The Law of Belligerent Occupation as a System of Control: Dressing Up Exploitation in Respectable Garb

This chapter describes the way in which laws have been used and, in effect, misused, as a system of control, discrimination and exploitation of the occupied territories and their Palestinian residents. Thus in establishing settlements and exploiting the resources in the occupied territories for the good of Israel and Israeli Jews, the formal legal norms have been ignored. However, in justifying restrictions on the rights and liberties of the Palestinian residents, the formal norms of belligerent occupation have been cited time and again. Kretzmer calls this situation "legal hypocrisy", because the territories themselves are not regarded by Israel as occupied; their Palestinian residents are, however, subjected to the law of occupation.