When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced earlier this week that the Trump administration would no longer recognize Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal, he displayed a keen understanding of the law’s relationship to politics, one that makes the blood of his liberal counterparts boil. “Arguments about who is right and wrong as a matter of international law will not bring peace,” he proclaimed. “Dwelling on legal positions [doesn’t] advance peace.”

For many liberals, law is the sine qua non, the be-all and end-all, of justice. Liberal criticism of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, for example, usually peaks at the mere concern over whether Israel sufficiently adheres to the major tenets of international law.

Pompeo’s comments signal a technical departure from his predecessor’s. In 2016, John Kerry declared Israel’s settlements to be “inconsistent with international law.” Similarly, during Israel’s sniper attacks on the Great March of Return in Gaza last year, five House Democrats implored Israeli soldiers to “exercise utmost restraint in the use of deadly force and to fully comply with international law.” Some liberal legal scholars have even argued that the Trump administration is trying to “kick the legs out from under the postwar international legal order” for recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. To achieve peace, according to this “flawed democracy” narrative, all Israel must do is better respect international law.