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Blog28th January 2010Details of my forthcoming book tour in the USAI shall be speaking at a dozen universities in the US in February in Chicago, New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, Boston, Princeton, and New Haven. Continue Reading...24th January 2010 Review of my book in the Middle East JournalSanford R. Silverburg, Professor of Political Science at Catawba College and editor of Palestine and International Law has just reviewed my book for the prestigious Middle East Journal (Vol. 64, Number 1, 2010, pp. 150-152). If you do not subscribe to the journal you can read the full review by clicking on the link below.According to Silverburg I have ‘produced the strongest case for Palestinians in their quest for political recognition that has appeared in recent times', in what is an engaging, if somewhat critical review. I have a few quibbles with parts of the review that I want to clarify and I shall take the occasion of outlining these on my blog. Continue Reading... 8th January 2010 Review of my book in Middle East InternationalChallenging the culture of denialFrom Coexistence to Conquest: International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1891-1949 Victor Kattan Pluto Press, London, 2009, £29.99 ISBN: 9780745325781 A legal historian cannot bring a murder victim back to life, but what they write may have a powerful impact on how attitudes change or unresolved disputes are reassessed. This is particularly so when (as in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute) the issues are emotive and the parties have a desperate need to believe that their positions rest on firm moral foundations. In From Coexistence to Conquest, Victor Kattan takes international law as his standpoint from which to examine the issues of the Palestine problem up to the 1949 armistices and the failure to resolve the dispute at that time. The book includes chapters on the relationship between Zionism, colonialism and anti- Semitism, the scramble for the Ottoman Empire (which Kattan sees as essentially part of the same process as the scramble for Africa) during and after the First World War, the Hussein-McMahon correspondence, Palestinian opposition to political Zionism, the nature of the right to self-determination of the inhabitants of the Palestine Mandate, the partition of Palestine, the refugee question, and the creation of Israel as a sovereign state. He has mined a rich seam of opinions by law officers in London and Washington, legal writings and court and arbitration decisions which political historians would find difficult to assess without a good background in international law. Continue Reading... 31st December 2009 Gaza offensive: Israeli war crimes are in little doubtI have just been cited in an article on last year's war in Gaza by Jonathan Cook who is the foreign correspondent for The National. Continue Reading...25th December 2009 Merry ChristmasI would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and for those who do not celebrate I hope you have a wonderful day in any event. Continue Reading...11th December 2009 My Speech at SOAS Book LaunchYou can read the text of my presentation at the launch of my book at the School of Oriental and African Studies on Wednesday 9 December here. Continue Reading...7th December 2009 Presentation at Seminar on Operation Cast LeadPresentation on 'Universal Jurisdiction and Israeli War Criminals' organized by the Middle East Monitor at the British Institute of International and Comparative LawMonday 7 December 2009 Good afternoon What I propose to talk about today is what everyone else – the Goldstone Commission, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have avoided: the legality of the initial use of armed force by Israel in Operation Cast Lead. Under international law the use of armed force is prohibited save in two instances: where it is authorized by the UN Security Council and when it is an act of self-defence as provided for by Article 51 of the UN Charter. In January earlier this year two dozen international lawyers signed and published a letter in the Sunday Times in which they argued that Israel’s assault on the Gaza Strip was not in conformity with the law of self-defence and amounted to an act of aggression. The letter was drafted in response to the claim made by the Israeli Ambassador to the UN that Israel was acting in accordance with its right of self-defence under the UN Charter. Continue Reading... 2nd December 2009 Why I wrote From Coexistence to ConquestFrom Coexistence to Conquest was a difficult book to write. The manuscript went through so many drafts, the title, and even the subject matter changed so many times that I could probably write an article on that process alone. Initially, I had intended not to write a history book. I was supposed to write a legal book on the International Court of Justice’s 2004 advisory opinion on the Wall. But my publisher protested. “Why write a book on just the Wall?” I was asked. If I was going to do that, I was told, I must address the conflict’s history from an international law perspective to place the proceedings in context. But I was not quite sure where I was supposed to start my story. Continue Reading...19th November 2009 Kattan: UDI won't mean Palestinian statehoodThe Palestinian Authority lacks the support to issue another unilateral declaration of independence – it should not be hastyguardian.co.uk, Thursday 19 November 2009 The Palestinian Authority has been making some rather strange decisions lately. In October, it opposed the Goldstone report on the Gaza war, which raised serious questions about Israel's conduct in that conflict, when it first came before the UN human rights council in Geneva. Only in the face of overwhelming protest from his own people did President Abbas reverse his decision. Now, Abbas has threatened to resign, and if reports are to be believed the authority is seeking international support for issuing another unilateral declaration of independence (UDI). Continue Reading... 20th October 2009 Book Review on arabnews.comThe following review of my book by Neil Berry was recently published by arabnews.com, the leading English language online newspaper in Saudi Arabia. You can read the whole review here. Continue Reading...Find this useful? Send & Share
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