I never felt I was presenting a moral framework based on legitimacy. You seem to be implying that just because I can’t label guerrilla fighters as a “legitimate government” I don’t think they have a moral right to resist?

Legitimacy and morality are completely separated to me. I think Trump is a perfect example of that. I accept he was elected as a legitimate leader, but he clearly has no moral justification for power and it is our moral duty to resist despite his “legitimacy”.

We must prioritize defending human rights before social constructs.

That’s why “legitimacy” breaks down here, legitimacy is a social construct we can only focus on in a collaborative environment when we’re not killing each other. It’s agreeing to international borders, boundaries, and non interference in each other’s governments. If we all start invading everyone then the construct we’ve built on a philosophy of peace time goes away which is why as you point out if it were a moral framework would be really flimsy.

Legitimacy as a moral judgement I think only works in a world where Israel is acting in good faith and actually wants to avoid war crimes and is held accountable for its crimes in a court of law.

Genocide is so much worse than illegitimate rulers so I’m really not interested in the legitimacy of Hamas as a question to begin with. Doesn’t seem important. I know they have a moral right to resist and whoever does the resisting isn’t going to be “legitimate” until after they’ve already won so I’m not gonna judge them for it.

Ideally let’s stop the genocide, let’s build back infrastructure, then we can hold elections and see who’s legitimate.