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This chapter examines the suicide missions (SMs) related to the Arab-Israeli conflict that took place from 1981 to December 2003. SMs are a relatively recent phenomenon in the Middle East, with only sporadic cases before 1981. In the two decades under examination, the great majority of the SMs related to the Arab-Israeli conflict took place in three geographic areas: Israel, the Occupied Territories (Gaza Strip and the West Bank), and Lebanon (primarily in the south). This concentration is largely due to the outcome of the 1967 war, the so-called Six Day War. Israel managed to sign effective peace agreements with its neighbours in the south (Egypt) and in the east (Jordan), but not in the north (Syria). Hence, a shift in the conflict towards the Occupied Territories and Lebanon, the latter squeezed between the Israeli army in the south and Syrian influence in the north.

This chapter attempts to provide a contextualized investigation of some of the central factors which inform the intricate interplay between childhood, law, and age. To a great extent, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories has been a legalistic one: Israeli authorities have tended to rely on law as a basis to undertake and justify their actions. Hence, the Israeli law in force in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) — which despite its importance has been largely understudied — is an apt arena to examine age and childhood in this context. By focusing on the encounter between Israeli criminal law (domestic and military) and minors in the OPT, the chapter rethinks the age-childhood-law triangle and explores its complexity. The first part of the chapter explains how Israeli criminal legislation constructs two different childhoods along national lines in the OPT. The second part investigates the complex role these forces play in Israeli military law (which applies to Palestinians), especially with regard to four manifestations of the elusiveness of age and childhood. The third part focuses on two cases — one regarding a Palestinian defendant and the other concerning Israeli settler girls — in which law's subjects were seen as obscuring their age. The chapter concludes by pointing, among other things, to the resonance of the issues discussed in this chapter with other contexts outside Israel–Palestine, including — but not limited to — international law, US law, and UK law. In light of the significant commonalities among these different contexts, the Israeli–Palestinian case is read as a ‘super-experiment’, through which to rethink how age functions and is utilized in the legal fabrication of childhood.

This chapter focuses on the legal discourse of the most legalized occupation in world history — Israeli control of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) — to posit that more laws may not only fail to generate more justice, but may actually facilitate, sustain, and legitimize this failure. The argument rests on two interrelated propositions: first, that the Israeli control of the OPT is an illegal occupation, the defining feature of which is the blurring of boundaries, both physical and legal, which has culminated in the reversal of the relationship between the rule and the exception. The second proposition focuses on the normative implications of this regime. It suggests that once law is implicated in the shaping of such a regime, law itself becomes infected, and is likely to operate in a manner that will defy its normative purpose on both an individual and a systemic level: its application to individual cases (through judicial review) would typically entail a ‘dynamic’ interpretation designed to advance the interests of the occupying power at the expense of the occupied people and it will contribute to and facilitate the formation of an environment (indicative of a systemic state policy) of tolerance towards systematic violations of human rights. This tolerance, in turn, may transform grave such violations from war crimes into crimes against humanity. This ‘pathoLAWgy’ provides the proper context for understanding both the manner with which the most recent military operation in Gaza (‘Operation Cast Lead’, 27 December 2008–18 January 2009) was exercised and the consequential Report of the Goldstone Committee.

This chapter describes the background to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, and changes that have taken place in these territories since then. It provides a profile of the Israeli Supreme Court—its composition, function, and record; and discusses factors that affect its role in reviewing petitions from Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories, including the Court’s public image, its position in the Israeli political system, and its general record in matters relating to judicial review of government action. The chapter concludes by reviewing changes in the actual regime in the Occupied Territories that question its characterisation as a regime of belligerent occupation.

This chapter explores additional explanations for the negotiations resulting in the Oslo Accords. The dynamics within the Palestinian polity in general and in the Occupied Territories in particular changed dramatically after the Israeli occupation in 1967, and even more with the outbreak of the first Intifada in 1987. The overarching question in this chapter is the extent to which these developments had a substantial impact on the parties, not only the Palestinians but also the Israelis, leading them more actively to engage in dialogue. The chapter also looks at the possible outcome of these negotiations in relation to these changes in the Palestinian polity, not least for the Palestinian leadership. Its role as a guarantor for the security of Israel rather than the security of the Palestinian people has remained a paradox for the civilian population, victims of indiscriminate shelling and extensive house demolitions. A closer look at the elections of 2006 may broaden our understanding of these dynamics and how they developed in the aftermath of the accords.

This chapter surveys the spectrum of positions adopted by Middle Eastern countries toward the responsibility to protect (RtoP) and offers an explanation for why these policies were espoused and how they developed as the RtoP advanced to the forefront of the international diplomatic agenda. The chapter is divided into three parts. Part I defines the Middle East and the territories that are considered within the region. It also highlights the salient historic, geographic, and political features of the region that influenced policies regarding the RtoP. Part II surveys the positions of the Middle Eastern countries as the international community debated the notion of intervention to prevent or halt gross violations of human rights. It charts the development of Middle Eastern positions as the global debate on the RtoP progressed and it also identifies the main factors that influenced the policies of regional players. Part III examines the applicability of the RtoP to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which illustrates one among the leading issues currently affecting regional attitudes towards the RtoP. Part IV briefly analyzes the international response to the popular revolt against Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, and the question of the applicability of the RtoP to the Libyan case.

This chapter examines the Court’s decisions on the applicability of the belligerent law of occupation to the Occupied Territories and the enforcement of that body of law by the Court. It explains the distinction the Court has drawn between customary international law and treaty law. The chapter shows that the Court regards the Hague Regulations as customary law but has not taken the same approach to the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Government of Israel adopted the view that the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the West Bank is questionable, but undertook to respect the Convention’s humanitarian provisions. The chapter shows how the Court has neither accepted nor rejected the government’s view and has left the Convention’s formal applicability as an open question. Nevertheless the Court regularly relies on the Convention and interprets is provisions. The chapter maintains that in interpreting the Convention the Court has vacillated between different theories of interpretation but has consistently adopted the interpretation that favours the government’s position in the particular cases before it.

This chapter considers the extent to which the Court has been willing to recognise the applicability of Israel’s constitutional law to actions of the authorities in the Occupied Territories. It further examines the hierarchy in the Court’s case law between Israeli constitutional law and the law of occupation, and the Court’s view on the possibility that different legal regimes might apply within the Occupied Territories to Israeli nationals and to Palestinians. This chapter devotes considerable attention to the Settlement Regularisation Law case of June 2020 in which the Court declared unconstitutional a Knesset law mandating expropriation of private land on which Israeli settlers had built illegally.

This chapter considers explanations for the patterns of judicial review exposed in this study. It examines the Court’s performance in the light of the constraints of a domestic court faced both with challenges to state policy in political and security matters and the need to retain domestic and international legitimacy. The chapter places emphasis on the distinction between independence of judges and their neutrality. The lack of neutrality comes to the fore when the Court, which is the arm of an occupying state, reviews the authorities’ actions that affect persons who are not part of the judges’ political community. The Court has generally evaded examination of the legality under international law of the authorities’ actions or granted its backing to the positions of the government, often on legally dubious grounds. In so doing the Court has effectively legitimised virtually all policies and practices, including those that are incompatible with international law. In assessing the Court’s function, the chapter distinguishes between the Court’s legitimising and mitigating roles, and between the effect of the Court’s decisions and the effect of its shadow. Finally the chapter appraises the role that the Court has played in the transformation of the regime in the West Bank to one that has elements of a settler colonial regime.

This chapter examines more closely the economic field as a way to begin explaining some of the changes that have transpired in the Occupied Territories (OT). The assumption is that the policies in the economic field not only aimed to satisfy Israel's economic interests, but that they also served a crucial role in the administration of the OT. The chapter shows that by hindering the development of an independent Palestinian economy based on industry and sophisticated agriculture, Israel encouraged the Palestinian inhabitants to become unskilled laborers, and thus directed the economic utility of the Palestinians in a very specific way. The different forms of control that were utilized in the economic field produced excesses and contradictions that ultimately spurred Palestinian resistance and helped shape Israel's policy choices.

This chapter describes the basis for the Court’s jurisdiction over petitions by residents of territory that is not the sovereign territory of Israel, but is ruled under a regime of belligerent occupation. The chapter examines the readiness of the Court to entertain such petitions, given that their subject matter falls within areas that are arguably non-justiciable. The chapter stresses the tension in the Court’s decisions created by its position that the legality of Israel’s most controversial policy in the West Bank—the settlement project—is not justiciable, and its ruling that the political nature of a government act cannot block the right of individuals to challenge the legality of acts that violate their rights.

This chapter illustrates how Israel consolidated its military rule in the Occupied Territories (OT) by increasing the inhabitants' economic productivity while diminishing their political capabilities. It begins by briefly describing the coercive measures Israel employed to crush all oppositional forces, and then discusses some of the changes introduced in the education system in order to suppress both national identification and political aspirations. The chapter then describes how, alongside its efforts to quell the population's desire for emancipation, Israel encouraged economic practises that promoted Palestinian prosperity and, in this manner, hoped to normalize the occupation.

When the IDF took control over the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 it issued a proclamation that the local law would remain in force subject to changes made by military orders. This chapter discusses the Court’s approach to various issues concerning the local law and its relationship with orders promulgated by the military commander, including the scope of judicial review over such orders. The Court has held that since the military commander is an arm of the Israeli government, his actions in the Occupied Territories, including promulgation of military orders, are subject to the rules of Israeli administrative law. The chapter concludes by addressing the role of administrative law in judicial review over actions in the Occupied Territories.

The generally accepted position today is that international human rights treaties to which an occupying state is a party apply to that state’s actions in occupied territory. The Government of Israel rejects this position. This chapter examines the Court’s view on the issue. The Court often refers to provisions in human rights treaties in its decisions relating to Israel’s actions in the Occupied Territories, but it has never taken a firm position on the treaties’ formal applicability. The Court’s position on the relationship between international human rights law and other applicable bodies of law is also ambiguous. Thus the Court has left the applicable legal regime indeterminate.

This chapter reflects on the role as special rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC), which investigated the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The chapter first provides an overview of the role and office of special rapporteur, noting that UN concerns about Israel and responses to Palestinian grievances are highly politicized within the organization, before discussing some of the characteristics that distinguish the mandate established by the HRC and made applicable to Occupied Palestine. It also explains what was accomplished in six years as special rapporteur of the HRC and details the controversies and pressures attached to that job. It shows that the “UN” comprises different layers, agendas, and interests. The chapter claims that while the United Nations secretary-general in New York permitted personal attacks against the special rapporteur, the leadership and professionals of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva strongly supported his efforts in what the chapter calls the “legitimacy war”.

This chapter examines the unrecognized entity, or ‘de facto state’, that has emerged and survived in Nagorny Karabakh since 1991. The chapter begins by examining the polarised portrayals of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) as either a vibrant self-determining state or the puppet of an occupying power. The chapter then examines the political structures and institutions of the NKR, before then examining its political economy. It argues that the NKR is a political formation characterised by strategic integration with Armenia and tactical expressions of independent sovereignty. The chapter then examines the scope of democratisation in the entity, and the challenges posed by its layered geographies and the emergence of new human geographies within them.

Palestinian residents of the Occupied Territories are not nationals of the occupying power. As long as they remain residents of the Territories they are entitled to remain there. But what is the position if they leave the Territories for an appreciable period of time? Do they retain their residence status, and the consequent right to return to their homes? This chapter concerns petitions of Palestinians whose residence status has been denied (revoked) by the military authorities. It also deals with the Court’s decisions in applications of residents for family unification in the Occupied Territories with family members from other countries.