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Source: https://www.jns.org/how-international-law-has-been-weaponized-against-israel/
How International Law Has Been Weaponized Against Israel
(JNS) Melanie Phillips - The UN Human Rights Office has issued a report detailing what it calls Israel's "systemic discrimination" against Palestinians in the disputed territories of Judea and Samaria, as well as eastern Jerusalem. It ignores the fact that every restriction on the Arabs living in the "West Bank" is imposed by Israel only to prevent the murderous terrorist attacks that the Arabs living there perpetrate against Israeli civilians almost every day. International law has become an overarching and unchallengeable political instrument to govern the world in the way the West tells itself it should be run. Yet international law didn't stop Russian President Vladimir Putin when he invaded Georgia, annexed Crimea and marched into Ukraine. It didn't stop Syria's former president, Bashar Assad, from butchering half a million of his fellow citizens, nor Iran's Islamic regime from waging a terrorist war on the West for the past half-century. A key reason why so many well-meaning people hate Israel is that they believe every word uttered by the humanitarian nexus of the UN, international courts and NGOs. Because international law has turned against Israel, the Jewish state is widely believed to stand for illegality and evil. Not only is this as false as it is revolting, but international law is itself built on sand. Certainly, the rule of law is essential to a civilized society. But that involves laws passed within the jurisdiction of a democratic nation and that are therefore rooted in the consent of the people. International law, rooted instead in agreements between states, is essentially politics by other means. As a result, it has become weaponized as "lawfare" by people with a malign agenda against Israel. International law isn't the pathway to a fairer and more civilized world. In its ferocious weaponization against Israel, it has been turned into the negation of justice and the legal instrument of evil. The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK.