Author Archives: Gillian Mosely

There’s been a lot of noise recently about applying international law. What exactly does this mean? Statutes on human rights were formalised as international law following the atrocities committed during the Holocaust in which at least twelve million were killed, six million of them Jews.

But over the years these laws have seemingly been applied indiscriminately with Western powers left off the hook time and again. Questions around British and American actions in places like Iraq linger, but in recent years the heat has been turned up. Israel, traditional ally to many Western powers, has been the subject of case after case brought to the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice. Judgements to date include a decision that Israeli occupation of the West Bank is illegal under international law, and Israel has been warned that accusations of genocide in Gaza are plausible and the ICC is adjudicating this case.

As Israel’s allies defend the actions of the Israeli government, international law is again being scrutinised. What’s it for? I’d have hoped that would be obvious – it’s designed to prevent world atrocities and to adjudicate a world in  which we can all thrive, but this only works if everybody and every country are held to the same standards and here lies the problem. Rather than admit wrongdoing, countries like the US and Israel are doing their best to undermine the validity of international law by decrying the international courts. Shocking when you consider that the US led in creating statutes on human rights because of what had happened to victims of the Nazi regime, many of whom migrated to Palestine then Israel.

So as a Jew, descended from 1200+ years of famous Rabbis and Jewish community leaders, including a number of Britain’s earliest chief rabbis, I was particularly driven to find out how we have arrived at this juncture. Pew Research did a poll in Spring 2024 which revealed that 73% of Jewish Israelis felt Israel’s response to October 7th was proportionate or not strong enough. By then tens of thousands of Gazan civilians had died. As a Jew and a filmmaker I wanted to find out where this popular opinion had come from. I went to Israel to film with the hypothesis that the results of this poll were a combination of unresolved Jewish trauma, and current-day Israeli politics. What I found gave me sleepless nights.