Apparently Jews are once again expected to sit quietly while extremely important people in extremely expensive robes discuss whether the rules might require a little renovation.
Nothing to worry about.
The experts are here.
The institutions are functioning.
The acronyms have been deployed.
Please remain calm while international law is interpreted by people who will never have to send their children into a tunnel to retrieve hostages from terrorists.
Welcome to The Hague.
Where geopolitical theater puts on a tie, purchases a leather briefcase, learns some Latin and introduces itself as moral authority.
And Israel should be watching very, very carefully.
Because thousands of kilometers from Gaza, the International Court of Justice is dealing with The Gambia v. Myanmar, a genocide case concerning Myanmar’s treatment of the Rohingya.
Most Israelis have never read the pleadings.
Most Americans couldn’t find the case with GPS and a Sherpa.
Perfect.
Because the case concerns something enormously important: genocidal intent.
And that little phrase matters.
A lot.
Genocide is not legally synonymous with “a war in which lots of people died.”
It is not “war that made me angry.”
It is not “military operation I saw on TikTok.”
It is not “country whose flag I dislike.”
Genocide requires specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected group.
That distinction is the engine of the crime itself. Israel’s lawyers made essentially that point before the ICJ in 2024: without the intent element, the legal concept of genocide loses what distinguishes it from other international crimes. (International Court of Justice)
And The Gambia v. Myanmar has already dealt directly with disputes about how genocidal intent should be inferred. Myanmar argued that alternative reasonable explanations for the alleged conduct undermined an inference of genocidal intent. (International Court of Justice)
Now perhaps every future interpretation will be perfectly consistent.
Perhaps every evidentiary standard will be applied identically.
Perhaps international institutions will suddenly discover an almost supernatural resistance to political pressure.
And perhaps tomorrow morning my refrigerator will become sentient, learn Gemara and make me breakfast.
I remain open to surprises.
But Israel would be criminally foolish not to watch.
Because there is another genocide case before the same Court:
South Africa v. Israel.
And South Africa has already relied on The Gambia v. Myanmar in its arguments against Israel. That isn’t speculation. It happened in the courtroom. (International Court of Justice)
So spare me the lecture that Myanmar has absolutely nothing to do with Israel.
Legally, precedents travel.
Arguments migrate.
Standards developed in Case A mysteriously develop little legs and walk into Case B.
That is what courts do.
Which means Israel should scrutinize every bloody comma that eventually emerges from the Myanmar judgment.
Not because there is proof of a secret conspiracy.
There doesn’t need to be one.
Institutional incentives are far more boring than conspiracies and often considerably more powerful.
THE CULT OF THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTION
Somewhere along the way, Western civilization developed a peculiar religion.
Not Christianity.
Not Judaism.
Not Islam.
Institutionalism.
Its central theological proposition is breathtakingly simple:
“If an international organization said it, it must be important.”
Put “United Nations” on the letterhead and suddenly people who wouldn’t trust their municipal government to collect garbage on Tuesday believe an international bureaucracy has acquired the wisdom of Solomon.
Add judges.
Add flags.
Add translators.
Add a marble building.
Congratulations.
We have manufactured Moral Authority™.
And apparently questioning it is heresy.
Sorry.
Israel should question it.
Aggressively.
Every democracy should.
Courts deserve respect because their reasoning is rigorous, their standards consistent and their procedures fair.
They do not deserve intellectual obedience because the furniture is expensive.
AND THIS IS WHERE ISRAEL NEEDS TO GROW UP
Israel has spent decades behaving like the battered spouse of international diplomacy.
“Maybe this resolution will be different.”
“Maybe this commission will be balanced.”
“Maybe this investigation will consider the context.”
“Maybe if we explain ourselves for the 9,742nd time, they’ll finally understand.”
Sweetheart.
They’re not confused.
Stop behaving as though another PowerPoint presentation explaining Hamas will suddenly cause everyone in Geneva to slap their foreheads and announce:
“WAIT. HAMAS IS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION?”
Israel does not need to abandon international law.
Israel needs to stop confusing international law with international institutions.
Those are not the same thing.
Law is a body of rules.
Institutions are organizations run by human beings.
And human beings bring politics, ideology, ambition, incentives, prejudices and fashionable assumptions into buildings with them.
Apparently the robes don’t have a magical pocket where judges deposit human nature before entering the courtroom.
SO HERE IS WHAT ISRAEL SHOULD DO
First, Israel should establish a permanent high-level legal team devoted specifically to monitoring genocide jurisprudence and the ICJ proceedings involving Myanmar.
Not three interns and somebody’s cousin who studied international relations at Hebrew University.
The best international litigators Israel can find.
Every argument.
Every evidentiary standard.
Every interpretation of intent.
Every dissent.
Every separate opinion.
Catalog it.
Compare it.
Publish it.
If a standard applied to Myanmar later changes when Israel walks through the courtroom door, the world should see the comparison in black and white.
Second, Israel should stop treating UN institutions as sacred diplomatic cows.
Conduct a comprehensive review of Israel’s relationship with every UN body operating inside Israel.
What does it do?
What privileges does it receive?
What does Israel receive in return?
Has it acted consistently with its mandate?
Does cooperation advance Israeli interests?
If the answer is no, then renegotiate the relationship.
Sovereign countries are allowed to have interests.
Apparently everyone remembers this except Israelis.
Third, Israel should dramatically improve its international legal communications.
When an accusation appears, Israel’s response cannot arrive nine days later as a PDF written by seventeen lawyers and designed to cure insomnia.
Respond immediately.
Charts.
Video.
Primary evidence.
Legal analysis.
Satellite imagery where appropriate.
Translations.
Names.
Dates.
Sources.
Make the evidence impossible to avoid.
The information war operates at smartphone speed.
Israel occasionally responds at fax-machine speed.
Fourth, Israel should demand consistency publicly.
Not special treatment.
Consistency.
If conduct constitutes evidence of genocidal intent when Israel does it, ask how comparable legal principles were applied elsewhere.
If a particular evidentiary threshold is established in Myanmar, preserve it.
If the Court changes its jurisprudence, make the Court explain precisely why.
That is not attacking international law.
That is insisting upon it.
AND STOP BEGGING FOR APPROVAL
This may be the most important psychological change of all.
Israel needs to stop behaving as though its legitimacy is issued annually by international institutions.
It isn’t.
Israel does not exist because the United Nations graciously permitted Jews to have Tuesdays and alternate weekends in their ancestral homeland.
Israel exists because the Jewish people exercised national self-determination and established a sovereign state.
The UN General Assembly recommended partition in 1947.
The Jewish leadership accepted it.
Arab leaders rejected it.
War followed.
Israel survived.
History continued.
The Jewish state does not disappear because somebody in Geneva discovered an angry adjective.
WATCH MYANMAR
Watch the case.
Watch the eventual judgment.
Watch the treatment of intent.
Watch the evidentiary threshold.
Then compare it, meticulously, with what happens when Israel’s case advances.
And if the same rules are applied consistently?
Good.
That is what law is supposed to look like.
But if the goalposts suddenly acquire wheels when the defendant’s name is STATE OF ISRAEL, then Israel should not whisper its objections politely into a microphone at 3:45 on a Thursday afternoon.
Publish everything.
Challenge everything.
Expose every inconsistency.
Force every institution demanding Israeli accountability to accept accountability for its own reasoning.
Because “trust the experts” is not a legal doctrine.
“Trust the institution” is not democracy.
And “the United Nations says so” is certainly not an argument.
The Jewish people spent roughly two thousand years discovering what happens when our safety depends entirely upon the judgment, morality and temporary goodwill of other people.
Then we did something extraordinary.
We came home.
We rebuilt Jerusalem.
We revived Hebrew.
We built universities, farms, laboratories, cities and an army.
We created a sovereign Jewish state capable of defending Jewish lives.
And after accomplishing all that, it would be an astonishing historical joke if we decided:
“You know what? Let’s outsource our judgment again.”
No.
Respect law.
Demand evidence.
Defend human rights.
Investigate genuine wrongdoing.
Hold Israeli leaders accountable when Israeli law requires it.
But never surrender independent judgment to any institution merely because it has impressive stationery.
Israel should cooperate where cooperation serves justice.
Challenge where challenge is warranted.
And walk into every international courtroom remembering one rather inconvenient fact:
The Jewish people are no longer petitioners begging history for permission to survive.
Very well written , Indeed , Somaliland and Taiwan are doing not so bad while not existing in what you call Institutionalism. It's probably even an advantage not to have to spend billions in compliance rules imposed by the Institutionalists for not other purpose then for feeding their friends.