Extrait Jerusalem and the state of exception
IV.3 The force of law without law
The great interest of Agemben analysis come from it focuses on the relation between power and law. The juridical vision of power postulates that the legitimacy of power comes from the law, its application and enforcement. Agamben critiques his idea that power and law work always in accordance that the power presuppose and result from the law. His critic is mainly directed at liberal perceptions of democratic sovereignty (Yiftachel 2008). The state of exception corresponds to this disjunction between the law and its enforcement. The Oslo Agreements and the House demolition in Jerusalem provide example of a "force of law without law’’(Agamben 2005: 39).
As noted by Hanafi, Oslo Accords are a clear example of how the temporary can become permanent. The obligations of the Oslo accords have not just been simply abrogated: one hand the Israeli government continues to support the colonization and on the other and it uses its formal control over the zone C to block Palestinian's development, shows that the state of exception is the produce of a selective and differential suspension of the law.
The process of house demolition is another example of how the power which normally comes from the application of the law can be exercise without law. The result of the Israeli planning restrictions has commonly been the "illegal" building by Palestinian to accommodate their housing needs. The stamps of "illegality" then provide Israel the right under their laws to demolish buildings for lack of building permit. According to Amir in 2001, on the Palestinian land in East Jerusalem 6,957 acres (39.5% of East Jerusalem, 61.3% of the not expropriated land) have not yet been planned, the building located in this gray zone, which may pre-existing to the law and even the state, fall inside the "illegality" and hence can be destroy. Kaminker told how the court was flooded with letters saying "that Mr. Adu al-Hawa, or whoever, could not get a license today because his land was not planned but that it soon would be planned and in the future he would be able to get a license" (1996:9). This shows how the force of the law, house demolition for illegality, can occur without law, the absence of planning. More broadly the list of limitations on the Palestinian development push their development inside the illegality, but by refusing to set up a planning able to answers to the Palestinian housing need the planning authority do not work in accordance to its own duty. This is also another example of the "municipalization" of what in reality are decisions with international ramifications, the manipulation of demographic proportions on land whose control was achieved militarily is against international law, which states that "The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies" (Article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention).
The state of exception thus ‘‘separates the norm from its application in order to make its application possible’’(Agamben, 2005: 36).But this 'techniques of government' cannot be limit to the sphere of the state and must encompass all the political space, from the local to the global.
The great interest of Agemben analysis come from it focuses on the relation between power and law. The juridical vision of power postulates that the legitimacy of power comes from the law, its application and enforcement. Agamben critiques his idea that power and law work always in accordance that the power presuppose and result from the law. His critic is mainly directed at liberal perceptions of democratic sovereignty (Yiftachel 2008). The state of exception corresponds to this disjunction between the law and its enforcement. The Oslo Agreements and the House demolition in Jerusalem provide example of a "force of law without law’’(Agamben 2005: 39).
As noted by Hanafi, Oslo Accords are a clear example of how the temporary can become permanent. The obligations of the Oslo accords have not just been simply abrogated: one hand the Israeli government continues to support the colonization and on the other and it uses its formal control over the zone C to block Palestinian's development, shows that the state of exception is the produce of a selective and differential suspension of the law.
The process of house demolition is another example of how the power which normally comes from the application of the law can be exercise without law. The result of the Israeli planning restrictions has commonly been the "illegal" building by Palestinian to accommodate their housing needs. The stamps of "illegality" then provide Israel the right under their laws to demolish buildings for lack of building permit. According to Amir in 2001, on the Palestinian land in East Jerusalem 6,957 acres (39.5% of East Jerusalem, 61.3% of the not expropriated land) have not yet been planned, the building located in this gray zone, which may pre-existing to the law and even the state, fall inside the "illegality" and hence can be destroy. Kaminker told how the court was flooded with letters saying "that Mr. Adu al-Hawa, or whoever, could not get a license today because his land was not planned but that it soon would be planned and in the future he would be able to get a license" (1996:9). This shows how the force of the law, house demolition for illegality, can occur without law, the absence of planning. More broadly the list of limitations on the Palestinian development push their development inside the illegality, but by refusing to set up a planning able to answers to the Palestinian housing need the planning authority do not work in accordance to its own duty. This is also another example of the "municipalization" of what in reality are decisions with international ramifications, the manipulation of demographic proportions on land whose control was achieved militarily is against international law, which states that "The occupying power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies" (Article 49 (6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention).
The state of exception thus ‘‘separates the norm from its application in order to make its application possible’’(Agamben, 2005: 36).But this 'techniques of government' cannot be limit to the sphere of the state and must encompass all the political space, from the local to the global.