Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:20:55.571Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Crime, Justice, And Underdevelopment: The Palestinians Under Israeli Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Elia Zureik
Elia Zureik
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology Queen's University, Ontario
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Orthodox theories of crime in the Third World and in regions of uneven economic development offer a unilinear explanation of the relationship between economic development and increased crime rates. Simply stated, this Durkheimian position views the transition from traditional to modern society as being associated with the weakening of mechanical forms of solidarity and the emergence of secular and impersonal role structures based on a complex division of labor. Universalistic and achievement criteria replace ascriptive and particularistic values, and deviance-derived social control models based on formalized coercive sanctions substitute for traditional and community-based forms of control. Anomic behavior, frustration of expectations, and norm violation are considered an expected, if transitory, outcome of social change, and are explained on the basis of a clash between modern and traditional value systems.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 20 , Issue 4 , November 1988 , pp. 411 - 442
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Author's note: This article forms part of a larger project currently underway which deals, among other things, with perceptions and experiences of Palaestinians and Israeli Jews with the legal system in Israel and in the West Bank and Gaza. The project is directed by the author and Professor Founad Moughrabi of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Tennessee. The author is grateful for the help and comments provided by Khawlah Abu-Baker, Stanley Cohen, Ezzat Fattah, Aziz Haidar, Osama Halabi, Fiona Kay, Gershon Shafir, Michael Shalev, Laureen Snider, Austin Turk, and Terrence Willett. Special thanks are due to my colleague Vincent Sacco for his comraderie and scholarly advice throughout this project. Needless to say, the author is solely responsible for any shortcomings in the study.Google Scholar

1 This position is advocated by Clinard, M. B. and Abbott, D. J., Crime in Developing Countries: A Comparative Perspective (New York, 1973);Google Scholar and more recently by Shelley, Louise I., Crime and Modernization: The Impact of Industrialization and Urbanization on Crime (Carbondale, Illinois, 1981).Google Scholar For a critical assessment of this approach, see Huggins, Martha, “Approaches to Crime and Societal Development,” Comparative Social Research, 8 (1985), 17–35;Google ScholarSumner, Colin, “Crime, Justice and Underdevelopment: Beyond Modernization Theory,” in Sumner, Colin, ed., Crime, Justice and Underdevelopment (London, 1982), pp. 1–39;Google Scholar and Greenberg, David F., “Law and Development in Light of Dependency Theory,” Research in Law and Sociology, 3 (1980), 129–59.Google Scholar

2 Mayar, John A., “Notes towards a Working Definition of Social Control in Historical Analysis,” Cohen, Stanley and Scull, Andrew, eds., Social Control and the State (Oxford, 1983), pp.17–49.Google Scholar

3 Of the early studies adopting this approach, see Shoham, Shlomo, “The Application of the ‘Culture Conflict’ Hypothesis to the Criminality of Immigrants in Israel,” Journal of Criminal Law, 53 (1962), 207–14;Google ScholarReifen, David, Patterns and Motivations of Juvenile Delinquency among Israeli Arabs (Jerusalem, 1964);Google ScholarShoham, S. Giora, Segal, Esther and Rahav, Giora, “Secularization, Deviance and Delinquency among Israeli Arab Villagers,” Human Relations, 28, 7 (1975), 661–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For more recent works, see Toledano, Shmuel, Do'h ha-va'adah lebdikat avrianut ha-nua'r bamigzar ha-Aravi [The Report of the Committee Investigating Juvenile Delinquency in the Arab Sector] (Jerusalem 1984);Google ScholarCohen, Ben-Zion, Jewish and Arab Male Offenders in Israel: A Study of Ethnicity. Class and Minority Experience, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Bryn Mawr College, 1981. Yael Hassin, an Israeli criminologist, captured the thrust of Israeli research on delinquency by noting in a recent piece its lack of innovative frameworks and heavy reliance on the culture conflict,Google Scholarmodernization, , and other related perspectives, “Jewish and Arab Juvenile Delinquency in Israel: The Problem and its Remedies,” International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice, 11, 2 (1987), 213–30.Google Scholar

4 al-Haj, Majid, The Changing Arab Kinship Structure: The Effects of Modernization in an Urban Community, mimeographed (Haifa University, 1987).Google Scholar

5 For a relevant discussion highlighting the relationship between race, class, ethnicity, and experience with the criminal justice system, see Quinney, Richard, Class, State. and Crime (New York, 1980);Google ScholarHacker, Andrew, “Black Crime, White Racism,” New York Review of Books, 03 3, 1988, pp. 36–41.Google Scholar

6 For a detailed study of the institutional context of the Israeli legal system and its application to the Israeli Arabs, see Halabi, Osama, al-Qanun wa al'Arab fi lsra'il, mimeographed (Jerusalem, 1987);Google ScholarQuigley, John, Palestine and Israel: A Challenge to International Law, manuscript, College of Law, Ohio State University, 1987.Google Scholar The classic work in this area remains that of Jiryis, Sabri, al'Arab fi lsra'il, manuscript (Beirut, 1968).Google Scholar

7 A Catch-22 situation faces Israeli Arabs in dealing with the Jewish state. As the Palestinian writer Anton Shammas eloquently points out, the Palestinians are citizens of a state that belongs foremost to the Jewish people as a whole. As such Israel is not the state of its citizens in conformity with other secular definitions of the modern nation state. Thus, while the Palestinians are asked to express loyalty to the Jewish state, they do not enjoy the same status as Israeli Jews, or for that matter, that bestowed upon any Jew who decides to settle in Israel. Yet, when the Palestinians behave terms of their historical bond and affinity to the rest of the Palestinian people, as Israeli Arabs have done recently, they are singled out as disloyal citizens. See Shammas, Anton, “A Stone's Throw,” New York Review of Books, March 31, 1988, pp. 9–10.Google Scholar For a fuller treatment of what Shammas calls Kitsch-22 see his Arabesques (New York, 1988). A poignant expression of solidarity shown by Israeli Arabs toward the Palestinians in the occupied territories was reflected in a statement issued by the five Arab Knesset members in which they stated “we proclaim our full identification with the struggle of this people—our people—against the Israeli occupation and for its independence of it,”Google Scholar in Chafets, Ze'ev, “Arab Rage Inside Israel,” New York Times Magazine, 04 3, 1988, p. 26.Google Scholar

8 Smooha, Sammy, The Orientation and Politicization of the Arab Minority in Israel (Haifa, Israel, 1984).Google Scholar

9 Ibid., p. 36.

10 Ibid., pp. 58–61.

11 Ibid., p. 84.

12 Cited in Zureik, E., The Palestinians in Israel, p. 145.Google Scholar

13 Cited in ibid., p. 146.

14 Smooha, op. cit., p. 78; for similar results, see Tzemah, Minah, The Attitudes of the Jewish Majority in Israel towards the Arabs (Jerusalem, 1980) [Hebrew].Google Scholar

15 Cited in Hazan, Halah, “al-Unsuriyya wa al-Tarbiyya,” in Qadaya al-ta'lim al-'arabi, in Problems in Arabs Education, Arabic, publication of the regional organization of heads of Arab local councils (no publication place, 06 1987), p. 9.Google Scholar See also el-Asmar, Fouzi, Through the Hebrew Looking Glass: Arab Stereotypes in Children's Literature (London, 1986);Google ScholarAdir, Cohen, An Ugly Face in the Mirror: National Stereotypes in Hebrew Children's Literature (Tel-Aviv, 1985) [Hebrew].Google Scholar

16 Ha-Aretz [Hebrew daily], February 1, 1984.Google Scholar

17 Fishman, Gideon, Rattner, Arye, and Weiman, Gabriel, “The Effects of Ethnicity on Crime Attribution,” Criminology, 25, 3 (1987), 507–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

18 Tzemah, Minah, summarized in Asi, Murad, Israeli and Palestinian Public Opinion (Washington, D.C., 1986), pp. 4–5.Google Scholar

19 Tzemah, Minah and Tzrin, Ruth, Attitudes of Adolescents towards Democratic Values (Jerusalem, 1984)Google Scholar [Hebrew], summarized in Murad Asi, ibid., p.5.

20 Shipler, David, New York Times [four-part series], December 27–30, 1983.Google Scholar

21 See al-Iuihad [Arabic daily], March 9, 1987, 9 April, 20, 1987.Google Scholar

22 Namadhijmin al-ramayyiz fi sutur, publication of the Strike Committee of June 24, 1987, p. 4.Google Scholar

23 lsrael Census (Jerusalem, 1979/1980), p. 18.Google Scholar

24 David Shipler, op. cit.Google Scholar

25 Shipler, David, Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land (New York, 1986), p. 439.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 440.

27 Halabi, Osama, al-Arab wa al-qanun, p. 70.Google Scholar

28 Statistical Abstract of Israel (Jerusalem, 1984), pp. 286–93. See also Aziz Haidar, who demonstrates that in relation to Israeli Jews, Arab income stood at the same level between 1970 and 1984, and averaged less than two-thirds that of Jewish income; in Social Welfare Services for Israel's Arab Population (Tel-Aviv, 1987), p. 26.Google Scholar

29 Haidar, ibid., p. 26.

30 Zureik, Elia, “Palestinians under Israeli Control,” Arab Studies Quarterly, 7, 2 & 3 (1984), 115.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 114.

32 Semyonov, Moshe and Lewin-Epstein, Noah, Hewers of Wood and Drawers of Water: Noncirizen Arabs in the Israeli Labor Market (Ithaca, N.Y., 1987), pp. 66–83.Google Scholar

33 Haidar, op. cit., p. 37.Google Scholar

34 Karl, Deutsch, W., “Introduction,” in Krausz, Ernest and Glanz, David, eds., Politics and Society in lsrael (New Brunswick and London, 1985), p. 4.Google Scholar

35 For a discussion of the status of Israeli social science research dealing with the Palestinians, see Haidar, Aziz and Zureik, Elia, “The Palestinians Seen through the Israeli Cultural Paradigms,” Journal of Palestine Studies, 16, 3 (1987), 68–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

36 Reifen, Patterns and Motivations, op. cit.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., p.31.

38 Ibid., pp. 27–28.

39 Palgi, P. and Fuchs, Y., “The Israeli Moslem Rural Family—Continuity and Change,” in Jarus, Arie, Marcus, Joseph, Oren, Joseph and Rapaport, Chanan, eds., Children and Families in Israel: Some Mental Health Perspectives (New York, 1970), pp. 137–50.Google Scholar

40 Ibid.

41 Shoham, Segal, and Rahav, “Secularization, Deviance and Delinquency.”Google Scholar

42 Ibid., p. 672.

43 Drapkin, Israel and Landau, Simha F., “Drug Offenders in Israel: a Survey,” British Journal of Criminology, 6 (1966), 376–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

44 Landau, Simha F., Drapkin, Israel and Arad, Shlomo, “Homicide Victims and Offenders: an Israeli Study,” Criminology, 65, 3 (1974), 390–96.Google Scholar

45 See note 3.Google Scholar

46 Haidar, Social Welfare Services, op. cit., p. 88.Google Scholar

47 Ibid., p. 90.

48 See Hassin, YaeL, “Juvenile Delinquency in Israel 1948–1977: Patterns and Trends,” Research in Law. Deviance and Social Control, 5 (1983), 25–50.Google Scholar

49 See note 3,The Committee's Report, op. cit.Google Scholar

50 Ibid., p. 4.

51 Ibid., p. 4.

52 Ibid., p. 4.

53 Ibid., p. 4.

54 Ibid., p. 5.

55 Ibid., p. 5.

56 Ibid., p. 6.

57 Ibid., p. 7.

58 Ibid., p. 13.

59 Ibid., p. 7.

60 Ibid., p. 15–24.

61 Ibid., p. 25.

62 Cf.Butler, Samuel on the inefficacy of community-based policing, in Sense and Nonsense about Crime (California, 1985), pp. 172–74.Google Scholar

63 The Committee's Report, p. 25–33.Google Scholar

64 Ibid., p. 31.

65 Ibid., p. 33.

66 Hassin, Yael, Juvenile Delinquency in Israel [Avraunut Nua'r Bi- Yisrael], Publication No. 625, The Hanrietta Sald Institute (Jerusalem, 1986).Google Scholar

67 Hassin, “Jewish and Arab,” op. cit., p. 220.Google Scholar

68 Ibid., p. 32.

69 Ibid., p. 32.

70 Ibid., p. 32.

71 Ibid., p. 32.

72 Rosenbloom, David H., Israel's Administrative Culture, Israeli Arabs, and Arab Subjects, mimeographed (Syracuse University, 1987).Google Scholar

73 Ibid., p. 3.

74 Ibid., p. 5.

75 Ibid., p. 25–26.

76 Cf. Zureik, Elia, The Palestinians in Israel: A Study in internal Colonialism (London, 1979), pp. 31–66Google ScholarKimmerling, Baruch, Zionism and Territory: The Social-Territorial Dimensions of Zionist Politics (Berkeley, Calif., 1983), p. 10.Google Scholar

77 Rosenbloom, op. cit., p. 27.Google Scholar

78 Ibid., p. 28.

79 Cohen, Ben-Zion, Jewish and Arab Male Offenders.Google Scholar

80 Ibid., p. 3.

81 Ibid., p. 26.

82 Ibid., p. 27.

83 Ibid., p. 11.

84 Clinard, M. B. and Abbott, D. J., Crime in Developing Countries.Google Scholar

85 Cohen, Jewish and Arab Male Offenders, p. 25.Google Scholar

86 Ibid., p. 32.

87 Ibid., p. 36.

88 Ibid., p. 73–74.

89 Ibid., p. 125.

90 Ibid., p. 125.

91 Ibid., p. 115.

92 Ibid., p. 135–36.

93 Ibid., p. 137–38.

94 Ibid., p. 138.

95 Frishtik, Mordechai, The Relative Importance of Four Alternative Models in Judging Young Adults Aged 18–21 in the israeli Courts [Hebrew], unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Tel-Aviv University, 1983.Google Scholar

96 Ibid., p. 86.

97 Ibid., p. 125–26.

98 Ibid., p. 125.

99 “Does the Liberalism of Judge Haifetz End when the Issue Involves Arabs?” in Hadashot [Hebrew daily], 2.7.1987.Google Scholar

100 Ibid., p. 13.

101 See Klein, Claude, “But Israel is not England” [Hebrew], Politika (February 1986), 26–27Google Scholar regarding the issue of bill of rights, see Zichroni, Amnon, “Equal, Less Equal, and not Equal at all” [Hebrew], Politika (February 1986), 16–18.Google Scholar

102 Ehrlich, Avishai, “Bagatzim. Petitions to the High Court, a Statistical Portrait,” Israeli Democracy (May 1987), 33–35.Google Scholar

103 Ibid., p. 33.

104 Ibid., p. 33.

105 Ibid., p. 34.

106 Ibid., p. 35.

107 As summarized in Zureik, E., The Palestinians in Israel, p. 162.Google Scholar

108 Lustick, Ian, Arabs in the Jewish State: Israel's Control of a National Minority (Austin, Texas, 1980).Google Scholar

109 See note 6.Google Scholar

110 Greenberg, Stanley, Race and State in Capitalist Development (New Haven, Conn., 1980).Google Scholar

111 See Shafir, Gershon, “Changing Nationalism and Israel's ‘Open Frontier’ on the West Bank,” Theory and Society, 13, 6 (1984), 803–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an extensive review of the thrust of this research, see Haidar, Aziz, The Palestinians in Israeli Social Science Writings (Washington, D.C., 1987), pp. 44–60.Google Scholar

112 Cohen, Stanley, “Western Crime Models in the Third World: Benign or Malignant?” Research in Law, Deviance and Social Control, 4 (1982), 85–119.Google Scholar More recently, Professor Cohen has turned his attention to examining the situation of the Palestinians in Israel and in the occupied territories. With regard to the latter, see his “Crime Politics,” Jerusalem Post, February 16, 1988.Google Scholar

113 See note l.Google Scholar

114 lbid.

115 Burman, Sandra B. and Harrel-Bond, Barbara E.(eds.), The Imposition of Law (New York, 1979).Google Scholar