The coexistence of the informal and formal justice systems in post-Oslo Palestine

Abstract

Post-Oslo Palestine passes a historical era configured by chaos and conflicts either externally represented mainly in the struggle against the Israeli occupation; or internally which covers wide spectrum of the Palestinian life, i.e., the violence and the serious abnormal crimes on different perspectives, e.g. “the taking of the right into one’s hands”; the so called “honour killings”; and the inexperienced rates of corruption. In general, Post-Oslo Palestine witnesses three types of internal violence: first, political violence which triggers between the different factions and parties themselves for authoritative goals; second, religious violence which is known in Palestine and in the Islamic societies as well; and third, social violence, either collectively or individually, the latter mainly converts into the former because of the hegemonic and patriarchal mentality among the Palestinians which has overwhelmed recently. One of the severest violent crimes within the Middle East societies is revenge or blood feud (Thaar), which is a pre-Islam phenomenon, encompasses continuous aggressions in response to previous aggressions against member(s) of the tribe. This phenomenon has spread in the Arab Peninsula thousands of years ago and is still known till now in most of the Middle Eastern societies. On the contrary to this eastern phenomenon, western societies witness relatively low ranked violent crimes.