JPS “Hidden Gems” and “Greatest Hits”: The Law and Palestine
Abstract: 

This essay examines JPS’s fifty-year archive of law-related content from the prism of its contribution to the author’s own thinking (and writing) about the relationship between law and politics in the context of the Palestinian question. Noura Erakat identifies as a “greatest hit” Hanna Dib Nakkara’s “Israeli Land Seizure under Various Defense and Emergency Regulations” (1985) for its meticulous documentation of the Israeli legal regime established to confiscate Palestinian lands. Erakat’s “hidden gem” is “Juridical Characteristics of Palestinian Resistance: An Appraisal in Law,” coauthored by W. T. Jr. and S. V. Mallison. Published in 1973, the article argues for the treatment of captured fedayeen as prisoners of war four years prior to the amendment of the Geneva Convention recognizing national liberation struggles as international conflicts.

Author biography: 

Noura Erakat is an assistant professor in the Africana studies department and the Program in Criminal Justice at Rutgers University—New Brunswick. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019), which won the 2019 Palestine Book Awards Academic Award and the 2020 Independent Publisher Book Award’s bronze medal in the current events/foreign affairs category