From Snowflakes to Snakes

Everyone seems to want to get into the act when it comes to crippling Israel in its efforts to defeat Hamas. They all seem to think they are experts on warfare and genocide, and that compassion is the most important virtue when Hamas is involved. Now a lawsuit has been filed to try to stop the U.S. from shipping arms to Israel:

A group of Northern California residents has filed a class-action lawsuit against their congressional representatives, Democrats Mike Thompson and Jared Huffman, accusing them of causing harm to local communities and to Palestinians in Gaza by voting to send billions in US military aid to Israel. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court, claims the lawmakers caused ‘moral and emotional/psychic injury’ to taxpayers by voting for aid that, the plaintiffs allege, contributes to genocide in Gaza. Both Israel and the Biden administration reject that Israel is committing genocide in its war against Hamas in Gaza.

Where else could this possibly happen than in radical California? And only Californians would protest that they have been caused “moral and emotional/psychic injury” due to the U.S. efforts to help Israel fight for its very existence. I guess that the moral and psychic injury that the Israelis sustained on October 7 doesn’t count.

And the group that sued described the misery they have experienced as the Israelis were shipped arms:

The Bay Area case seeks to bar Thompson and Huffman from approving future military aid to Israel and demands damages for the emotional distress caused by war, including "uncontrollable weeping, inability to sleep, distractions from work, despair for the future of their children and humanity."

Seriously? I think they were just a little lacking in hyperbole, don’t you?

Another lawsuit was filed that tried the same tactic, and failed but for incorrect reasons:

In a ruling in January, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White of Oakland said there was strong evidence that Israel’s siege in Gaza ‘is intended to eradicate a whole people and therefore plausibly falls within the international prohibition against genocide.’ But White said that foreign policy is ‘constitutionally committed to the political branches of government’ and courts have neither the competence nor the authority to intervene. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld his ruling in July.

I suspect that Judge White knows something about the role of the courts, but he clearly knows nothing about the rules of genocide, and that Israel is not committing it. Thus, in this new suit, genocide is front and center.

But perhaps the most bizarre aspect of this new suit came from one of the 21 plaintiffs:

The lawsuit’s plaintiffs include Norman Solomon, a veteran journalist and political commentator who lives in Huffman’s district. Solomon said at Thursday’s press conference that Huffman has ‘repeatedly said he is helping to ship military aid to Israel in part because he opposes antisemitism. As a Jewish American I find that rationale disgusting.’

Excuse me? Mr. Solomon is one of those naïve Jews who can’t see anti-Semitism when it hits him in the face. Just what is he saying? What is disgusting about a person claiming he wants to send funds to Israel because he opposes anti-Semitism?

I suggest that Mr. Solomon and his co-plaintiffs take a closer look at their own motives in trying to hamstring the Israelis who just happen to be Jews.

Their motives may not be so pure.

[Originally published at American Thinker, Dec. 26, 2024, under the title “Attacking Israel in the Courts"]