I’m sure that same argument has been made by people with whom you would violently disagree, to justify annexing lands and polities which you would fight to prevent. If the rules permit violating the rules because you feel you have a good argument for it, then there are no rules; and that’s what you’re advocating for, an absence to rules and a world where might makes right.
No, because it’s not simply an unsubstantiated opinion.
The Syrian government is actively murdering is own people, including with chemical weapons being used against civilian population centers.
Israel isn’t deploying chemical weapons against people in the Golan heights.
The land is better managed by Israel, because it better manages the welfare of those living there. Hell, at this point Israel has been running major humanitarian efforts like operation good neighbor, to provide food and medical care to actual syrians in the civil war.
I just don’t see the Israelis as the bad guys in this situation.
You may be right, but they don’t have to violate international law by annexing the Golan Heights to effectively protect the Syrians in the Golan Heights. That they are doing it suggests they’re doing it for reasons that have nothing to do with being good guys.
I think you might have missed my point above, which is that for a democracy annexing territory is in many ways much more onerous than occupying it.
Whatever your objections to annexing territory, occupying the territory on a permanent basis appears to have worse outcomes.
I’m not sure that that is intended to imply. It might be harder to kidnap the children rather than just rob them, but that doesn’t make the kidnappers virtuous or right for doing it.
But annexing it includes occupying it. If the annexation is unilateral and unwanted, then it has all the bad outcomes of occupation plus some more. And in any event, it is a violation of international law. So should we cheer it? Or deplore it?
Technically, yes, they do.
That’s how it is happening.
So before the annexation, the Syrians in the Golan Heights were not benefiting from the protection of the Israeli occupation?
Sorry, i misread what you had typed, thinking you were saying that they didn’t have the right to violate international law by sneezing the Golan heights.
But really, the reality remains the same.
“International law” isn’t a thing. Laws don’t exist outside of an enforcement framework.
You think Israel violated some law. Israel thinks they didn’t. Unless you are willing to fight them over it, you are left in a situation where you can agree to disagree, and that’s it.
And I’m not in the mood to go fight Israel so that some syrians can go back to being murdered by their own government.
Yes, that’s where we started. You believe there is no law but the law of force, and you’re not troubled when people of whom you approve employ it.
Yeah, that’s how the universe operates.
Yes, it’s like cancer, and no one should do anything about it.
The status quo is Israel have the Golan and Syria is in no condition to ask or do anything about it but Trump decides to raise this to focus away from domestic troubles.
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It’s more like if you tried to cure cancer by telling it that it was in violation of international law.
It’s more like international law is a tool to try to prevent or treat ‘cancer’, which in this case is a stand-in for wars of profit. In any event, you have a philosophy and you ought to embrace it.
International law isn’t a tool that does anything. It’s nothing. It doesn’t exist.
Congratulations. That 'International law doesn’t exist ’ is one of the dumbest statements in internet history.
Your opinion is as relevant as international law.
Unless someone with actual guns wants to enforce it, it means literally nothing.
Laws only exist within a framework that includes an enforcement arm. This is simply a fact. It’s not commentary on whether those ideals you want to express are good. It’s simply a statement that laws that don’t include a mechanism to punish you for breaking them, don’t exist in any meaningful sense.
And on the international level, there is no functional legal system which acts in the same way as real laws within a sovereign state. Because there is no “global government” which has the necessary power to function in that role.
Israel is a great example of this. You think they “broke international law”.
So what? It doesn’t matter what you think. You are entirely impotent.
That’s why it doesn’t exist.
“Might makes right.”
I know that you think that it’s some kind of terrible thing, but it’s not. It’s just how it is. It transcends morality.
Might is in fact required to to enforce morality codified into laws. That’s why we form society, and give power to our governments. That’s why we have police with guns, to enforce those laws.
When you break REAL laws, the police come to get you, you undergo a trial, and if found guilty, you go to jail. That’s what an ACTUAL legal system looks like.
Without the enforcement mechanism, it’s just talk. It’s irrelevant, because it doesn’t have any actual impact on the world.
Or hey, maybe I’m wrong, and the world police are going to show up and arrest Israel, and throw them in world jail.
You continue to miss the point. I’m not talking about the world’s morality. I’m talking about your morality.