Hague schmague

That was the concise two-word rejoinder to the interim ICJ report from Israel’s Minister for National Security, Itamar Ben-Gvir. Anyone inclined to optimism needs to spend a few minutes acquainting themselves with Ben-Gvir’s political history and track record of egregiously racist rhetoric. The sad truth is that he has, more than anyone, brought into the mainstream the beliefs of what just a few years ago would have been considered an extremist fringe of religious nutters. The rulings of the ICJ mean nothing to people who answer to a higher power. No less a jurist than The Almighty ordered the Israelites to extinguish the “seed of Amalek” 3,000 years ago, so fuck the ICJ. Ben-Gvir and his ilk, having been given a taste of power in Netanyahu’s cabinet, will not easily relinquish it.