Ahron Bregman

I don't think I can improve on the description shown on the Book Jacket, and with apologies, I simply repeat it here:

An authoritative and impassioned history of the aftermath of the Six Day War—by a former Israeli soldier—and a cogent argument for an end to the occupation.

In a move that would forever alter the map of the Middle East, Israel captured the West Bank, Golan Heights, Gaza Strip and Sinai Peninsula in 1967's brief but pivotal Six Day War. Cursed Victory is the first complete history of the war's troubled aftermath—a military occupation of the Palestinian territories that is now well into its fifth decade. Drawing on unprecedented access to high-level sources, top-secret memos and never-before-published letters, the book provides a gripping and unvarnished chronicle of how what Israel promised would be an 'enlightened occupation' quickly turned sour, and the anguished diplomatic attempts to bring it to an end. Bregman sheds fresh light on critical moments in the peace process, taking us behind the scenes as decisions about the fate of the territories were made, and more often, as crucial opportunities to resolve the conflict were missed.

As the narrative moves from Jerusalem to New York, Oslo to Beirut, and from the late 1960s to the present day, Cursed Victory provides vivid portraits of the key players in this unfolding drama, including Moshe Dayan, King Hussein of Jordan, Bill Clinton, and Yasser Arafat. Yet Bregman always reminds us how diplomatic and back-room negotiations affected the daily lives of millions of Arabs, and how the Palestinian resistance, especially during the first and second intifadas, and now in recent tragic developments, have shaped the political arena.

As Bregman concludes, the occupation has become a dark stain on Israel's history. Cursed Victory is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the origins of the ongoing conflict in the region.
… (mais)

It’s very interesting to read a book by an Israeli about all the bad decisions Israel made with the occupied territories. Perhaps the most telling is the use of the Gaza Strip to provide a low-paid labor force for Israel, allowing Israelis to thrive in high-tech jobs but leaving many Palestinians impoverished and humiliated, even when they managed to get an education. Israeli farmers prevented produce from the territories from entering Israel, further worsening the economic situation. And that’s only the economic violence—apparently the defense minister himself said at one point that if his homeland had to be occupied, he wouldn’t want it done by the Israelis. That said, the book spends relatively little time on Palestinian violence. Especially now that Israel seems to have chosen poorly from the two out of three it can pick from the set (large, Jewish, democratic), I was left with a sense that most of the imaginable opportunities have been missed.… (mais)

If you are interested in the Israel-Palestine conflict then this is one of the best books to give you an insight into all of its machinations. The author is now an academic but grew up in Israel, served in the army there and had access to most of the key people and key documents associated with the issues surrounding the occupied territories. Astonishingly, this includes tapes made in secret by the Israeli security services of conversations between various US presidents and their advisors during the negotiations with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.
The title 'Cursed Victory' sums up the book's conclusions - that Israel should never have hung on to the territory it occupied during the 1967 war but should have negotiated a return immediately afterwards. The various negotiations over the years are related in exhaustive detail, which can get tedious, but is often fascinating, if also depressing. Even more depressing are the accounts of the brutality and inhuman treatment of the Palestinians in the occupied territories by the Israeli defence forces. Again the title says it all - showing how reviled Israel has become for its outrageous actions (and the book only goes up to 2007 so it doesn't include the most recent wars in Gaza).
Tragically, we seem further away than ever to a solution to this problem due to the extreme attitudes of the leaders on both side of the conflict who, for their own political purposes, prefer agression and war to any serious attempt to make the compromises that would allow for a negotiated settlement.… (mais)