For anyone watching the Democratic Party leadership agonize over its support for Israel’s war making, it can be easy to forget a very basic fact about that war making that isn’t brought up often by major elected officials or mainstream media: it’s illegal. The International Court of Justice ruled on July 19 that Israel’s occupation of Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank is illegal. It’s only the latest in numerous similar recent and historic rulings, as legal scholar Heidi Matthews explains in an interview with Doug Henwood on his Jacobin Radio show, Behind the News. Matthews is an assistant professor at Osgoode Hall Law School at York University and an expert in international criminal law and the law of war.

You can listen to the conversation, which took place before the Democratic National Convention, in full here. It has been edited for length and clarity.