Partitioning Palestine

John Strawson

Description

Law lies at the roots of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Jews sought a national home by 'Public Law' while Palestinians reject the project as illegal. Britain, the League of Nations and the United Nations all mobilised international law to justify their interventions. After the 1967 war, Israel organised an occupation with excessive legalism that most of the world viewed, in fact, as illegal.



Partitioning Palestine focuses on three key moments in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict: the League of Nations Mandate, the United Nations partition plan and the Oslo agreements. None of these documents are neutral but, rather, encode a variety of meanings. The book traces the way in which these legal narratives have both shaped national identity and sharpened the conflict.



In this pioneering text, John Strawson argues that a committed attachment to the belief in legal justice has hampered the search for a settlement. Law, far from offering conflict resolution, has reinforced the trenches from which Palestinians and Israelis confront one another.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Making Palestine: Mapping the Middle East

2. Mandate Palestine

3. The United Nations Partition Plan

4. Law for War

5. Partition by Force

6. From Mutual Denial to Mutual Recognition

7. Negotiating Palestine

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Sujets

• International Relations
• Political Science
• Palestine

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 09 avril 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849644488
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Partitioning Palestine

PARTITIONING PALESTINE Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian–Israeli Conflict

John Strawson

First published 2010 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

www.plutobooks.com

Distributed in the United States of America exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010

Copyright © John Strawson 2010

The right of John Strawson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN ISBN

978 0 7453 2324 4 978 0 7453 2323 7

Hardback Paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data applied for

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental standards of the country of origin.

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Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services Ltd, 33 Livonia Road, Sidmouth, EX10 9JB, England Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Northampton, England Printed and bound in the European Union by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne

In memory of my mother Shirley Brokus Joffe

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction 1 Making Palestine: Mapping the Middle East 2 Mandate Palestine 3 The United Nations Partition Plan 4LawforWar 5 Partition by Force 6 From Mutual Denial to Mutual Recognition 7 Negotiating Palestine

Notes Bibliography Index

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Acknowledgments

I am indebted to many who have commented on the arguments contained in this book. I owe a special debt to the staff and students of the Institute of Law at Birzeit University who taught me so much on my teaching visits in Palestine between 1996 and 2006. I would like in particular to thank Camille Mansour, Ghassan Faramant and Murdar Kassis for their generosity and wisdom. I am also grateful for the probing questions and thoughtful insights of Ghassan Abdullah. Fouz Abdel Hadi has been a source of inspiration. I learned a great deal from the work of the international research collaboration on legal reform in Palestine which was an initiative of the Law and Society Association and financially supported by the association and theBritishAcademy.WorkingcloselywithAsemKhalil,Mahmoud Fayyad and Kim van der Borght was especially productive. I have also been fortunate to benefit from many challenging discussions in Israel especially with Sheva Freidman, Avram Shamroni, Alon Herel, Assaf Likhovksi, Shai Lavi, Jock Falkson and Sharon Bacher. The Law School at the University of East London has been very supportive of this project, not least with sabbatical leave at a critical stage. The Dean of the School, Fiona Fairweather, has been energetic in ensuring an excellent research environment in which to work. Collaborative work with many colleagues in the School, in particular with Barry Collins and Chandra Sriram, has made an important contribution to my thoughts about international law and conflict resolution. I must also thank the many students at the University of East London who over the past few years have asked me searching questions and offered such incisive analyses on the Palestinian–Israeli conflict in my classes on international law and Middle East studies. Peter Fitzpatrick has been an important influence on my thoughts about law and postcolonialism. Beverley Brown has been constant with her advice and encouragement. Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne has never let an argument about nationalism go unchallenged. Some of the ideas in this book have formed the basis of conference papers and I am grateful for the many useful comments and exchanges they have engendered. Engaging with Irus Braverman who has offered such a unique contribution

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