1st Edition

The Legal Case for Palestine A Critical Assessment

By Steven E. Zipperstein Copyright 2025
460 Pages
by Routledge

460 Pages
by Routledge

460 Pages
by Routledge

This book critically analyzes the Palestinian legal arguments against Israeli occupation and in favor of Palestinian statehood. For the past two decades, Palestinians have chosen to pursue their claims against the Israeli occupation through litigation at the international courts. It is therefore appropriate, the author contends, to analyze the merits of the Palestinian legal claims separately... Read more

Introduction  Part I: International Law and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict  1. International Law: Aspiration vs. Reality  2. Palestinian Legal Framing and Narrative  3. Palestinian Lawfare  Part II: Relevant Legal History  4. The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, 1915–1916  5. The Palestine Mandate, 1922  6. Palestinians Deny the Existence of Palestine, 1920s–1930s  7. Palestinians Reject the Two-State Solution, 1937  8. Palestinians Reject the One-State Solution, 1939  9. Palestinians Again Reject the Two-State Solution, 1947  10. The “All-Palestine Government,” 1948  11. The Forgotten Occupation of the West Bank – Jordan, 1948–1967  12. The Forgotten Occupation of the Gaza Strip – Egypt, 1948–1967  13. The Original PLO Charter, May 1964  14. The Oslo Accords, 1993–1995  Part III: Assessing the Palestinian Legal Case: The West Bank and the Gaza Strip  15. Is Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank Illegal?  16. Are Israeli Settlements in the West Bank Illegal?  17. Is the Gaza Strip “Occupied”?  Part IV: Assessing the Palestinian Legal Case: Statehood  18. Are the Palestinians Legally Entitled to Statehood?  19. Is Palestine Already a “State”?  Part V: Assessing the Palestinian Legal Case: Jerusalem  20. Who Owns Jerusalem?  Conclusion

Biography

Steven E. Zipperstein is Associate Director and Distinguished Senior Scholar at the UCLA Center for Middle East Development and an Assistant Adjunct Professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Zipperstein is also a Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University Law School and a Visiting Lecturer at the Hertie School in Berlin. Zipperstein is the author of Zionism, Palestinian Nationalism and the Law: 1939–1948 (Routledge, 2022) and Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Trials of Palestine (Routledge, 2020).