ICJ orders Israel to prevent genocide in Gaza, stops short of ordering ceasefire

My views on the situation aside, the clearest I saw anyone communicate the issues from a global angle was the former French prime minister Dominique de Villepin

Translated here: https://twitter.com/RnaudBertrand/status/1718201487132885246

Viewed from the angle of the West, I think the message it needs to avoid isolating itself from the world is very unusual for Western media and important.

Quote:

"Westerners must open their eyes to the extent of the historical drama unfolding before us to find the right answers."

And

"This Palestinian question will not fade. And so we must address it and find an answer. This is where we need courage. The use of force is a dead end. The moral condemnation of what Hamas did - and there's no "but" in my words regarding the moral condemnation of this horror - must not prevent us from moving forward politically and diplomatically in an enlightened manner. The law of retaliation is a never-ending cycle."

All correct and yet, what should happen? Israel stops their campaign. And then?

Spend tons of money on iron dome to shoot down the rockets and hope that Hamas won't manage to conduct another massacre, even if "only" half the scope of October 7?

This mess features not one but two parties who currently reject the concept of a cease fire.

Israel must face the reality that is an apartheid state that exists on occupied land. There is no solution until that happens. Just like apartheid South Africa was dismantled, Israel has to face the same fate or forever be locked into warfare and oppressing Palestinians.

Isn't that exactly the view of reality that the Israeli right wing holds? They would agree that the choices are either dismantling the state of Israel, or eternal warfare. Since they don't want to dismantle the state of Israel, they elect for eternal warfare.

It's funny how on some questions, the most extreme people on both sides agree on the answer. Hamas and the Israeli right wing both agree that the only viable solution is for one ethnic group to control all the land from the river to the sea.

No. The Israeli right wing is trying (and succeeding at) making all of the land between the river and the sea exclusive property of the Jewish people. A quick glance at how the borders have evolved since 1948 makes this evident.

Most Palestinians (and thankfully also a good number of Israeli citizens) want a pluralistic solution, without checkpoints and borders, with equal rights and equal representation for all.

A two-state solution was possible 20 years ago, but with the current settlements in the West Bank with 450k or so Settlers and Gaza's total dependence on Israel for water, internet, electricity and many other of life's necessities, all paths towards a two-state solution have been severed.

Now that Gaza has been bombed and bulldozed what possibility is there for a Palestinian state? All records have been destroyed. The courts are gone. The universities are gone. It's all gone.

Israel will accept neither a one-state or two-state solution. By systematically destroying everything Palestinian the question resolves itself. That seems to be the strategy. And if we can take Israeli politicians at their word, this seems to have been the strategy for the past 20 years at least.

> And if we can take Israeli politicians at their word, this seems to have been the strategy for the past 20 years at least.

Do you also take Palestinian leaders at their word? Because if so their strategy is to drive out Jews by whatever means necessary. None of them are talking about equal rights and representations, that's just not how their society works and they definitely don't want that together with Jews.

Mexico has better chances of winning against the US and driving out the Americans than Hamas has against Israel. Hamas has no advanced military capability.

Palestinians have over the years engaged in many good faith peace talks. Honored their side of many cease-fire agreements. And this is exactly what you would expect. After all, Palestinians stand to gain much more by a sustained peace than Israel does. The status quo (before Oct 7) was pretty great for Israel and terrible for the Palestinians. When actions, words, and incentives all point in the same direction I'm inclined to believe the words. Israel doesn't want a Palestinian state with state rights nor does it want millions of Palestinians with Israeli citizenship. Palestinians will gladly take any serious peace deal, even if that deal strongly favors Israeli interests, because the status quo is unbearable. But none of this matters because Israel has refused to engage in peace talks ever since Hamas got elected.

History teaches us that peace is possible between bitter enemies when both parties want peace and stand to gain by it. When one party desperately needs peace and the other party doesn't, there won't be peace.

> Mexico has better chances of winning against the US and driving out the Americans than Hamas has against Israel. Hamas has no advanced military capability.

I disagree. This isn't Hamas alone, Hamas is backed by Iran. Big proxy armies have been built by Iran and are surrounding Israel - mostly in Lebanon and Syria and now also Yemen. Hundreds of thousands of different kinds of rockets - many of them accurate with big warheads. As for moral support - significant parts of the Muslim world and the Western liberal elites are promoting and supporting the idea that Israel should be dismantled (The Muslims mostly see this done by force. The liberal left by sanctions, but are sympathetic to the idea of violent struggle because of 'oppression').

As for the chances of this working out - I don't think it's low at all. With a patient strategy like this it can eventually happen. They've been at it for around 100 years why can't they go on for another 100? But whatever I think about the chances, I'm positive most Palestinians themselves and the resistance axis supporting them are quite confident in their chances and feel religiously compelled to keep it up.

> After all, Palestinians stand to gain much more by a sustained peace than Israel does

This is a Western approach, not how Palestinians think. You either don't read what the Palestinians are saying or you don't believe them. When they say from the river to the sea - they mean it. It's a big part of their national and religious identity, not something they can give up for a small 1967 border state. Sure, they would have had better GDP and lives had they taken a 67 state with no occupation etc, but that would break their dreams and passions and identities and somewhat their religious beliefs. Those things are more important to them them than safety and GDP, as irrational as it may seem to you. I wish I was wrong about all this but nothing I've seen over the years led me to feel like I'm wrong.

The belief that “the other” is fundamentally unreasonable can be used to justify arbitrary amounts of violence. Lets not forget that Hamas is pretty unpopular in Gaza and that most people just want to live their lives and not see their children get blown up. This is not my biased western perspective.