The world court ruling against Israel’s apartheid wall is, as Samer Elatrash describes, a good ruling. By now, people have pointed out that the World Court’s moral suasion didn’t count for much when it ruled against the US for its terrorist war against Nicaragua in the 1980s.
You will know that something has changed in the world when a bombing that kills an Israeli soldier, as one did today, isn’t presented as ‘proof’ that the wall needs to exist, as opposed to, say, proof that the wall doesn’t provide security (whereas a political solution that didn’t involve murdering and starving Palestinians might). When Israel killed 4 people in Gaza yesterday with a missile attack the media, when it presented it at all, presented it as ‘reprisal’ or ‘attacks on militants’. Today’s bombing in Israel, however, was uncaused, or just ‘proof’ that Israel needs to ignore the World Court ruling. There are very few parts of the world that ‘matter’, after all — the media opinion-makers, the US elite, some parts of the public — and they are all willing to help Israel ignore the world, so long as there aren’t political forces capable of enforcing the world’s, or in this case the world court’s, opinion.
