One of the lessons of the war that now might be coming to an end—if it were not already clear—is the extent to which international law and its institutions can be wielded as weapons against Israel. Aharon Friedman analyzes the deluded thinking that has created this situation:
International law helps set parameters and settle disputes between lawful countries committed to following the law. [But] World War II and the Holocaust were the result of geostrategic power balances, hatred, tyranny, and appeasement, not inadequacies of international law. . . . International law did not prevent Iran’s proxies from invading Israel on October 7 or Putin from invading Ukraine, and it does not result in “human rights for every person.”
Moreover, Friedman writes, Israel’s efforts to protect itself from the International Criminal Court (ICC) by expanding the power of its judiciary has itself caused problems:
The ICC ignores its own complementarity requirement, the rule that it must defer to countries whose own justice systems are addressing military misconduct. Israel has an extremely strong such system. . . . Led by Aharon Barak, Israel’s judiciary and legal bureaucracy have seized enormous power from elected governments in what Barak himself has described as a “constitutional revolution.” Attempts even partially to restore the authority of elected officials are met with arguments as to how this would cause Israel to fail ICC complementarity.
Read more at Federalist Society
More about: Aharon Barak, IDF, International Law