This important book begins with a puzzle that it endeavors to resolve: How to explain what Holzman-Gazit describes as the contrast between the “extreme deference” of the Israeli Supreme Court in land expropriation cases and “the traditional role of the Supreme Court as a protector of civil rights” (1). While the principal focus of the book is the history of land expropriation for “public purposes” law, it simultaneously offers an excellent synopsis of major trends in the Israeli land regime since its creation in 1948 to the present.

Weaving secondary sources and original research, Holzman-Gazit begins with an overview of the legal framework of land expropriation in Israel since its establishment until the 1990s. Two major statutes authorize sweeping land expropriation: The British Mandate's Land (Acquisition for public purpose) Ordinance (AO) of 1943, which is still in force in Israel, and the Planning and Building Law (PB) of 1965. Both acts authorize extensive infringements upon private property, such as the taking of land for any purpose declared by the authorities as “public” (AO), and allowing up to 40 percent of the taking to be effectuated without compensation (PB).

As Chapter 2 clearly shows, until the 1990s the Israeli Supreme Court failed to interfere in any meaningful way in the harsh expropriation cases it adjudicated. Holzman-Gazit claims that this judicial restraint stands in sharp contrast with the emerging role of the Court as champion of human and civil rights. Although in this appraisal Holzman-Gazit joins a dominant view in Israeli legal historiography, here I disagree. I believe that taken as a whole, the record of the Court during the period covered by Chapter 2 could be characterized as that of a passive observer of, or at times even active participant in, the curtailment of Palestinians' civil and human rights. If those most in need of the Court's protection did not benefit from it, I wonder how it can be described as a “protector of civil rights.”

Notwithstanding my reservations about the actual existence of the “puzzle,” in the effort to explain it, Holzman-Gazit places the deferential attitude of the Court in a rich array of cultural, ideological, social, and political factors. The innovative Chapter 3 shows how Zionist ideology and practices, predominantly expounded by the Jewish National Fund (JNF), instilled the idea that land should be publicly owned by the Jewish people, and, simultaneously induced a disapproving attitude toward the “ills of private land ownership” (58). Chapter 4 places land expropriation within the context of the perceived need for land to accommodate Jewish immigrants and establish “Jewish presence and dominance” over frontier and predominately Arab regions (85). These two chapters artfully demonstrate how the enduring collectivist ideology embodied in the JNF and the labor movement, alongside with the desire to promote Jewish immigration and dispersal of Jews throughout the country and the blurring between security and Judaization rationales, merged into a hegemonic vision that the Court, at least in the first period, accepted and followed.

Chapters 5 and 6, which draw mainly on secondary sources, finally bring the sophisticated apparatus that legalized the appropriation of Arab land to its rightful place. These chapters offer “an additional insight into the considerations that may have influenced the reluctance of the Supreme Court to interfere in expropriations” (6). As they make evident, expropriation of Arab land served as the foundation for the development of all doctrines governing land expropriation. It affected the Court's overall deferential approach in land expropriation cases, including the handful of lawsuits involving Jewish landowners. As the author rightly argues, “once a doctrine is established, it gains autonomy and penetrates the judicial process in ways that transcend the particular ethnic/national/political context in which it was originally formulated” (2). Continuing its focus on Palestinian land, Chapter 6 crosses the “green line” and examines the sweeping expropriations practices and adjudications that began after Israel's conquest of the West Bank and its annexation of East Jerusalem.

Finally, Chapters 7 and 8 move to the present era, questioning whether what is often termed the “Israeli constitutional revolution” could transform expropriation law even while the Jewish-Palestinian struggle remains unresolved. Indeed, Israeli expropriation law is still haunted by its past. It should be mentioned that a recent and seemingly more “liberal” draft law aimed at replacing the outdated British Mandate AO carefully safeguards “older” confiscations. Unlike recent expropriations that might be overturned, the draft ensures that the massive expropriations that occurred in the early Israeli years (mostly from Arabs) remain untouched.

To conclude, this enriching, solid and well-articulated book sheds new light on the neglected history of the expropriation of land from Jews in Israel and analyzes it within the broader framework of the history of Israeli land confiscation. It conclusively discloses how the Supreme Court's deference “had not only its intended effect on land ownership in the Arab Sector, but also an unintended parallel effect on … the Jewish sector” (4–5). Finally, I highly recommend this book not only to scholars of Israeli history and law but also to all those interested in legal history.