This article explores the cooptation of human rights discourse by looking into how Israeli military judges in the Occupied Palestinian Territories use human rights as professional capital. Previous research into human rights arguments legitimizing the Israeli occupation remained confined to a unitary image of the state. Here, I dissect the separate professional project of military judges. Optimizing a self-congratulatory argument, judges portray themselves as human rights heroes of Palestinians. But while independent judicial activism would criticize human rights violations by the state, military judges use human rights as synonymous with legal professionalism, while avoiding criticism and sidestepping human rights’ challenge to state power.Using a multimethod approach including analysis of judicial decisions, academic articles by military judges, and in-depth interviews, I argue that between 2000 and 2010, Israeli military judges were responding to a professional legitimacy crisis by what I call mimetic convergence. Relying on new institutionalism and postcolonial theory, mimetic convergence produces belonging and mobility for a professional subgroup that experiences alienation in the “colony” through convergence with the specific characteristics of the legal community of the “metropole.” Mimicking the state instead of criticizing it permits the two projects— promoting military judges professionally and legitimizing the state’s colonial occupation—to coalesce.

中文翻译：

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自称人权英雄：以色列军事法官的专业项目

本文通过研究巴勒斯坦被占领土上的以色列军事法官如何将人权作为专业资本来探讨人权话语的吸收。先前关于使以色列占领合法化的人权论点的研究仍然局限于国家的单一形象。在这里，我剖析了军事法官的独立专业项目。法官优化了自我祝贺的论点，将自己描绘成巴勒斯坦人的人权英雄。但是，独立的司法行动主义会批评国家侵犯人权的行为，而军事法官则将人权作为法律专业精神的代名词，同时回避批评和回避人权对国家权力的挑战。由军事法官，模拟收敛. 模仿融合依托新制度主义和后殖民理论，通过与“大都市”法律共同体的具体特征融合，为在“殖民地”中经历异化的专业子群体产生归属感和流动性。模仿国家而不是批评它允许这两个项目——专业地提升军事法官和使国家的殖民占领合法化——合并。