Sara Roy, CMES Associate, recently published her new book Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, through Pluto Press. The book is a compilation of Dr. Roy's selected works over the past two decades, and aims to give context, over time, for understanding why peace has failed and why Palestinians are now so compromised.
From the back of the book:
"This book is the culmination of 20 years of research on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Discussion of Israeli policy toward Palestinians is often regarded as a taboo subject, with the result that few people understand the origins and consequences of the conflict. Sara Roy provides an indispensable context for understanding why the situation remains so intractable.
Focusing on the Gaza Strip, Roy draws on more than two thousand interviews and extensive first-hand experience to chronicle the impact of Israeli occupation over nearly a generation. Exploring the devastating consequences of socio-economic and political decline, this is a unique and powerful account of the reality of life in the West Bank and Gaza, written by one of the world’s foremost scholars of the region."
Dr. Roy has worked in the Gaza Strip and West Bank since 1985 conducting research primarily on the economic, social and political development of the Gaza Strip and on U.S. foreign aid to the region. Dr. Roy has written extensively on the Palestinian economy, particularly in Gaza, and has documented its development over the last three decades.
Her current research, which was funded by a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, examines the social and economic sectors of the Palestinian Islamic movement and their relationship to Islamic political institutions, and the critical changes to the Islamic movement that have occurred over the last seven years. Her primary findings point to a restructuring and de-radicalization of the Islamist movement in the West Bank and Gaza Strip prior to the start of the second Palestinian uprising. In addition to Failing Peace, Dr. Roy is the author of The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development (1995, 2001), now in its second edition with a third edition forthcoming; The Gaza Strip Survey (1986); and editor of The Economics of Middle East Peace: A Reassessment (1999). She is in the process of completing Between Extremism and Civism: Political Islam in Palestine (Princeton University Press, forthcoming). Dr. Roy also has authored over 100 publications dealing with Palestinian issues and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Palestine Studies, Current History, Middle East Journal, Middle East Policy, International Journal of Middle East Studies, The Beirut Review, American Political Science Review, Critique, Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Chicago Journal of International Law, Index on Censorship, La Vanguardia, Le Monde Diplomatique and the London Review of Books. Dr. Roy also serves on the Advisory Boards of the American Near East Relief Agency (ANERA), an American private voluntary organization working in the Middle East, and the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University.
In addition to her academic work, she has served as a consultant to international organizations, the U.S. government, human rights organizations, private voluntary organizations, and private business groups working in the Middle East.