Introduction; A. Assigned residence; B. Border/barrier; C. Combatants; D. Deportations; E. Export of knowledge; F. Future-oriented measures; G. Geneva law; H. House demolition; I. Investigations; J. Jewish settlements; K. Kinship; L. Lawfare; M. Military courts N. Nomos; O. Outside/inside; P. Proportionality; Q. Quality of life; R. Regularization, law of; S. Security prisoners; T. Temporary/indefinite; U. Usufruct, rules of; V. Violence; W. War crimes; X. X rays; Y. Youth; Z. Zone.
A lexicon of the legal, administrative, and military terms and concepts central to the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories.
Orna Ben-Naftali holds the Emile Zola Chair for Human Rights in the Haim Striks School of Law, Israel. Michael Sfard is an Israeli human rights lawyer and the legal adviser to several Israeli human rights organizations and peace groups. Hedi Viterbo is Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Essex.
'A landmark in the literature of the Israel/Palestine conflict,
this book's comprehensive analysis of dozens of Israeli policies in
the Occupied Territories demonstrates - brilliantly - that Israel
systematically perverts the rule of law while all the time falsely
proclaiming a meticulous commitment to legality. Truly
eye-opening.' Duncan Kennedy, Carter Professor of General
Jurisprudence, Harvard Law School
'The ingenious format of the lexicon allows the three authors to
offer a fresh account of the law of occupation. Starting from the
insight that law is language is power, Orna Ben-Naftali, Michael
Sfard and Hedi Viterbo furnish legal analysis on a high technical
level and raise profound questions of justice. The original
combination of keywords covering conventional legal terms (such as
Geneva law) and unexpected words (such as outside/inside or
kinship) creates a dense web of knowledge and makes the work a
reliable source of information, provided by legal experts. Numerous
cross-references help the reader to navigate the book and to find
answers to specific questions. At the same time, this book instills
a subtle horror about one of the most legalized regimes of
territorial control in the world. A deeply passionate work of legal
scholarship at its best.' Anne Peters, Managing Director, Max
Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law,
Heidelberg
'Spiraling down the inverse hurricane of the endlessly temporary
occupation, where facts are optional and state lawyers weaponize
the law against the oppressed, we urgently need a new set of
conceptual and practical tools. Now three of the most committed and
brilliant legal scholars-practitioners working on or against the
Israeli occupation have joined up to provide a uniquely perceptive
and comprehensive analysis of law's relationship with the Israeli
control regime. This equips us with an essential cartography,
charted from the very epicenter of the storm.' Eyal Weizman,
Director of the Centre for Research Architecture at Goldsmiths
College, University of London
'This reference book is an indispensable guide to the
Palestinian-Israeli problem and deserves a place in any public
library as well as in research institutions. Essential.' C. M.
Henry, Choice
'The ABC of the OPT is an outstanding work on international law
that addresses - dispassionately, authoritatively and
comprehensively … Israel's interminable occupation of Palestine.
This … is truly a singular intellectual and academic achievement …
This book is now the definitive go-to handbook - the indispensable
guide - on international human rights and humanitarian law as it
applies to occupied Palestine. It is substantive, definitive and
utterly persuasive. … How rare it is for lawyers to write with such
literary imagination and panache.' Michael Lynk, Associate
Professor of Law, Western University in London, Ontario, Canada,
and UN Special Rapporteur for the Situation of Human Rights in the
Palestinian Territory Occupied since 1967
'The ABC of the OPT is appealing to browse and easy to read …
Comprehensive, incisive, and detailed … Although the stated
audience of the book is legal scholars and practitioners familiar
with the Israeli military occupation, the discussions are
accessible to a broader audience. The authors suggest a tremendous
number of valuable sources rich in detail on issues beyond the
scope of the book, and even discussions that range beyond the
Israel/Palestine context … With clear, careful, and precise legal
language, the authors have managed to capture the key legal issues
of the OPT … This book, a novel and successful attempt to
scrutinize the legal challenge that threatens the very existence of
Palestinians on their own land, is an important contribution to the
legal literature on Palestine/Israel.' Mais Qandeel, Journal of
Palestine Studies
'The ABC of the OPT, the award-winning new publication by three
outstanding Israeli scholars and jurists - Orna Ben-Naftali,
Michael Sfard and Hedi Viterbo - demonstrates, in a masterly
fashion, the use and abuse of the laws of belligerent occupation as
a masquerade for raw power and as a tool for oppression. The
authors illustrate, using the format of a legal lexicon dedicated
to specific legal terms and rhetorical devices (or newspeak), how
the distorted application of the laws of belligerent occupation by
Israeli lawyers and judges has conferred an aura of decency and
legitimacy upon the long and open-ended occupation of the West
Bank. This approach draws its intellectual roots from classic
insights of critical legal studies - e.g., that law is chronically
malleable to abuse and that law constitutes politics through other
means.' Yuval Shany, Hersch Lauterpacht Chair of Public
International Law, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
'In The ABC of the OPT: A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over
the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Orna Ben-Naftali, Michael Sfard
and Hedi Viterbo provide a dense and detailed analysis of …
[Israel's] heavily legalized control regime … The sheer volume of
material covered … renders [this book] … as extensive as a single
text could hope to be … The core threads of analysis running
through the book converge to demonstrate how law has played a
significant role in the making and maintaining of the reality of
this occupation … The book shows that law is not merely used
instrumentally in service of power; it is itself a form of power.'
John Reynolds, International Dialogue
'In The ABC of the OPT, Orna Ben-Naftali, Michael Sfard and Hedi
Viterbo offer a guidebook for the legal tourist - a narrated
cartography to the strange legal planet that has become
Israel/Palestine … Fleshing out the concepts, doctrines and
toolkits of rule that make up the legal terrain of the world's
longest remaining occupation, the format of the lexicon revives the
colonial and imperial phantoms that have created international law,
and how those legacies are used today by the Israeli state against
the Palestinian population in the occupied territories and beyond.
Since one of the most powerful tools of colonial rule has been the
creation of colonial knowledge, and the transformation of the world
of the subjects through administrative, economic and physical means
of violence, … the use of the lexicon seeks to cut through the
colonial political grammar of the occupation.' Yael Berda,
Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology,
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
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