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.
> 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 has made that unfortunately impossible for now. 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 post 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.
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.
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.
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.
> [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.
For example, parts of international law come from UN security council resolutions, which are passed based on 9/15 security council votes, and no vetos 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 understand Israel disagrees with this consensus. I understand you may disagree with this consensus. I accept that if global consensus hasn't already changed your 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.
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!"
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.