Legal Liminalities: Conflicting Jurisdictional Claims in the Transition from British Mandate Palestine to the State of Israel
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
3-30-2020
ISSN
0010-4175
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Language
en-US
Abstract
This article examines the termination of the British Mandate for Palestine, the 1948 War, and the establishment of the State of Israel by probing the paradoxical ways in which the Israeli state self-consciously identified with and against its Mandate predecessor during this period of “betwixt and between.” By asserting that the Mandate administration’s jurisdiction existed wholesale until 15 May 1948 and that complete Israeli jurisdiction followed immediately thereafter, Israeli actors predicated their own jurisdictional claims—not the least, over highly contentious areas such as Western Jerusalem—on those of their predecessors. At the same time, however, Israeli actors contested their predecessor’s decisions made prior to 15 May. Israel thereby positioned itself as both an heir to and rebel against British Mandatory administration jurisprudence. Indeed, by specifically staking its claim on being a “completely different political creature” from its British predecessor, Israel retained its British colonial legal structures as the “ultimate standards of reference.”
Recommended Citation
Rephael G. Stern,
Legal Liminalities: Conflicting Jurisdictional Claims in the Transition from British Mandate Palestine to the State of Israel
,
62
Comparative Studies in Society and History
359
(2020).
Available at:
https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417520000080
