Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict

"During the British Mandate for Palestine (1922-1948), Arabs and Jews repeatedly used the law to gain leverage and influence international opinion, especially in three dramatic and largely forgotten trials involving two issues: the interplay between conflicting British promises to the Arabs and Jews during World War I, and the parties' rights and claims to the Wailing Wall. Focusing on how all three parties - Arab, Jewish and British - used the law and the legal process to advance their objectives during the Mandate years, this volume reveals how the parties availed themselves - with varying degrees of success - of the law and the legal process. The book examines various legal arguments they proffered, and how that early tendency to resort to the law as a tool, a resource and a weapon in the conflict has continued to this day. The research relies almost entirely on primary source documents, including transcripts of the public and secret testimony before the Shaw, Lofgren and Peel Commissions, diaries, letters, Government files and other original sources. This study explores the origins of many of the fundamental legal arguments in the Arab-Israeli conflict that prevail to this day. Filling a gap in research, this is a key text to scholars and students interested in the Arab-Israeli conflict, Lawfare and the Middle East. Steven E. Zipperstein, a former U.S. federal prosecutor, is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Middle East Development at UCLA. He also teaches in UCLA's Global Studies program and School of Public Affairs, and as a Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University Law School"--