This is the typical throwaway line used by liberals when it's pointed out that Israel should stop doing war crimes, but I'm not sure what it's trying to convey.
Rights are always a tricky abstraction, doubly so at the international level, so I'm not sure what asserting the existence of some right is supposed to do. Israel obviously has the capability to defend itself1, so what good is asserting some intangible right to do so? Are they actually saying "We should not stop Israel from doing what it wants to defend itself"? I imagine even they would object to Israel use of sarin or nuclear weapons, so I don't think that's what they mean. Is it "Israel should be given wide but not unlimited latitude by the US to respond as it sees fit"? Cause if that's what they mean, the easy answer is "not with our tax dollars".
Anyway this just seems like one of those empty pat expressions used during arguments I hate.
- When they aren't busy doing racialist dismissiveness of Palestinian military capability.
it means they buy into inaccurate biblical narratives about history, fully believe that white brooklyn jews are the original and exclusive indigenous people to the region, and see israel as the small bean anti-colonial indigenous resistance fighting for its survival against hordes of inhuman antisemitic barbarians on all sides.
It's another case of white, European colonists committing genocide against an indigenous population.
20 years from now, it'll all be "oh how awful" and they'll make Dances with Wolves style sad movies about it.