A Threshold Crossed

A Threshold Crossed

Author: Omar Shakir

Publisher:

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13:

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"The widely held assumption that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is a temporary situation and that the 'peace process' will soon bring an end to Israeli abuses has obscured the reality on the ground today of Israel's entrenched discriminatory rule over Palestinians. A single authority, the Israeli government, rules primarily over the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, populated by two groups of roughly equal size, methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), made-up of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Drawing on years of human rights documentation, case studies and a review of government planning documents, statements by officials and other sources, [this report] examines Israel's treatment of Palestinians and evaluates whether particular Israeli policies and practices in certain areas amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution."--Page 4 of cover.


The Wall and the Gate

The Wall and the Gate

Author: Michael Sfard

Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Published: 2018-01-23

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 1250122708

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"A farmer from a village in the occupied West Bank, cut off from his olive groves by the construction of Israel’s controversial separation wall, asked Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard to petition the courts to allow a gate to be built in the wall. While the gate would provide immediate relief for the farmer, would it not also confer legitimacy on the wall and on the court that deems it legal? The defense of human rights is often marked by such ethical dilemmas, which are especially acute in Israel, where lawyers have for decades sought redress for the abuse of Palestinian rights in the country’s High Court―that is, in the court of the abuser. [This book] chronicles this struggle―a story that has never before been fully told― and in the process engages the core principles of human rights legal ethics. [The author] recounts the unfolding of key cases and issues, ranging from confiscation of land, deportations, the creation of settlements, punitive home demolitions, torture, and targeted killings―all actions considered violations of international law. In the process, he lays bare the reality of the occupation and the lives of the people who must contend with that reality. He also exposes the surreal legal structures that have been erected to put a stamp of lawfulness on an extensive program of dispossession. Finally, he weighs the success of the legal effort, reaching conclusions that are no less paradoxical than the fight itself."--


Justice for Some

Justice for Some

Author: Noura Erakat

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2019-04-23

Total Pages: 405

ISBN-13: 1503608832

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“A brilliant and bracing analysis of the Palestine question and settler colonialism . . . a vital lens into movement lawyering on the international plane.” —Vasuki Nesiah, New York University, founding member of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Justice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict’s most vexing challenges have been resolved by judicial intervention. Occupation law has failed to stem Israel’s settlement enterprise. Laws of war have permitted killing and destruction during Israel’s military offensives in the Gaza Strip. The Oslo Accord’s two-state solution is now dead letter. Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures—from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza—Noura Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel’s interests than the Palestinians’. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable. Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine. “Careful and captivating . . . This book asks that the Palestinian liberation struggle and Jewish-Israeli society each reckon with the impossibility of a two-state future, reimagining what their interests are—and what they could become.” —Amanda McCaffrey, Jewish Currents


Occupation, Inc

Occupation, Inc

Author: Human Rights Watch (Organization)

Publisher:

Published: 2016

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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"This report documents how settlement businesses facilitate the growth and operations of settlements. These businesses depend on and contribute to the Israeli authorities' unlawful confiscation of Palestinian land and other resources. They also benefit from these violations, as well as Israel's discriminatory policies that provide privileges to settlements at the expense of Palestinians, such as access to land and water, government subsidies, and permits for developing land"--Publisher's description.


Foundations of civil and political rights in Israel and the occupied territories

Foundations of civil and political rights in Israel and the occupied territories

Author: Yvonne Schmidt

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2008-05-21

Total Pages: 631

ISBN-13: 3638051730

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Doctoral Thesis / Dissertation from the year 2001 in the subject Law - Comparative Legal Systems, Comparative Law, grade: Sehr Gut, University of Vienna, language: English, abstract: This work intends to show how civil and political rights in Israel and the Occupied Territories are regulated, which normative standards and spiritual sources nourish them, and how written and unwritten principles are applied and interpreted by the Supreme Court of Israel in pursuance of its self-imposed duty to safeguard the individual's rights and freedoms. The legal system of Israel reflects unresolved conflicts, ambiguities of the state and difficulties connected with the process of nation-building as well as dilemmas concerning the ethnic and cultural identity of the population. From 1517 until 1917 Palestine was ruled by the Turks as part of the Ottoman Empire. In 1917 British troops conquered the territory and in 1922 the League of Nations granted to Great Britain the Mandate over Palestine. Following the establishment of the state of Israel in Palestine on 14 May 1948 a large number of British mandatory legislation was absorbed into Israel's legal system. This had and still has far-reaching, restrictive implications for the areas of administrative law and the field of human rights and freedoms. The British mandatory legislation includes security legislation - such as the Defence (Emergency) Regulations, 1945 - which empowers military commanders as well as the entirely executive branch of the government to impose severe restrictions on fundamental rights and freedoms. Despite the enactment of two basic laws on human rights in 1992 many areas, such as personal freedom, freedom of speech and the right of association and assembly are still regulated mainly by British colonial legislation that was never revoked after the establishment of the state of Israel. Since 1948 a permanent state of emergency is in force in Israel. This entitles the government to apply the inherited British mandatory security legislation as well as the own, by the Israeli parliament enacted emergency regulations. Israel's legal system has been built upon the duality of secular and religious law - a concept that was inherited from the Ottoman Millet tradition, first by the British mandatory government and then by the state of Israel. This study also includes important laws and Supreme Court judgments concerning civil and political rights that relate directly or indirectly to the territories occupied by Israel in the course of the war in June 1967.


Separate and Unequal

Separate and Unequal

Author: Bill Van Esveld

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 165

ISBN-13: 9781564327291

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"Israel's settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are widely viewed as illegal under international humanitarian law, which prohibits the occupying power from transferring its civilian population into the territories it occupies. This report focuses on the less-discussed aspect of Israeli laws and policies in the West Bank that discriminate against the Palestinian population in favor of settlers. Based on case studies that compare Israeli settlements with next-door Palestinian communities in six areas of the West Bank, this report shows that Israel operates a two-tier system for the two populations in areas under its exclusive control--'Area C' and East Jerusalem; it provides preferential services, development and benefits for Jewish settlers, while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians. The report highlights Israeli practices the only discernible purposes of which appear to be promoting life in the settlements while in many instances stifling growth in Palestinian communities and even forcibly displacing Palestinian residents. Israeli policies control many aspects of the day-to-day life of Palestinians who live in Area C and East Jerusalem. Those policies often have no conceivable security justification for the harms they cause--such as denying access to electricity, water and roads, rejecting building permit applications for houses, schools, clinics and infrastructure, and demolishing homes and even entire communities. By contrast, Israeli policies, such as substantial government financial incentives, promote Jewish settlements and encourage them to expand in 'Area C' of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, often using land and other resources that are effectively barred to Palestinians. In some cases, Israel's discriminatory policies have forcibly displaced Palestinians from the same areas where settlements have encroached. Such different treatment, on the basis of race, ethnicity and national origin and not narrowly tailored to meet genuine security or other legitimate goals, is not justifiable and therefore violates the fundamental prohibition against discrimination under human rights law. The report calls on Israel to cease its discriminatory practices immediately, quite apart from its independent legal obligation to cease its support for settlements and to remove settlers from the West Bank. The report also calls on other countries and businesses to avoid supporting Israeli settlement policies that are inherently discriminatory and violate international law."--P. [4] of cover.


David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy

David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy

Author: Nir Kedar

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2021-12-07

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 0253057450

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In David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy, Nir Kedar offers a poignant study of the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Kedar provides an explication of the making of Israeli democracy in terms of its institutional-legal structures and social-cultural underpinnings. David Ben-Gurion and the Foundation of Israeli Democracy connects the formal structures of democracy to the fundamental principles that they were constructed to serve—human freedom and dignity.


On Palestine

On Palestine

Author: Noam Chomsky

Publisher: Haymarket Books

Published: 2015-03-23

Total Pages: 226

ISBN-13: 1608465012

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The sequel to the acclaimed Gaza in Crisis from world-famous political analyst Noam Chomsky and Middle East historian Ilan Pappé. Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s 2014 assault on Gaza, left thousands of Palestinians dead and cleared the way for another Israeli land grab. The need to stand in solidarity with Palestinians has never been greater. Ilan Pappé and Noam Chomsky, two leading voices in the struggle to liberate Palestine, discuss the road ahead for Palestinians and how the international community can pressure Israel to end its human rights abuses against the people of Palestine. Praise for Gaza in Crisis by Noam Chomsky and Ilan Pappé “This sober and unflinching analysis should be read and reckoned with by anyone concerned with practicable change in the long-suffering region.” —Publishers Weekly “Both authors perform fiercely accurate deconstructions of official rhetoric.” —The Guardian Praise for Noam Chomsky . . . “Chomsky is a global phenomenon . . . perhaps the most widely read American voice on foreign policy on the planet.” —The New York Times Book Review “One of the radical heroes of our age . . . a towering intellect . . . powerful, always provocative.” —The Guardian . . . and Ilan Pappé “Ilan Pappé is Israel’s bravest, most principled, most incisive historian.” —John Pilger, journalist, writer, and filmmaker “Along with the late Edward Said, Ilan Pappé is the most eloquent writer of Palestinian history.” —New Statesman


Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine

Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine

Author: Hedi Viterbo

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2021-08-05

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 1009027417

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In this book, Hedi Viterbo radically challenges our picture of law, human rights, and childhood, both in and beyond the Israel/Palestine context. He reveals how Israel, rather than disregarding international law and children's rights, has used them to hone and legitimize its violence against Palestinians. He exposes the human rights community's complicity in this situation, due to its problematic assumptions about childhood, its uncritical embrace of international law, and its recurring emulation of Israel's security discourse. He examines how, and to what effect, both the state and its critics manufacture, shape, and weaponize the categories 'child' and 'adult.' Bridging disciplinary divides, Viterbo analyzes hundreds of previously unexamined sources, many of which are not publicly available. Bold, sophisticated, and informative, Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine provides unique insights into the ever-tightening relationship between law, children's rights, and state violence, at both the local and global levels.