The Legal Case for Palestine

Steven E. Zipperstein is Associate Director and Distinguished Senior Scholar at the UCLA Center for Middle East Development and an Assistant Adjunct Professor at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. Zipperstein is also a Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University Law School and at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin. Zipperstein is the author of Zionism, Palestinian Nationalism and the Law: 1939–1948 (Routledge, 2022) and Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Trials of Palestine (Routledge, 2020).

Introduction Part I: International Law and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 1. International Law: Aspiration vs. Reality 2. Palestinian Legal Framing and Narrative 3. Palestinian Lawfare Part II: Relevant Legal History 4. The McMahon-Hussein Correspondence, 1915–1916 5. The Palestine Mandate, 1922 6. Palestinians Deny the Existence of Palestine, 1920s–1930s 7. Palestinians Reject the Two-State Solution, 1937 8. Palestinians Reject the One-State Solution, 1939 9. Palestinians Again Reject the Two-State Solution, 1947 10. The “All-Palestine Government,” 1948 11. The Forgotten Occupation of the West Bank – Jordan, 1948–1967 12. The Forgotten Occupation of the Gaza Strip – Egypt, 1948–1967 13. The Original PLO Charter, May 1964 14. The Oslo Accords, 1993–1995 Part III: Assessing the Palestinian Legal Case: The West Bank and the Gaza Strip 15. Is Israel’s Occupation of the West Bank Illegal? 16. Are Israeli Settlements in the West Bank Illegal? 17. Is the Gaza Strip “Occupied”? Part IV: Assessing the Palestinian Legal Case: Statehood 18. Are the Palestinians Legally Entitled to Statehood? 19. Is Palestine Already a “State”? Part V: Assessing the Palestinian Legal Case: Jerusalem 20. Who Owns Jerusalem? Conclusion