Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope

by Richard Falk

Richard Falk writes that he has sought to be a “truthful observer.” He has succeeded admirably, and gone well beyond.Noam Chomsky

Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope

The distinguished legal scholar Richard Falk recently completed his term as term as UN Special Rapporteur on occupied Palestine. Now, with Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, he powerfully illuminates the transformation of the Palestinians’ struggle over recent years into a struggle for legitimacy, similar to that pursued by all the anti-colonial movements of the twentieth century. This shift, he writes in the Introduction, “is… reinforced by disillusionment with both Palestinian armed resistance and conventional international diplomacy, most recently dramatized by the collapse of direct negotiations on April 29, 2014… Such disillusionment also coincides with the spreading awareness that the so-called ‘two-state consensus’ has reached a dead end.

This volume, like Richard Falk himself, is equal parts brilliance and compassion. What began as blog posts blends into a distillation of a lifetime of thinking about and working on Palestine and Israel. This book has no peer.Lisa Hajjar, Law and Society Program Chair, University of California—Santa Barbara
This is the voice of reasoned outrage. The blogosphere and legal scholarship are combined in an extraordinarily moving, detailed, and perceptive account of what Richard Falk calls the ‘legitimacy struggle’ of the Palestinian people. Anyone who cares about human solidarity and wants to understand what is happening now in Gaza must read this book.Mary Kaldor, Professor of Global Governance at the London School of Economics

Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope is appearing at a crucial turning point in Palestinian history. In it, Falk notes the many parallels the Palestinian national movement shares with other, earlier anti-colonial efforts, many of which eventually achieved victory. He discerns numerous signs of hope that the Palestinian people can harness the growing international attention and solidarity their struggle has achieved and break free of the apartheid and occupation that they have long endured.

Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope follows eleven other path-breaking works on the intersection of law, rights, and society authored by Falk. Just World Books also published his companion volume, Chaos and Counterrevolution, that presents his essays from the same tumultuous period on other current affairs affecting the Middle East, including Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Turkey.

Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope is available in Hardcover ($34.99), Paperback ($23.99), and Ebook ($9.99)

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238 pages, 6″ X 9″
Published October 2014
ISBN 9781935982487