The efficacy of the Israeli legal system in protecting and fulfilling Naqab Bedouin land rights.

摘要

The thesis is a critical legal study of Israeli land law and policy as it has been applied to the Palestinian Arab Bedouin citizens of the Naqab (Negev) since 1948 until present. Through research, case studies, interviews and discussions the thesis gauges the efficacy of using the Israeli legal system to protect and fulfill Naqab Bedouin land rights. The thesis shows that although the legal system has achieved civil liberties successes, it has not been able to deliver, and at times in a colonial fashion has worked against, justice on the bigger issue of land rights for indigenous Palestinian citizens. The thesis calls for law to not be blind obedience to formal, impersonal rules or to the directives of ethnocratic government, but to allow for a humanistic immersion in its texts, one where the dignity of 'the other' is recognised, providing the space for affirmative action, intergenerational justice and restitution.