The Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza strip and to a lesser extent in the West Bank in 2005 was a controversial decision that received international attention. The decision to do so, how it was done, and why it was done, though, is little understood. In Israel’s Unilateralism: Beyond Gaza, Hoover research fellow Robert Zelnick has written an account of the events leading up to the withdrawal, the people involved, the withdrawal itself, and the results of it to date.
“This is a book about strategy, in this case unilateral separation,” said Zelnick. The strategy, he says, was designed to address a situation where the status quo was unacceptable, where negotiated change was to be preferred, but where that prospect was rendered unobtainable by the absence of a negotiating partner on the other side. The proffered solution was to implement the desired changes unilaterally and to undertake defensive measures to prevent any corresponding degradation of security.
Zelnick’s approach in analyzing the strategy is half academic and half journalistic. The first chapter is an account of the actual pullout from Gaza . Chapter 2 details the evolution of the idea of unilateral disengagement. Chapters 3 and 4 deal, respectively, with Ariel Sharon and the Palestinian moderates. In chapters 5 and 6 Zelnick examines Palestinian terrorism and Israeli settlement policies. Chapter 7 looks at the exceptionally active and important period of politics and diplomacy that resulted from the Gaza pullout. The final chapter summarizes where disengagement has been, where it may go in the future under given conditions, and underscores the politically realist-minded assumptions that continue to drive the policy forward.
Zelnick, a Hoover research fellow, is chairman of the department of journalism at Boston University . Before joining Boston University , Zelnick spent 21 years with ABC News. From 1978 to 1981, he served as news director and, from 1981 to 1982, as deputy bureau chief of the Washington Bureau. He was Moscow correspondent and bureau chief from 1982 to 1984, producing significant pieces on the struggling Soviet economy and the treatment of dissidents.
From 1984 to 1986, Zelnick was posted to , covering the Israeli withdrawal from most of and the buildup of tensions in the pre-Intifada I period and breaking significant stories about the affair involving convicted espionage agent Jonathan Pollard. He then returned to Washington , where he served as Pentagon correspondent from 1986 to 1994, covering the end of the cold war, the Persian Gulf war, and many other critical stories. From 1994 to 1998, Zelnick covered Congress and politics.
Israel's Unilateralism: Beyond Gaza
by Robert Zelnick
ISBN: 0-8179-4772-8 $15.00, paperback
170 pages August 2006
