For over 25 years, the West Bank has been one of the world's most violent and hotly-disputed pieces of land. The Carrot and the Stick takes the reader back to the beginning, the fateful year following the 1967 Six Day War when Israel first took control of the West Bank.

The author, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Shlomo Gazit, helped create and implement Israeli policy for the first seven years of the occupation as coordinator of Israeli government operations in the territories. Working with such legendary leaders as Levi Eshkol, Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, Gazit confronted issues that still roil the political waters today: Palestinian nationalism, terrorism, refugees, poverty and Jewish settlement.

Gazit's unique, eyewitness perspective provides insight into the personalities and strategies that shaped Israel's policy. He attributes what he deems "the success" of the first decade of occupation to Dayan and suggests that the leader's departure from office in 1974 left the territories "fatherless," paving the way for the violent eruption of the intifada, or Palestinian uprising.

Gazit takes issue with the Israeli government's "decision not to decide" the final status of the West Bank unilaterally. The general is also critical of the Israeli government's failure to reevaluate its policy toward this disputed land in the decades since its conquest.