cover image Plowshares and Swords: The Economics of Occupation in the West Bank

Plowshares and Swords: The Economics of Occupation in the West Bank

Richard Toshiyuki Drury, Michael O'Connor. Beacon Press (MA), $25 (222pp) ISBN 978-0-8070-6904-2

Human rights groups have focused much attention on the physical violence that erupts periodically under Israel's occupation of the West Bank, but the authors of this scholarly indictment stress that Israeli-directed economic violence affects Palestinians in ways that also warrant serious attention as a human rights issue. Drury and Winn, lawyers both, review the international law of belligerent occupation formulated at the Hague and Geneva conventions, and argue that Israel's exploitation of West Bank agriculture, the backbone of West Bank economy, is precisely what this body of law was established to avoid. The Israelis have stifled Palestinian agricultural enterprise in a deliberate and systematic way, according to the authors, transferring West Bank land and water resources into Israeli hands, imposing collective punishment that includes uprooting thousands of fruit-bearing trees and vines. By ignoring the requirements of international law, the authors conclude, Israel has treated the West Bank as an exploitable source of labor, water and land, using its power over Palestinian agriculture to reorient the West Bank to serve Israeli interests. Drury and Winn call it ``creeping annexation.'' (June)