Chapter 2 introduces the book’s two institutional protagonists: the Israeli legal system and the liberal human rights community. Their key characteristics are outlined, their shared fetishization of law is examined, and the intricate dynamic within and between them is described. Issues and trends in their approaches to young Palestinians are identified. The chapter expands on the mass prosecution and incarceration of Palestinians, the military court system, the mechanisms for judicial review of military actions, and Israel’s repeated invocation of international law, with special attention to the effects and manifestations of each of them in relation to young Palestinians. At the forefront of the analysis are the importance, characteristics, blind spots, and silences of legal and human rights texts. Accordingly, the chapter’s entry points into the subject matter are extensive quotes from two documents – an Israeli military court file and a human rights report – both of which concern Palestinians convicted of stone throwing. As this is the most common charge against noncitizen Palestinians under 18, it is also a common thread through the chapter.

Chapter 8 delves into the legal construction of Israeli settlers’ childhood, revisiting in the process key themes and insights from the previous chapters. The greater rights and preferential treatment enjoyed by settlers aged under 18, compared with those of same-age Palestinians, are explored in this chapter, with a focus on two test cases: stone throwing by settler youth, and the question of whether to detain settlers aged under 18 separately from their elders. In the process, the chapter sheds light on the lax law enforcement on settler youth; on their lenient sentencing; on soldiers’ abuse of Palestinian victims of settler violence; on the courts’ consideration of settlers’ military service as a mitigating factor; on convictions only where Palestinian complaints are corroborated by Israeli witnesses; and on the rejection of Palestinians’ selective enforcement claims. Next, the chapter interrogates what critics have described as Israel’s childish response to the refusal of detained settler girls to disclose their ages. This dynamic offers broader lessons about age, voice, and infantilization. Finally, the chapter casts light on two central modes of representation in parliamentary debates on the impact of the Gaza pullout on young Jewish evacuees: a mental health language of trauma and loss, and visual imagery.