Law and Settler Colonialism in Palestine – LPE Project

Jewishness as Property under Israeli Law

Luke Herrine — Fri, 09 Jul 2021 12:47:38 +0000

Understanding the law’s role in the project of Israeli colonization requires examining how distinct legal frameworks applied across a legally fragmented space can nevertheless share a common defining logic. One manifestation of this shared logic becomes evident by scrutinizing claims to land adjudicated by Israeli courts: Israeli state agencies and Jewish settler groups are treated as presumptively proper claimants of property while non-Jewish Palestinians are treated, at best, as dwellers who are not entitled to claim property but merely inhabit the land at the sufferance of Israeli authorities.

System(s) of Domination: Historic Palestine as a Deeply Divided Space

Luke Herrine — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 11:00:00 +0000

In liberal-leftist discourses, both Zionist and otherwise, the pivotal year for what is called the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – a misleading designation in itself – is 1967. It was then that Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip (as well as the Syrian territory in the North). Nineteen sixty-seven is not merely the year in which the Occupation commenced...

Source

Tax Breaks for Colonization?

Luke Herrine — Wed, 30 Jun 2021 11:00:00 +0000

Much attention has been rightly paid to the billions of dollars that the U.S. government hands over to Israel every year, regardless of Israel’s war crimes, or even the warnings of military and diplomatic experts’ that such support might harm U.S. strategic interests in the region. Less public scrutiny has been trained on the U.S. government’s indirect support to the Israeli settlement enterprise through the export of private actors, ideology and capital. But the colonization of Palestine has always been a multinational endeavor that extends beyond state-based support and that is inextricably intertwined with private forms of action.

On Law and Racial Capitalism in Palestine

Luke Herrine — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 11:00:00 +0000

The anti-discrimination framework imagines a situation where authorities unjustifiably favor some categories of its population over others. While this analysis is not wrong, it obscures how Zionism – the political movement for a state for all Jews in the world and Israel’s official ideology – privileges even foreign Jews, to varying extents, over indigenous Palestinians. The systemic harm here is not merely discrimination; it is one of colonialism. And when we speak of colonialism – and especially settler colonialism, which seeks not only to rule native populations but to replace them – the logic of racial capitalism is seldom far behind.

Legitimated Vigilantism as Settler Colonial Policy

Luke Herrine — Mon, 14 Jun 2021 11:00:00 +0000

This post is part of the Law and Settler Colonialism in Palestine Symposium. One hot June afternoon in 1982, when Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was a mere fifteen years old, I was sitting with a colleague and fellow human rights researcher on a rock wall surrounding an olive orchard, listening to Abu Munif, its Palestinian owner, describe an encounter with neighboring Jewish Israeli...

Source