If truth is the first casualty of war, rationality may well be the second.

The appalling devastation in Gaza, much of it wrought by U.S.-supplied weapons, certainly seems to have driven many of Israel’s critics, including otherwise reasonable people, to thoughtless measures, staking out extreme and unsupportable positions that will do nothing to end the war.

One case in point is a bizarre federal class action lawsuit (Donnelly v. Thompson) recently filed in the Northern District of California, claiming that Reps. Mike Thompson (D-Calif.) and Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) had “exceeded the constitutional limitations on their tax and spend authority by voting to authorize the funding of the Israeli military.”

According to the complaint, the representatives’ votes violated “customary international law” and several U.S. statutes that prohibit military aid to countries that violate human rights, thus violating the plaintiffs’ self-declared constitutional right to have their taxes collected for “only lawful purposes.”

I do not doubt the earnestness of the lawyers who filed this case. But granting them all the sincerity in the world, it still appears that their abhorrence of Israel’s Gaza war has overwhelmed their legal judgment.

Their case is entirely without legal merit. Their clients lack standing to bring the case. They sued the wrong defendants. No court can grant the relief they have requested. Their claims are barred by a specific provision of the Constitution.

Given that it fails every test of validity, the case will surely be thrown out once a judge takes a glance at it, as should have been apparent to any attorney. And that raises a more disturbing possibility.

Recognizing the likely futility of the case itself, one of the many named plaintiffs

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