Unless and until someone identifies a way to make that region stable and anything other than a clustermuck, the less the United States exposes itself to that toxicity, the better.

I continue to believe the most sensible, cost-effective, humane and moral long-term approach might be to offer the Israelis a way out of there. It certainly seems better than the current trajectory, which seems unlikely to be sustainable in the long term.

I’m not sure what ‘medieval law’ we are talking here. Feudal law, for instance, was a complex institution of interlocking obligation. Self interest alone required lords not to be total tyrants to their vassals and serfs. The church also put forth certain limits. Of course, like gang warfare on the streets these days, there were limits to control. But, that would not be a matter of ‘law’ as such.

Anyway, pointing to some forsaken place is not the best way to determine the state of ‘law’ in general. If so, we can deem domestic law in this country “primitive,” particularly in the not so distant past.

If Posner consistently wants to use “primitive” that would be a different matter.

Joe: International law has been around for centuries as I recall. It in fact goes back to ancient times in some respects. How “primitive” is it really?

For the folks in the neighborhoods Hezbollah has occupied international law is about as primitive as medieval law, where the folks who were armed could tell you to do whatever they wanted, and you had the choice to obey or die.

I won’t pre-judge it but (have you read Andy Sullivan?) the people who wrote it can’t really be trusted so (implied) why should I bother? He then puts forth the HRC just whip Israel sentiment of some around here, though darn if it repeatedly has been shown to be false.

Oh, it also puts forth “bland and uninformative periodic reviews of the human rights practices” … bland and uninformative to whom?

Why should I take this guy seriously?

BTW …

how does being upset that a resolution, which often is a statement of purpose or something that spells out the function of something, on wrongdoing in Gaza that does not reference the Hamas become “some issue that had zero to do with the report itself”

Zero? It has just a tad to do with it, doesn’t it? This very post underlines how worries about bias leads to people not taking certain things seriously.
International law needs institutions if it’s to get beyond its primitive state,

International law has been around for centuries as I recall. It in fact goes back to ancient times in some respects. How “primitive” is it really?

Again, why should I take this guy seriously?

ArthurKirkland:
Was that the day Israel used cluster bombs?

“Cluster bombs” in themselves do not violate the Geneva Conventions or the traditional laws of war (which is why crusaders are trying, without significant success, to “ban” their use in a separate treaty).

Using them in Lebanon against militarized targets likewise is not a violation of the Conventions or the laws of war.

Given that Hezbollah militarized entire neighborhoods and “civilian areas” precisely to cause the sort of faux-war-crime you’re suggesting here, I’m not seeing the problem with Israel’s actions in response.

See, when you use civilians as a defense (or as an offense, by attacking knowing that the counterattack will harm them and aid your cause in public relations) you break the laws of war and violate the Conventions, thus stripping yourself of their protection – and unlike the professional worrying class of NGO employees I don’t see using BLU-63s on a militarized target as automatically criminal. (Despite what Wikipedia’s quotes suggest, an u-ndetonated BLU-63 munition is not “basically a land mine”, since it’s spin-armed. Merely touching it or stepping on it is staggeringly unlikely to set it off.)

The idea here is that if doing so did not strip you of their protection and open you to counterattack without regard for their niceties, nobody would ever obey the Conventions because it would be done entirely asymmetrically and nobody would be willing to pay the high price of “playing nice” for nothing in return.

Thus Hezbollah stations combatants in civilian buildings or areas, and even attacks from them… and you condemn Israel for war crimes and “breaking the Geneva Conventions” when fighting back, because civilians are in the area?

Congratulations – you have successfully done your part to undermine the Conventions and the laws of war by selectively ignoring their violation, such that any entity that attempted to obey them to your satisfaction would find itself hamstrung by an opponent you happily ignore violating them … and at a far more fundamental level, using civilians willfully as shields or propaganda victims.

If you ever wonder why shrill complaints about “war crimes” are laughed at in such contexts, well… now you know.

ArthurKirkland: Gargantuan volumes of American assistance — from dollars to weapons technology (gifted, sold or stolen), and from guarantees to blood — probably should come with strings attached.

Does the same standard apply to those who are arming the Palestinian terrorists? And by terrorists I mean those who kill innocent civilians, rather than those who attack the (arguably) legitimate targets of the IDF.

Or is this another “America shouldn’t do X because I said so” argument?

One day this might cause an IDF commander to decide that it’s not worth endangering himself or his troops to follow the Geneva conventions

Was that the day Israel used cluster bombs?

Gargantuan volumes of American assistance — from dollars to weapons technology (gifted, sold or stolen), and from guarantees to blood — probably should come with strings attached.

Convenient isn’t it? Enables them to avoid endorsing a severely flawed but popular report on procedural grounds

Wait. They abstained from adopting a *report* because they were not happy about some wording in the adoption resolution? I.e., about some issue that had zero to do with the report itself?

States know that no matter how much it attempts to limit civilian casualties, any high profile military action that Israel takes will be condemned as a war crime.

One day this might cause an IDF commander to decide that it’s not worth endangering himself or his troops to follow the Geneva conventions since he will be condemned no matter what he does.

And we know full well that such activities by the UN embolden Hamas, Hezbollah and their Iranian/Syrian sponsors because not only do their actions terrorize Israelis but any Israeli response wins international approbrium.