RUTHFULLY YOURS

Reprinted from the Washington Times.

Calling things by their right names is a prerequisite for seeing them as they really are. Last spring I spoke at more than half a dozen universities, including Ohio State and Stony Brook, where I was confronted by mobs of students cheering Hamas, a terrorist organization whose declared goal is the extermination of the Jews. And this is only the tip of the iceberg. On virtually every major university campus in America organizations exist whose leadership is dedicated to spreading the propaganda lies of Hamas designed to weaken and delegitimize the Israeli state, and promoting Hamas campaigns like Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) whose goal is its destruction.

The two leading organizations in this terrorist proxy campaign are the Muslim Students Association (MSA), which poses as a cultural group but is really a recruiting tool for its founding group, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which was also created by a Brotherhood operative and takes an even more aggressive pro-terrorist role on campus defending Hamas rocket attacks on Israel and advancing its propaganda wars.

Well nobody, actually, unless you count a smattering of sometimes rude emails as representing credible threats to warmists’ lives and safety. As with climate change itself, our purportedly un-settled scientists refuse to share their evidence of bloodthirsty sceptics on the warpath
Why is the Australian Academy of Science going off the deep end claiming “reprehensible vilification” of warmist scientists? It’s now saying they’re being so threatened and harassed that their ability to do science is in jeopardy. Academy President Andrew Holmes, addressing a greenhouse conference in Hobart on October 27, claimed

The costs to individuals can be high. It is therefore critical that as scientists and experts we stand together. The ability of scientists to conduct their work, free of fear or hindrance, is vital to the future wellbeing of our community, and the Academy will continue to advocate for academic freedom…

“As the International Council for Science proclaims, the free and responsible practice of science is fundamental to scientific advancement and human and environmental well-being.

I thought at first he was chastising the academics at University of Western Australia over their successful witchhunt against non-sceptic Bjorn Lomborg, or that he was chastising academics at University of Melbourne for wanting punitive fines to drive sceptics out of the media. Or maybe rebuking US academic peers who wanted sceptic corporations to be prosecuted under the Racketeering and Corrupting Influences Act (that exercise backfired spectacularly). But I erred, Holmes’ victimology includes only orthodox climate scientists as its purported casualties.

A gaggle of hard lefties and fellow travelers is out to stop Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking Tuesday to the Center for American Progress, a left-wing think tank with close White House ties.

Netanyahu is in DC mending fences after he fought hard against President Obama’s Iran nuke deal, hence the CAP event.

But various hard-left activists, liberal church types and Arab groups don’t think anyone should be allowed to hear what Bibi has to say. Backed by thousands of online signatures, they complain the CAP event grants legitimacy to Netanyahu’s “ever more expansionist policies of occupation.”

This, when he’s not even giving a speech, just joining a dialogue with Neera Tanden, CAP’s CEO and a veteran of both Obama and Hillary Clinton campaigns. And he’s taking audience questions, where critics can press him hard.

Sometime in the near future the EU is expected to publish guidelines on consumer labeling of all Israeli products produced over the so-called “Green Line,” the armistice line created when the war against the nascent Jewish State ended.

The EU considers all Jewish cities and towns over the pre-1967 lines to be illegal. As such, anything produced, grown or packaged in either eastern Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria or the Golan Heights will be labeled so that consumers can more easily boycott those products.

The guidelines will be published by the office of Federica Mogherini, the EU foreign policy chief. No vote is required for this measure to be taken.

There is pushback to that labeling plan coming not only from Israel, but also from many members of the U.S. Senate.

A federal appeals court Monday upheld a lower court’s ruling blocking the Obama administration’s plans to defer deportations for more than four million undocumented immigrants.

The 2-1 decision by a three-judge panel of the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholds an injunction by a Texas federal judge that has blocked President Barack Obama’s 2014 immigration initiative, after leaders from 26 states challenged its legality.

The appeals-court ruling was widely anticipated, after a three-judge panel of the same court rejected the Obama administration arguments to quickly lift the injunction in May. But it paves the way for a potential appeal of the matter to the U.S. Supreme Court—and all but ensures that the immigration initiative will remained mired in a legal dispute through most, if not all, of Mr. Obama’s term in office.