Key recommendations - Note on methodology. -- Background. The political and legal status of the Occupied Palestinian Territories - The Palestinian criminal justice system : The Palestinian police - The Attorney General and public prosecutors - The Palestinian judiciary - Applicable laws. - The status of Palestinian women - The Palestinian women's rights movement. -- Social and legal obstacles to reporting violence and seeking redress. Spousal abuse - Child abuse - Sexual abuse : rape - incest. - Murder of women under the guise of "honor". -- Failings in institutional responses to violence against women and girls. The role of the police - The role of medical professionals : the absence of medical guidelines and breaches of confidentiality. - Forensic doctors and forced virginity testing - The informal justice system : The role of governors in the informal justice system. - Inaccessible shelters for victims of violence : The Nablus Shelter - The Bethlehem Home for Girls. -- Obligations under international human rights law. The right to non-discrimination and equality before the law - State responsibility for abuses by third parties. -- Conclusion. -- Recommendations. To the Palestinian Authority - To President Mahmoud Abbas - To the Palestinian Legislative Council. - To the Attorney General - To the Ministry of Interior - To the Ministry of Social Affairs -- To the Ministry of Health - To the government of Israel - To the international donor community. -- Acknowledgements.

An examination of the violence perpetrated against women in politically conflicted or militarized areas.

“A brilliant and bracing analysis of the Palestine question and settler colonialism . . . a vital lens into movement lawyering on the international plane.” —Vasuki Nesiah, New York University, founding member of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Justice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict’s most vexing challenges have been resolved by judicial intervention. Occupation law has failed to stem Israel’s settlement enterprise. Laws of war have permitted killing and destruction during Israel’s military offensives in the Gaza Strip. The Oslo Accord’s two-state solution is now dead letter. Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures—from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza—Noura Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel’s interests than the Palestinians’. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable. Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine. “Careful and captivating . . . This book asks that the Palestinian liberation struggle and Jewish-Israeli society each reckon with the impossibility of a two-state future, reimagining what their interests are—and what they could become.” —Amanda McCaffrey, Jewish Currents

Violence Against Women in Peace and War: Cases from the Middle East explores violence against women in the Middle East. Through a narrative research approach, Maria Holt compares a range of settings and experiences, arguing that (1) violence against women tends to increase during periods of conflict; (2) such practices are legitimized by an already existing environment in which violence against women is tolerated; (3) women are building strategies, both at local and regional levels, to combat and eliminate violence, thus enabling them to play a more constructive role in processes of conflict resolution and post-conflict reconstruction; and (4) the greater the commitment by public authorities to creating sound local frameworks to address violence against women the stronger will be Arab women’s ability to resist conflict.

This book brings together some of the most interesting and innovative work being done to tackle gender-based violence in various sectors, world regions, and socio-political contexts. It will be useful to development and humanitarian practitioners, policy makers, and academics, including gender specialists.

The essays in this work illustrate the various ways in which women in the Middle East fall short of being vested with the rights and privileges that would define them as fully enfranchised citizens. They offer an examination of national legislation on personal status, penal law and labour.