Jeremy Rabkin on Israel and International Law

The Tikvah Podcast

Tikvah

Judaism, Politics, Religion & Spirituality, News

4.6 • 620 Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2019

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Those of us who care about the success and security of the Jewish state are sensitive to the many military threats Israel faces, from Syria in the north, Iran to the East, and Gaza to the South. But in recent years, some have also drawn our attention to the threat of what is often called “lawfare,” the use of the system of international law in order to damage and delegitimize Israel.

How does lawfare work? Is the threat to Israel as serious as some claim? And what can its use teach us about how friends of Israel ought to relate to the very idea of international law?

These are some of the questions George Mason University’s Jeremy Rabkin tackles in this podcast. Rabkin, author of the recent book Law Without Nations: Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States, makes the case that the threat of lawfare—while real—may not be as serious as some friends of Israel worry. And that while the Jewish state must be vigilant against those who abuse the international legal system for nefarious ends, it can be confident that the real-world practice of war and diplomacy matter far more than the efforts of activists seeking to delegitimize Israel's existence.

Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble.

This podcast was recorded in front of a live audience at the Tikvah Center in New York City.

Transcript

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0:00.0	When Israel's adversaries deploy terrorism and missiles to threaten the Jewish state,
0:12.9	images of the Iron Dome Missile Shield and IDF soldiers appear on screens throughout the world.
0:19.0	Less striking to the eye, but no less dangerous,
0:21.6	is the legal campaign to delegitimize Israel.
0:24.6	Sue Israelis, threaten Israeli institutions in court,
0:28.6	and undermine Israel in international organizations.
0:31.6	Welcome to the Tikva podcast.
0:33.6	I'm your host, Jonathan Silver.
0:35.6	The legal war against Israel and the Jews would seem to
0:39.9	have serious consequences for Israel's government, Israeli citizens, and for Jews throughout the
0:45.5	diaspora. So it would seem. But while my guest this week is fully alive to the actual threats
0:51.6	that lawfare poses to Israel, he also cautions us against
0:55.8	misdirecting our concern. The roots and justification for international law, the actual and
1:01.6	the merely perceived threats it poses to Israel, and whether or not friends of the Jewish
1:06.8	state are excessively worried about expressions of opinion that pretend to be, but in fact
1:12.8	are not legally binding, is the subject of this week's Tikva podcast. Joining me is Professor
1:18.9	Jeremy Rabkin of the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, the author of several
1:24.6	books, the latest of which, Law Without Nations, was published by Princeton University Press.
1:30.2	If you enjoy this conversation, you can subscribe to the Tikva podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, and Spotify,
1:36.4	and I hope you'll leave us a five-star review to help us grow this community of ideas.
1:41.3	I welcome your feedback on this or any of our other podcast episodes at
1:45.1	podcast at tikfafund.org. And of course, if you want to learn more about our work at
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