Gaza: A History

Great history books put events in context, bring the historical figures to life, and let you know why those events and figures are important. The worst history books are rote recitals of names, dates and events.

I picked up an advance review copy of Gaza, by Jean-Pierre Filiu, hoping it would give me some insight into how we got to the current cycle of violence in the region. It does provide some of that.

Gaza sits at the intersection of Egypt and the Levant. Armies and empires crossed back and forth across the region for millennia. The current plight came during the creation of Israel. Palestinian refugees piled into the area around Gaza City and Israel herded the mass of those expelled in 1948. As Egypt and Israel fought in the area, show more the Gaza Strip was left relatively untouched.

The Gaza problem could have been prevented in 1949, Ben Gurion’s offer to annex the Gaza Strip as part of Israel was rejected by Egypt at the Lusanne conference. Instead, we have seen three generation of terrorism and oppression.

Unfortunately, Gaza is not a great history book. It falls closer to the other end of the spectrum. The recital of events gets particularly tiresome as the book approaches the last twenty years. The cycle of attacks from Gaza and escalating reprisals from Israel are repetitive. It could be twenty years ago or last month, similar events continue. show less