I obey US law because of a social contract that says that if I do then US law will protect me in certain key ways, up to and including wielding the state’s monopoly on violence to defend those rights. The fact that US law protects me in exchange for obeying it is what grants it legitimacy.
None of that applies to international law. It doesn’t actually exist. There is no body that comes in and says “swooping in on hangliders to rape and murder partying teenagers is wrong and we will not allow you to do that, Hamas”. If Israel wants Hamas to stop soing that, there is exactly one way to make them stop doing that: military force.
So long as your “international law” seeks to protect some without binding them while binding others without protecting them, I’m not fucking interested in it.
There were arrest warrants out for Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar and Ismail Haniyeh. People like Germain Katanga were indicted, prosecuted and served time.
I doubt anyone would blink an eye were Hamas to be wiped out by military force. Too bad Israel has proven itself incapable of doing that.
It is easy not to be interested in “international law” until the sanctions really start to bite. Merely pointing out that there are consequences to rogue states. Would that they worked faster in places like Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
I can write an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin or Joe Biden or my own grandma. So what? Like an arrest warrant written by me, or homeless Solomon, or you, an arrest warrant by the ICJ is meaningless unless they’re planning to send some spec op team to enforce said warrant. Otherwise, it’s not an arrest warrant, it’s mental masturbation.
…you asserted international law “doesn’t actually exist.” It does exist. Nobody will act on the arrest warrant you issued. People DO act on the warrants issued by the ICC. Germain Katanga for example had a warrant issued for his arrest, was prosecuted and served time. That wasn’t “fictional.” That actually happened.
There is no need to be crude. The legal mechanism exists whether you like it or not.
So the IDF gets to keep killing civilians forever? The IDF clearly is incapable of defeating Hamas. That’s not an excuse to keep killing civilians.
BTW, you never did provide the Guardian quotes to support what you said earlier. It’s a short article that you cited. It should be easy to find such quotes if they’re there. I went through every sentence and couldn’t find anything that supported your assertion.
You think Hamas will disarm? I think that’s unlikely. If they don’t, does that mean the IDF gets to keep killing civilians forever?
You didn’t quote a single sentence that disputed my claim. Not a one. Nothing that actually confirmed the accuracy of the Israeli officials’ statements.
That was supposedly the deal. And have not some posters here claimed that they will surrender political power?
I quoted the Guardian and other sources, who are known for their fact checking. So, if you doubt them, come up with a counter cite that proves otherwise. I have seen numerous cites that make that same claim, and none that dispute it. And in any case, what the Israel judiciary did would be standard in the USA- the victim/witness leaves the jurisdiction, and the video doesnt show any faces that allowed for a solid ID.
So, are you going to do this with all your cites now? Not only give the cite, but insist that the cite be separately fact checked outside the cite itself? Would it be fair if I did that for all your cites?
Your cite doesn’t say what you claim it does. I could equally validly claim your cite supports my claims. You need to read your cite again, because all it does is quote Israeli officials. There’s no fact checking of those statements.
Offir said in a statement that the video did not present a clear picture of the attack, because “the vast majority of the defendants’ actions are obscured by shields”.
He also said the decision to release the detainee back to Gaza as part of the October 2025 ceasefire deal negotiated by Donald Trump meant he could no longer give testimony at trial. The detainee was never charged or tried while in Israeli custody.
The indictment was dismissed on procedural grounds, citing alleged evidentiary complications, the detainee’s return to Gaza, and claims of “justice defense” regarding the accused’s right to a fair trial. These justifications do not negate the crime itself nor the available evidence, which includes surveillance footage, medical documentation, and conclusions from treating Israeli doctors, all providing sufficient independent proof of the crime.
(read the article, it is very much against the decision)
Both those cites say the case was dismissed on procedural grounds die to the witness/victim not being available and the suspects faces not being identifiable in the video.
So, now in order to rebut those, you should show that the witness/victim was available to testify, and then watch the video and (I have watched a little, but it is pretty bad) and show us the the suspects faces are clear and identifiable.
I’m glad to see that we agree that this article did nothing aside from reporting Israeli officials’ statements. IMO, official Israeli statements are no more trustworthy than official Trump statements (or Hamas, for that matter). YMMV.
I’m satisfied with where we’re at, thanks. Without independent confirmation, official Israeli statements are worth the same as random internet comments, IMO.
What facts? That Israeli officials made those statements? I accept those facts. The Guardian did accurately report the words the Israeli officials said.
…No, that’s what was determined by the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. Is there anything in particular (from a legal standpoint) that you think they got wrong in the advisory opinion?
The UN General Assembly isn’t relevant here.
No, it wasn’t. Hamas members who decommissioned their weapons would be given amnesty: that was the deal.
However, this was.
It was always part of the deal. Gaza will be governed by a temporary transitional technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee. “Hamas and other factions agree to not have any role in the governance of Gaza, directly, indirectly, or in any form.” That’s what both parties agreed to do.
The committee has been formed. Hamas have prepared a transitional plan. The head of administration, Mohammed al-Farra has resigned. Part of that plan says that “day-to-day civil servants will remain in their roles under the new NCAG to avoid structural and technical collapse.”
What’s holding this up is Israel isn’t letting the NCAG into the country.
I’m unclear what exactly you are needing a rebuttal for at this stage.
Because I note from your cite that “The detainee was never charged or tried while in Israeli custody.”
Because if your argument is along the lines of this was a fair and transparent process, I’d like to know what he was being detained for in the first place. Because that’s kind of what makes this whole thing problematic from the get-go.
Remember the only reason this case generated any headlines at all was because it was filmed and because it was leaked. But this wasn’t an isolated case. Israeli forces have been credibly accused of beatings, torture, sexual humiliation, and rape going back decades. We are talking about tens of thousands of cases. Every single Palestinian has a story.
Even multiple members of the flotillas that were detained report humiliation, abuse, beatings, and even rape. Christopher Smalls was beaten. Allegedly given different treatment because of his skin colour. Greta Thurnberg was physically abused. They were held in harsh and unsanitary conditions.
You can’t even doubt the humiliation claims. Because they proudly filmed themselves doing it.
So was this detainee a prisoner of war? Then he should have been afforded the protections of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law. Was he being held in administrative detention? That practice, which didn’t start after October 7th but has been in place for decades, almost certainly isn’t in compliance with international law.
A reminder that the detainee had broken ribs, a punctured lung, and rectal damage. And that nobody, not even leadership, has been held responsible. The only person that will get punished for this is the person that leaked the footage. This isn’t a fair, open, and transparent process. It’s an abomination.
That a justice system ends ups with a detainee with broken ribs, a punctured lung, and rectal damage, and nobody can be held accountable, with no commitment to reform, just “sorry, but faces obscured by shields, there is absolutely nothing we can do” is just absurd. This absolutely should NOT be the end of the matter.
My real feeling here is that there is no hope. It seems clear that the large majority of both Israelis and Palestinians are murderous, hateful, racist scumbags. In the case of Israel we know this for sure, because we can see their election results. For Palestine, we have to go by opinion polls, but there seems little evidence of a groundswell in favor of Gandhian nonviolent resistance there.
I don’t have a solution to the problem. The only advice I feel completely confident in offering is that any Israeli or Palestinian who is able to do so should get the fuck out of that region and move to a secular, multicultural democracy. Give up on transforming your current home into a civilized country, because it’s simply never going to happen, unless maybe the entire region is occupied by some benevolent outside force for however long it takes to re-educate the population, which would likely be decades.
On terminology: I think that it seems clear that the long-term logic of the Israeli State points toward the eradication of the Palestinian people; IOW genocide. They would probably prefer not having to actually kill all of them, but persuade them to go live somewhere else and stop identifying as Palestinian. OTOH, with respect to the academics and scholars of international law, most ordinary people think of “genocide” as something like the Holocaust or Rwanda, where members of one group are trying to kill as many members of the other group as possible, as quickly as they possibly can given their capabilities. Israel clearly isn’t doing that (yet). So, I prefer to use terms such as “mass slaughter of civilians”, “war crimes”, “collective punishment” or “atrocities”. Presumably this compromise will make everyone happy.
OTOH, many countries and international organizations, including the European Union, endorse the International Holocaust Remembrance Association of “antisemitism”, which makes the flatly ludicrous assertion that anti-Zionism is inherently antisemitic. Maybe some sort of trade could be worked out in which both sides agree not to misuse language for propaganda purposes?
That is not what being a Zionist means. It means supporting the right of the Jewish people to self-determination and the existence of a sovereign Jewish homeland in Israel. Mind you, your definition could apply to the administration of Netanyahu.
