Tag constitutionalism
John Reynolds: Israel has operated in a self-declared and continuous constitutional emergency since the first week of its existence. Since the Nakba. Or, rather, throughout the Nakba. The logic of emergency underpins the catastrophe of 1948; its shadow continues to loom over the catastrophe of today and tomorrow. It permeates the ‘jagged time’ of catastrophe, as J.M. Coetzee puts it, in which empire locates its existence.
Emilio Dabed on recent court decisions solidifying the emergence of a constitutional dictatorship in the Palestinian Authority.
Nimer Sultany: Notwithstanding its “activist,” rights-vindicating image, Israel’s Supreme Court has developed many techniques that ultimately reinforce judicial deference.
Hassan Jabareen: Israel’s Supreme Court treats the country’s Declaration of Independence as legally binding when used to bolster Jewish rights at the expense of Palestinians but dismisses it as rhetoric when Palestinians invoke its language on equality.
The Nakba Files is proud to present an online symposium on The Dynamics of Exclusionary Constitutionalism: Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State (Hart Press), a forthcoming book by Mazen Masri.
A brief explainer on the Jewish National Fund and how Israel uses it to legalize the colonization of Palestinian land.
Suhad Bishara: Israel has not merely limited the freedom of speech – it has done so in a specific way, allowing some “liberal” forms of dissent while strictly regulating those it sees as mounting ideological challenges to Zionism.
Emilio Dabed: No Palestinian leader has ever had the powers concentrated today in Abbas’ hands. To maintain this state of affairs or to secure the same powers for his successor, the Constitutional Court stands ready to help.
Suhad Bishara: The story of the Nakba often focuses, rightly so, on the 750,000 Palestinian refugees who were exiled, as well as the destruction of their villages and loss of their lands. Less well-known is how the state of Israel confiscated the land of even those Palestinians who never left.