The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development (Expanded Third Edition) by Sara Roy

In the new expanded edition of The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development, Sara Roy takes her meticulous study of the political economy of the Gaza Strip since the Israeli occupation in 1967 through to the impact, one year after, of Israel’s massive summer 2014 assault known as Operation Protective Edge. In the final edition of Roy’s ground-breaking work, she argues that Gaza’s trajectory over the last 48 years has reconstructed the territory from one that had been economically integrated and deeply dependent upon Israel and strongly tied to the West Bank, to an isolated and disposable enclave cut off from the West Bank as well as Israel and subject to ongoing military attacks. She further shows that these destructive transformations are becoming institutionalized and permanent; shaping a future for the Gaza Strip that is undeniably grim.  

Roy clearly demonstrates that Gaza’s debility not only is catastrophic but also deliberate and purposeful. Consequently, Roy argues that the de-development process she formulated and defined 30 years ago has approached its logical endpoint: rendering Gaza unviable. 

This definitive edition also contains two essential primary documents describing the planned reconstruction of Gaza in the aftermath of the 2014 war: Gaza Reconstruction Mechanism (published here for the first time) and the Materials Monitoring Unit Project Initiation Document.

Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University. Her most recent book is Hamas and Civil Society in Gaza: Engaging the Islamist Social Sector, Princeton University Press, 2011, 2014.

Year: 2016

Paperback