So, the International Criminal Court has charged Israel with committing crimes against humanity.

International court! Wow. Sounds like global damnation from a wannabe global moral authority, doesn't it?

Of course. That's the propaganda slant. Remember the World Health Organization was bought off by China, and the WHO lied about the COVID-19 pandemic's origins -- to the detriment of all.

Sane humans deserve better than bought lies sold as moral outrage.

The World Court of Informed Human Opinion (dub it the WCIHO) doesn't exist as a formal institution, but by damn it should.

WCIHO humans, suspend judgment. Let me examine the ICC's fatuous charge.

Begin with this insight, one so obvious even the benighted Biden administration managed to give it genuine second thought: Hamas' use of so-called human shields -- that is, human hostages positioned between Hamas terrorist murderers and Israeli weapons -- is a crime.

Writing as someone who has analyzed real-world air and artillery targets, human shields means Hamas intentionally places innocent human bodies between Israeli explosives and valid Hamas military targets.

Think of bank robbers seizing a teller then telling the cops they'll kill the teller if the cops shoot.

Bottom line targeting issue and bottom line legal issue: Using human shields makes it very difficult to assess ("assess" being media slang for judge) Israeli combat actions in the Gaza Strip much less accuse Israel ("accuse" being media slang for condemn) of committing war crimes.

The gut quotes in the last paragraph essentially paraphrase a mid-May Washington Examiner report, a U.S. State Department pontification on the use of "human shields," and an official Israeli government statement. The paraphrases distilled: Israeli critics should get the hell off the battlefield and go spout nanny words in the United Nations playpen.

Credit Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu with adult clarity. In a TV interview, Netanyahu said, "The whole attitude to Israel here is absurd" given that Hamas intentionally wages war among Palestinian civilians.

Expanded quote: "They [Hamas] use [Palestinian human civilians] as human shields and they target civilians ... they target ours [Israeli civilians] and they hide behind theirs." Then Netanyahu added, "That is a double war crime. And, of course, this makes Israel's task so much more difficult."

Pay attention, ICC prosecutors: a Hamas double war crime.

Sure. The ICC claims it also indicts Hamas. But that's media fluff. Consider the historical facts. On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists attacked Israel and killed some 1,200 Israeli human beings -- definitely mass murder. The Hamas savages also raped innocents and seized over 200 hostages.

And Hamas extolled its savagery.

Hostages become exceptionally valuable human shields, especially when the Israelis strike back.

I've already mentioned criminals seizing hostages in order to escape from a crime scene. Hamas took its Israeli hostages into its labyrinthine Gaza tunnel system.

Israeli hostages in Gaza tunnels is an operational problem -- Israel risks killing its own people if it attacks Hamas' tunnels.

Which is Hamas' operational military gambit. Kill us and you kill your own.

Or you kill Gaza residents -- see, Hamas Islamist extremists call Gaza residents "involuntary martyrs."

This is an old radical Islamist strategy. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the gambit restricted the U.S. military's rules of engagement.

But Israel is the major target. In 2009, StrategyPage.com wrote Hezbollah (Iran-backed Lebanese Shia proxy militia) and Hamas build "meshed, networked static defense systems comprised of bunkers and tunnels in their human shields' neighborhoods and selectively booby-trap houses with high explosives. They then dare Israel to counter-attack and, in the process, kill thousands of Arabs while losing several score Israeli soldiers in close combat with guerrillas."

That's when the strategic information warfare gambit kicks in. Hamas provides global media with heart-rending video featuring dead bodies and wounded survivors. A press paid for by anti-Jewish billionaires accuses Israel of war crimes. Anti-Israeli protests erupt in European capitals and on elite U.S. college campuses.

Then a corrupt ICC files charges. And the leftist media wail.

To find out more about Austin Bay and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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