Israel's Occupation / Edition 1

by Neve Gordon

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520255319
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	10/02/2008
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	344
Sales rank:	451,320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Neve Gordon is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University, Beer-Sheva, Israel. He is coeditor of Torture: Human Rights, Medical Ethics, and the Case of Israel, editor of From the Margins of Globalization: Critical Perspectives on Human Rights, and a regular contributor to publications including The Nation, In These Times, and the National Catholic Reporter.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction: Of Dowries and Brides

1. The Infrastructure of Control
2. “The Invisible Occupation”
3. Of Horses and Riders
4. Identification Trouble
5. Civilian Control
6. The Intifada
7. Outsourcing the Occupation
8. The Separation Principle

Epilogue
Appendix 1: Structure of the Civil Branch of the West Bank's Military Government
Appendix 2: West Bank Settlements According to Year Established
Notes
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"What is most interesting in Gordon's analysis is the way in which the renovation of occupation practices are identified as an immanent outcome of the 'excesses and contradictions' within the system itself."—Times Higher Education

"Israel's Occupation becomes a must read on my list; and my first question of anyone that wants to argue with any perspectives on Israel would be 'Have you read this book yet?'"—Palestine Chronicle

"A must read."—Opednews.com

"This book is a significant contribution to our understanding Israel's changing methods of rule during the four decades of occupation."—Middle East Journal

Editorial Reviews

A must read.

Opednews.com - Jim Miles

A unique perspective on the changing dynamics of the Israel-Palestine conflict. . . . The breadth and detail of Gordon's scope provides a powerful systemic framework.

Socialist Review: Monthly Mag Of The Socialist Workers Party - Katya Nasim

What is most interesting in Gordon's analysis is the way in which the renovation of occupation practices are identified as an immanent outcome of the ‘excesses and contradictions’ within the system itself.

Times Higher Education

This book is a significant contribution to our understanding Israel’s changing methods of rule during the four decades of occupation.

Middle East Journal

Israel’s Occupation becomes a must read on my list; and my first question of anyone that wants to argue with any perspectives on Israel would be ‘Have you read this book yet?’

Palestine Chronicle

Applying the work of Michel Foucault to the contemporary Middle East, this highly theoretical book examines the "means of control used to manage" the Palestinian population in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Gordon, a professor of politics at Ben-Gurion University, begins by exploring the diffuse mechanisms of power-in the political, civilian, geographical and economic arenas-used to normalize the occupation in its first years, making the ostensibly temporary occupation permanent. Later chapters take a more specific historical approach, examining a series of events that radically transformed these power structures: the first intifada, the Oslo Accords and the second intifada, which, the author argues, required a reorganization of Israeli power in the Occupied Territories, leading to the disregard of the Palestinians inhabiting those territories. Gordon focuses on the treatment of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and writes for a decidedly scholarly audience; as a result, the book's usefulness beyond academics will likely be limited. (Nov.)

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