Senior ministers concerned about effects of Occupied Territories Bill.

Human empathy to mass suffering and genocide?

Nothing I have said could possibly be construed as a claim that the lives of Assad's victims don't really matter because Assade made no claim to be a democrat. If you have to resort to gross distortions like this in an attempt to refute criticisms of Netenyahu you are clearly in a difficult position, and I think you know it.

I'v already pointed out that the Assad regime was subjec to extensive sanctions and to exetnal military intervention; the Netenyahy regime has not been treated in the same way. That might explain why people are more vocal in calling for action against Israel; it's the complete inaction or even active support that they object to.There's a more plausible explanation, but perhaps it's not cynical enough for you?

Netenyahu's supporters are very fond of claiming that there is a double standard at work here. Perhaps there is, but not where they think. Should the Netenyahu regime face the kind of sanctions that other regimes often face if they commit war crimes outside their own territory? If not, why not?

Where in international law does it say that blockading the enemy's territory in wartime is a crime? 

The starvation of the civil population as a means to acheive war aims is absolutely a war crime — Geneva Convention Protocol I Article 54. Also Rome Statute Article 8(2)(b)(xxv). And this is a long-established principal of customary international law; it wasn't novel rule when it was included in the Geneva Convention or the Rome Statute.

Moreover, Israel clearly accepts that starvation is a war crime. As already pointed out, part of their stated rationale for establishing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is the hope that it will help to avoid accusations of war crimes. Which other war crime do you think they're afraid of being accused of, that they hope the establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation would provide a colourable defence for?

Seriously, you're in danger of adopting positions here that not even the Netenyahu junta has the effrontery to adopt. Starvation is a war crime. Pretending that it isn't won't be an effective way of providing support for Netenyahu; it just gives the impression that you can't find any credible arguments in his support.

Hamas is the government of Gaza and so has a duty of care to Gaza civilians - just like Hirohito had a duty of care to the Japanese public.

I think you are either under the impression that I support or excuse Hamas, or the impression that I think that, if Hamas's actions are unjustified, Israel's actions must be justified. Whichever it is, you are completely mistaken.

Was the US committing a crime by blockading Imperial Japan?

If their intent was to starve the civilian population of Japan, yes, they were.

Perhaps those who are calling for action against Israel don't understand the history of the two world wars.

Or — here's a radical thought — perhaps they do.

I'm not sure that your analysis is objective.

Tell me more! What have I said that is objectively incorrect?

(And, maybe, just maybe, consider the possibility that the person who is reluctant to accept that starvation is a war crime, and who thinks that, if the US did it it can't be a war crime, is the one whose analysis isn't entirely objective.)

There's no equivalence between the Israeli government, regardless of who the Israeli PM has been at any given time, and the Assad regime.

Ah, but I'm not the one who proposed such an equivalence. It's Netenyahu fanboys who suggested that people calling for action against Israel who hadn't previously called for action against Syria were guilty of double standards. The unstated but necessary premise in that argument is that the cases of Israel and Syria are equivalent.

So here we seem to have a point that you and I agree on — that particular argument is nonsense, since the two cases are not equivalent.

Did you actually read the article, PA? Olmert had already handed in his resignation as PM when he made this offer, and both sides knew that the plan would be immediately repudiated by the Israeli government that would follow. Olmert wanted the Palestinians to accept the plan without examination, presumably because examination would show that it wasn't a credible plan.

This wasn't a good faith, deliverable offer of a Palestinian state.

Even it were, so what? What would it's relevance to the present discussion be? You don't get to commit war crimes against a people with impunity on the grounds that they have been badly governed.

Olmert told the author of that article that it would've been "very smart" for Abbas to sign the deal so that, if a future Israeli PM tried to cancel it, Abbas could've told the world that the failure was Israel's fault.

Yes, Olmert said that. (He didn't say it to the author. If you read the article you'll see that the author is telling us what he saw on a television programme.) The article also quotes what Husseini, one of the Palestinian negotiators said, about the deal. You don't mention this. You seem to think that, if Olmert said it, his views must be take an authoritative, unarguable and objectively correct while, if Husseini said it, we needn't even notice what he said. But I'm the one you think doesn't have an objective take? Right.

Blockade doesn't necessarily mean starvation. Any starvation in Gaza has been caused by the hoarding of food by the Gazan government (namely Hamas). Given Oct 7th, it wouldn't be a big leap for Hamas to prevent civilians in its territory from getting adequate nutrition.

A total blockade of Gaza, which has near zero domestic food production, certainly does mean starvation. In the context of a total blockade, a claim that that any starvation has been caused by the hoarding of food by Hamas is one that even a Netenyahu apologist should be embarrassed to make. Do you think I'm an idiot?

There seems to be an inability to distinguish between the deliberate killing of civilians and the incidental wartime killing of civilians on the part of some observers.

Now there's a double-edged comment, if ever I saw one!

If the ICJ's ruling on the West Bank settlements was binding then it would not be advisory.

An advisory opinion is so-called because it doesn't include any order for its own implementation. In that sense it's not binding; it doesn't order any particular person to take any specific steps.

But that doesn't mean that it has no legal effect. it is authoritative. It declares what the law is and what outcomes the law has when applied to particular facts, and all the members of the UN are bound to accept that. So it's beyond question that Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories is unlawful, as are its creation of settlements there, and its exploitation of the area's natural resources.

In the domestic context, it would be similar to an Irish Supreme Court judgement ruling that a particular Act is unconstitutional. The court typically doesn't order the Oireachtas to repeal the Act, and it doesn't order Ministers or civil servants not to implement it; it just declares that it's invalid because it's repugnant to the Constitution, and it leave it up to the Oireachtas, Ministers, etc to act accordingly (which of course they do).

The ICJ has actually gone slightly further than that in its judgment; it has ruled that it is for the UN General Assembly and Security Council to determine how Israel's unlawful presence in the occupied territories is to be brought to an end, and it has ruled that that all states are obliged to cooperate with the non-recognition of the Israeli occupation of the occupied territories.

It has also ruled, significantly, that Israel's treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories "constitutes systemic discrimination based on, inter alia, race, religion or ethnic origin" in breach of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, and that it violates the human rights of Palestinians in various other ways.

Why is this signficant? Because, as far as EU member states are concerned it's not just a matter of the ICJ ruling. There's an additional dimension to this in the form of the EU-Israel association agreement, which provides that it is to be based on both sides on "respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement".

So, while the ICJ judgment doesn't oblige other states to take any specific steps, it does find authoritatively that Israel is violating the human rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories. And EU member states can't ignore the fact that, as a result, Israel is accountable for this under the EU/Israel agreement, because respect for human rights is essential to that agreement.