Yasser Arafat Foundation and Palestine Institute for National Security Studies Hold Seminar on: "The Culture of Tribal Justice in Light of Official Justice and Its Impact on the Principle of Rule of Law"

SadaNews - The Yasser Arafat Foundation and the Palestine Institute for National Security Studies held a seminar on: "The Culture of Tribal Justice in Light of Official Justice and Its Impact on the Principle of Rule of Law" on Monday, June 1, 2026, at the Palestine Ahliya University in Bethlehem. The event saw a wide attendance of reform committee heads, judges, security personnel, lawyers, tribal dignitaries, academics, and reputable figures specialized in the field.

In a welcoming speech, the President of Palestine Ahliya University, Dr. Imad Al-Zir, emphasized the university's fundamental role in promoting knowledge, awareness, and science, and its integrated role with national institutions in hosting experts from all sectors of Palestinian society to develop Palestinian national and cognitive awareness. He commended the role of the Yasser Arafat Foundation and the Palestine Institute for National Security Studies for organizing this important seminar amid the political challenges imposed on society, related to occupation, security, and the societal differences with Palestinian social norms.

In the speech of the Yasser Arafat Foundation, its Chairman, Dr. Ahmad Sobah, affirmed the foundation's supportive role for national initiatives and seminars that impact Palestinian society, noting that these seminars contribute to increasing awareness that strengthens the robustness of the Palestinian internal situation. He pointed out that there are ingrained customs and practices that need correction, along with old and respected traditions based on tribal affiliation and neighborliness, but there are also foreign aspects that need reform, such as revenge customs. He stressed the necessity of unifying and reinforcing civil law alongside tribal law to eradicate these customs, especially given the current attempts by the Israeli occupation to drag the street into further violence and crime.

Sobah added that the Yasser Arafat Foundation, along with the university and the Palestine Institute, share a common goal: to be in a solid and robust society capable of facing the occupation and addressing internal imbalances and behaviors, thus contributing meaningfully to achieving this goal.

Meanwhile, the Director of the Palestine Institute for National Security Studies, Major General Habes Shrouf, welcomed the attendees and stressed the role of tribal justice and the necessity of activating it in line with official justice to achieve Palestinian civil peace.

The three sessions of the seminar began with attendees affirming the importance of this seminar for its role in correcting misconceptions within Palestinian society related to tribal justice, and the role of tribal justice in supporting official justice in resolving disputes and problems within the Palestinian community. The seminar concluded with the following final statement:

In light of the mission of the Yasser Arafat Foundation and the Palestine Institute for National Security Studies, and their goals to serve our Palestinian people, work diligently towards enhancing their steadfastness on this land, safeguard civil and social peace, support the rule of law, and bolster the roles of the three authorities: legislative, executive, and judicial to perform their duties and responsibilities, and empower our national institutions, both official and civil, for their construction and development. These institutions are seen as the roots of the Palestinian state that our people yearns for passionately and ambitiously. This dialogic seminar comes amidst the current conditions our Palestinian people are enduring, suffering from genocide, and ongoing criminal assaults by the occupation army and its settlers against individuals and properties. The pace of killing, destruction, genocide, the rampant settlement activities, and aggression of the army and settlers' militias has increased.

In such an atmosphere, we must ensure the continuity of life, as we are a people of the persistent who do not tire or falter, but rather draw from the veins of the blood of martyrs and the hearts of the mothers of martyrs a picture of optimism and hope for future generations that the dawn is inevitable. Accordingly, the two institutions, the Yasser Arafat Foundation and the Palestine Institute for National Security Studies, in collaboration with the leadership of this towering educational edifice, Palestine Ahliya University, which has not hesitated to host this seminar entitled "The Culture of Tribal Justice in Light of Official Justice and Its Impact on the Principle of Rule of Law" on Monday, June 1, 1926, in the presence of official and public attendees, as well as prominent dignitaries. The speakers shared their valuable expertise across three consecutive sessions, including the history of tribal justice in reconciling conflicts, its role in enhancing security, order, and civil peace in Palestine, especially since the early 1900s amid the national administrative vacuum from the British and Zionist occupation, and its role in addressing tribal issues that the occupation has often inflamed through spreading toxic and ongoing propaganda in an attempt to distort our people's image before the world, portraying us as a people accustomed to violence and murder without a path to civilizational progress, which is one of the strategic goals of the occupation, to tear apart Palestinian national unity.

The speakers also addressed the role of tribal justice amid official justice and litigation procedures, the accumulation of cases before the judiciary, and the long periods of postponement, as well as the prevailing Palestinian culture and its perception of principles such as "the rule of law above all sovereignties" and "judicial independence" and how to enhance these concepts to become one of the cultural values of our people, the importance of resorting to it to enhance public trust in its justice, leading to good governance based on integrity and transparency, and ensuring rights are granted to their rightful owners, thwarting opportunities for malicious agendas and extreme tribalism and some provocateurs who claim that the law and judiciary have failed to establish justice, using that as a justification to take the law into their own hands, disregarding the law and the fundamental role of the judiciary in establishing calm and civil and social peace.

Based on the discussions that took place during this seminar regarding the mentioned topics, the following recommendations were concluded:

1. Strengthening reconciliation committees with reputable and well-known figures for their integrity and fairness, who refuse to profit financially, but dedicate their efforts as a national service and social responsibility, by motivating and empowering them through the official competent authorities.

2. Issuing a national honor document calling on our people, wherever they may be, to abolish the heinous custom of revenge and stop invoking what is called "blood feuds" and their morally and humanely rejected repercussions, which include some avenging innocents who have no guilt other than being relatives of the perpetrator or the criminal killer, and the subsequent attacks on properties such as burning homes, vehicles, commercial shops, or crops, while ignoring the law and what the true religion calls for, where "a person bears no burden of another’s burden." To ensure that this document achieves its goals, it must be signed by institutions and individuals through its electronic dissemination.

3. Calling upon official authorities to begin the necessary updates on existing laws and regulations, developing them in line with new developments, and working towards unifying and reforming them to be purely Palestinian.

4. Advocating for support for the official judiciary to reinforce the principle of "the rule of law" and urging it to expedite litigation procedures as much as possible without long delays to put an end to the repercussions of certain tribal disputes of a vengeful nature.

5. Requesting that official authorities, including governors and security agencies, and all related to the judicial police up to the public prosecutor, take actions based on the law and not to be lenient in holding accountable and punishing those who assault properties and lives under the pretext of feeling within the so-called surge of blood that directly follows quarrels or killings, as this is no justification for anyone to take the law into their own hands under any circumstances.

6. Calling for more publications, lectures, and seminars in all institutions, especially universities, colleges, secondary schools, and civil society institutions, to conduct a comprehensive campaign enhancing the culture of the rule of law, emphasizing the prosecution of criminals, and denouncing all forms of revenge against their families or tribes and outright rejecting the heinous custom of revenge, so that justice may take its course through the official judiciary and follow-up by the specialized executive agencies.