In the past, we've referred to the practice of international law - especially in the Israeli context - as a kind of fetish. What we mean is that things that are supposed to be the result of long, legitimate processes (genuine trust leading to a treaty, objective analysis leading to a court decision, etc) come to stand in for the processes themselves. So when the 'anti-racism' conference in Durban becomes an anti-Semitic hatefest, complete with pamphlets based on the Protocols, most of the world still acts as if it is a legitimate gathering - because, well, Durban was an international conference and international conferences are definitionally legitimate. And when anti-Semitic sycophants of despots are hand-picked to become judges in the International Court of Justice and go on to level anti-Israel decisions, most of the world acts as if those decisions are the result of legitimate disputation - because, well, the ICJ is an international court and international courts are definitionally legitimate. Instead of genuine dialogue and the rule of law, we get what those things would normally result in - an international meeting or a court decision. While dialogue and the rule of law might result in conferences and court decisions, not all conferences and court decisions are not always the result of dialogue and the rule of law - but most of the world acts as if they are.
This dynamic was particularly obvious during the Oslo process: the Palestinians regularly violated the Oslo process, but Israel was supposed to act as if the existence of a treaty implied everything that comes with one - commitment to its obligations, a basic amount of good faith, etc. That perverse kind of double-think - knowing that the Palestinians are violating their obligations but believing that they're not - continues up today up to the highest levels of international diplomacy. So the US State Department can place repeated and inordinate pressure on Israel to let Hamas run in the coming Palestinian elections, even though Hamas is obviously prohibited from running by the Oslo Accords. And Egypt can commit in the Camp David Accords to guaranteeing Israel's security while simultaneously allowing Palestinians to acquire - according to this week's figures - 90% of the bombs and missiles fired at Israeli civilians. But if Israel even hints at violating any of their many vague treaty obligations (for instance, reoccupying Palestinian hotbeds of Palestinian terrorism), the international community screeches about Israel being an outlaw state.