Trapped Fools: Thirty Years of Israeli Policy in the Territories

by Shlomo Gazit

Overview

Based upon the author's own experiences this study explores the Israeli government's attitude to the West Bank and Gaza over a period of 30 years. The "fools" in the book's title refers not only to the Arabs who rejected Israeli peace offers but to the Israelis themselves.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135759094
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	11/23/2004
Series:	Israeli History, Politics and Society
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	398
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Major General Shlomo Gazit, previously Weinstein, born to a family of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants in Israel was an officer in the Israel Defense Forces and head of Aman from 1974 to 1978. He served as the head of assessment in IDF intelligence before the Six Day War. Gazit's studies were interrupted in the summer of 1967, when he was appointed by Defense Minister Moshe Dayan to be in charge of a committee tasked with running the political, security, and later economic affairs in the newly captured territories. This group would be renamed "The Unit for the Coordination of Operations in the Territories". After seven years, Gazit was promoted to head of Aman, which he held for four years.

Table of Contents

Part 1: Background 1. First Contact with the Territories2. Shaping Israeli Policy in the Territories3. Organizing the Military AdministrationPart 2: The Ministers of Defense and their Policies: A Historic Chronology 4. Introduction5. Moshe Dayan6. Shimon Peres7. Ezer Weizman8. Menachem Begin9. Ariel Sharon10. Moshe Arens11.Yitzhak RabinPart 3: The Issues 12. The Political Future of the Territories13. Israel's Administrative Policy14. Municipal Elections in 1972 and 197615. Attempts to Establish Palestinian Self-Rule in the Territories16. The Evolution of Israel's Settlement PolicyPart 4: Lessons Learnt from the Intifada 17. A New Reality18. Israel's Policy in the Territories - A Summary

Editorial Reviews

Gazit, the coordinator of Israeli government operations in the Occupied Territories from 1967 to 1974, was on the ground in the early years of the occupation and has closely followed developments since. He begins his candid account with short chapters on how each successive Israeli minister of defense has approached the territories, beginning with Moshe Dayan and continuing to the outbreak of the first Palestinian intifada in 1987. Later chapters examine military administration, plans for Palestinian self-rule (including the ill-fated "village leagues"), and the evolution of Israeli settlement policy. Until the outbreak of the intifada in 1987, Gazit notes, the occupation seemed so trouble-free as to cause complacency; since then, violence has taken a toll on both sides. As his title indicates, Gazit sees the decades-long military occupation as a terrible blunder, but his is not a thesis-driven account. Indeed, the strength of Trapped Fools is its balanced description of Israeli policies and performance in the Occupied Territories from 1967 to 1997.

Foreign Affairs

' ... A fair, comprehensively sourced account of how and why things have gone so badly wrong in the territories since those heady days of June 1967.' - The Jewish Chronicle

'A fair, comprehensively sourced account of how and why things have gone so badly wrong in the territories since those heady days of June 1967.' - The Jewish Chronicle

From the Publisher