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A review by rosepoints
Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat
4.0
this is an excellently thorough legal analysis of the israeli state, starting from its inception to its current occupation of palestine. noura erakat has a keen eye to detail as she combs through israel's use of lew and legal precedents, and i genuinely learned so much from the book. she argues that law and politics are inseparable for israel's occupation of palestine and she points out how the interpretation and application of the law has enabled israel to maintain its settler-colonial status over palestinians. i especially appreciated her discussion on the oslo accords, which i personally did not understand very well prior to reading this book.
as a reader with limited understanding of the law, i found this book to be clear in its arguments. every piece of jargon that is mentioned is thoroughly explained and defined. however, it still doesn't change the fact that this book is a deep dive on a particular aspect of palestinian history and israeli occupation. this book took me a long time to read, and i copiously took notes while reading it in order to stay abreast of what was being described. if you don't know anything about palestine, i would suggest "the hundred years' war on palestine" by rashid khalidi as a starting point rather than this book.
i also think that erakat is better at writing about the law rather than the history. politics has both intertwined so thoroughly that i can't imagine a book like this without the historical context, but the sections that dissected the law and the reasonings behind them were far clearer than the historical background to them. it doesn't diminish the strength of the book overall, but i did continually notice that throughout my reading of it.
altogether, a powerful legal analysis that needs to be more commonly read imo!
as a reader with limited understanding of the law, i found this book to be clear in its arguments. every piece of jargon that is mentioned is thoroughly explained and defined. however, it still doesn't change the fact that this book is a deep dive on a particular aspect of palestinian history and israeli occupation. this book took me a long time to read, and i copiously took notes while reading it in order to stay abreast of what was being described. if you don't know anything about palestine, i would suggest "the hundred years' war on palestine" by rashid khalidi as a starting point rather than this book.
i also think that erakat is better at writing about the law rather than the history. politics has both intertwined so thoroughly that i can't imagine a book like this without the historical context, but the sections that dissected the law and the reasonings behind them were far clearer than the historical background to them. it doesn't diminish the strength of the book overall, but i did continually notice that throughout my reading of it.
altogether, a powerful legal analysis that needs to be more commonly read imo!