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My take on Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip in The Nation

Five Israeli Talking Points on Gaza Debunked

[French Translation: Cinq points de discussion  israéliens sur Gaza: démystifiés]           

[Swedish Translation: Så försvarar Israel sitt angrepp mot Gaza – fem argument som inte håller]         

[Arabic Translation: تفنيد خمس نقاط إسرائيلية مثيرة للجدل حول غزة]

Listen: Operation Protective Edge: Legal and Political Implications of ICC Prosecution

Read: Operation Protective Edge & Legal Remedies (Co-written with Bianca Isais & Salmah Rizvi)

New Book: Aborted State? The UN Initiative & New Palestinian Junctures 

Tadween Publishing (2013)
Co-edited volume with Mouin Rabbani.

Blogi                                                                               About

Who Is Afraid of the International Criminal Court?

Can the International Criminal Court (ICC) deliver the justice Palestinians have struggled to realize for well over a century? The pursuit of accountability at the ICC is one venue of this struggle. But any sustainable vision of Palestinian liberation must account for the confines of the courtroom in particular international law more broadly. As should be clear to all observers of international law, the odds are stacked against Palestinians in that courtroom. The challenge ahead is to innovate not simply litigation strategies but to put them in conversation with radical popular mobilization.

The move to the ICC does offer Palestinians two significant opportunities. One, it allows the Palestinian Authority (PA) to once and for all abandon US tutelage once. Since the Oslo Accords and its attendant processes created the PA in the 1990s, the nominal Palestinian leadership has relied exclusively on the United States as its patron saint. This reliance, and indeed the PA’s very existence as a product of Oslo have foreclosed the pursuit of self-determination. Instead the PA and the Oslo process nourished Israeli settler-colonialism, apartheid, and military occupation. Two decades of escalating Israeli political and economic dominance has left the PA with ever-shrinking space to maneuver. The turn to the ICC comes in many ways as a response to this externally—and to some extent self-imposed—straitjacket.



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What Role for the Law in the Palestinian Struggle for Liberation?

Getting the Question RightIn recent months the role of international law and human rights has come under increasing scrutiny. This introspection has involved, among other things, questioning whether Palestinians should continue to bring their claims to Israeli civil and military courts; whether occupation law is a part of the problem or part of the solution; and, if legal claims are to be brought before international tribunals, what should they allege?

What these conversations have in common is an assumption that law can serve a positive function. However, in other conversations, discussants ask whether or not the law itself is the problem. It is important to consider the merits and implications of each approach to elucidate the proper role of international law and human rights in the Palestinian struggle for liberation. This policy brief attempts to do just that. It asserts that while the law is generally a tool of the powerful, it can be used to counter hegemony if it is deployed strategically in furtherance of a broader political project.


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Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and activist. As of Fall 2014, she is an Assistant Professor at George Mason University. She has taught international human rights law in the Middle East at Georgetown University since Spring 2009. Noura is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya. 
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I am currently working on several research projects that examine the law of self-defense in international law, armed conflict, and human rights. My research interests include the laws of war, human rights law, humanitarian law, refugee law, national security law, social justice, Palestine, the Palestinian-Israel conflict, and the Middle East in general. 
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Jadaliyya 

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As a co-editor of Jadaliyya, I have the privilege of working with a remarkable team of scholars and analysts who have their hand on the pulse of dynamic change and historical perspective in the Middle East.  

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DC Palestinian Film & Arts Festival 

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2014 marks the fourth year of the DC Palestinian Film & Arts Festival which seeks to showcase Palestinian subjectivity by featuring Palestinian filmmakers, actors, visual artists, musicians, & more. 

Legal Agenda

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Legal Agenda is a Beirut-based NGO established in 2010 dedicated to legal reform throughout the Arab world through civic and judicial empowerment including the interdisciplinary study of law and society.