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Source: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/international-court-of-justice-genocide-definition-israel-7a92abd5
If the International Court of Justice Lowers the Threshold for Genocide to Smear Israel, It Will Backfire
(Wall Street Journal) Editorial - While the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutes individuals, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) adjudicates disputes between states. For each court, the temptation has been to expand its authority to pile on Israel. The ICJ is looking to use the case of Myanmar's attacks on the Rohingya minority to redefine genocide in preparation for South Africa v. Israel. In Gaza, where Hamas built 400 miles of tunnels beneath cities, taxed and stole aid, and did everything to endanger its own civilians, genocide is far from the only reasonable inference from the war's casualties. The more reasonable inference is that Israel fought a defensive war against Hamas in the most difficult urban conditions ever seen, a war it stopped when Hamas released the hostages. "Lowering the genocide threshold would transform genocide from a narrowly defined legal crime into an expansive vehicle for litigating the conduct of states at war," said Andres Munoz-Mosquera, chief legal adviser to the NATO Supreme Allied Commander, 2014-25. "A new and malleable standard could become a precedent through which virtually any military campaign involving substantial civilian casualties is recast as a genocide claim." He sees it being used by dictatorships and rogue states to handcuff Western democracies.