and political decline, this is a unique and powerful account of the reality of life in the West Bank and Gaza. Written by one of the world's foremost scholars of the region, it offers an unrivalled breadth of scholarship and insight.
'Unique. Roy is humanely rather than only professionally committed in ways that are unmatched by any other non-Palestinian scholar. No one has reported more accurately and scrupulously on the economic devastation attendant on the Oslo process'
Edward W. Said
'I warmly recommend this work of urgent witness by one of the world's foremost experts on the de-development of the Gaza's economy'
Roger Owen, A.J.Meyer Professor of Middle East History, Harvard University