Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict - Softcover

Strawson, John

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745323235 ISBN 13: 9780745323237

Publisher: Pluto Press, 2010

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

John Strawson is Reader in Law at the University of East London. He is the editor of Law After Ground Zero (2002).

Review:

'John Strawson writes in the spirit of Edward Said, who emphasised the power of discursive images in texts. This [is a] fascinating and erudite analysis' -- Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck, University of London

About this edition

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0745323235
• ISBN 13: 9780745323237
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 264