The very name of the Israel Defense Forces suggests that its primary mission is the defense of the country’s territory. Indeed, both internationally and within Israel, support for the occupation of Palestinian territory rests on the belief that the army’s actions and presence in the West Bank and Gaza are essentially defensive and responsive, aimed at protecting the country from terror.

But Israeli soldiers themselves tell a profoundly different story. In this landmark work, which includes more than a hundred soldiers’ testimonies collected over a decade, what emerges is a broad policy that is as much offensive as defensive. In their own words, the soldiers reveal in human and vivid detail how the key planks of the army’s ostensibly protective program have in fact served to accelerate acquisition of Palestinian land, cripple all normal political and social life, and ultimately thwart the possibility of independence.

The many soldiers who have spoken out have taken aim at a silence of complicity, both within Israel and in the wider world, that perpetuates the justification for occupation. In the process, they have created a gripping and immediate record of oppression. Powerful and incontrovertible, Our Harsh Logic is a supremely significant contribution to one of the world’s most vexed conflicts.