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.

Political psychologist Daniel Bar-Tal, eminence gris in his field, talked me through what he described as ‘The Culture of Conflict’ in which history and education were optimised for militarisation. Media analyst Ayala Panievsky described the results of decades of a dedicated strategic push by the settler movement to dominate Israeli politics and the media, and Rabbi Avi Dabush discussed the clash in Israel between liberal Westernised Jewish values and the nationalism of religious Zionism. Other interviewees filled in gaps and people in the streets provided popular opinion. The result was my film Planet Israel, which is just winding down its UK cinema release and will now be open for community and educational screenings.

I no longer practice Judaism, so I surprised myself by coming away feeling angry on behalf of my ancestors who have kept Jews and Judaism safe for over a thousand years and across at least three continents. How could we have come to a place where militaristic nationalism seems to have over-ridden the moral pillar that to me lies at the heart of Judaism? I see this as an existential race to save the values of Judaism against the type of vandalism that Judaism has already seen off several times in its history (eg. the Sicarii movement). But it’s also a clarion cry to the wider world.

It is now even more urgent than ever that our system of international law is underpinned, and given the power to ensure that these laws are implemented and that everyone is equal under these laws. In order to do this, we need to do the unthinkable and re-assess our allies, not on the basis of whether they are traditional or convenient bedfellows, or a necessity under realpolitik, but on whether their values are compatible with our own. Too many of us are feeling the foundations of our democracies crumbling, but applying one rule for everybody will surely improve this.

* Gillian Mosely is a multi-award-winning documentary maker and is descended from early leading British rabbis including Haham Raphael Meldola and David Aaron De Sola. Her new film Planet Israel will soon be available for community and education screenings via www.planetisrael.co.uk. She is a member of the Lib Dems in Camden.