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Partitioning Palestine

Partitioning Palestine

Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

by John Strawson

Argues that the plight of Palestine remains a colonial issue, and that legal tools are used to undermine Palestinian self-determination.
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.

John Strawson is Reader in Law at the University of East London. He is the author of Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (Pluto, 2010) and editor of Law After Ground Zero (2002).

'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
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
Published by Pluto Press in Apr 2010
Paperback ISBN: 9780745323237

135mm x 215mm