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Source: http://www.thestar.com/News/Insight/article/617148
Law and Order, Palestinian-Style
[Toronto Star] Oakland Ross - When a crime is committed by one Palestinian Arab clan against another, it is not enough for the state to intervene and deal with the case. There must still be an accommodation between the two extended families, carried out in accordance with tribal law, before the matter can be put aside. The power and influence of Palestinian clans have only increased in the years that have followed the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1993. For 26 years before that, the West Bank and Gaza were directly governed by Israel and were subject to an Israeli-administered judicial system. "It had many shortcomings," says George Giacaman, director of the program on human rights and democracy at Birzeit University, "but in many ways it could enforce the law." The suspension of that system left the Palestinian territories without a functioning state-run judicial structure. Clans filled the breach, and tribal law has become the mainstay of social order in much of the West Bank and in most of Gaza.