We have reached a state of mutual embarrassment in our relations that necessitates a pause. The issues between us: Israel's conduct of its wars, American Jewry's support for Israel and its wars, and most recently a strain of savage thought that Israel is unburdened by international law, mores and even millennia of Jewish ethical philosophy because Hamas was unburdened by them in the horrors perpetrated on Oct. 7. I summarize this ugly new thought as it was articulated by a Jewish friend and lawyer in text messages:
You have a right to retaliate but you have to do so thoughtfully--
June 20, me:
where did you get this? "you have a right to retaliate" there is no "right to retaliate" in domestic criminal law nor international law.
(It was clear to me that this was not his, my friend's thought, but that of someone else and I repeatedly asked him the source(s). I attached screenshots of the most general principles that distinguish retaliation and self-defense and which makes the former universally illegal and the latter legal, distinctions that he, like I, are intimately familiar with.)
June 20: My friend refused to "answer any more questions" regarding the source of this non-existent "right to retaliation" and concluded,
Self defense if that’s the only thing you can do I wipe my ass with international law
It means zero at that point to be (sic "me")
June 20: My friend refused to "answer any more questions" regarding the source of this non-existent "right to retaliation" and concluded,
Self defense if that’s the only thing you can do I wipe my ass with international law
It means zero at that point to be (sic "me")
