Last week, National Security Adviser John Bolton gave a speech in which he threatened that the U.S would consider taking legal action against officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) should it try to prosecute Americans. It could do the same, he added, if the ICC prosecuted citizens of America’s allies, including—Bolton explicitly stated —Israel. Jeremy Rabkin comments:

Some critics [of the speech] warned that such action would undermine respect for the rule of law around the world—since it threatens targeting actual judges! That is missing the point. As a nonparty to the ICC treaty, the United States has never agreed to submit its nationals to the court. Still less has the United States agreed that third-party states can extradite Americans to this court in The Hague.

It is one thing for national courts to prosecute Americans for offenses committed on their territory. . . . It is something quite different for a court claiming to speak for humanity at large to try Americans without—as we see it—any serious legal ground for such action. . . . Why are the officials of the ICC entitled to a special privileged status? To say that [John] Bolton’s blast against the ICC undermines “respect for the rule of law” implies that any official of any corrupt or tyrannical regime who is locally designated a “judge” must have a claim on our respect. That is not respect for law but for the mystique of the robe. . . .

President Trump has repeatedly complained that most NATO states shirk the costs of military preparedness. That’s a serious problem. But surely it is worse when our partners, lacking the resources to provide military assistance, still want to participate in legal second-guessing of what fighters have done. The European idea seems to be that Americans will do the fighting and Europeans will assist with the judging.

Meanwhile, Angela Merkel boasts that the security of Israel is a fundamental principle of German foreign policy (Staatsraison), but there is no sign that her government will lift a finger to resist ICC prosecution of Israeli soldiers for what officials in the safety of The Hague regard as excessive force in responding to missile attacks. The important thing, as Immanuel Kant says, is to prove one’s good intentions by making no exceptions—which means, in practice, no serious judgments about circumstances and ground-level realities. Bolton’s warning was to the point: states that take the side of the ICC can’t be reliable partners.

On Tuesday, a Hizballah drone attack injured three people in northern Israel. The next day, another attack, targeting an IDF base, injured eighteen people, six of them seriously, in Arab al-Amshe, also in the north. This second attack involved the simultaneous use of drones carrying explosives and guided antitank missiles. In both cases, the defensive systems that performed so successfully last weekend failed to stop the drones and missiles. Ron Ben-Yishai has a straightforward explanation as to why: the Lebanon-backed terrorist group is getting better at evading Israel defenses. He explains the three basis systems used to pilot these unmanned aircraft, and their practical effects:

These systems allow drones to act similarly to fighter jets, using “dead zones”—areas not visible to radar or other optical detection—to approach targets. They fly low initially, then ascend just before crashing and detonating on the target. The terrain of southern Lebanon is particularly conducive to such attacks.

But this requires skills that the terror group has honed over months of fighting against Israel. The latest attacks involved a large drone capable of carrying over 50 kg (110 lbs.) of explosives. The terrorists have likely analyzed Israel’s alert and interception systems, recognizing that shooting down their drones requires early detection to allow sufficient time for launching interceptors.

The IDF tries to detect any incoming drones on its radar, as it had done prior to the war. Despite Hizballah’s learning curve, the IDF’s technological edge offers an advantage. However, the military must recognize that any measure it takes is quickly observed and analyzed, and even the most effective defenses can be incomplete. The terrain near the Lebanon-Israel border continues to pose a challenge, necessitating technological solutions and significant financial investment.