Bulletin: Law and Human Rights in Israel

Books

• Yoav Mehozay, Between the Rule of Law and States of Emergency
• Uri Yanai and Tali Gal, eds. From wrongdoing to righting the wrong : restorative justice and restorative discourse in Israel

 

Articles

• Jeff Lahav, Judgments of the Supreme Court of Israel Relating to Human Rights
• Alon Margalit, The Israeli Supreme Court and Bedouin Land Claims in the Negev
• Suzie Navot and Moran Kandelshtein-Haine, Israel Judicial Enforcement of Ethical Norms in Politics
• Sharon Steinberg and Alan Jotkowitz, The Ethics of Public Health Laws

Reviews

• Lynn Rapaport, Review of Laura Jockusch and Gabriel N. Finder’s Jewish Honor Courts: Revenge, Retribution, and Reconciliation in Europe and Israel after the Holocaust

Theses

• Yoni Levy, Freedom of Expression in Israel and the Place of Different Narratives in the Israeli Discourse (Ma, Columbia)

New Book: Timor et al, eds., Juvenile Delinquents in Israel (in Hebrew)

תימור, אורי, סוזי בן ברוך, ואתי אלישע, עורכים. נוער בבלגן – קטינים עוברי חוק בישראל. דרכי מניעה, אכיפה ושיקום. ירושלים: מאגנס, 2015.

 

 

This book is the first book of its kind in Israel. It presents a comprehensive picture of youth struggling with normative functions, including juvenile delinquents in Israel, and focuses on deviant behaviors of these adolescents, their causes and those dealing them.

The articles on welfare agencies address activities aimed at prevention of school dropouts; guidance provided by the Public Defender’s Office for adolescents facing charges; punitive policy in juvenile courts; Treatment of Juvenile Probation Service youth convicted in court; the treatment of Youth Rehabilitation Services; Special treatment in closed institutions for juvenile offenders; and the treatment of adolescents in the juvenile prison “Ofek.”

The articles explaining deviant behaviors address the development of delinquency among adolescents from difficult social and family backgrounds, its stages and its causes; the growing use of alcohol and drugs among adolescents and its damages; and High School violence as perceived by the students. In addition, a number of articles were dedicated to these supplementary topics: procedures of restorative justice as alternative proceedings to criminal trials; connections between terrorist attacks and juvenile delinquents; school shootings in the United States as an extreme example of adolescent crime.

New Article: Waters, The Perils of Positing Civil Society in Conflict and Transition

Waters, Timothy William. “Clearing the Path: The Perils of Positing Civil Society in Conflict and Transition.” Israel Law Review 48.2 (2015): 165-87.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021223715000060

 

Abstract
Can there be a general theoretical perspective on civil society’s involvement in transitional justice? This article considers this question in its application to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Within the study of transitional justice and conflict resolution, civil society – a notoriously plastic concept – can be understood narrowly as rights-oriented groups working ‘for’ peace, but the term is equally available to describe a broader array of communities that can either promote or prevent peace and justice.

It is, in fact, quite difficult to sustain a theoretical distinction between them, because transitional justice does not escape the dictates of politics – of differing human desires expressed through power. Efforts to memorialise imply conflict over the particular memories to be privileged; claims for reparations are not only demands for justice, but for material redistribution that in turn may promote conflict. A narrow view of civil society problematically assumes we even know – let alone agree on – what constitutes positive change.

It is, in fact, quite difficult to sustain a theoretical distinction between them, because transitional justice does not escape the dictates of politics – of differing human desires expressed through power. Efforts to memorialise imply conflict over the particular memories to be privileged; claims for reparations are not only demands for justice, but for material redistribution that in turn may promote conflict. A narrow view of civil society problematically assumes we even know – let alone agree on – what constitutes positive change.

The real work performed by civil society in promoting agendas of peace and justice cannot properly be understood without locating it in a defensible theoretical and empirical framework. Imagining a narrow civil society risks skewing our analysis of what civil society can do and actually does in relation to conflict. Civil society can clear the path to peace, or can provide the principal obstacles to it – it can simultaneously do both. In this it very much shares the ambiguous, multivalent profile of its classic counterpart: politics in the public sphere.

 

 

 

New Article: Chen & Einat, Attitudes of Criminology Students in Israel Toward Punishment

Chen, Gila, and Tomer Einat. “To Punish or Not to Punish—That Is the Question. Attitudes of Criminology and Criminal Justice Students in Israel Toward Punishment.” International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology (early view; online first).

 
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0306624X15595061
 
Abstract

Attitudes toward punishment have long been of interest to policymakers, researchers, and criminal justice practitioners. The current study examined the relationship between academic education in criminology and attitudes toward punishment among 477 undergraduate students in three subgroups: police officers, correctional officers, and criminology students who were not employed by the criminal justice system (CJS). Our main findings concluded that (a) punitive attitudes of the correctional officers and police officers at the beginning of their academic studies were harsher than those of the criminology and criminal justice students who were not employed by the CJS, (b) punitive attitudes of the correctional officers at the end of their academic studies were less severe than their first-year counterparts, (c) fear of crime was higher among women than among men, and (d) the strongest predictor of punitive attitudes was a firm belief in the principles of the classical and labeling theories (beyond group). Implications of these results are discussed.

 
 
 

Reviews: Shemer, Identity, Place, and Subversion in Contemporary Mizrahi Cinema

Shemer, Yaron. Identity, Place, and Subversion in Contemporary Mizrahi Cinema in Israel. Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Press, 2013.

 

 

Reviews

• Belinfante, Randall C. “Review.” Jewish Book Council, n.d.
• Sokoloff, Naomi. “Cinema Studies/Jewish Studies, 2011-2013.” AJS Review 38.1 (2014): 153-4.
• Bashkin, Orit. “Review.” International Journal of Middle East Studies 47.2 (2015): 395-7.