If the issue at stake weren’t as serious as the lives of potential Israeli and American victims of Arab terrorism, there might actually be some humor in the decision handed down Friday by the International Court of Justice concerning Israel’s security fence.

There is the tautological nature of the proceeding itself. It began with the passage of a U.N. General Assembly Resolution of December 8, 2003, asserting that “Israel, the occupying Power, continues to refuse to comply with international law vis-à-vis its construction of the above-mentioned wall, with all its detrimental implications and consequences.” The General Assembly resolution asked the International Court of Justice to render an advisory opinion on the matter. Sure enough, the court came back with the finding that “the construction of the wall, and its associated regime, are contrary to international law.” Well, given that the U.N. General Assembly had already decided at the outset that Israel wasn’t complying with international law, it’s hard to see what need there was for an “advisory opinion.”

There was the grotesquerie of the identities of the nations sitting in judgment of Israel’s self-defense. Voting against Israel’s right to protect itself was a judge representing Germany, a country that has its own history with Jews and fences. There was a judge from France, where, the Jerusalem Post reports, on Friday a train-car-load of passengers stood by and did nothing as six Arab youths daubed swastikas on the midriff of a woman train rider who they thought was Jewish. Then they knocked over the baby carriage that contained her 1-year-old child. The chief judge of the International Court of Justice was Shi Jiuyong, of communist China, a country whose most famous landmark is the Great Wall built to keep out enemies. During the Tiananmen Square massacre, Mr. Shi served as legal adviser to the Chinese communist foreign ministry.

Senators Clinton, Schumer, and Kerry, to their credit, all condemned the court’s ruling and defended the fence as an important tool in Israel’s fight against terrorism. But Mr. Kerry, Mrs. Clinton, and the Democratic Party at large are all pressing a campaign-season critique of the Bush administration along the lines that America under President Bush has failed to engage in “international cooperation” and lagged in setting up new frameworks of international law, such as the Kyoto Protocol. If Friday’s decision is what can be expected from “international cooperation”and the “allies”and institutions that embody it, the American people come November can be expected to treat Kerry’s broader critique of the Bush foreign policy with the skepticism it deserves.