The Law in These Parts

Modern democracy meets military occupation.

The Law In These Parts explores the four-decade-old military legal system in the Occupied Territories. Since Israel conquered the territories in the 1967 War, the Israeli Defense Forces legal corps have created and implemented thousands of military orders and laws, established military courts, sentenced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.

This complex system which is invisible to most Israelis is very present in Palestinian daily life and is unique in the entire world. Still today, IDF legal professionals face judicial and moral dilemmas as they develop and uphold a system of long-term “rule by law” of an occupied population by an occupying army, all under the supervision of the Israeli High Court of Justice.

Why does Israel invest so much into the legal infrastructure of the occupation? What is the rationale behind the work of the people charged with the developing and upholding the law in the Occupied Territories? The Law In These Parts tries to answer these questions while also exploring the implications of the very effort to document such a system.