46 No. 69 JUSTICE rofessor Robbie Sabel of the Hebrew University Faculty of Law, who earlier in his career served as Legal Adviser to the Israel Foreign Ministry, has written a significant book on an important and vexing subject. Among its virtues are broad historical coverage, including from before the Balfour Declaration to contemporary controversies over exploitation of water resources, extensive documentation reflected in footnotes (not endnotes—hurrah!), and dispassionate tone. The book presents the views of Arab, Israeli, and other governments, international bodies, and statesmen/scholars on the legally relevant historical record. The reader therefore sees the issues in dispute, and the arguments advanced on all sides, whether or not Professor Sabel agrees with them. The book’s premise is that there is “a substantial role for international law in international relations in general and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular.”1 Professor Sabel understands that parties to international disputes, including the parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict, invoke international law to advance, justify, and legitimate their positions. Russia has done so with regard to its war with Ukraine. China also has made legal arguments to defend its claims of sovereignty over the South China Sea or large portions of that Sea. International law may provide a common language even when the parties disagree on the substantive law. Without being either a panacea or a chimera, as Professor Sabel quotes J.L. Brierly,2 international law plays a role in the effort to bring a peaceful end to the ArabIsraeli conflict, as well as other conflicts. Professor Sabel’s method is instructive and useful. He takes each topic and offers a dispassionate review of the legally relevant facts. Professor Sabel then presents the principal alternative interpretations of the historical and legal meaning of events and documents. He includes sufficient quotation so that the reader can judge. He concludes with his own reflections on the issue in question. One example from the first part of the book makes the point. Professor Sabel wrote that The 1948 war is regarded by Israel as its war of independence in which it managed to repel attacks by all the neighboring Arab States. The Arab population of Palestine regard[s] the war as a catastrophe, al Nakba, that caused the exodus of some 700,000 Arabs from the areas held by Israel. . . . International law issues arising from the war include complaints from both sides of deliberate killing of civilians, clearly a violation of the laws of war. Expulsion of civilians, where it occurred, was justified by Israel as an act of legal military necessity; this is disputed by the Palestinians who viewed it as an illegal act. A smaller number of Jewish civilians were expelled from areas held by Arab forces. A legal issue in dispute is whether the objection of the Arabs of Palestine to partition allowed them to use force and whether the intervention of the neighbouring Arab States was a legitimate exercise of the right of collective self-defence.3 P Reviewed by Nicholas Rostow* * I have served in senior U.S. government legal and policy positions, 1985-2005, and, over many years, have had occasion to meet and correspond with Robbie Sabel. I regard him as a friend and professional colleague. The views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or institution with which I have been or am affiliated. 1. Robbie Sabel, INTERNATIONAL LAW AND THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT 1 (Cambridge University Press, 2022). References by page number only are to the book under review. 2. Ibid., p. 13. 3. Ibid., pp. 137-38. BOOK REVIEWS International Law and the Arab-Israeli Conflict By Robbie Sabel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, v-446 pp.)
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