Zoraptor

If true it will be interesting to see what if anything they give as the reason since Zaluzhny is meant to have political aspirations unlike most of the other people dismissed recently.

To be precise it's 12 out of more than 30000 UNRWA workers that were accused by Israel. Those pulling UNRWA funding are a who's who of Israel's enablers, making a coordinated effort to drown out the ICJ ruling and provide cover for Israel to continue its policies, nothing more or less. Just a shame they'll never be dragged before a court for it. Not quite Gaza but definitely related- no matter how much some would like to pretend it's wholly separate- 3 US soldiers killed near the At-Tanf military base. US seems to be insisting they were on the Jordanian side (as the legality of their presence in Syria is... tenuous at best under international law) and the Jordanians that they were on the Syrian side.

I think the more realistic take is that if Avowed does well then you get Avowed 2, if it does badly it's proof that the setting is bad and you don't get any more Pillars games at all. I really don't know how BG3 will effect the possibilities for other RPGs. Larian is in a near unique situation with its own very distinct style and prior success/ fanbase based largely on MP and intrinsic hype due to the D&D/ Baldur's Gate names. Obsidian can replicate some of those, but PoE3 wouldn't have a fraction of the hype that the Baldur's Gate name generated, and a lot lot less than Divinity/ Original Sin. You'd probably need an 'isometric' Fallout to replicate that hype.

The distinction between civilians and combatants is inherent. If you're a combatant you give up a lot of protections that civilians have and are under the aegis of a different set of rules for conduct and treatment (eg Geneva Conventions) If a Gazan woman picks up an AK and tries to shoot an IDF soldier they're 100% allowed and expected to shoot back. Essentially, you cannot genocide combatants as they are legitimate targets, only protected groups (civilians). It's a pretty damning judgement for Israel, but it's not one that forces (well, 'forces') them to stop fighting entirely, just be a lot more careful and limited.

Eh, tribunal is a specific type of court in this context- and I can provide a plethora of sources calling it a court too, if I need to. The second part is an addition, no mention of it having to be an 'international institution' originally; but it any case they were establishedby the UN same as the ICJ so shares the exact same legitimacy. Which is the highest there is under international law. That they were established to look at a specific set of cases makes them no less an international institution than a domestic court established to look at a subset of cases- eg Family Court or the Waitangi Tribunal here- is a domestic institution.

ICTR preceded that by a decade. ICTfY also brought genocide charges before the ICC did (indeed, the ICC was their successor entity). Most were not really what the ICJ was intended for though, since the ICJ is for inter country disputes, not internal matters. You might be able to haul, say, France up before the ICJ for contributing to the Rwandan Genocide by training the Interahamwe*, you couldn't haul Rwanda up though. Especially after the government that was doing the genocide fell; that's what the UNSC is for, In Theory. *no fan of France's conduct at all, but that'd be too long a bow even for me barring some major new revelations of direct complicity. They can order things that amount to a ceasefire without using the formal term for it though. They could have ordered a full cessation of the air campaign for example on the basis that it was manifestly indiscriminate/ disproportionate; it was just highly unlikely that they would. They can do pretty much anything even if no war is declared except for using certain Technical Terms that only exist between warring states. eg they ordered Russia to withdraw from Ukraine without a formal war being declared.

Ben-Gvir and Bezazel Smotirch probably feel personally attacked by the no incitement order. About as much as could reasonably have been expected given that a blanket ceasefire order was always unlikely, and a clear diplomatic loss for Israel. The US response (~no ceasefire order, no ruling of genocide [not going to happen in a preliminary ruling] and telling Hamas to release hostages --> it's an Israeli victory!) is far better than the Israeli tossing of toys out of cot even if it's so specific a take on the ruling as to be a functional lie. Unfortunately, as prior, it also gives a huge amount of wiggle room to Israel's supporters. Even the Israeli judge voted for two of the measures.

Preliminary measures will have no teeth anyway, since there's no enforcement mechanism. It would be politically embarrassing for someone like Rishi Sunak to keep selling weapons, maybe, but then Kair Starmer is barely less a fan of killing Gazan children than Sunak is. Politically embarrassing for Scholtz too, since he joined in the defence but ultimately I'd expect whatever wiggle room there is to be used to the fullest, and the press to largely go along with it. In the end the only party that really matters to Israel is the US, and Biden has already said that no matter what they will support Israel. Which of course leads to Israel blithely ignoring all the suggestions Blinken et al make... They could order Israel not to resume bombing even if they'd paused it. Though something as blanket as that seems... unlikely since there are legitimate reasons for some bombing. So the most likely phrasing would be something like 'indiscriminate bombing'/ 'disproportionate targeting of civilians' etc- and there's the wiggle room that was being looked for above. Far more likely would be orders to stop arbitrarily destroying homes (hard to feel much sympathy at all for the 21 Israeli soldiers blown up by their own mines while doing so a couple of days ago) and infrastructure, medical facilities, allow more food in and the like.

They have had ceasefires with no cross border incidents before, Hamas is able to enforce them if it wants to (and with acceptance that they don't have absolute control over, say, Islamic Jihad). Israel also has a... rather large number of Palestinians in administrative detention. Much like 'collateral damage' being a euphemism for killing civilians that is a euphemism for kidnapping people off the streets to be held indefinitely without charge or access to lawyers, and often subjected to torture as well. It's one of the reasons I dislike 'terrorism' as a term; a country can't commit it for the sole reason that countries have defined it as something only non state actors do. DGSE agents don't get to not be terrorists for blowing up boats here just because they work for France, Shin Bet don't get not be either just because they work for Israel. Seems a bit harsh that. Not sure even dementors deserve to be shut in with Bibi. ICJ, sure. ICC, lol. The ICC is a 30s Sicilian Court and the west is the Cosa Nostra. You might get some legitimate ruling when the Dons aren't involved, but never when they are.

ICJ judgements are binding (unless specified otherwise) but they're not enforceable. ie they don't have any way- short of the UNSC or similar- to enforce their decisions via a 'police force' equivalent. Non binding is similar practically, especially in these circumstances, but would not be enforced except voluntarily even if they had that 'police force' to do so. Plenty of other institutions rule on international crimes too, like the UNSC. They didn't need the ICJ to rule that Iraq invading Kuwait was illegal, for instance.

ICJ is going to announce any preliminary measures this week. Not a decision on the main case but on RSA's request for an injunction to stop Israel's attacks. Interesting statistic for the day, total number of deliberate and premeditated attacks on healthcare facilities with indiscriminate and inaccurate barrel bombs and other munitions during the Syrian Civil War over ~520 weeks (~364 active) that constitute a war crime and gross violation of international norms: 600. Total number of self defence actions with precision munitions on supposed medical facilities with (oh so very) clandestine military use in the Israel Gaza War that were 100% necessary and absolutely not war crimes, over ~14 weeks: 660. 30x the Israeli strikes on health facilities by time. Now I wonder about by population as well... 300x the rate you say? Thank goodness they're the most moral army in the world, moderated further by Joe Biden's influence and limited even further by the strident criticism in the free press, eh. Otherwise they might have been limited to Assad's rookie numbers.

Not going to stop until they start putting execs into prison. Otherwise, they'll keep running Boeing shambolically on a pure short term profit basis because there's not enough incentive/ consequences for them not to. Boeing has the perfect trifecta of prestige/ strategic industry, Too Big to Fail and its competitor not being able to come close to satisfy the whole market's demand (plus only one competitor, no 737 --> A320 monopoly). The wait time for a 737 or A320 is almost identical- 12 years. Shut the 737 down and someone switching to Airbus could expect delivery of their planes in, well, 2044.

The ultimate answer to that is that it still makes Valve money. Not like they have massive staffing or infrastructure costs- in absolute terms, sure they'd be large, but not on a per transaction basis. Indeed, the more transactions they have the lower the cost per transaction is and the cheaper they could sell at profitably (in theory). And Steam certainly has a lot of sales volume.

lol. There's a reason Pew isn't regarded all that highly any more. 24 selected countries; includes the US, doesn't include China. Includes 12/31 NATO countries- ie half the countries selected- but does include noted independent voices... uh, Australia, RoK, Japan and Israel as well. Not a single arab country, one muslim country (Indonesia), three quarters of the countries surveyed are literally literally in alliances with the US. Unsurprisingly, 15/16 most favourable countries to the US are... its allies. Not exactly a statistically independent selection, rather the opposite In some ways it's embarrassing they only managed 59% approval given the blatant stacking taking place.

Haha yes. Not just Tom Cooper, but David "City of Robotyne (pop74)" Axe relying on Cooper. Far, far more likely to be friendly fire. Not like either side has a particularly good record so far as that is concerned. (You can discount two Axe's of his possibilities out of hand for not having the range. The S-300 would literally have had to be driven through Russian lines to hit an A-50 over the Sea of Azov in most places and even at the closest point could barely hit the coast from the frontline. Seems plausible if you read wikipedia, but Ukraine only has up to 55R missiles, and that's 75km range. Pac-3 would have to be fired well within standard artillery range to hit just off the coast plus the damage to the IL-22 is clearly not from a hard kill (impact) system like a Pac-3 but from airburst/ proximity. So not that either. That only leaves Pac-2. Even there the A-50 out ranges even the Pac-2 twice over according to Axe's own figures, so is well able to 'see' northern Crimea yet remain our of range. The suggested scenario would at minimum have the Patriot within Tornado and Lancet range, and the Patriot is an... unwieldy system, for an ambush. This wouldn't be toodling a full system some tens of km from Kiev to fire at aircraft over Bryansk or whatever, it'd be moving it hundreds of km into Tornado and Lancet range on a hope. OTOH, S-200 would be a possibility. Ukraine has them and has been using them again, they have a lot more range than anything else they have and the right warhead. While they're also ancient, Syrian ones have shot down a F-16 and allegedly hit a F-35 in recent years; an A-50 would be an easy target compared to them)

Selling chips for Russian missiles might actually be a net positive if the Russians keep shooting down their own planes...

Already answered. If they want to demonstrate unfair treatment from the ICC there's no better way than showing that Israelis have impunity, and you do that by being very shouty and then having the ICC do nothing. They don't really expect Karim Khan to act against Bibi and friends. If they embarrass him into action more the good and maybe the ICC is worthwhile, if they don't, point proven.

No, it's not about the principle of genocide, as a crime. It's about the ICC vs ICJ and one of them being a kangaroo court. That makes any determination from the ICC suspect so far as RSA is concerned, not the principle itself. Not a difficult concept to grasp.

I mean, RSA was proven pretty right there. There have been nearly 400k deaths in the South Sudan civil war with ~3 million refugees, and rampant ethnic violence. And with Bashir gone in rump Sudan... well, ongoing civil war there too now. Of course, Salva Kiir is pro west- his trademark hat was originally given to him by GWBush- unlike al-Bashir so he can't by definition be committing genocide... Mostly though, just because you think the ICC is crap- and it is- it doesn't mean that you think the ICJ is crap. They're separate entities.

For the lolz, here's the submission (pdf, relevant part from p6) from amongst others, Britain and (extra especial lol approaching roflcopter territory) Germany to the ICJ re the Rohingya genocide to see what their opinion on genocide and how International Law should be applied. Choice quotes: hmm heh Ah, OK. They left out the obvious point of what makes for a genocide according to them though: being brown, and the west's enemy.

I don't think if I were Israel I'd be hanging everything on the narrow definition of 'intent to destroy'. Legal loves a good definition, but they also love a good precedent to clarify those definitions. In this case, "in whole or in part". Anyone care to guess how many people it took for Karim Khan to cite II(e) of the Genocide Convention vs Putin? 'Hundreds' of children, out of a population of 40 million (theoretical). If that's the new threshold 17000 dead women and children out of 2.2 million will certainly pass muster. That's a factor of, hmm, 680, roughly, on the Palestinian side of the ledger. And let's be frank here, at least any children taken by Russia are, well, still alive... Now, of course that's ICC rather than ICJ, but ICC is still an instrument of International Law, and recognised as such by the UN same as the ICJ, even if not officially a UN court. Of course, I mostly just like the possibility of Karim's Khan and Britain's flagrant misuse of the ICC coming back to haunt them. Always nice to see someone corrupt hoist by their own Picard after all. Intent to destroy is pretty much the sole obstacle otherwise. Take II(c) for example, with its clarification from the ICC ('s predecessor for Rwanda): "subjecting a group of people to a subsistence diet, systematic expulsion from homes and the reduction of essential medical services below minimum requirement". Sounds rather like Israel has been using that as a guideline, eh?

The main problem with any 'they let it happen' theories is that we don't really know the circumstantial context. If Hamas were actively obfuscating things you'd get complacency setting in from a series of (deliberate) false alarms. We don't know how often Egyptian intelligence warns Israel of stuff that doesn't eventuate, we don't know if Hamas ran a bunch of fake comms spikes or whether they'd regularly switch up drills or scout out the border fence. We only know all those things happened before October 7. I find it pretty hard to believe that Netanyahu knew beforehand. Don't get me wrong: he's clearly 100% capable of letting his own people die to further his own ends, especially those who probably wouldn't be voting for him anyway. On October 6th he didn't really need to do anything like that though, certainly nothing to justify the risk of things going wrong. Now, he's politically dead he just hasn't stopped breathing yet. That more than anything is why he's desperate to keep the fighting going for months or longer- the precedent was set 50 years almost to the day earlier by Golda Meir. The circumstances under which he would have known beforehand would have been specific and require a hefty dose of collusion from multiple agencies, not all of which are friendly to him.

Estonian is closer than Hungarian/ Magyar to Finnish/ Suomi by a decent margin as are a few others. (They use a lot of the same tools for language relationships as they use for population/ species DNA relationships eg phylo'gene'tic wheels. Probably should be something like 'phylomemetic wheel' for linguistics...)

RSA doesn't think the ICC will go after Bibi et al for war crimes in Palestine though. Their noise isn't about actually getting the ICC to do its job- they don't expect that at all- so much as making it very, very obvious that it isn't, and is selectively prosecuting. If they can establish that the ICC is effectively- and personally, it's pretty indisputable at this point that the word is applicable - corrupt/ not fit for purpose then they can withdraw from it without the courts intervening as they did when they tried it over the Putin ruling. The best way to show that is to establish and highlight a pattern of inconsistency. Fortunately for them Karim Khan- a veritable prosecutorial Usain Bolt vs Putin- suddenly became Eric the Eel when it's Netanyahu and pals involved.

That would probably have been (in the entirely hypothetical situation of actual support for Amir instead of the historical rhetorical scene setting and claims of treason etc against Rabin; then again, Itamar "Baruch Goldstein" ben-Gvir exists...) Ariel Sharon rather than Netanyahu. At that point Bibi was only really well known because of his brother, who died at Entebbe, iirc, hence the classic Bibi targeting insult of the wrong brother dying. It was also before he and his wife went on their massive payola spree and he didn't have to be PM to avoid being in jail. Now, he'd do pretty much anything to retain power though. He'd probably start by arresting all the Arab MK members or similar rather than trying to assassinate Yair Lapid or whatever though. I doubt anyone could be charged retroactively with genocide denial. If it wasn't designated one at the time you said it you should be safe. Could be (from what I hear is, but with all the obvious provisos applying) a stupidly written law, but those are usually written that way to allow for targeted prosecutions of people you don't like, and the German Government isn't likely to target itself. Deliberately, at least, given the upsurge in interest in events in Namibia in 1908 backing Israel may have been stupid for reasons other than simple optics. A ruling might stop weapon shipments and overt political support but, well, the west isn't exactly great with honouring court judgements that go against them. Ask Mauritius when they're getting Diego Garcia back despite the 13-1 (the US judge, ho hum, drones gotta drone) ICJ ruling and the supplemental 116-6 (lol) UNGA vote.