I think an argument can be made that validating human shield tactics may result in much greater loss of live in the long term. More groups will use such tactics, and groups which don't value human life will gain leverage over those that do. It's hard to predict long term geopolitical effects, but it seems like a pretty dangerous trend.
If you don't buy that though, it still seems reasonable enough for Israel to prioritize their own security. It may not be morally correct from a utilitarian perspective, but it's what pretty much any country would do, just as any parent would save their own child first in an emergency.
I am not sure that argument can be made, since there doesn't appear to be data to support it. If anything, the data show the opposite.
What we do have data to support is that bombing apartment blocks and hospitals and refugee camps and aid convoys and aid warehouses all full of innocent civilians is illegal, even if you shout "human shield!" first, even if you really want to achieve your political or military aims, even if you claim you're saving more innocent civilian lives by doing so, even if you really want to "prioritize security". It's all still illegal, hence the court cases.
Would Israel tolerate the IDF killing innocent Israeli civilians in as great a number as they have killed innocent Palestinian civilians, to achieve the same aims? Likely not, which would make the behavior discriminatory based on race, religion, and/or national origin, too.
> it still seems reasonable enough for Israel to prioritize their own security. It may not be morally correct from a utilitarian perspective, but it's what pretty much any country would do, just as any parent would save their own child first in an emergency.
This makes it sound like you recognize Palestine as a different country (and thus deserving of international recognition, freedom, independence, self-determination, safety, and security). If so, good on you :) If not, Israel is obliged to protect Palestinian civilians under its rule equally to Israeli civilians under its rule. I wish I could say "there's no 3rd option where Israel abuses Palestinians under their rule for decades while taking no responsibility for their well-being", but we've all seen the past decades.
That's not really responsive to what I wrote. I was pondering the long-term effects of validating human shield tactics, which has nothing to do with the laws of war, or semantic questions of what constitutes a state.
Every country "discriminates" based on nationality; to expect otherwise would be unreasonable. If a country truly valued all human interests equally, there would be no reason for citizenship.
If Israel was governed by moral saints, they might reach a conclusion that any military response would lead to negative net utility, so it's better to allow Hamas and Hezbollah to attack with impunity until they eventually conquer Israel and cleanse it of Jews. Moral sainthood isn't a reasonable expectation, though, and it's certainly not a standard anyone applies to other countries.
Your post isn't very responsive to what I wrote. Aside from seemingly ignoring the whole point of this ruling (that Israel's behavior is illegal and inexcusable, meaning the excuses you cited don't excuse the behavior), you also rehashed this:
> Every country "discriminates" based on nationality;
You've twisted my words: I said race, religion, or national origin, not nationality. Their national origin is Palestine. Their nationality is either Israeli or Palestinian. If Palestinian, that means Palestine is a different country (and thus deserving of international recognition, freedom, independence, self-determination, safety, and security). If Israeli, that means Israel is obliged to protect Palestinian civilians under its rule equally to Israeli civilians under its rule. Israel believes Palestine is not an independent country, therefore they are bound to the obligations of the latter, and cannot discriminate against their national subjects based on national origin.
Let's be clear here: Nobody expects Israel to admit any wrong here, or to do any good here, despite the international condemnation. This is just explaining that condemnation.
> it's better to allow Hamas and Hezbollah to attack with impunity until they eventually conquer Israel and cleanse it of Jews.
Please, we're being serious here. Hamas' latest attack, after years of planning, was their most successful in history, and it killed some 95% fewer than Israel has cleansed in the months since then, on a moment's notice. One cannot discuss this "threat" as anything other than a joke -- it's simply unrealistic given Hamas' means and history. Even so, as mentioned above, it's not an excuse for Israel's literal genocide of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian civilians so far, with millions more in the crosshairs.
Their nationality certainly is not Israeli. One could say Palestinian, or Gazan, since Hamas' rule of Gaza makes it more of a separate state in practice. If one were to take the view that neither Palestine or Gaza are states (a semantic question which I don't take a position on), then they would be stateless people with no nationality.
Even if you want to make the argument that Israel is occupying (Hamas-controlled parts of) Gaza, that wouldn't make Gazans Israeli citizens, and realistically every country prioritizes the safety of their citizens; it wouldn't be reasonable to expect otherwise.
> One cannot discuss this "threat" as anything other than a joke
You're ignoring the role of asymmetric warfare and human shield tactics. The IDF is struggling to make progress as is, despite obvious military superiority. If they caved to demands to e.g. stay out of Rafah, then Hamas terrorists would essentially be untouchable, an noone can fight an untouchable enemy.
> Their nationality certainly is not Israeli. One could say Palestinian, or Gazan, since Hamas' rule of Gaza makes it more of a separate state in practice. If one were to take the view that neither Palestine or Gaza are states (a semantic question which I don't take a position on), then they would be stateless people with no nationality.
Israel treating their Palestinian-born subjects as stateless would be illegal, so a decision must be made by Israel between the two options I described, with the respective consequences I described. By effectively exerting rule over Palestinians (especially in the West Bank), they have chosen the route that doesn't recognize Palestine as a country, and thus are obliged to treat Palestinian-born subjects equally to any other subjects under their rule. The fact that Israel denies citizenship to the millions of Palestinian-born subjects under their rule, is particularly gross.
> You're ignoring the role of asymmetric warfare and human shield tactics. The IDF is struggling to make progress as is, despite obvious military superiority. If they caved to demands to e.g. stay out of Rafah, then Hamas terrorists would essentially be untouchable, an noone can fight an untouchable enemy.
That, in turn, ignores that Israel's actions are still illegal. Put simply, the defense you cite isn't good enough to justify Israel's actions. They tried that defense, it did not succeed, here we are. The reason is that the laws were made with the possibility of "human shields" in mind, and they still made the actions illegal. It's not some novel occurrence excepted from the rules.
It does sucks to be IDF right now, but their lives aren't worth more than civilian Palestinian lives, and thus it is immoral for them to take many civilian lives to reduce their own risk of loss, and illegal for them to do so to the extent they have, even if it means they get to kill a terrorist in the process.
Here's the most important metric (superceding any Israeli desire): Fewer civilians will die if Israel withdraws and simply secures the border than will die if Israel invades. You don't have to trust me: An independent court actually evaluated both sides here and came to the same judgement, as described in the article we're discussing. Israel will either accept that they can't do whatever they want, up to and including genocide, just because they want to, or continue to parallel Russia's and North Korea's international pariah journey while angrily feigning ignorance and righteously pointing fingers at everyone but themselves. Probably the latter.
If you want my interpretation, it's that Gazans are effectively citizens of Gaza, which Hamas is the de facto government of. (Palestinians in the West Bank are a separate matter.) Gaza should have been a place of freedom, independence, and self-determination since 2005, but Hamas' aggression has unfortunately made that impossible for now.
I was never commenting on legality. It seems unreasonable to expect a country to essentially give up on its own defense, whether or not such defense is deemed illegal and/or leads to more deaths overall.
I appreciate your interpretation, and I don't want this to sound dismissive: The point is that Israel doesn't get to eat their cake and have it, too. Either they treat Palestine as an independent country with all the same rights as Israel, or they treat the Palestinian-born subjects under their rule as citizens with all the same rights as the Israeli-born subjects under their rule. Apartheid and genocide aren't legal options, despite Israel perpetrating both.
> Hamas' aggression has unfortunately made that impossible for now.
On the contrary: as the world has expressed on multiple occasions in multiple ways, Israel's genocide of Palestinians is what continues to make that difficult. After all, the world sees how Israel abused Palestinians for decades before October 7th. Israel can't say the world didn't warn them as they spiral into the same pariah status as Russia and North Korea.
> It seems unreasonable to expect a country to essentially give up on its own defense
The "abiding by international law means essentially giving up our defense" claim was put forth by Israel and judged not to be the case. It was expected, both when the law was drafted, and when the case was brought against Israel, given their frequent repetition of the now-debunked claim. It just wasn't credible: neither the court nor most countries or people actually believe Hamas is going to somehow conquer the state of Israel. Indeed, it's inconceivable that over their entire remaining existence Hamas will ever deal out even a small fraction of the damage Israel has dealt to innocent Palestinian civilians over the course of less than 1 year.
If, however, one isn't interested in discussing the legality of Israel's behavior (in an HN submission about precisely that), and the topic is reduced to whether Israel will say "whatever, I do what I want" a la Putin or Cartman, then I will submit a bet that they will, and leave it at that.
> Either they treat Palestine as an independent country with all the same rights as Israel
Are you saying that as an independent country, Gaza's sovereignty can't be violated? This isn't absolute; there are exceptions like self-defense, whether we're look at this from a legal perspective (UN article 51) or an ethical one.
Indeed my point was never about law; this thread began with your argument which seemed to be about utilitarian ethics. So the ICJ order isn't related to my point, unless we consider the ICJ an arbiter of morality.
> Are you saying that as an independent country, Gaza's sovereignty can't be violated? This isn't absolute; there are exceptions like self-defense, whether we're look at this from a legal perspective (UN article 51) or an ethical one.
Not Gaza, Palestine. That includes Gaza and the West Bank, which has been under Israeli apartheid for a long time. There is rarely an unrestrained right to self-defense of a country engaging in apartheid and genocide, against those upon whom they are perpetrating it. Does Israel grant Palestinian-born subjects in the West Bank (a territory Israel dominates) freedom, self-determination, safety? Does it treat them equally to Israeli-born subjects? No, and that's illegal (and apartheid).
The "self defense exception" was cited by Israel, and the court judged that their illegal actions go beyond legal self defense. If we take a moral perspective rather than a legal one, it would be immoral to substitute Israel's judgement for that of the ICJ, a less biased and more informed body. From a utilitarian objective standpoint, we arrive at the same conclusion: It's unlikely Israel has some magical higher understanding that all other countries lack. Plus, legitimizing claims by defendants like Putin, Bibi, Sinwar, Kony, Gallant, or Haniyeh et. al, that they somehow know better than the court, would kinda defeat the purpose of the court.
It seems like you're veering into a different topic with the assertion that West Bank is an apartheid system. If we're talking about Gaza still, Hamas is the de facto government there, having won the election and the subsequent war. The PLO's declaration and aspirational claim of Gaza doesn't change the reality of Hamas' rule.
From a moral perspective, it seems like you're saying the ICJ would be a better arbiter of morality than Israel, but my point didn't involve an appeal to any authority; that just doesn't seem necessary when discussing morality.
We've covered Israel's actions being illegal in the eyes of the world, immoral in the eyes of the world, and unhelpful to peace in the eyes of the world. I appreciate your offering of another viewpoint, because a diversity of viewpoints is good, and indeed your viewpoint is valid. Valid enough that the world has heard it, and took it into account when forming the above consensus.
> [consensus] just doesn't seem necessary when discussing morality.
That would not be an entirely unexpected claim from any given person who doesn't like the humanitarian consensus, Just like it was not entirely unexpected to see Israel claim that international laws don't seem necessary when violating international laws they don't like.
I think we're both smart enough to realize what would happen if each person on earth decided that they were the true arbiter of law and morality, and had the right to do whatever they wanted, regardless of the law or what anybody or almost everybody else thought. So it is good that the consensus is that consensus is indeed necessary when writing and enforcing and judging the laws we wrote, around such moral standards as "don't genocide people".
By rejecting the concept of this consensus, which you call an "appeal to authority", it seems this topic is indeed being reduced to whether Bibi will say "whatever, I do what I want" like Putin or Cartman or Kony or Sinwar, while his country continues to spiral into international pariah status. So, I will submit a bet that he will, and leave it at that.
It seems like you're treating law and ethics as more or less interchangeable, which I think is a mistake. International law is more about politics than ethics.
For example, parts of international law come from UN security council resolutions, which are passed based on 9/15 security council votes, and no vetoes from the 5 permanent members. The permanent members include Russia and China, and non-permanent members often include other authoritarian states, like UAE until recently. Trump may soon have authority over US votes. Do you trust these political entities as bastions of morality?
I'm not treating law and ethics as interchangeable, simply pointing out that the global consensus is that Israel's behavior is wrong in both a legal sense and an ethical sense (and a moral sense, if you distinguish that from the former), and thus is unhelpful to peace.
I understand Israel disagrees with this consensus. I understand you may disagree with this consensus. I accept that if global consensus hasn't already changed their minds, I might not, either. That is okay. Consensus doesn't require buy-in from any single particular person or country. But as a general rule of thumb, if a great majority say you're in the wrong, and you say they're all in the wrong for saying you're in the wrong, that means you're probably in the wrong, so it's worth seriously considering the possibility.
Your latter observation doesn't seem to apply here, as it seems the ICC and ICJ based their findings and rulings on laws and ethics, not politics or bias, and it doesn't seem like the laws themselves are biased against Israel in particular, either.
Okay that fair, but it's a rough consensus among political entities, each with their own flaws. Some are authoritarian, some don't share Western values, some represent countries with deeply ingrained antisemitism. It's not a consensus among impartial ethicists or something.
If ethical systems of all shapes and sizes sampled from around the world, all agree that actions are ethically questionable, shouldn't that give the actor even more pause than a small minority of them?
There's no evidence the opposition is driven by antisemitism. The large amount of jewish people who oppose the Israeli genocide of Palestinians should give a clue that judaism isn't the issue here. Russia is trying to do the same thing to Ukraine as Israel is trying to do with Palestine, and receiving equal condemnation worldwide. Only they exclaim "russophobia!" when criticized, rather than "antisemitism!"
If you don't buy that though, it still seems reasonable enough for Israel to prioritize their own security. It may not be morally correct from a utilitarian perspective, but it's what pretty much any country would do, just as any parent would save their own child first in an emergency.