I’m very dissapointed with Episode 343: Feeney Files with Jessie McCrone. In an approx 10 minute rant starting at the approx 50 minute mark David Feeney says among other things “have bleached for international law of all of its meaning and power by talking about a fake genocide claim in Gaza, by talking about a fake famine in Gaza” and “let's not forget that all of those who manufactured these absurd and oversized claims against Israel can themselves take a small bow for having killed it” and “South Africa takes this spurious claim to a court stuffed full of UN appointees who loathe Israel”…
I’m mostly disappointed with Jess for sitting through the whole segment silent and Stephen who only contributed a fumbled an unresearched question, concluding the segment by saying “very good”… I’m reminded of the saying “The standard you walk past is the standard you accept”…. Please just stick to (Australian) Labour Politics..
The full transcript of the 10min rant:
David Feeney: “Well, I guess maybe apropos of that last conversation, I wanted to touch upon an issue that struck me with when the latest round of conflict in Iran began, and that was people rushing to talk about international law, because I have found this conversation in the pages of our newspapers and amongst television commentators, more often than not, deeply frustrating. I'm reminded of a remark that Alan Ginjal made in 2018 when he said, he said, the order we have known for the past 70 years has ended. It's not being challenged, it's not changing. It's over. The international order has been transforming now for some years, and when one reflects on international law, it's possible to say, well, international law did not protect Ukraine from invasion. International law did not protect demonstrators in Iran from being murdered by their own government. International law has not prevented nuclear proliferation by the Iranians and indeed by others. Utopian ideas around international law having a responsibility to protect, unfortunately, died in the war in Libya, a conflict where the Responsibility to Protect meant that the United Nations Security Council approved a no flow zone in Libya, but it was then felt by Russia and others that that was abused by the West to effect regime change against Gaddafi or to facilitate regime change against Gaddafi. And of course, this brings to light the fact that for a lot of people and for a lot of commentators, a war is only ever justified or morally virtuous if it is approved by the UN. And of course, no conflict will ever be approved by the UN if it can be and will be vetoed by one of the permanent members of the Security Council, and that obviously includes China and Russia. So those factors are enormously important when one looks at the landscape and thinks, gosh, why isn't why can't we just fall into the arms of international jurisprudence here and sort of take out some kind of injunction on the mullahs acquiring nuclear weapons? Why does it come to war? But there's another factor here too, and that is that in recent years, in my view, we have seen the language of international law weaponised, distorted and mutated by a progressive left over the war in Gaza to the point that they have bleached for international law of all of its meaning and power by talking about a fake genocide claim in Gaza, by talking about a fake famine in Gaza, by the UN having its institutional obsession with the State of Israel, the whole apparatus and language of international law has been crueled and so for the left and others to now pick it up and critique the war in Iran using the language of international law. They find themselves talking a language that has lost its power and lost its lure, because international law has been wrecked by its failings, institutional and systemic, and by its abuses, by the fact that it's been weaponised and politicized. International law is not seen to be and is not some kind of independent and neutral power that judges it is instead something that states have used to prosecute their causes and their arguments. And of course, when what brings that into sharp relief is the fact that when you there's talk about the rules of war, which seems like the rules of war only ever apply to the west, there's no marches in the street about Iran murdering 10s of 1000s of its own People when they demonstrate. There's no uproar across the west around the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the awful bombing of civilians that takes place day in day out across Ukraine, it seems that the rules of war are only applied to Western powers, and so we have this blundering philistine President Trump flouting the rules of war because and he's able to say, I think credibly, “I am not going to be constrained by a set of rules that apply to no one but me”. Why should the United States be constrained in how it wields its power when no other is we cluster munitions treaties apply to the United States and Western powers, but they're ignored completely by everyone else, and yet these sorts of treaties and Non Proliferation agreements remain sacred. So we live in an ugly world where the international legal system is, you know, it's not changing, it's not being challenged. It's over. We are now in a world where might is right, and that's and there's nothing to be celebrated in that. But as you look at as everyone looks at that and bemoans its reality, let's not forget that all of those who manufactured these absurd and oversized claims against Israel can themselves take a small bow for having killed it.”
Stephen Donnelly: “Follow up question to you on this David you might be following as close than I am I know that South Africa took Israel to the one of the international courts on the question of whether they were committing genocide, and that was earlier in the war, and the findings were at that time that they weren't. But there was almost like an issue or warning to Israel about their aggression into …”
