The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) recently declined to pursue a case against Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip. She did, however, issue a lengthy nonbinding statement arguing that it is “reasonable” to believe that Israel occupies Gaza, although it has no troops or officials there. Since the opinion makes a mockery of legal reasoning and relevant precedent, what is its basis? Eugene Kontorovich writes:

[T]he prosecutor astonishingly relies on the view of “the international community” that Gaza is occupied. This view is derived from two UN General Assembly (GA) resolutions that call Gaza part of “Occupied Palestinian Territories” without explaining how this comports with customary international-law definitions of occupation. This is perhaps the most surprising part of the prosecutor’s memo. The GA is an explicitly political body. Occupation is a legal status with a legal definition established by treaty and custom. Deferring to a political body to determine a legal question effectively turns the ICC into an adjunct of world opinion—a political popularity contest rather than an arbiter of impartial and general norms.

Analyzing the recent direct Iranian attack on Israel, and Israel’s security situation more generally, Michael Oren looks to the 2015 agreement to restrain Iran’s nuclear program. That, and President Biden’s efforts to resurrect the deal after Donald Trump left it, are in his view the source of the current crisis:

Of the original motivations for the deal—blocking Iran’s path to the bomb and transforming Iran into a peaceful nation—neither remained. All Biden was left with was the ability to kick the can down the road and to uphold Barack Obama’s singular foreign-policy achievement.

In order to achieve that result, the administration has repeatedly refused to punish Iran for its malign actions:

Historians will survey this inexplicable record and wonder how the United States not only allowed Iran repeatedly to assault its citizens, soldiers, and allies but consistently rewarded it for doing so. They may well conclude that in a desperate effort to avoid getting dragged into a regional Middle Eastern war, the U.S. might well have precipitated one.

While America’s friends in the Middle East, especially Israel, have every reason to feel grateful for the vital assistance they received in intercepting Iran’s missile and drone onslaught, they might also ask what the U.S. can now do differently to deter Iran from further aggression. . . . Tehran will see this weekend’s direct attack on Israel as a victory—their own—for their ability to continue threatening Israel and destabilizing the Middle East with impunity.

Israel, of course, must respond differently. Our target cannot simply be the Iranian proxies that surround our country and that have waged war on us since October 7, but, as the Saudis call it, “the head of the snake.”