RUTHFULLY YOURS

Last Oct. 13, a few weeks into the current “knife intifada,” a 22-year-old Palestinian named Baha Alyan boarded a Jerusalem bus with an accomplice — Hamas terrorist Bilal Ghanem, who had served time in an Israeli prison — and went on a stabbing and shooting spree whose purpose was to kill Jews.

The two monsters were pretty successful in their endeavor that day, managing to wound more than a dozen passengers and slaughter three: Haim Haviv, 78, Alon Govberg, 51, and Richard Lakin, 76, who suffered multiple gunshot and stab wounds and died two weeks later. Alyan was killed by Israeli security forces; Ghanem was arrested.

While Lakin, an immigrant to Israel from the United States, was lying critically wounded in the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon paid a visit to his hospital bedside. It was the least Ban could do, while calling on “both sides” to ease tensions and exercise restraint — especially since Lakin had been a lifelong promoter of peace and social justice.

Upon Lakin’s death, Ban even stressed this fact in a condolence letter to Lakin’s widow, which he ended by assuring her that the U.N. would “continue its efforts to promote a return to negotiations aimed at resolving this bitter conflict once and for all.”

Four months later, in February, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas invited 11 families of “martyrs” to his compound in Ramallah to honor them for having sons who were killed while committing terror attacks against Israelis. Alyan’s parents were among these distinguished guests.

Two months before their upcoming conference at Sydney University (13-15 May), entitled “Socialism for the 21st century,” Aussie far leftists, who include Green Left activists and members of the Socialist Alliance, have just announced the line-up for their inevitable session bashing Israel.

Meanwhile, another Israel-undermining initiative, altogether smarter and more subtle, which has infiltrated the school system in the Aussie state of Victoria, appears to have gone relatively unnoticed.

I refer to the fact that the play City by the Sea, by poet, writer and activist Samah Sabawi, a Gaza-born (1967) Australian/Canadian, is now on the 2016 playlist for school students taking the Victorian Certificate of Education. It means that students in years 11 and 12 will be attending performances of the play at La Mama Theatre in Melbourne in May.

An official document listing the plays selected for study in 2016 states, inter alia:

‘Students will undertake an assessment task based on the performance of a play on the Playlist. Question/s will also be set on the performances of the plays in the end-of-year Drama written examination.

While the VCAA [Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority] considers all plays on this list suitable for study, teachers should be aware that in some instances sensitivity might be needed where particular issues or themes that are explored may be challenging for students. Teachers are advised to familiarise themselves with the treatment of these issues and themes within the context and world of the play prior to students viewing the play and/or studying the playscript. This might involve reading the playscript, talking with the theatre company, researching the playscript, the work of the playwright, director and/or company, attending a preview performance and/or discussing the matter with the school administration. Information provided in this notice about themes and/or language used in specific plays is a guide only. In some plays, suggestive and potentially offensive words and phrases are used. This language may invite adverse comment from some areas of the community’ [Emphasis added]

On a nightly show following the Wisconsin primary, science celebrity Bill Nye (“the science guy”) argued that the Republican Party will need young people to win in November, and that the vast majority of millennials believe in climate alarmism. As a conservative millennial, I deny his sweeping generalization, and the data back me up.

Nye lamented that the Republican candidates for president are all “deniers,” and argued that the campaign has yet to pivot to real issues. Then he made the ridiculous claim, saying the gap between alarmists and “deniers” is almost entirely generational.

I don’t think the party can quite get enough votes without millennials. Climate denial is almost entirely generational. Only now and then do you meet a young person — nobody your age is a climate denier. very few. It’s all old people.

To his credit, the show’s host, Larry Wilmore, was a bit skeptical. “I don’t know,” Wilmore replied. “I may have to disagree with you a little bit. I think a lot of it is ideological.”

The numbers back Wilmore on this one. In a Harvard Institute of Politics poll released in April of last year, millennials ended up largely agreeing with their older Americans in being skeptical about climate alarmism.

While 55 percent agreed with the statement that “global warming is a proven fact and is mostly caused by emissions from cars and industrial facilities such as power plants and factories,” a full 43 percent disagreed with this alarmist statement. Twenty percent held to a more moderate view: “Global warming is a proven fact and is mostly caused by natural changes that have nothing to do with emissions from cars and industrial facilities.”