Analysis of Israelis [Jews and Arab–Palestinians]: exploring law in society and society in law

Abstract

Attributing a great deal of attention to global and local knowledge, this paper is focused on law and society scholarship that has been published by Israelis, both Jewish and Arab-Palestinians. It attempts to unveil and to map some of the major issues that have characterised the scholarly debates and intellectual discourse, primarily critical questions on law and political power, the nation-state, legal rights discourse and equality. More specifically, the paper analyses socio-legal research on various local issues, such as multiculturalism and national rifts on the backdrop of the 1967 military occupation alongside the emergence of a neoliberal capitalist economy. The protracted Arab-Palestinian–Israeli conflict and the fragmentation of the political partisan map in Israel have incited more emphasis on the place of the Israeli Supreme Court, primarily sitting as a High Court of Justice, in public life as an important regulatory institution. This focus on the judicial power of the Court has resulted in an even more frantic controversy on whether the Court has become too engaged in political affairs. In all the law and society debates, local concepts and global knowledge have been intertwined. Hence, the paper enables scholars around the world to closely examine law and society scholarship on the convergence of local and global knowledge.

Unmasking Media Bias and Religious Zionism’s Impeding Political Influence on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

“…Experimental findings corroborate the polarizing impacts of such uneven coverage, showing balanced reporting fosters nuanced thinking while one-sided narratives breed extremism (Astorino-Courtois, 1996;Geva & Mintz, 1997;Leonard et al, 2020). This asset that maximalist stances have gained preeminence in both societies owing to the interplay between such biased media environments and identity-based religious-nationalist discourse (Barzilai, 2015;Ghanem, 2011). Territorial claims merge with collective memories of suffering and sacred attachments to the land, fueling grievances that pragmatism now struggles to penetrate (Fox et al, 2004;Maoz et al, 2002).…”

“…Among Palestinians, the Nakba trauma of displacement stirred rights-claims to return (Abulof, 2021). Over decades, national narratives hardened stances, with concessions seen as existential threats (Barzilai, 2015;Ghanem, 2011). Identity frames promoting grievances and fears of denialism gained further traction.…”