Occupied Territories: The Untold Story of Israel’s Settlements by Gershom Gorenberg
IB Tauris, £14.99
THE Israeli-Palestinian conflict has plagued international peace and security for half a century. It is a subject most people outside of Israel are aware of but which few understand. Given that a major root of international Islamic terrorism is the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, a comprehensive and objective understanding of the spoils of Israel’s emphatic victory in the Six Day War of 1967 is imperative.
Occupied Territories examines why and how Israel retained the territories it conquered in that war against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. Gershom Gorenberg, a writer and journalist who lives in Jerusalem, provides an absorbing and impartial account detailing the individuals, the parties and the secular and religious groups that played a pivotal role in ensuring that the state of Israel did not withdraw back to the pre-1967 borders.
The Israeli Defence Forces decimated the combined Arab armies in six days in 1967. They captured the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria. The Israeli government was confronted with what it should do with these newly acquired lands. Gorenberg tells how the prime minister at the time, Levi Eshkol, “spearheaded” the building of settlements. Today there is a perception around the world that the United States government supported the policy. Not so, according to Gorenberg. He cites a letter from President Lyndon Johnson to Eshkol in which the US leader said the Israeli prime minister should resist pressure from members of his cabinet “who find it easier to risk Israel’s future on today’s expanded boundaries than to reach out for real peace.” Speaking before a session of the security council of the United Nations in 1976, William Scranton, US representative to the UN, argued that “substantial resettlement of the Israeli civilian population in occupied territories, including East Jerusalem, is illegal. The presence of these settlements is seen by my government as an obstacle to the success of the negotiations for a just and final peace.”
Gorenberg demonstrates how, after the death of Eshkol, the ruling Labour Party consented to the expansion of the settlements because of “a potent combination of religious radicalism and military fearfulness.” The fate of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank is discussed but so, too, are the forgotten Bedouin who were also displaced.
Support for the settlements was expressed mainly by religious Zionists and the Israeli military. Rabbis Tzvi Yehudah Kook and Moshe Levinger were at the forefront. Opponents included prominent figures such as Theodor Meron, legal counsel to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, who told Eshkol that “civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the fourth Geneva convention” and Pinhas Sapir, former leader of the Labour Party, who said: “If we keep holding the territories in the end the territories will hold us.” A prophecy which has proved all too correct.
The reader learns that the concept of party political loyalty is hardly adhered to in Israeli politics. Politicians frequently switch or threaten to switch parties when it suits their own agenda. One such person was Shimon Peres. And Gorenberg provides obscure information about some of Israel’s most renowned political and military figures. For instance Moshe Dayan, the architect of Israel’s stunning victory of 1967, pillaged archaeological sites to add to his own private collection of historical artefacts.
Occupied Territories offers a clear and accessible insight into what is an extremely complex subject and by including the experiences of many ordinary Jews and Palestinians, Gorenberg helps to put a human face on this ever enduring conflict.
Marcus Papadopoulos
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