This article examines the recent developments in the prosecution of international crimes committed in the Palestinian Territory, focusing mainly on the role of the International Criminal Court. The author analyses the Palestinian accession to the Rome Statute and the declarations issued pursuant to Art. 12(3) in order to verify whether it is possible to bring justice to Palestine through the prosecution of atrocities committed by both parties. The article pays great attention to the most recent events, such as the Prosecutor’s report on the Mavi Marmara incident and the subsequent decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber. Issues related to the Palestinian statehood are taken in account in relation to the interplay between international criminal justice and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In the chaotic situation following the British invasion of southern Palestine at the end of 1917, military officials faced several countervailing pressures. In addition to ongoing military priorities (including international norms pertaining to military occupations, such as the law of the ‘status quo’), pressing humanitarian concerns, and even the personal religious sentiments of individual officers, the British occupation administration was forced to take into account international pressures and interventions resulting from the overlapping and conflicting promises made during the war (inter alia, Sykes‑Picot agreement, Husayn‑McMahon correspondence, Balfour Declaration, and President Wilson’s 14 Points). This paper focuses on the land policy‑making process as a case study with which to weigh the various factors pressing upon the military occupation as it evolved during its first three years. Land ownership was a huge concern: a properly functioning land registry was seen as key to the improvement of economic and social conditions in the largely agricultural economy, and British interventions were followed closely by all interested parties. The land has also been at the centre of the ensuing century‑long conflict between Arabs and Jews. Thus, a close examination of land policies (and especially the 1920 land ordinance) offers an extremely important window on both the rule of law in the aftermath of the war and our understanding of the current, unending conflict in the land.

The paper will discuss the Russian involvement in the Holy Land that started from informal actions to evolve into formal activities of religious, trading and scientific institutions related to the Russian authorities.

At the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first century, the field of Arabic and Islamic studies became enriched by a number of multi-facetted scholarly theories challenging the traditional account on the early centuries of Islam. An author of one of them was the Israeli scholar Yehuda D. Nevo (1932–1992), working in archaeology, epigraphy and historiography. He devoted much of his career to the studying of Arabic rock inscriptions in the Negev desert, as well as to investigating literary and numismatic evidence of nascent Islam. In his theory, the gradual development of the Islamic faith, inspired by Abrahamism with an admixture of Judeo-Christianity, went through a stage of “indeterminate monotheism”. Not earlier than since the end of the second century A.H. one can speak of the formation of the dogmatic pillars of Islam, similar to those we know today. This paper is an attempt to sum up Nevo’s insightful input into the field of modern Islamic & Quranic studies today. Although controversial and unorthodox, many later researchers repeatedly refered to Nevo’s plenty of inspiring theses in their quest for facts on Islamic genesis lost in the maze of time and shifting memory of generations.