Palestine

Law and society scholarship in Palestine is relatively scarce, because it is developing gradually in the historical context of foreign occupations. The struggle for national liberation and a complex state-building process, which takes place in tandem with ongoing resistance against oppression, increased scholarly interest in addressing law and society issues during the 1990s. The patriarchal, sociopolitical, cultural, and economic legacies of the region influence the interpretation of legal texts and critical analyses of various legal regimes pertaining to Palestine.

The complicated history of Palestine's various occupations by the Ottomans, British, Jordanians, Egyptians, and Israelis has stimulated critical legal discussions, primarily among European-educated Palestinian lawyers and scholars. These debates focus on human rights, the construction of gender discrimination through religious and personal status laws, and the relationship between customary law, civil law, and criminal law.

Palestinian legal scholars and jurists have particularly reexamined the customary and religious traditions that play a large social and legal role in Palestinian culture. The general prevalence of customary law, and religious law in particular, has been a social and psychological refuge against foreign intervention and control. Thus, the maintenance and empowerment of a tribal and patriarchal legal system that strengthened its control over society's private sphere counterbalanced the loss of control over Palestine's public sphere, which includes land. As foreign occupation threatened the entire social fabric, Palestinian men and women found liberation from oppression in private law, that—nevertheless—inextricably links with the public, national liberation struggle.

Therefore, Palestinians perceive the reliance on customs and customary law within the community as necessary and desirable for self-preservation. A major development taking place in Palestine, and affecting challenges facing the Muslim world in general, is whether and how shari'a can be adapted to the present national and international realities of changing economic, political, and social conditions. How should Palestine and the Arab world meet the economic, military, and cultural challenges posed by colonial powers, yet retain the socioeconomic authenticity of the precolonial structures? Young radical and feminist law and society activists are grappling with the problem of balancing the cultural and religious heritages and humanitarian laws, and striving to achieve equality between the sexes, social justice, and successful resistance against forced alien Western legal control.

The hybrid methodologies of law and society scholarship have caused contradictory legal reasoning, portrayed in studies of violence against women. Recent Palestinian scholars' publications and organizations' campaigns have stressed the alarming obstacles that prevent the Palestinian justice system from operating independently and fairly. Some of these same obstacles also inhibit the development of law and society scholarship, [Page 1092]due to scarce resources and the ongoing armed struggle for national liberation.