The Disastrous Relationship Between Israel, Palestinians and the U.N.

Ezra Klein Show

The international legal system was created to prevent the atrocities of World War II from happening again. The United Nations partitioned historic Palestine to create the states of Israel and Palestine, but also left Palestinians with decades of false promises. The war in Gaza — and countless other conflicts, including those in Syria, Yemen and Ethiopia — shows how little power the U.N. and international law have to protect civilians in wartime. So what is international law actually for?

Aslı Ü. Bâli is a professor at Yale Law School who specializes in international and comparative law. “The fact that people break the law and sometimes get away with it doesn’t mean the law doesn’t exist and doesn’t have force,” she argues.

In this conversation, Bâli traces the gap between how international law is written on paper and the realpolitik of how countries decide to follow it, the U.N.’s unique role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from its very beginning, how the laws of war have failed Gazans but may be starting to change the conflict’s course, and more.

Mentioned:

“With Schools in Ruins, Education in Gaza Will Be Hobbled for Years” by Liam Stack and Bilal Shbair

Book Recommendations:

Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law by Antony Anghie

Justice for Some by Noura Erakat

Worldmaking After Empire by Adom Getachew

The Constitutional Bind by Aziz Rana

in ezrakleinby dwaxe

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sharkmenu

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Edit: please continue to give me your delicious, delicious downvotes for the crime of . . . defending international law.

I don't get the hate.

She's not a pundit or a politician. She's not providing her personal opinion on who she likes the most or whether she understands why everyone did what they did. She's a legal scholar describing international legal norms and providing reasonable answers to legal questions. You can criticize and disagree with international law--and make no mistake, America totally disagrees with international legal norms--or the conclusions it reaches. But this is all pretty measured and standard.

She clearly acknowledges that Hamas violated international law on October 7 and continues to commit war crimes by indiscriminately firing rockets at Israel. She also acknowledges the legitimacy of an Israeli military response and describes responses consistent with international law. She has no problem with decapitating Hama leadership.

But she rightly criticizes the use of virtually unrestrained Israeli force, including indiscriminate bombing and denial of humanitarian aide, as violating the standard military ethics considerations--proportionality, jus ad bellum, etc. And that is 100% legitimate and correct. Hamas committed an atrocious war crime. Kill the leaders responsible and the perpetrators. That's fine. But nothing justifies destroying a civilian population, even if it is just collateral damage. The US isn't known for caring about international law, but even we didn't reduce most Afghan schools to rubble and starve its entire population. And the Allies didn't level all of the Third Reich or kill every Nazi soldier.

I think it would have been worth acknowledging that yeah, Gaza's extreme population density frustrates achieving legitimate Israeli military goals while strictly adhering to international law and yes, Israel draws disproportionate heat because antisemitism is real. But she's being asked about what the law is and whether it is being violated. And she'd be absolutely misrepresenting international law if she didn't discuss the enormously disproportionate Israeli response.

As to the Russia/Israel comparison, she acknowledges Russia's violations of international law but points out that Russia's stated goal isn't, say, destroying Zelensky's Servant of the People party or annihilating every member of the Ukrainian military. It's a little cramped to focus so intently on what the countries are expressly saying instead of what they are doing, but I understand her approach and she's factually correct on this. It also doesn't exonerate the Russian invasion, nor does she claim as much.

2000TWLV

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She's a really biased legal scholar.