Sara Roy is a Research Associate at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University. She lived in the Gaza Strip for several years in the 1980s[1] Her research and over 100 publications on Palestinian politics and economics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict focus on the economy of the Gaza and more recently on the Palestinian Islamic movement.[2]Reviewing her 2007 Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict Bruce Lawrence writes that "Roy is the leading researcher and most widely respected academic authority on Gaza today" [3] She serves on the Advisory Boards of American Near East Refugee Aid and the Center for American and Jewish Studies at Baylor University.[2]
In a Holocaust Remembrance lecture at Baylor that has been reprinted several times[4] she said that "the Holocaust has been the defining feature of my life." Both her parents survived the Holocaust, which killed over 100 members of her extended family from the Jewish shtetls of Poland. Her father, Abraham was one of the two known survivors of the Chelmno extermination camp, while her mother Taube survived Halbstadt(Gross Rosen) and Auschwitz. Having visited Israel many times when she was growing up, she writes "It was perhaps inevitable that I would follow a path that would lead me to the Arab- Israeli issue."[5]
Roy has published commentary on such topics as "Yes, You Can Work with Hamas".[6]
Controversies
editShe has opposed HR 3007? supported by Daniel Pipes. [7]
Roy drew public attention[citation needed] when a book review she had written of Mathew Levitt's book Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad was rejected by Tufts University’s Fletcher Forum on World Affairs. After the editor in chief accepted the piece, he wrote Roy that the article had been reviewed for "objectivity," and that "all reviewers found the piece one-sided". He then rejected it, but apologized "for the way in which this process was carried out."[8] Middle East Policy later published the review with Roy's note on the affair which described the rejection as a "blatant... case of censorship."[8]
Roy was in the spotlight again when she co-wrote an op-ed in The Boston Globe in which she wrote "although Gaza daily requires 680,000 tons of flour to feed its population, Israel had cut this to 90 tons per day by November 2007, a reduction of 99 percent."[9] The article was criticized[citation needed] for the error in arithmetic "if Gaza has a population of 1.5 million, as the authors also note, then 680,000 tons of flour a day comes out to almost half a ton of flour per Gazan, per day."[attribution needed] The Boston Globe ran a correction in which it said that Gaza requires 680,000 pounds, not tons, of flour daily.[9]
A speech by Roy at the University of Virginia in April 2008 drew approximately 10 protestors, according to a local newspaper.[10]
Praise and Criticism
editPhyllis Chesler called Roy one of "the most savage critics—of America and Israel."[11]
Sonia Nettnin calls Roy "one of the foremost scholars on the economy in Gaza."Commenting on Roy's The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development Meron Benvenisti, former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem states that "Sara Roy's pioneering research...gives the lie to pretenses that Gaza's conditions suddenly arose out of thin air[12] "The world`s leading authority on the Gaza Strip"[13]
Publications
edit- The Gaza Strip Survey (1986)
- The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-development (1995, 2001)
- The Economics of Middle East Peace: A Reassessment (1999, editor)
- Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (London: Pluto Press, 2007)
- Between Extremism and Civism: Political Islam in Palestine (Princeton University Press, forthcoming)
References
edit- ^ "Sara Roy, From Oslo to the Road Map". Committee for a Just Peace in Israel and Palestine. March 2004. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ a b "Sara Roy". Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
- ^ Lawrence, Bruce B. (Fall 2007). "Roy: Failing Peace: Gaza and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (review)". Journal of Palestine Studies. XXXVII (145). Institute for Palestine Studies. doi:10.1525/jps.2007.37.1.111. Retrieved 2008-05-03.
- ^ Adam Shatz (2004). Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing About Zionism and Israel. Nation Books. ISBN 1-56025-509-9.
- ^ Roy, Sara (Fall 2002). "Living with the Holocaust: The Journey of a Child of Holocaust Survivors". Journal of Palestine Studies. 32 (125). Institute for Palestine Studies: 5–12. doi:10.1525/jps.2002.32.1.5. Retrieved 2008-04-30.
- ^ Norton, Augustus Richard (July 17, 2007). "Yes, You Can Work With Hamas". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Roy, Sara (Fall 2005). "Strategizing Control of the Academy" (PDF). Thought & Action. XXI. National Education Association. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
- ^ a b Roy, Sara (June 2007). "Review of Hamas: Politics, Charity and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad by Matthew Levitt". Middle East Policy. 14 (2): 162–166.
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link) - ^ a b al-Sarraj, Eyad (January 26, 2008). "Ending the stranglehold on Gaza". The Boston Globe. Retrieved 2008-02-18.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help); Unknown parameter|coauthors=ignored (|author=suggested) (help) - ^ Aandahl, Serene (April 8, 2008). "Controversy averted during pro-Palestinian talk". Charlottesville News and Arts. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Chesler, Phyllis (March 2, 2008). "Traumatic Brain Injury and the Permanent Intifada". israelenews.com. Retrieved 2008-04-11.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ "The Gaza Strip: The Political Economy of De-Development (Abstract)". Retrieved 2008-05-03.
- ^ Finkelstein, Norman (October 10, 2005). "Judge Israel's deeds, not words". The Daily Star. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
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