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.
I would argue they have as much right to defend themselves as the guy who breaks into your house, murders members of your family, boots others out, and forces you to live in a toilet, dependent on them to provide you with food, water and medication, and on top of that they get angry about any criticism; in this scenario as well, if you defend yourself, they call the cops and the cops beat you up. They have some half-assed reason for why they supposedly own your house (something about their war of independence great great great grandad having owned the land), but you also know they'd been talking about invading the people living down the street and doing the same to them. You go on the internet and you find out some losers from half a world away are also seriously saying the home invader does indeed have a right to the house and to defend themselves and to add grievous injury to injury they're also funding him getting new guns too while they call you a savage for not even trying to get along with your home invader, who by the way punches you in the face and shoots whichever of your kids you still have in the knees if you so much as look at them funny. They invite members of their own family over to live in your house, but your own family members can't come back, and if you leave you won't be allowed to come back either, and that's if they let you leave.
If any of this sounds ridiculous it's because anti-home invaderism is racism, never mind that the original home invader has literally stated that no no, we're actually doing a home invaderism and has expressed a hatred for his own race when they oppose the home invaderism.