Israel 'quietly' adopting Levy Report to legalize outposts

Kindly stop moving the goalposts.

WTF man. It really seems that now you are being argumentative merely for the sake of it.

I just agreed with and restated your own original conclusion, having already apologised previously for my reply to the single comment of yours I did misinterpret. Let me just quickly quote you back to yourself, simply to make sure you recall the context for this conversation, shall I:

Politically motivated blanket statements are neither accurate nor helpful.

Hmmm, that's what I just said. It doesn't look like I moved the goalposts too far yet, does it?

Moving on, the OP article is about the Levy report - it is demonstrably exactly what we are talking about. Again, how am I moving the goalposts by talking about it? (If you're having trouble with the context of this conversation and need a reminder of the pitch we're playing on, to carry on with the goalpost analogy if I may, just click the link at the top of the page please, as I'm not going to quote the entire OP back for you, sorry.)

Maybe you think I've "moved the goalposts" because this thread has somehow existed in isolation and never touched on the Levy Report? OK, so let's take a look at your own OP ITT. You originally replied to (explicitly acknowledging the truth of) the following comment:

The Levy Report relies on a sui generis interpretation of international law, which is just a really bad strategy. The ICJ has issued advisory opinions regarding the settlements, as has the UN fucking Security Council. No one is gonna buy this report, no one.

This is delusion-tier legal briefing.

with:

Perhaps, but the ICJ blanket interpretation of the issue is at least equally ludicrous.

So, you brought the ICJ up in the first place. Again, how am I moving the goalposts? If anything, I could counter that you are in fact the mover of goalposts, if anyone is.

By trying to reduce the conversation down to the single point you have fixated upon, you are conveniently discarding all the context and the rest of the thread. Conversations are threaded for a reason - so comments don't just pile up in unrelated heaps, but can rather be followed from a beginning to the end. Ignoring the beginning, then using an accusation of "moving the goalposts" is in and of itself doing exactly what you just accused me of! That scarcely seems sporting now, does it? In fact, it seems a lot like wilfully disingenuous hypocrisy, if anything...

Unfortunately for your argument, which is perfectly formed in isolation, conversations are a game of two (or more) participants. Referring back to the topic of the conversation is scarcely moving anything, let alone the bloody goalposts.

I've seen this type of approach before, and to me it always feels like it's indicative of a clear awareness that the argument being put forward is not strong enough to survive any examination or analysis that takes merely its own context even into consideration. It rates up there with tedious, trite arguments that rely on semantics - such as the Israeli court advisory that quibbles over exactly what "forced population transfer" means (as mentioned above) to try to shoehorn some semblance of legality into the justification for the settlements it is intended, but clearly fails, to provide.

(As a brief aside, refusing to "let others talk" in a virtual sense by disallowing their active participation in conversation is also perfectly childish, IMO.)

Finally, referring to your final point:

Once such rulings/advisories are discounted, one finds that there does not exists a legally valid ruling that determines that the settlements are illegal.

This may well be true; however, the same is equally true - if not more so, due to the fact of the GC's blanket ban of settling occupied territories making the settlements a priori illegal in the absence of a positive ruling that they are not - regarding the settlements' illegality. Israel cannot settle questions of international law unilaterally. (Hint: the reason is contained within the very phrase "international law"). I still:

think you nailed it when you said politically motivated blanket statements won't cut it on this issue - neither side will accept them. It needs to be dealt with by negotiation or a binding legal process.

Your subsequent response - both with regards to its actual argument and its manifest argumentativeness - merely reinforces my (well, yours too) previous conclusion.

/r/worldnews Thread Parent Link - israelnationalnews.com