Missile defense doesn't really help much for mutually assured destruction scenarios, for Israel it makes more sense due most conflicts they are involved in being much more asymmetric.
> Country A is resisting a 75 year violent occupation and apartheid (see stats posted earlier) and currently suffering genocide.
Apartheid is race based discrimination, not citizenship based like what happens in Israel/Palestine. Making an accusation of genocide does not mean there actually is a genocide.
> Anyone denying that is no different than anyone denying the holocaust - equally vile and reprehensible.
Comparing the holocaust(an actual genocide) as something "equally vile and reprehensible" to the situation in Israel/Palestine is equivalent to a form of holocaust denial IMO.
Claims like these are a rather overt display of antisemitic propaganda.[0]
> Don't take my word for it, list of apartheid and genocide reports below.
There is a long list of organizations that have thrown away their credibility with dubious accusations for various reasons.
> The reason this doesn't make the discourse, even on communities like Hacker News which are supposed to be "smart", is because of decades of the West being brainwashed to the point where Islamophobia is normalized and ubiquitous.
It seems you're trying to downplay the very real threat from Islamic extremists that Israel faces.
How about you and I stay out of it and let international organizations whose job it is to monitor this have their say? Are you ok with that? You trust Amnesty and the UN?
The sign of a brainwashed person is to equate this occupation with Islamic terrorism. Unfortunately, you have fallen to propaganda by even bringing that up. Jews and Muslims have lived together peacefully for hundreds of years prior to 1948. There has been nothing but respect between those two religions going back for as long as one can remember. The change is Zionism. That’s what the problem is, not radical Islam or radical Judaism. Zionism != Judaism.
> How about you and I stay out of it and let international organizations whose job it is to monitor this have their say? Are you ok with that?
Why would I blindly trust the conclusions of "international organizations"? Especially ones that have shown themselves to have very little integrity?
> You trust Amnesty and the UN?
The same Amnesty international that has shown to have serious issues with bias across multiple conflicts?[0][1]
The same UN which has thrown away essentially all of their credibility when it comes to anything related to Israel?[2]
Obviously I would never blindly trust these organizations.
> The sign of a brainwashed person is to equate this occupation with Islamic terrorism.
There is an occupation because the Palestinians have refused to negotiate a final peace agreement, Israel clearly can not unilaterally end the occupation as they did in 2005 with Gaza and expect a positive outcome.
> Jews and Muslims have lived together peacefully for hundreds of years prior to 1948.
Where have they lived together peacefully as equals for hundreds of years prior to 1948?
> There has been nothing but respect between those two religions going back for as long as one can remember.
There's a long history of conflict between Jews and Muslims throughout the years, obviously in recent years it has been worse in a lot of ways.[3][4]
> The change is Zionism. That’s what the problem is, not radical Islam or radical Judaism. Zionism != Judaism.
So Jews wanting to have a state where they wouldn't have to live as second class citizens[5] and have a right to self determination was the problem? Why would it be so hard for Muslims to accept the existence of a Jewish majority state when there are plenty of Muslim majority states?
After the holocaust it's entirely reasonable that Jews would reject being forced to live as a minority in a Muslim majority state.
Alright, good luck with doing your own “research”. You’re in the same category of conspiracy theorists as MAGA. Nothing I can say will change your mind.
> Country A is resisting a 75 year violent occupation and apartheid (see stats posted earlier) and currently suffering genocide. Anyone denying that is no different than anyone denying the holocaust - equally vile and reprehensible.
You stated what Israel is doing is as "equally vile and reprehensible" as the holocaust, this is an absolutely insane comparison.
The Nazis tried to exterminate the Jews, they wiped out something like half the worldwide population of Jews...on the other hand during the Israeli occupation the Palestinian population over the years has increased drastically.
The holocaust has very little in common with the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and one certainly can't realistically claim Israel doesn't have the military means to exterminate the Palestinians if they wanted to either. Israel clearly doesn't have that sort of genocidal intent towards Palestinians. You can probably make an argument that some of the more extremist elements in Israel want to ethnically cleanse Palestinians but that's not remotely equivalent to the holocaust.
By making this comparison you're effectively denying the holocaust by downplaying it and saying it's somehow equivalent to the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Making this comparison is a well known antisemitic trope.
Why would he be one of the New Historians? Norman Finkelstein isn't really even a historian, he's more of a activist/political scientist if anything AFAIU.
> watch their debate hosted by Lex Fridman.
I've seen it, it's pretty clear if you dig into the facts that the accusations of genocide against Israel are not supported by the evidence.
It's also quite clear that people like Norman Finkelstein like to cherry-pick facts(often from books written by Benny Morris) to support a particular narrative. Benny Morris tends to take a more balanced view of the history in general which has a lot of nuance.
The guy actually said "Israeli historians", not "New Historians", which means he's probably not reading the people the New Historians were responding to. He's just looking for legitimation propaganda for antizionist politics.
> The guy actually said "Israeli historians", not "New Historians"
The 3 historians he listed were 3 out of the 4 most well known "New Historians", but him leaving out Benny Morris(arguably the most well known of the New Historians and the one who coined the term itself) was a bit of a red flag to me that he's cherry-picking sources to support a particular narrative. Technically the "New Historians" are a subset of "Israeli historians".
> he's probably not reading the people the New Historians were responding to.
Yeah, I'm sure he isn't, although I'm probably also less familiar with those original historians myself as well since I was born after the point in which the "New Historians" had access to the declassified archives.
Even amongst the New Historians there's a lot of disagreements on things like which side has been more of an impediment to peace and a number of other key issues, with Benny Morris often being highly critical of say Ilan Pappé.
My own views of the history of the conflict and Zionism in general are probably broadly in line with those of Benny Morris. It's important to at least try and understand the history/perspectives of both sides of these conflict. At the same time it's worrying that even a lot of otherwise intelligent individuals would fall for rather overt antisemitic propaganda.
> "Israeli military’s own data indicates civilian death rate of 83% in Gaza war"
The way they came up with this 83% figure is insane, they are essentially claiming everyone killed that hasn't been identified as a named fighter in one specific Israeli military intelligence database is assumed to be a civilian, this logic is of course blatantly misleading as one would not expect Israel to have the capability to identify the name of each and every enemy combatant in a war zone. On top of that the total number killed is a figure published by the Hamas run Gaza Health Ministry which is well known to have major accuracy issues.
That list was of those both identified to be terrorist and identified to be dead. Thus, not only does it not count the unidentified dead but it also does not count the identified but not established to be terrorist.
Funny enough the current government of Afghanistan also rejects ICC jurisdiction and is not a full UN or US recognized state.[0]
> Palestinian
Which is not a full UN or US/Israel recognized state either.
> you can see why respectively the USA and Israel might have some issues
Yeah, from the US/Israel point of view trying to enforce jurisdiction of unrecognized enemy states is certainly problematic. Especially when in the US/Afghanistan case neither government seems to be granting the court any jurisdiction at all.
It's basically a warning against attempting to apply jurisdiction to countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
> That the US thinks it rules the world and is terrified enough to go after individuals who just happen to work for the wrong employer?
The sanctions are due to specific actions(i.e. rulings) taken by the individuals against US and their allies.[0]
> That other parts of the world are not allowed to have their own sense and modalities of justice?
The issue is mostly one of jurisdiction, the ICC is attempting to unilaterally impose jurisdiction on to states that never agreed to delegate authority whatsoever to the ICC.
> It's basically a warning against attempting to apply jurisdiction to countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
The crimes prosecuted by the ICC are accepted by the US as matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, so the US can have no legitimate objection to (1) any country exercising jurisdiction over them wherever they are alleged to occur, or (2) any country exercising its sovereign power to delegate its exercise of jurisdiction over them anywhere to an international tribunal, like the ICC, either generally, under specified terms (such as those in the Rome Statute), or ad hoc.
And they certainly have the least basis for doing so when the country on whose territory they are alleged to have occurred, and who would thus have jurisdiction whether or not they were matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, does so. (Which is, other than a UNSC resolution, the only way the ICC, under the Rome Statute, gets jurisdiction when the accused are not nationals of a State Party to the Statute.)
The actual objection is not the broad principle you are trying to articulate, but it is to the idea of Israel being accountable under international law for crimes for which it has the full support of the US government, irrespective of any theory of law. Trying to frame it as having a good-faith legalistic rationale is either being woefully ignorant or being as flagrantly dishonest as the US government itself is being.
> The crimes prosecuted by the ICC are accepted by the US as matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, so the US can have no legitimate objection to (1) any country exercising jurisdiction over them wherever they are alleged to occur
There's plenty of legitimate objections such as not trusting a foreign court to appropriately decide international law.
> (2) any country exercising its sovereign power to delegate its exercise of jurisdiction over them anywhere to an international tribunal, like the ICC, either generally, under specified terms (such as those in the Rome Statute), or ad hoc.
In the case of Afghanistan, neither the US nor the Taliban are delegating that sort of authority to the ICC.
> And they certainly have the least basis for doing so when the country on whose territory they are alleged to have occurred, and who would thus have jurisdiction whether or not they were matters of universal jurisdiction under international law, does so.
IMO that's a pretty weak argument, especially when you have states being prosecuted which are non-signatories to the Rome Statute or are not full UN member states like in the case of Palestine.
> The actual objection is not the broad principle you are trying to articulate, but it is to the idea of Israel being accountable under international law for crimes for which it has the full support of the US government, irrespective of any theory of law.
The UN has a very well documented history of bias against Israel.[0] It seems entirely reasonable to me that neither the US nor Israel would trust a UN court, especially for anything related to wars involving Israel.
> Saying a country made up heavily of refugees fleeing persecution is just a colonialist occupation project is pretty ridiculous IMO.
That's actually a pattern for colonialist occupation projects, its kind of a two-birds-with-one-stone thing for the colonial power. The colonization of Liberia also was very much this (as was the colonization of parts of what later became the USA.) And the (British, of course, this is very much a recurrent Anglo pattern) project for the colonization of Israel started long before the the refugee crisis that helped realize it occurred.
> That's actually a pattern for colonialist occupation projects, its kind of a two-birds-with-one-stone thing for the colonial power. The colonization of Liberia also was very much this (as was the colonization of parts of what later became the USA.)
There's a number of differences that make this comparison problematic. Israel's current Jewish population immigrated from many different countries, largely due to fleeing anti-semitism in those countries. The reason for them fleeing(anti-semitism) also very much exists to this day, especially when it comes to those Muslim majority countries many fled from after Israel gained independence, so any prospect of them returning is not remotely realistic.
> And the (British, of course, this is very much a recurrent Anglo pattern) project for the colonization of Israel started long before the the refugee crisis that helped realize it occurred.
While the UK may have held the mandate for Palestine for a period of time the majority of Jewish immigration to Palestine prior to the end of the mandate(and after) did not actually come from the UK or even other Anglo countries. This seems to be a rather important distinction as the immigration was arguably much more multi-source than the typical Anglo pattern colonialism.
In any case it seems to be quite clear that the extreme UN bias against Israel largely comes not from the colonial aspects of Israel's creation but rather from the various degrees of anti-semitism that is pervasive in many countries to this day.
> largely due to fleeing anti-semitism in those countries
I thought it was mainly being expelled after the creation of Israel. Sometimes with encouragement of Israel.
> In any case it seems to be quite clear that the extreme UN bias against Israel largely comes not from the colonial aspects of Israel's creation but rather from the various degrees of anti-semitism that is pervasive in many countries to this day.
Israel rather than being the victim of racism is a major perpetrator of it. In fact, the Israel project foments anti Semitism around the world. This is especially sad for those non-Zionist Jews who want to live their lives in peace free of discrimination.
> I thought it was mainly being expelled after the creation of Israel.
Fleeing pogroms in eastern Europe was one of the main reason for immigration to Palestine prior to Israeli independence and a big reason Zionism as a movement started in the first place. The immigration quotas on Jews by countries like the US(which was the preferred destination for those fleeing pogroms) was another factor that encouraged Zionism as well. The immigration by Jews from middle eastern countries was largely after the Israeli independence.
> Sometimes with encouragement of Israel.
There were push and pull factors, but push factors like the extreme anti-semitism throughout the middle east and north Africa subsequent to Israeli independence made it effectively inevitable that Jews would have to either move to Israel or leave the middle east/north Africa entirely.
> Israel rather than being the victim of racism is a major perpetrator of it.
Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel is itself a form of anti-semitism that's widespread throughout the world and especially the middle east.
> In fact, the Israel project foments anti Semitism around the world.
It's entirely reasonable that Jewish refugees would want a right to self determination after what happened to them in the pogroms and Holocaust.
> This is especially sad for those non-Zionist Jews who want to live their lives in peace free of discrimination.
Zionism is really only a thing because of anti-semitism. Jews have not had a good history living as minorities in much of the world.
For the lazy, that unwatch link can be summarized as "israel keeps doing awful things and refuses to stop but the UN is biased against israel because it doesn't condemn hamas in every single resolution that also mentions israel", aka "we know we are doing awful things but Hamas does too stop picking on us!"
> For the lazy, that unwatch link can be summarized as "israel keeps doing awful things and refuses to stop but the UN is biased against israel because it doesn't condemn hamas in every single resolution that also mentions israel", aka "we know we are doing awful things but Hamas does too stop picking on us!"
From the link it states "From 2015 through 2023, the UN General Assembly has adopted 154 resolutions against Israel and 71 against other countries.".
This is clearly a case of extremely blatant bias, no matter how bad you think Israel is, it certainly doesn't deserve twice the resolutions against it than the rest of the world combined. The UN has basically thrown out all credibility when it comes to anything related to Israel.
Not at all, not even remotely. I'm alarmed anyone can sincerely interpret it that way and ignore what prompted those resolutions. It is simply proof that UN resolutions do nothing. Israel continues its abhorrent behavior regardless of how many resolutions happen.
>it certainly doesn't deserve twice the resolutions against it than the rest of the world combined
But it does. I can't see any reason why it doesn't except if you want me to ignore reality.
>The UN has basically thrown out all credibility when it comes to anything related to Israel.
Only because it refuses to do anything of substance to curb its behavior. UNWatch lost any credibility it had when it insists on ignoring reality and arguing that literally salting the earth/water supply of millions and annihilating countless children is something you cannot ever condemn and if you do you are being a bully.
If I keep committing crimes and keep being arrested for those crimes does it make any sense to complain about the police arresting me all the time instead of realizing my own behavior is why I keep being arrested? According to you that makes perfect sense.
> Not at all, not even remotely. I'm alarmed anyone can sincerely interpret it that way and ignore what prompted those resolutions. It is simply proof that UN resolutions do nothing. Israel continues its abhorrent behavior regardless of how many resolutions happen.
UN resolutions do nothing in general, that's not particularly specific to Israel, however the sheer overwhelming amount of them being anti-Israel resolutions is solid evidence of anti-Israel bias.
> But it does. I can't see any reason why it doesn't except if you want me to ignore reality.
There are many horrible conflicts throughout the world(i.e. Sudan, Syria, Myanmar), the Israel-Palestinian conflict is quite far from the worst by virtually all metrics, no reasonable person could ever think twice the amount of UN resolutions against Israel compared to the rest of the world combined is remotely reasonable.
> Only because it refuses to do anything of substance to curb its behavior.
The UN doesn't have much power in general, still doesn't justify the extreme anti-Israel bias especially when there are so many other conflicts that are much worse.
> UNWatch lost any credibility it had when it insists on ignoring reality and arguing that literally salting the earth/water supply of millions and annihilating countless children is something you cannot ever condemn and if you do you are being a bully.
UNWatch is focused on the UN, obviously the conflict has had a lot of terrible back and forth retaliations, did UNWatch deny that ever?
> If I keep committing crimes and keep being arrested for those crimes does it make any sense to complain about the police arresting me all the time instead of realizing my own behavior is why I keep being arrested? According to you that makes perfect sense.
By that logic the Jews being arrested by the Nazi police....should have just accepted their behavior(being Jewish) as being the problem? You're making it out as if the UN is some sort of unbiased law enforcement organization when it is nothing of the sort.
>There are many horrible conflicts throughout the world(i.e. Sudan, Syria, Myanmar)
So? Are you saying no resolutions were passed regarding them?
>the Israel-Palestinian conflict is quite far from the worst by virtually all metrics
By what metrics exactly?
>UNWatch is focused on the UN
Nope. It is focused on pretending Israel has never done anything wrong ever and has been for a while now.
>The UN doesn't have much power in general, still doesn't justify the extreme anti-Israel bias
There is no extreme anti-Israel bias.
>especially when there are so many other conflicts that are much worse.
In the present? No there is not.
>By that logic the Jews being arrested by the Nazi police....should have just accepted their behavior(being Jewish) as being the problem.
Not in the slightest. Please don't intentionally misinterpret what I said to push such a ridiculous and sick idea. That's a ridiculous straw man.
Your retort would only make sense if my hypothetical didn't explicitly state "committing crimes and keep being arrested for them". You know that, you just wanted to to try and vilify me while dodging the question.
To try and dissuade any further attempt to strawman I'll clarify:
If I keep assaulting people on camera and keep being arrested for those assaulting people does it make any sense to complain about the police arresting me all the time instead of realizing my own behavior (assaulting people) is why I keep being arrested? According to you that makes perfect sense.
> So? Are you saying no resolutions were passed regarding them?
I'm saying that those conflicts are significantly worse than the Israel-Palestinian conflict.
> By what metrics exactly?
Deaths and human rights violations to start with.
> It is focused on pretending Israel has never done anything wrong ever and has been for a while now.
Where do you see them doing that?
> In the present? No there is not.
That's just not remotely factually accurate, here's just one to start with:
Sudan with Nearly 25 million affected by famine(far more than the combined population of Israel/Palestine) with 4 million children acutely malnourished(far more than the entire population of Gaza)[0]
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict doesn't even come close to these numbers in terms of deaths and humanitarian issues.
The fact that you think the Israel-Palestinian conflict is the worst conflict in the world right now I think really highlights the issue with bias.
> Your retort would only make sense if my hypothetical didn't explicitly state "committing crimes and keep being arrested for them".
Being Jewish was a crime worthy of arrest in Nazi Germany.
> If I keep assaulting people on camera and keep being arrested for those assaulting people does it make any sense to complain about the police arresting me all the time instead of realizing my own behavior (assaulting people) is why I keep being arrested? According to you that makes perfect sense.
The world has plenty of horrible conflicts, many far worse than the Israel-Palestinian conflict by essentially all metrics, and when the "police"(UN) only seem to care about "arresting"(Making UN resolutions against) Israel it shows how blatantly biased they(the UN) are.
ICC claims jurisdiction in Palestine. Whether Israel or the US accept that is their business. Nobody is interfering with their national autonomy. I see no "imposition" of jurisdiction here by the ICC. The only country that is imposing their jurisdiction here, and enforcing it outside of their own jurisdiction, are the US. The ICC merely issues documents; everybody is free to agree or disagree with their documents. They have no power of enforcement. The ICC is only doing what they received as a task by the signatory countries of the Rome statute, which ultimately decide what actions to take or not. As such, you could say the ICC merely writes "policy recommendations". The US is the one taking action.
Can you point me at any action that the ICC has taken in the United States or Israel? No, because it is a court. It publishes documents. Legal opinions. You're totally free to decide whether you accept it as a "court" or not.
Can't you see that it is exactly this kind of US exceptionalism and international interfering that stirs hatred, and does not bring peace but breeds terrorism and war?
> ICC claims jurisdiction in Palestine. Whether Israel or the US accepts that is their business. But that still doesn't explain the legal basis of going against individual employees of the ICC. I see no "imposition" of jurisdiction here by the ICC or any of the countries that signed the Rome statute.
The ICC is attempting to have arrest warrants enforced through cooperation with states that are parties to the Rome Statutes for claimed offenses by citizens of countries that are not party to the Rome statute. The US views this as an attack on sovereignty essentially and essentially has decided to retaliate by imposing sanctions.
> The ICC merely issues documents; everybody is free to agree or disagree with their documents. They have no power of enforcement whatsoever. The US here is taking action.
The ICC issues documents that Rome Statute signatories have agreed to enforce(whether they actually enforce in practice is another matter. Regardless it seems pretty clear that the US considers any threat of enforcement to be sufficient grounds to impose sanctions against the organization they view as attacking it.
> Can you point me at any action that the ICC has taken in the United States?
The ICC has made it difficult for the head of government of a strategic ally of the US to travel to many countries at a time when that ally is under attack by many other countries. The ICC has in effect threatened to do the same to US citizens as well. There's a bit more nuance than this but it's not hard to see why the US views the ICC as a real threat worthy of sanctions. This is not really a new thing either, the US has even strong-armed many countries into signing "Article 98 agreements" in order to ensure ICC doesn't have jurisdiction over US citizens.[0]
The fundamental difference is that ICC invites partners to agree with their legal assessment. It is each country’s sovereign decision to enforce it or not. The US applies force and boldly assumes they not only have the power but the right to do so, outside of their national jurisdiction. That is US exceptionalism at its best.
If you act like a bully, you will not make friends. It’s as simple as that.
> The fundamental difference is that ICC invites partners to agree with their legal assessment. It is each country’s sovereign decision to enforce it or not.
This isn't really accurate from a strict reading of the Rome Statute, there are treaty obligations for party states under the Rome Statute to enforce arrest warrants issued by the ICC, in practice countries obviously can choose not to comply but doing so is arguably a violation of the Rome Statute treaty as written. The EU considers a failure to enforce an arrest warrant to be a violation of obligations under the statute.[0]
> The US applies force and boldly assumes they not only have the power but the right to do so, outside of their national jurisdiction. That is US exceptionalism at its best.
Since the US considers the ICC a serious threat to sovereignty I think it's rather unsurprising that the US would attempt to apply sanctions quite broadly to those judges or individuals at the ICC that take positions which conflict with the US positions on ICC jurisdiction.
> If you act like a bully, you will not make friends. It’s as simple as that.
IMO this is a rather simplistic view of foreign policy/relations, the goal of foreign policy is generally to advance the interests of a country, this can be done by making friends in some cases but that approach isn't always going to be effective. Making friends is not really the end goal of foreign policy.
> This isn't really accurate from a strict reading of the Rome Statute, there are treaty obligations for party states
Which are members voluntarily, and are enforcing whatever law they want on their own, national territory; not outside of it.
> Since the US considers the ICC a serious threat to sovereignty
Again: Fact is, the ICC is writing policy recommendations. Member states decided to adopt/agree with them, and enforce them on their own territory. It is a US invention to claim this a threat to the US national sovereignty. Nobody is arguing to enforce ICC rulings on United States territory.
> Making friends is not really the end goal of foreign policy.
You can claim that it isn't, OK. But I don't get how you can write it as if that was a hard fact. You make it sound as if that was a universal definition, which it isn't. Nobody, and no country (as in "the sum of its citizens"), likes it when others enter their boundaries and act like they have permission to make or enforce rules there without a contract/agreement. It's fine if you don't like the friend/enemy wording. It still is a hostile act.
> Which are members voluntarily, and are enforcing whatever law they want on their own, national territory; not outside of it.
A big reason for the ICC being created was to have an organization that could enforce certain laws that national courts would have trouble enforcing on their own. Obviously states can choose to violate the treaty but it certainly was the intent that ICC arrest are enforceable.
> Again: Fact is, the ICC is writing policy recommendations. Member states decided to adopt/agree with them, and enforce them on their own territory. It is a US invention to claim this a threat to the US national sovereignty. Nobody is arguing to enforce ICC rulings on United States territory.
The ICC is a court, it's not just writing policy recommendations. The ICC has made it clear they intend to pursue Americans and US allies and restrict their movement at a minimum by preventing them from entering countries that are signatories to the Rome Statute. Just because they aren't trying to abduct Americans on US soil doesn't mean they don't intend to go after Americans or American allies that are non-parties.
By your logic the US sanctions are also just policy recommendations, companies simply decide to adopt them and enforce them at the recommendation of the US.
> You can claim that it isn't, OK. But I don't get how you can write it as if that was a hard fact. You make it sound as if that was a universal definition, which it isn't. Nobody, and no country (as in "the sum of its citizens"), likes it when others enter their boundaries and act like they have permission to make or enforce rules there without a contract/agreement. It's fine if you don't like the friend/enemy wording.
The US clearly views the ICC as an external entity attempting to enforce rules without a contract or agreement.
> It still is a hostile act.
Sanctions and ICC arrest warrants/investigations can both be considered hostile acts.
I honestly don’t know if you cannot see the difference between issuing a warrant to be enforced by sovereign nations (or not), and actively interfering on foreign soil, or you simply don’t want to, and to avoid having to agree with that distinction you’re making up random arguments. If you have the opinion that a country has the right to act in that way, simply say so.
The ICC has zero executive power and as such by definition cannot act violently. There is a clear difference between ICCs publications and a country‘s decision or refusal to enforce it, and the consequences if Visa were to refuse implementing the sanctions. You are not honestly proposing that they have a choice.
Just because you have the means of violence doesn’t mean it is right (beneficial) to apply them.
If I enter your home, and refuse to leave, feel free to extract me. Don’t try that in mine.
I think I made this distinction sufficiently clear by now.
> I honestly don’t know if you cannot see the difference between issuing a warrant to be enforced by sovereign nations (or not), and actively interfering on foreign soil, or you simply don’t want to, and to avoid having to agree with that distinction you’re making up random arguments.
I'm not saying there are no differences, but your apparent claim that "issuing a warrant to be enforced by sovereign nations (or not)" in the manner the ICC does is not itself a form of "actively interfering on foreign soil" just doesn't seem to be aligning with the reality of the situation.
> If you have the opinion that a country has the right to act in that way, simply say so.
I would agree these sort of sanctions are somewhat problematic in general, however given that the ICC has decided to issue actual arrest warrants backed by the power of a legally binding international treaty I think it's also hard to argue that the sanctions are much of an overreaction given the real threat to the interests of the US and allies they pose. IMO arrest warrants are a step above sanctions in terms of their potential threat to those being targeted.
> The ICC has zero executive power and as such by definition cannot act violently. There is a clear difference between ICCs publications and a country‘s decision or refusal to enforce it, and the consequences if Visa were to refuse implementing the sanctions. You are not honestly proposing that they have a choice.
The Rome Statute is a binding treaty for State Parties, many of these states appear to take a fairly strict interpretation in regards to their obligations to enforce an arrest warrant issued by the ICC in their own national laws/policies, this is in effect those states delegating the power of state violence to the ICC. Just because some states decide to violate a binding international treaty doesn't mean the ICC is entirely unable to exercise the delegated power of state violence. Likewise just because the ICC can only indirectly exercise the power of state violence doesn't mean it doesn't have that power at all.
> Just because you have the means of violence doesn’t mean it is right (beneficial) to apply them.
My argument is more that the ICC and the US are both in effect using the threat of state violence(arrest warrants/sanctions) as a way to advance their goals internationally.
> They are on a international body that is investigating allegations of war crimes and genocide that the United States and Israel have committed in Gaza
She was apparently sanctioned for the Afghanistan investigation, while others at the ICC were sanctioned for going after Israel.[0]
> The US wielding the sanctions banhammer the way they have been recently will only weaken its power over time and create opportunity for economic rivals like China.
China is not party to the Rome Statute, just like the US and Israel, I would expect they would retaliate against the ICC if the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Xi Jinping.
> Every time they (mis)use it they create incentive for people to create alternatives to the US financial system.
I think the ICC has much bigger credibility issues trying to impose jurisdiction over conflicts involving countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
> Funny that we’re using this example when the ICC has issued a warrant against someone who isn’t the US head of state
The ICC seems to have no problem issuing arrest warrants for government leaders of countries allied with the US involved in conflicts located in territories where there are no fully UN recognized State Parties to the Rome Statue. Additionally the ICC has ongoing investigations into US personnel directly. The ICC has arguably given the US sufficient justification for some form of retaliation(i.e. sanctions) for jurisdictional overreach.
> I think the ICC has much bigger credibility issues trying to impose jurisdiction over conflicts involving countries that are not parties to the Rome Statute.
The ICC is responsibility if the crime is committed by a citizen or happens in the territory of a state party of the Rome Statute. Palestine is such a state party
Additionally the UN can hand over cases in non-state parties to the ICC. IIRC that also happened.
> The ICC is responsibility if the crime is committed by a citizen or happens in the territory of a state party of the Rome Statute. Palestine is such a state party
Depends on how you define a state, Palestine not being a full state able to delegate jurisdiction is a big argument against the ICC having any jurisdiction over the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Palestine is neither a full UN member state, nor a state recognized by either the US or Israel. The ICC appears to be trying to set some of precedent for an extremely broad interpretation of their jurisdiction which is clearly at odds with US/Israel views.
> Additionally the UN can hand over cases in non-state parties to the ICC. IIRC that also happened.
> PA has to ask Israel to do anything of substance in the WB, because the WB is a mix of Israeli and PA controlled areas, with Israel controlling internal boundaries even between adjacent PA-controlled areas.
It's much more than just that, the PA/Fatah is considered to be very weak and are extremely unpopular in the West Bank. If Israel didn't intervene Hamas would likely oust Fatah in the West Bank similar to what happened in Gaza.
> the only reason is that Israel has refused to cooperate with all-Palestine elections negotiated and agreed to between Fatah (the party in control of the PA government) and Hamas
Fatah knows they would lose an election in the West Bank to Hamas, this is something neither Israel or Fatah wants, hence no elections.
> Most likely because the divide between the Fatah-led PA and Hamas, and the ability to portray both as undemocratic, serves Israeli's propaganda and other interests.
They tried all-Palestine elections in 2006[0], that backfired spectacularly. Hamas was elected in what were generally considered free and fair elections, pretty hard to get a good election outcome if a majority or at least a plurality of the population wants to elect terrorists.
> Fatah knows they would lose an election in the West Bank to Hamas, this is something neither Israel or Fatah wants, hence no elections.
Nice story, but Fatah actually negotiated and agreed to details for all-Palestine elections with Hamas; Israel declined to allow them to occur.
> They tried all-Palestine elections in 2006[0], that backfired spectacularly. Hamas was elected in what were generally considered free and fair elections, pretty hard to get a good election outcome if a majority or at least a plurality of the population wants to elect terrorists.
The US and Israel call all resistance to Israeli occupation terrorism; the PLO (not the Fatah faction but the whole umbrella organization), which is organizationally coextensive with the Palestinian Authority, is a Congressionally-designated foreign terrorist organization which has had Presidential waivers allowing certain interactions since 1993.
> Nice story, but Fatah actually negotiated and agreed to details for all-Palestine elections with Hamas; Israel declined to allow them to occur.
Was this like a case of them agreeing to something they knew Israel would never allow(letting Hamas officials run in Palestinian elections)?
> The US and Israel call all resistance to Israeli occupation terrorism;
I don't think this is true, it's generally the violent resistance that is called terrorism, probably because there's quite a lot of that going on.
> the PLO (not the Fatah faction but the whole umbrella organization), which is organizationally coextensive with the Palestinian Authority, is a Congressionally-designated foreign terrorist organization which has had Presidential waivers allowing certain interactions since 1993.
Presumably that would be due to the PLO having engaged in and supported terrorism[0]. The Martyrs Fund is not exactly small:
> These payments, total more than $300 million annually, representing approximately 7 percent of the PA's annual budget.
The Palestinians have a right to resist occupation under international law. In so far as the resistance is confined to military targets it's entirely lawful. The same sort of Westerner who immediately understands Ukrainian resistance struggles to understand the Palestinian perspective.
Israeli settlers have murdered upwards of a thousand Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7th. They're never held accountable and have significant support from the right-wing members of the coalition government - cabinet minister Ben-Gvir was the lawyer for the settlers who burnt a Palestinian baby alive. Numerous Palestinian communities have been ethnically cleansed in a systematic campaign. The ultimate motivation for these actions is the ethnic supremacist cult of Zionism.
The Palestinians could turn into a bunch of Scandinavian vegans tomorrow and it would not change a thing because it is the Zionist ideology that creates and maintains the conflict as part of its intrinsic nature.
You have spammed this discussion with enough misleading "facts" to paint a picture of a throwback Bush Jr era American bloviator. Please give it a rest now.
> The Palestinians have a right to resist occupation under international law.
Doesn't give them a right to commit war crimes though.
> In so far as the resistance is confined to military targets it's entirely lawful.
Palestinian "resistance" tends to not confine themselves to military targets in general.
> The same sort of Westerner who immediately understands Ukrainian resistance struggles to understand the Palestinian perspective.
I don't recall Ukrainian resistance targeting civilians in general.
> They're never held accountable and have significant support from the right-wing members of the coalition government - cabinet minister Ben-Gvir was the lawyer for the settlers who burnt a Palestinian baby alive.
Ben-Gvir was convicted of supporting a terrorist organization by Israeli courts and has very little support amongst the Israeli public, Israel just tends to get more extremists in the Knesset due to the proportional voting system than say in a country with a two party system.
> The ultimate motivation for these actions is the ethnic supremacist cult of Zionism.
Jews have a pretty bad history when it comes to living as ethnic minorities in other countries, it's not surprising that they would want at least 1 state in which they are an ethnic majority amongst the many Muslim majority states.
> Doesn't give them a right to commit war crimes though.
Kinda ironic for someone defending the right of Israel to commit war crimes against civilians. Can we talk about the massive Israeli protests on the noble topic of "we should be allowed to r+p3 prisoners"?
> Kinda ironic for someone defending the right of Israel to commit war crimes against civilians.
I don't recall defending anyone deliberately committing war crimes against civilians, I should note that collateral damage by itself is not a war crime of course.
> Can we talk about the massive Israeli protests on the noble topic of "we should be allowed to r+p3 prisoners"?
I'm not defending them, Israel has some issues with extremists for sure, although it's far from being as bad as Palestinian extremism which sadly tends to have surprisingly high levels of support amongst Palestinians. Most Israelis don't support these sort of things and just want to live in peace.
What is the point where "collateral damage" and "killing civilians" aren't different? We saw well in Gaza how the Israeli government didn't care at all about civilians and just razed entire cities.
It's not "just this time": Israelis have been involved in terrorist killings against civilians since even before the existence of Israel, and continued the atrocities against civilians after[1], with the goal to displace them.
> "Most Israelis want to live in peace"
Yet support colonization and elect far-right governments which openly defend an imperialistic "Great Israel" agenda.[2]
> What is the point where "collateral damage" and "killing civilians" aren't different?
Essentially "collateral damage" is not intentional targeting of civilians. The laws of war allow for "collateral damage" as they were written in a way so as not to encourage the use of human shields.
> We saw well in Gaza how the Israeli government didn't care at all about civilians and just razed entire cities.
They made efforts to move civilians out of the way, deaths compared to the amount of damage is quite low. Not a lot of options when Hamas built tunnels under most of the cities.
> Yet support colonization and elect far-right governments which openly defend an imperialistic "Great Israel" agenda.[2]
It's generally not even clear what "Greater Israel" means in general. In any case the best option for those concerned about "Greater Israel" would be to negotiate peace agreements that solidify borders.
