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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 April 2019
Since 1967, despite international legal restrictions, Israel has sought to annex Eastern Jerusalem. Fifty-one years later, it publicly declared in its Nation State Law: “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.” In the West Bank, Israel initiated on the ground changes that furthered annexation without formally declaring any part of it as annexed. For decades, Al-Haq has documented the gradual encroachment of occupation by successive Israeli administrations. And yet the Palestinian leadership failed to successfully utilize the law to support its case. Nor could the 190 states, parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, be convinced to enforce the provision in the Convention which bids the High Contracting Parties to “ensure respect for the present convention in all circumstances.” During the Oslo negotiations, Israel succeeded in leaving Jerusalem and the Jewish settlements outside of the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Authority. Given these patterns across nearly a half-century of history, it seems likely that Israel will declare the full annexation of the West Bank in part or in its entirety precisely because it has succeeded in accomplishing this in the case of Jerusalem.
Raja Shehadeh is a writer and a lawyer who founded the pioneering Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq, an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists. He is the author of several books on international law, human rights and the Middle East including Occupiers Law (IPS 1985) and From Occupation to Interim Accords (Kluwer 1997). His literary books include Strangers in the House (Penguin Books 2003), When the Bulbul Stopped Singing (Profile Books 2003), Occupation Diaries (Profile Books 2012), A Rift in Time, Travels with my Ottoman Uncle (Profile Books 2010), Language of War, Language of Peace (Profile Books 2015), Where the Line is Drawn, Crossing Boundaries in Occupied Palestine (Profile Books 2017) and Palestinian Walks (Profile Books 2007), which won the 2008 Orwell Prize, Britain's pre-eminent award for political writing. His latest book Going Home (Profile Books) will be published in London in August 2019. He has written for the New York Times, The Guardian, the New Yorker, Granta, New York Review of Books and other publications. Shehadeh's family was forced to leave Jaffa in 1948 and settled in Ramallah on the West Bank, where Raja Shehadeh lives today.
2 This was made possible by an amendment to the 1948 Law and Administration Ordinance, which stated that “the law, jurisdiction and administration of the State shall extend to any area of Eretz Israel designated by the Government by order.” It was followed by an amendment to the Municipalities Ordinance (Amendment No. 6) Law 5727-1967 which stated in Article 1: “The Minister may, at his discretion and without an inquiry under section 8 being made, enlarge, by proclamation, the area of a particular municipality by the inclusion of an area designated by order under section 11B of the Law and Administration Ordinance, 5708-1948.” Both laws are available, together, here: “13 Law and Administration Ordinance -Amendment No 11- Law (VOLUMES 1-2: 1947-1974),” Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2013, accessed February 14, 2019, https://mfa.gov.il/mfa/foreignpolicy/mfadocuments/yearbook1/pages/13%20law%20and%20administration%20ordinance%20-amendment%20no.aspx.
3 “Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Request for advisory opinion), Summary of the Advisory Opinion,” International Court of Justice, July 9, 2004, accessed February 14, 2019, 15, https://www.icj-cij.org/files/case-related/131/1677.pdf.
4 The Civil Administration was established by Military Order 947. As of editing this work on February 14, 2019, the Israel Law Resource Center server IP address could not be found for the digitized version of Military Order 947 (http://www.israellawresourcecenter.org/israelmilitaryorders/fulltext/mo0947.htm). Its content seems to be archived on GeoCities, here: “Israel Military Order No. 947 Concerning the Establishment of a Civilian Administration,” GeoCities, 2007, accessed February 14, 2019, http://www.geocities.ws/savepalestinenow/israelmilitaryorders/fulltext/mo0947.htm.
5 Singer, Joel, “The Establishment of a Civil Administration in the Areas Administered by Israel,” Israel Yearbook on Human Rights 12 (1982): 259–289Google Scholar.
6 For a full list of Al-Haq publications, see, “Publications Index,” Al-Haq, accessed February 14, 2019, https://www.alhaq.org/publications/publications-index.
7 “Political Communique,” Palestine National Council, November 15, 1988, accessed February 12, 2019, https://www.al-bab.com/albab-orig/albab/arab/docs/pal/pal4.htm.
8 “Letter of Invitation to Madrid Peace Conference,” Jewish Virtual Library, October 30, 1991, accessed February 12, 2019, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/letter-of-invitation-to-madrid-peace-conference.
9 Yahav, David and Amit-Kohn, Uzi, eds., Israel, the “Intifada” and the Rule of Law (Tel Aviv: Israel Ministry of Defense Publications, 1993)Google Scholar.
10 Yahav and Amit-Kohn, Israel, the “Intifada” and the Rule of Law, 21.
11 Qurei, Ahmed, From Oslo to Jerusalem, the Palestinian Story of the Secret Negotiations (London: I.B. Tauris, 2006), 216Google Scholar.
12 At the time of writing, during November 2018, this decision had not yet been implemented.
13 Comprising 62 percent of the West Bank, which according to the Oslo Accords remained under full Israeli jurisdiction. A data-rich online map of Area C is available via the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), here: “Basic Information,” UNOCHA, September 13, 2017, accessed February 18, 2019, https://public.tableau.com/profile/ocha.opt#!/vizhome/VPP2013MMay21N-Basic24/DashBasic.
14 Benvenisti, Meron, City of Stone: The Hidden History of Jerusalem (Oakland: University of California Press, 1996), 65Google Scholar.
15 “Geneva Convention (IV) relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War,” International Committee of the Red Cross, 12 August, 1949, accessed February 14, 2019, https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/385ec082b509e76c41256739003e636d/6756482d86146898c125641e004aa3c5.
16 Yonit Levi, “The Woman Who Could Be Israel's Next Leader,” The Atlantic, October 9, 2018, accessed February 12, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/10/netanyahu-challenger-ayelet-shaked/572320/.
