2 - Casting the First Stone: The Israeli Legal System, Its Human Rights Critics, and Their Approaches to Young Palestinians

Summary

Chapter 2 introduces the book’s two institutional protagonists: the Israeli legal system and the liberal human rights community. Their key characteristics are outlined, their shared fetishization of law is examined, and the intricate dynamic within and between them is described. Issues and trends in their approaches to young Palestinians are identified. The chapter expands on the mass prosecution and incarceration of Palestinians, the military court system, the mechanisms for judicial review of military actions, and Israel’s repeated invocation of international law, with special attention to the effects and manifestations of each of them in relation to young Palestinians. At the forefront of the analysis are the importance, characteristics, blind spots, and silences of legal and human rights texts. Accordingly, the chapter’s entry points into the subject matter are extensive quotes from two documents – an Israeli military court file and a human rights report – both of which concern Palestinians convicted of stone throwing. As this is the most common charge against noncitizen Palestinians under 18, it is also a common thread through the chapter.