Press Releases

Our Winter 2013 – 2014 installment of the al-Majdal quarterly magazine seeks to advance a classical Palestinian discourse questioning the utility of employing Israeli law for Palestinian human rights.

Israel’s implementation of protracted occupation, apartheid and colonization is hyper-legalized. This regime is sterilized through the language of law and its violence dispersed through many bureaucratic institutions and complex legislation. As such, whether citizens of Israel, residents of the occupied Palestinian territory, or exiled refugees – lived reality instructs Palestinians that the Israeli legal order is anything but just.

Yet, Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line consistently use Israeli law. Why is this the case? And is there a political vision that guides litigation? By gathering leading Palestinian human rights organizations involved in litigation together in one issue, it is our hope that the answers to these questions take on clearer form. Al-Majdal no. 55 contributes to the topic by emphasizing the role of civil society organizations and their potential for embodying a Palestinian strategy.

Al-Majdal no. 55: The Paradox of Using the Law of the Oppressor