BDS Academic boycott – Eat Crow

The insane left has been calling for academic boycotts of Israeli Academics for decades.

Now they are getting a taste of their own medicine.

Would you like salt with your Crow?

 

Eating Crow definition

Eating Crow definition

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Academic boycott launched AGAINST U.S. after Trump Immigration Executive Order

Posted by January 31, 2017 http://legalinsurrection.com/2017/01/academic-boycott-launched-against-u-s-after-trump-immigration-executive-order/

The academic boycott circular firing squad forms on the left.

Boycott Israel Sign Crossed Out USA

Boycott Israel Sign Crossed Out USA

It’s not like I told you so.

But I told you so. Many, many times.

To those in the U.S. academic community who support the academic boycott of Israeli academics because they don’t like the policies of the Israeli government, I warned that they better prepare for the day when foreign academics start to boycott them for the actions of the U.S. government.

That day has arrived sooner than I thought. Though the boycott of U.S. academics being mounted is much less severe than the boycott sought against Israel, it’s a boycott nonetheless.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

Some faculty members are calling for a boycott of academic conferences in the United States in reaction to an executive order, signed on Friday by President Trump, that bars citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States.

A petition circulating online has drawn the signatures of hundreds of academics around the world.

“We the undersigned take action in solidarity with those affected by Trump’s executive order by pledging not to attend international conferences in the U.S. while the ban persists,” the petition says. “We question the intellectual integrity of these spaces and the dialogues they are designed to encourage while Muslim colleagues are explicitly excluded from them.” …

Max Weiss, an associate professor of history and Near Eastern studies at Princeton University and a signer of the petition, said in an interview that “academic boycott is one of the few resources that intellectuals and academics have for expressing their opposition to policies of a given government.”

Emery Berger, a professor of information and computer sciences at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, said he had heard discussions of relocating or banning conferences set to be held in the United States. Mr. Berger, who is involved in two subgroups of the Association for Computing Machinery, an international organization that runs many computer-science conferences, said members were discussing ways to lessen the effects of the travel ban.

“Science is intended to be free and open, and any place that restricts the travel of scientists to present their work is a problem,” Mr. Berger said. “We are talking about taking steps to mitigate this problem however we can.” He said he suspected other disciplines were having similar discussions.

He’s heard some academics call for a complete ban on conferences in the United States, until the order is lifted, Mr. Berger said.

In Solidarity with People Affected by the ‘Muslim Ban’: Call for an Academic Boycott of International Conferences held in the US

On 27 January 2017, President Donald Trump signed an Executive Order putting in place a 90-day ban that denies US entry to citizens from seven Muslim majority countries: Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia. So far, the ban includes dual nationals, current visa, and green card holders, and is affecting those born in these countries while not holding citizenship of them. The Order also suspends the admittance of all refugees to the US for a period of 120 days and terminates indefinitely all refugee admissions from Syria. There are indications that the Order could be extended to include other Muslim majority countries.

The Order has affected people with residence rights in the US, as well as those with rights of entry and stay. Some of those affected are fleeing violence and persecution, and have been waiting for years for resettlement in the US as refugees. Others are effectively trapped in the US, having cancelled planned travel for fear that they will be barred from returning. The order institutionalises racism, and fosters an environment in which people racialised as Muslim are vulnerable to ongoing and intensifying acts of violence and hatred.

Among those affected by the Order are academics and students who are unable to participate in conferences and the free communication of ideas. We the undersigned take action in solidarity with those affected by Trump’s Executive Order by pledging not to attend international conferences in the US while the ban persists. We question the intellectual integrity of these spaces and the dialogues they are designed to encourage while Muslim colleagues are explicitly excluded from them.

*In order to add your signature, please write your name and institution in the box below where it says ‘Short answer’. This list is updated manually (at least twice per day) so your signature will not appear immediately. Please do not enter your signature more than once.
As of 1 February 2017, 13.00 GMT the letter has 5000+ signatures.

A column in The Guardian raises the same issue, Should academics boycott Donald Trump’s America?:

The inauguration of President Trump poses a challenge to liberals inside the US and beyond; a truth brought home only too vividly by the introduction of an executive order barring entry to all refugees and any citizens from a list of Muslim-majority countries. There are many ways that the academic community can resist – and is resisting – the illiberal, populist regime represented by Trump’s White House.

But for non-US academics who travel regularly to the US to participate in scholarly meetings, this latest measure presents a dilemma of a very particular kind: should we continue to participate in conferences held in the US which many of our colleagues, including British academics with dual citizenship, may be prevented from attending?

This is not an abstract question. I am myself in the process of making a panel submission for a conference to be held in Denver in November. Others already have places confirmed and flights booked for major events taking place in the coming months. Should we change our plans in solidarity with our banned colleagues, or would doing so only isolate US-based scholars whose critical voices are needed now more than ever?

 

Helen McCarthy-tweet-28January2017-Should academics participate in conferences in the US

Helen McCarthy-tweet-28January2017-Should academics participate in conferences in the US

 

I’m basically laughing my ass off over this development because it proves my point that academic boycotts are a systemic threat.

I still haven’t seen anyone call for an academic boycott of Turkey, despite thousands of academics having been arrested. And what about all the Arab countries and universities controlled by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority where there is no academic freedom?

Pretty selective outrage among the circular firing squad forming on the left.

UPDATE: The boycott is spreading, particularly in Canada, as the Toronto Star reports, and accusations that the U.S. is an Apartheid State are being made (just as they are made against Israeli to justify the boycott), Canadian academics boycott U.S. conferences over Trump ban:

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The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance logoThe IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism

https://www.holocaustremembrance.com/resources/working-definitions-charters/working-definition-antisemitism

About the IHRA non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism

The IHRA is the only intergovernmental organization mandated to focus solely on Holocaust-related issues, so with evidence that the scourge of antisemitism is once again on the rise, we resolved to take a leading role in combatting it. IHRA experts determined that in order to begin to address the problem of antisemitism, there must be clarity about what antisemitism is.

The IHRA’s Committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial worked to build international consensus around a non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism, which was subsequently adopted by the Plenary. By doing so, the IHRA set an example of responsible conduct for other international fora and provided an important tool with practical applicability for its Member Countries. This is just one illustration of how the IHRA has equipped policymakers to address this rise in hate and discrimination at their national level.

The working definition of antisemitism

In the spirit of the Stockholm Declaration that states: “With humanity still scarred by …antisemitism and xenophobia the international community shares a solemn responsibility to fight those evils” the committee on Antisemitism and Holocaust Denial called the IHRA Plenary in Budapest 2015 to adopt the following working definition of antisemitism.

On 26 May 2016, the Plenary in Bucharest decided to:

Adopt the following non-legally binding working definition of antisemitism:

“Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.”

To guide IHRA in its work, the following examples may serve as illustrations:

Manifestations might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic. Antisemitism frequently charges Jews with conspiring to harm humanity, and it is often used to blame Jews for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed in speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits.

Contemporary examples of antisemitism in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

  • Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming of Jews in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of religion.
  • Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Jews as such or the power of Jews as collective — such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about a world Jewish conspiracy or of Jews controlling the media, economy, government or other societal institutions.
  • Accusing Jews as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by a single Jewish person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Jews.
  • Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms (e.g. gas chambers) or intentionality of the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its supporters and accomplices during World War II (the Holocaust).
  • Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
  • Accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel, or to the alleged priorities of Jews worldwide, than to the interests of their own nations.
  • Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
  • Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation.
  • Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis.
  • Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.
  • Holding Jews collectively responsible for actions of the state of Israel.

Antisemitic acts are criminal when they are so defined by law (for example, denial of the Holocaust or distribution of antisemitic materials in some countries).

Criminal acts are antisemitic when the targets of attacks, whether they are people or property – such as buildings, schools, places of worship and cemeteries – are selected because they are, or are perceived to be, Jewish or linked to Jews.

Antisemitic discrimination is the denial to Jews of opportunities or services available to others and is illegal in many countries.

Information on adoption and endorsement

National level

The following UN member states have adopted or endorsed the IHRA working definition of antisemitism. Beyond the countries listed below, a wide range of other political entities, including a large number of regional/state and local governments, have done so as well.

Albania (22 October 2020)

Argentina (4 June 2020)

Austria (25 April 2017)

Belgium (14 December 2018)

Bulgaria (18 October 2017)

Canada (27 June 2019)

Cyprus (18 December 2019)

Czech Republic (25 January 2019)

France (3 December 2019)

Germany (20 September 2017)

Greece (8 November 2019)

Guatemala (27 January 2021)

Hungary (18 February 2019)

Israel (22 January 2017)

Italy (17 January 2020)

Lithuania (24 January 2018)

Luxembourg (10 July 2019)

Moldova (18 January 2019)

Netherlands (27 November 2018)

North Macedonia (6 March 2018)

Romania (25 May 2017)

Serbia (26 February 2020)

Slovakia (28 November 2018)

Slovenia (20 December 2018)

Spain (22 July 2020)

Sweden (21 January 2020)

United Kingdom (12 December 2016)

United States (11 December 2019)

Uruguay (27 January 2020)

Organizations

The following international organizations have expressed support for the working definition of antisemitism:

United Nations

European Union

Organization of American States

Council of Europe

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New Report Confirms Ties Between BDS-Promoting NGOs and Terrorist Organizations

David Lange February 3, 2019 https://www.israellycool.com/2019/02/03/new-report-confirms-ties-between-bds-promoting-ngos-and-terrorist-organizations/

Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Public Diplomacy (MSA) today released its “Terrorists in Suits” report, which reveals over a whopping 100 links shared between the internationally-designated terrorist organizations Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and at least 13 anti-Israel BDS promoting NGOs.

 

Ministry Of Strategic Affairs Report On “Terrorists In Suits”

Ministry Of Strategic Affairs Report On “Terrorists In Suits” https://4il.org.il Click to Download the Report.

 

Click to download PDF file  Click to Download the report MSA-Terrorists-In-Suits-English-1

What Starts Online, Doesn’t Stay There

BDS Leader Shredded by Missouri State Representatives

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New Damning Report Exposes the Dangerous Connection Between BDS Movement and Jew Hatred

By David Lange 17December2019 https://www.israellycool.com/2019/12/17/new-damning-report-exposes-the-dangerous-connection-between-bds-movement-and-jew-hatred/

Click to download PDF file  Click to Download the .PDF file The New Anti-Semites

The Zachor Legal Institute and StopAntisemitism.org have released a damning new report

The Zachor Legal Institute and StopAntisemitism.org have released a damning new reportThe Zachor Legal Institute and StopAntisemitism.org have released a damning new report that exposes the BDS faux ”civil rights” movement for what it is – a delegitimization campaign with genocidal aims, rather than the human rights movement that it purports to be.

Backed by a staggering 23 Jewish and Christian American non-governmental organizations, this report shows how hate groups on the Left and Right are joining forces, with the backing of designated foreign terror organizations, to inject this movement of intolerance and delegitimization into social justice campaigns, schools, government and society as a whole.

It is a long read but it is a vital resource in understanding exactly what we are dealing with. (I have dealt with some aspects of this phenomenon on this blog, but this report is next level).

Read the entire thing.

And mark my words: the haters are going to be pushing back hard against this report because it exposes them for the world to see.

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Trump signs executive order to combat anti-Semitism on college campuses

Jennifer Kabbany – Fix Editor 11December2019 https://www.thecollegefix.com/trump-signs-executive-order-to-combat-anti-semitism-on-college-campuses/

‘My administration will never tolerate the suppression, persecution or silencing of the Jewish people’

President Donald Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order that aims to fight anti-Semitism — particularly on college campuses — by clarifying that federal laws protect against discrimination against Jewish people and warning public institutions could lose funding if they ignore “the vile, hate-filled poison of anti-Semitism.”

“This action makes clear that Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits the federal funding of universities and other institutions that engage in discrimination, applies to institutions that traffic in anti-Semitic hate,” Trump said in a ceremony right before signing the order.

“This is our message to universities,” Trump said. “If you want to accept the tremendous amount of federal dollars that you get every year, you must reject anti-Semitism. It’s very simple.”
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New Research Study: Faculty Promote Their Anti-Israel Agenda In Classes

Posted by Monday, 13January2020 https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/01/new-research-study-faculty-promote-their-anti-israel-agenda-in-classes/#more-306128

AMCHA Initiative: “Distorting and blocking the flow of knowledge is a violation of the norms and standards of scholarly inquiry and undermines the university’s academic mission”

 

Faculty Promote Their Anti-Israel Agenda In Classes

Faculty Promote Their Anti-Israel Agenda In Classes

 

In the years since our founding, Legal Insurrection has covered anti-Israel activism on our nation’s campuses. Though expressions of anti-Zionism on campus are often the work of radical student groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), behind many such groups and their anti-Israel messaging stands faculty support for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

For a recent example, see the latest attempt by a small minority of faculty to pass a BDS resolution at the American Historical Association’s annual meeting in American Historical Association Rejects Anti-Israel Resolution for the 4th Time.

Of particular concern are university faculty who use their classrooms as platforms for spreading anti-Israel propaganda.

Now, a new report released January 8th by the Santa Cruz-based AMCHA Initiative “provides the first-ever empirical evidence suggesting that faculty who support the academic BDS movement against Israel are actively promoting that political agenda directly to students in their classrooms.”

 

AMCHA-logo http://www.amchainitiative.org/

AMCHA-logo
http://www.amchainitiative.org/

 

Founded by University of California academics Leila Beckwith and Tammi Rossman-Benjamin, the AMCHA Initiative monitors and combats anti-Jewish activity on hundreds of college campuses across the United States. The organization does excellent work; most recently, Legal Insurrection Foundation signed on to an AMCHA-authored letter expertly analysing and opposing a proposed anti-Israel public school curriculum in California (Legal Insurrection Foundation opposes proposed anti-Israel public school curriculum in California).

AMCHA’s newest report builds on the group’s prior studies, which we have covered in the following posts:

The study, which examined 50 syllabi at 40 public and private American colleges and universities, was undertaken by AMCHA founders Professor Beckwith (Professor Emeritus at UCLA, renowned scientist, researcher, and statistician with a background in psychology and child development) and Professor Rossman-Benjamin (expert on antisemitism and former faculty member in Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of California).

You can read the full study here (pdf) or below:

Click to download PDF file  Click to Download the report AMCHA-Syllabus-Study-Report

The study’s conclusions are disturbing; it found that:

  • Academic BDS-supporting instructors had an average of 78% of their course readings authored by BDS supporters, whereas non-BDS-supporting instructors had an average of 17% of their course readings authored by BDS supporters.
  • The two groups of instructors showed themselves to be qualitatively distinct from one another with respect to the selection of course readings, with almost no overlap of the groups: all of the academic BDS-supporting instructors had a majority of their readings authored by BDS supporters, whereas only 2 of the 35 syllabi of non-BDS-supporting instructors had a majority of their course readings authored by BDS supporters, and none more than 60%. These data demonstrate that the large quantitative difference between the groups is not just the result of a few outliers, but represents a qualitative difference between these two groups of instructors in terms of how they select course readings.

The stark differences between the average percentage of course readings with pro-BDS authors within the two groups leaves little doubt that instructors who support academic BDS make a calculated choice to heavily weight their course materials with readings authored by BDS supporters. These results, in turn, imply that not only are academic boycotting instructors actively including pro-BDS readings, they are also severely limiting or completely excluding readings that would provide a more balanced picture of Israel.AMCHA Initiative fully acknowledges that freedom of speech protects faculty’s right to sign petitions and make extramural statements in support of academic BDS and academic freedom generally protects their right to develop and teach courses as they see fit. However, the report notes the serious and harmful consequences of faculty bringing their support for academic BDS into the classroom.

Distorting and blocking the flow of knowledge is a violation of the norms and standards of scholarly inquiry and undermines the university’s academic mission. Furthermore, faculty who use their classrooms to give academic legitimacy to a wholly one-sided, anti-Israel perspective, in compliance with the guidelines of academic BDS, can engender among their students hostility not only towards Israel, but towards Israel’s on-campus supporters. Such sentiments can easily lead to acts targeting Jewish and pro-Israel students for harm, as AMCHA’s previous research has shown.

But there are ways universities can combat professor-propaganda if they so choose; helpfully, AMCHA’s report includes concrete action items for university leaders to pursue in order to address these problems:

  • Release public statement on the harm of academic BDS to U.S. students and faculty: University leaders should publicly acknowledge that while an academic boycott of Israel may ostensibly target Israeli universities and scholars, its implementation directly and substantively hurts students and faculty on their own campus, not only subverting their scholarly and educational opportunities and curtailing their academic freedom, but corrupting the entire academic mission of the university. Recently, chancellors and presidents at the University of California, University of Michigan, University of Massachusetts Amherst and Pitzer College issued strong statements acknowledging the harms of academic BDS for students and faculty, and condemning its implementation on their own campuses.

  • Establish policies against using the classroom for political advocacy: Universities should establish and publicly affirm policies that prohibit faculty from using their classrooms for political rather than pedagogical purposes.

  • Urge faculty to establish and enforce safeguards against classroom abuse: Faculty should be urged by university administrators to establish their own safeguards against the politicization of the academy. For example, following the refusal of a faculty member to write a letter of recommendation for a student wishing to study in Israel, a University of Michigan panel, appointed by the president, issued a report and recommendations emphasizing that faculty members must make judgments and act based solely on educational and professional reasons, not political motivations.

Ultimately, AMCHA’s report concludes that

…it is up to academic departments and faculty senates to determine whether the promotion of one-sided, highly politicized course content is deemed a legitimate use of academic freedom, or an abuse of it. However, given the clear and present harm that such politicization can cause to our schools, our students and society, it is time for tuition and taxpayers, as well as state and federal legislators, to demand that faculty address this question forthrightly, and to hold them accountable for their answer.

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Federal Court upholds constitutionality of Arkansas anti-BDS law

Posted by 23January2019 https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/01/federal-court-upholds-constitutionality-of-arkansas-anti-bds-law/

“Because engaging in a boycott of Israel, as defined by Act 710, is neither speech nor inherently expressive conduct, it is not protected by the First Amendment.”

The U.S. has had a federal anti-Boycott law (Anti-boycott Regulations) on the books since the 1970s, to counter the Arab League Boycott of Israel.

There is under consideration in Congress, and many states have passed, laws to modernize the anti-Boycott laws to take into account the new form of the boycott, the so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement. As I have proven, BDS is a new form not only of the anti-Jewish boycotts of the 1920s and 1930s, but also of the Arab League Boycott, The REAL history of the BDS movement.

The popular wisdom is that such laws are an unconstitutional infringement on free speech. This popular wisdom is based on a misunderstanding of the law and the laws.

A decision in Arkansas upholding Arkansas’s anti-BDS law is a case in point.

The Arkansas Times challenged Arkansas’ anti-BDS law, represented by the ACLU:

The Arkansas Times Limited Partnership, the company that owns and publishes the Arkansas Times, is challenging in federal court a state law that requires government contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel or reduce their fees by at least 20 percent.

The suit, filed Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas on behalf of Arkansas Times LP, says Act 710 of 2017 violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by suppressing public debate. State Rep. Jim Dotson (R-Bentonville) and Sen. Bart Hester (R-Cave Springs) sponsored the bill that became Act 710, which took effect July 31, 2017.

Here is the complaint, the motion for a preliminary injunction and declaratory relief and a brief in support of an injunction and declaratory relief. The lawsuit has been assigned to Magistrate Judge Beth Deere and U.S. District Judge Brian Miller.

The Times initiated the suit after the University of Arkansas-Pulaski Technical College, which has advertised regularly in the Times and its sister publications, informed the Times that it had to sign a certification that it would not engage in a boycott of Israel if it wanted to continue to receive advertising contracts from the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees on behalf of UAPTC. The university imposed this condition because Act 710 requires all state institutions to do so. Timespublisher Alan Leveritt declined, and UAPTC has refused to advertise further with the Times. The Times has never participated in a boycott of Israel or editorialized in support of one.

You can read the Brief in Opposition to the Preliminary Injunction and Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss filed by Arkansas, setting for the arguments that the  anti-BDS law was constitutional.

Chief Judge Brian S. Miller in the Eastern District of Arkansas just threw out the lawsuit in an opinion which concluded that the law was not as the Judge initially expected it would be.  The Order (pdf.) is embedded at the bottom of this post.

The Judge’s opening paragraph was instructive of why we shouldn’t accept the common wisdom:

I routinely instruct jurors to follow my instructions on the law, even if they thought the law was different or think it should be different. This case presents an occasion in which I must follow the same principle, which is that I have a duty to follow the law even though, before researching the issue, I thought the law required a different outcome than the one ultimately reached.

The Judge noted that there are many similar laws:

This law is not the only one of its kind. Dozens of states have passed similar statutes. See Br. Opp. Pl. Mot. Prelim. Inj. at 2 n.1, Doc. No. 14. There is a somewhat similar federal law authorizing the “President [to] issue regulations prohibiting any United States person . . . from . . . support[ing] any boycott fostered or imposed by a foreign country against a [friendly] country.” 50 U.S.C. § 4607(a)(1) (1979); see also Anti-Boycott Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-232, §§ 1771–74.

Here’s the heart of the Judge’s legal analysis upholding the law:

The Times is unlikely to prevail on the merits of its First Amendment claims because it has not demonstrated that a boycott of Israel, as defined by Act 710, is protected by the First Amendment. This finding diverges from decisions recently reached by two other federal district courts. Jordahl, 336 F. Supp. 3d at 1016; Koontz v. Watson, 283 F. Supp. 3d 1007, 1021–22 (D. Kan. 2018)

* * *

A boycott of Israel, as defined by Act 710, is neither speech nor inherently expressive conduct.

First, a boycott is not purely speech because, after putting aside any accompanying explanatory speech, a refusal to deal, or particular commercial purchasing decisions, do not communicate ideas through words or other expressive media….

Second, such conduct is not “inherently expressive.” FAIR, 547 U.S. at 66. In FAIR, an association of law schools restricted military recruiting on campuses to express their opposition to the military’s then-existing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. Id. at 51. Congress responded to this restriction by passing the Solomon Amendment, which denied federal funding to law schools unless they allowed military recruiters to have equal access to campuses. Id. The law schools asserted that the law violated the First Amendment, id., but a unanimous Supreme Court rejected the challenge, holding that such conduct was “not inherently expressive” because the actions “were expressive only because the law schools accompanied their conduct with speech explaining it.” Id. at 66 (emphasis added).

* * *

The Arkansas Times’s argument that an individual’s refusal to deal, or his purchasing decisions, when taken in connection with a larger social movement, become inherently expressive is well-taken but ultimately unpersuasive. Such an argument is foreclosed by FAIR, as individual law schools were effectively boycotting military recruiters as part of a larger protest against the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy.

For these reasons, the First Amendment does not protect the Arkansas Times’s purchasing decisions or refusal to deal with Israel.

The court also rejected the common wisdom that there is an unfettered right to boycott:

The Times’s argument that the Supreme Court’s decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co., 458 U.S. 886 (1982) creates an unfettered, black-letter right to engage in political boycotts is unpersuasive.

Claiborne concerned a primary boycott of white-owned businesses in Port Gibson, Mississippi by civil rights activists in order to protest racial discrimination. 458 U.S. at 899–900. The boycotters’ constitutional rights were being violated by local government officials, many of whom also owned the businesses being boycotted. Id. The Supreme Court observed that “[t]he right of the States to regulate economic activity could not justify a complete prohibition against a nonviolent, politically motivated boycott designed to force governmental and economic change and to effectuate rights guaranteed by the Constitution itself.” Id. at 914.

Crucially, Claiborne did not “address purchasing decisions or other non-expressive conduct.” Jordahl, Case No. 18-16896, Dkt. No. 26 slip op. at 5 (9th Cir. Oct. 31, 2018) (order denying stayof preliminaryinjunction) (Ikuta, J., dissenting); see also FTC v. Superior Court Trial Lawyers Ass’n, 493 U.S. 411, 426–27 (1990). Rather, the Court arrived at its decision only after carefully inspecting the various elements of the boycott, which consisted of meetings, speeches, and non-violent picketing. Claiborne, 458 U.S. at 907–08. It concluded that “[e]ach of these elements of the boycott is a form of speech or conduct that is ordinarily entitled to protection under the First and Fourteenth Amendments.” Id. The Court, however, did not hold that individual purchasing decisions were protected by the First Amendment. See id.

Similarly, under Claiborne, the Times maywrite and send representatives to meetings, speeches, and picketing events in opposition to Israel’s policies, free from any state interference. It may even call upon others to boycott Israel, write in support ofsuch boycotts, and engage in picketing and pamphleteering to that effect. This does not mean, however, that its decision to refuse to deal, or to refrain from purchasing certain goods, is protected by the First Amendment….

For these reasons, Claiborne does not hold that individual purchasing decisions are constitutionally protected, nor does it create an unqualified right to engage in political boycotts. In the years following Claiborne, it does not appear that the Supreme Court or any court of appeals has extended Claiborne in such a manner.

The court then dismissed the case.

In Arkansas, as elsewhere, anti-Israel pro-BDS activists still can dress up as peppers to protect America from Zionist vegetables. But they can’t contract with the state if they conduct their business with the state in a discriminatory fashion by boycotting Israel.

Roz Rothstein of the pro-Israel StandWithUs is thrilled:

“We commend the wisdom of the judge’s decision,” StandWithUs CEO Roz Rothstein said. “As the court recognized, taxpayers need to be protected from being complicit in discrimination, which both undermines state policy and harms its economy.”

I’m sure the reaction from anti-Israel activists will be furious.

I’m not familiar enough with the various state laws to compare Arkansas’s anti-BDS law to the others. But clearly the issue is not as clear cut, from a constitutional perspective, as some would have you believe.

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Full 8th Circuit Upholds Arkansas Law Barring State Contracting With Israel Boycotters (BDS)

State power to regulate economic activity includes the power to regulate the purely commercial conduct of a boycott, appellate court says.

Posted by 22June2022 https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/06/full-8th-circuit-upholds-arkansas-law-barring-state-contracting-with-israel-boycotters-bds/

Arkansas’s anti-BDS law requiring state contractors to certify they don’t boycott Israel passes constitutional muster, according to the full Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The court’s decision in the highly watched case of Arkansas Times LP v. Waldrip, handed down this morning, affirmed the lower court decision upholding the state law.

LIF covered the case previously, at:

Back in 2019, U.S. District Judge Brian S. Miller dismissed the case after finding that the state violated no constitutional right by requiring its vendors to certify that they don’t boycott Israel.

The case was appealed. A 2021 decision by the Eighth Circuit initially reversed the lower court and claimed the law violated the First Amendment, based on a tortured reading of the statute. The Eighth Circuit then vacated (i.e., rescinded) that decision and ordered the case reheard before all judges of the circuit, instead of just the three-judge panel who had decided it earlier.

The case was reargued on September 21, 2021. Judge Jonathan A. Kobes, who dissented from the vacated 2021 decision, wrote the majority opinion upholding the law. “The basic dispute in this case,” Kobes wrote, “is whether ‘boycotting Israel’ only covers unexpressive commercial conduct, or whether it also prohibits protected expressive conduct.” Briefly, the court upheld the state’s right to regulate boycotts as commercial conduct. While economic boycotts are often accompanied by expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment, Kobes’ majority opinion concluded, the boycott itself is not protected by the First Amendment.

The opinion on this point corrected an absurd misreading of the statute’s so-called catch-all or garbage can provision in the vacated opinion. Frequently, laws will list examples of things that are covered by it, and then add in something like, ‘and other actions.’ That’s exactly what the Arkansas statute does. The court’s opinion explained:

The statute defines “boycott of Israel” as “engaging in refusals to deal, terminating business activities, or other actions that are intended to limit commercial relations with Israel, or persons or entities doing business in Israel or in Israeli-controlled territories, in a discriminatory manner.” Ark. Code Ann. § 25-1-502(1)(A)(i).

The vacated opinion had tried to read “other actions” as covering protected speech activities, but its context in the statute indicates that “other actions” refers to commercial activities. Furthermore, accepted canons of statutory construction require a court to interpret a statute as presumptively constitutional, and not to stretch its meaning to force an unconstitutional reading. The Eighth Circuit’s en banc opinion read the law in this limited, presumptively constitutional way. It held that the law only applies to commercial activities, and is constitutional.

Furthermore, the court’s opinion continued, the certification required of vendors is not unconstitutionally compelled speech. The majority opinion noted, “We are not aware of any cases where a court has held that a certification requirement concerning unprotected, nondiscriminatory conduct is unconstitutionally compelled speech.”

Although the majority opinion did not discuss this, government contractors are commonly required to provide certifications for many things, including their assurance that they do not discriminate. In fact, the paperwork government contractors are required to submit is frequently copious and oppressive. But, certifications of this nature have not been held to be unconstitutionally compelled speech.

Judge Jane L. Kelly, who wrote the subsequently-vacated opinion reversing Judge Miller’s original decision, wrote a dissent. She continued to argue that the term “other actions” in the statute reading

“Boycott Israel” and “boycott of Israel” means engaging in refusals to deal, terminating business activities, or other actions that are intended to limit commercial relations with Israel (emphasis added),

It’s unclear and therefore should be interpreted as potentially including expressive activity protected by the First Amendment.

This is the first federal appellate opinion to address the substantive issues of anti-BDS laws, which have not been specifically addressed by the Supreme Court. (The Fifth and Ninth Circuit appellate courts previously vacated district court opinions after the states involved amended their anti-BDS laws, but neither court addressed the merits of the cases below.) Another case, A&R Engineering and Testing, Inc. v. Paxton, is currently pending before the Fifth Circuit. Circuit courts are not bound by the decisions of courts in other circuits, but as an en banc decision – that is, a decision by the entire circuit court and not just three judges from it – the Eighth Circuit’s Waldrip opinion is likely to carry a lot of persuasive authority.

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Federal judge upholds anti-BDS law in Arkansas, says it has nothing to do with the First Amendment. He’s right.

January 24, 2019 http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2019/01/federal-judge-upholds-anti-bds-law-in.html
The judge is correct. Boycotts aren’t speech – they are actions, which are not protected by the First Amendment.

And they are discriminatory actions. If boycotting Israel is considered free speech, then so should boycotting African American businesses, or women-owned businesses.

The ACLU disagrees:

“We disagree with the district court’s decision, which contradicts two recent federal court decisions and which would radically limit the First Amendment right to boycott,” said Holly Dickson, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Arkansas, which represented the Times.

Yet the argument that refusing to do business with a specific group is not considered a First Amendment issue was given by none other than the ACLU themselves, which wrote in another case:

We filed our brief to explain why the First Amendment does not give a commercial business license to offer services to the general public and then – in violation of a state’s public accommodation law – refuse to provide photography services to particular customers based on their race, sex, religion, sexual orientation, age, disability, or any other characteristic. Under Elane Photography’s proposal, customers could walk into the photography studio at Sears or JCPenny for a family portrait and be told they cannot have their picture taken because they are a Latino family, or a Jewish family, or a family with a child who has Down Syndrome. A photography studio could tell an interracial family that taking their portrait would create expression celebrating their interracial relationship and that it would violate the studio’s First Amendment rights to participate in that expression.

I see no First Amendment difference between a “boycott” by a business of gay customers, as the Elane Photography case was, and a refusal to do business with Israeli-linked people or companies. In neither case is the issue free speech, as the ACLU says explicitly.

Refusing to accommodate a gay couple on religious grounds may be a different story, because then there is a case of two differing sets of rights that contradict each other and those cases need to be decided by a judge to determine whose rights are more important under the law. But in this case, it is clear that boycotting itself is not considered free speech, even when the boycott is done through a medium of expression such as, as the ACLU letter notes, “countless other businesses that use words, pictures, or other forms of creative expression, including court reporting services, translation services, graphic-design agencies, architecture firms, sound technicians, print shops, and dance studios, almost any good or service involving computer code, makeup artists, hair stylists, florists, and countless other services.”

Federal court upholds anti-BDS bill in Arkansas

By Jackson Richman https://www.jns.org/federal-court-upholds-anti-bds-bill-in-arkansas/

… The judge added, “Israel in particular is known for its dynamic and innovative approach in many business sectors, and therefore a company’s decision to discriminate against Israel, Israeli entities, or entities that do business with or in Israel, is an unsound business practice, making the company an unduly risky contracting partner or vehicle for investment.”…

…Eugene Kontorovich, a legal expert with the Kohelet Policy Forum and George Mason Law School, told JNS that the decision in Arkansas “correctly concluded what Supreme Court precedent clearly says: a company’s decision to refuse to do business with a particular group is simply not speech at all, it is commercial conduct.”

JerusalemCats Comments: If you are for BDS then you are for the Klu Klux Klan boycotting Gay, Blacks, Liberals and others. Are you for Cross Burning? And as the Judge stated. “Israel in particular is known for its dynamic and innovative approach in many business sectors, and therefore a company’s decision to discriminate against Israel, Israeli entities, or entities that do business with or in Israel, is an unsound business practice, making the company an unduly risky contracting partner or vehicle for investment.”
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And speaking about birds

Jerusalem Bird Observatory

 

Jerusalem Bird Observatory

Jerusalem Bird Observatory

A great place for Hitbodedut http://natureisrael.org/JBO

The Jerusalem Bird Observatory – JBO, houses one of many national bird-ringing centers. Together with the active ringing station, it serves as an ideal tool for conservation studies and research that monitor bird populations. Birds Migration patterns in Israel are studied throughout the various seasons and data is collected and analyzed in a comprehensive national database. The national database also receives information from our other birding stations throughout the country, including the Hula Valley, Eilat, Ma’agan Michael, Hazeva and Sde Boker.

The JBO is located in the center of Jerusalem near the Knesset. Visitors can stop by for an eco-experience. Bird watching, presentations, about bird migration in Israel, and a comprehensive urban nature experience is available for tourists visiting as groups or individuals.

The Gail Rubin Gallery, which was established to encourage nature artists and photographers in Israel, always houses exhibitions. The exhibitions focus on different aspects of nature and are free and open to the public whenever the building is open.

Birdwatching in Jerusalem

The Israeli government allocated the JBO a one-acre plot (5,000 square meters) of prime real estate, between the Knesset (the Israeli parliament) and the Supreme Court. The site is one of the few traditional birdwatching areas in Jerusalem that has not been harmed by development, and is centrally located, making it attractive as an educational and tourist center for the public.

Since the establishment of the JBO, birds have arrived in greater numbers each year, to the great pleasure of bird and bird watcher alike. The JBO acts as a magnet for many common migrating and wintering birds: Wrynecks, Collared flycatchers, Masked and Red-backed Shrikes, and Thrush Nightingales can be seen migrating and European Robins, Hawfinches, and Bramblings are regular winter visitors. In addition many resident Israeli birds make their home at the JBO, including Palestine Sunbirds, Spectacled Bulbuls and Israel’s national bird, the Hoopoe. The endangered Lesser Kestrels can be seen nesting in springtime in nearby Musrara and many Short-toed eagles and Little Owls can be found in the hills surrounding the city. The JBO is also home to a vast amount of animals and plants that make up an inseparable part of the local environment.

Visiting the JBO

The JBO is located directly next to the Knesset (Israeli Parliament), past the main entrance, nestled between the Rose Garden and Sacher Park. The bird hide of the JBO is open every day, 24 hours a day to the general public and is fully wheelchair accessible, thanks to the help of the Nyman family.

Visitors are invited to sit and observe the natural diversity of birds and wildlife that live in or pass through Jerusalem. Feel free to meander the paved road that leads from the Knesset and the Rose Garden to the gate of the cemetery, but we ask that you leave the rest of the site for the birds and not leave the paved road. For the sake of the wildlife and the comfort of our visitors, please refrain from smoking, lighting bonfires, loud music or littering.  Please keep your dogs on a leash while on the site.

Schedule: Sunday-Thursday from 9:00-3:00pm or by appointment.

Types of activities: Bird watching, night hikes, nature movies, bird banding, group tours, nature crafts, tree planting, photography workshops, sketching workshops, and birdwatching for beginners workshops.

Bird Ringing is conducted several days a week and guided tours are available by appointment. Please call or e-mail for details.

Phone: +972 (0)2-653-7374.
Mobile: +972 (0)52-386-9488

Email: jbo@inter.net.il
Click to download PDF file Click to download the JBO Brochure JBO Final Brochure
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The secret history BDS hides from you


Vengefulness of Eisav on Display
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24December 2018 Elder of Ziyon http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2018/12/a-frightening-parallel-between-german.html

A frightening parallel between German antisemites in the 1920s and BDS activists today

An eyewitness writing in 1920 described the effect in Germany of the publication of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

In Berlin I attended several meetings which were entirely devoted to the Protocols. The speaker was usually a professor, a teacher, an editor, a lawyer or someone of that kind. The audience consisted of members of the educated class, civil servants, tradesmen, former officers, ladies, above all students …. Passions were whipped up to the boiling point. There, in front of one, in the flesh, was the cause of all ills – those who had made the war and brought about the defeat and engineered the revolution, those who had conjured up all our suffering …. I observed the students. A few hours earlier they had perhaps been exerting all their mental energy in a seminar under the guidance of a world-famous scholar. … Now young blood was boiling, eyes flashed, fists clenched, hoarse voices roared applause or vengeance. (W. K. Timmermann – Incitement in international criminal law)

Imagine the scene. Authority figures – often academics – riling up groups of people, often students, with lies that are meant to do only one thing: to incite the audience into hating Jews. And their methods worked – they seemed to gather “incontrovertible facts” that fed into the people’s need to find a scapegoat, to find a symbol that they can channel all their hate into.

This happens, today, too.

What are BDS meetings all about, anyway? They are meant to incite the audience with lies (in this case, the Protocols are replaced with heavily edited videos and fabricated news stories) in order to get them to hate Israel, and Zionist Jews.

Like the German antisemites of the 1920s, today’s Israel-bashers work hard to ensure that any information about their avowed enemies that is not wholly negative get censored, stopped, or drowned out with protests. The entire concept of accusations of “pinkwashing” and “artwashing” is meant to say that even when Israelis do something that aligns with modern liberal and moral values, it is really a nefarious plot to hide their unspeakable crimes. When Israeli Jews do something seemingly bad it is horrendous, when they do something good even that is bad. There is no room in their discourse for truth or honesty. And like then, there are enough idiots who are more than willing to fully adapt a simplistic theory of Jewish/Zionist evil to explain all the ills of the world (today including things like US police brutality, racism, colonialism, slavery, stealing organs, poisoning water, economic woes, and so forth.)

And, sometimes, the BDS meetings go full circle to attack Jews themselves, as this recent video of David Sheen blaming false and twisted interpretations of the Talmud and Jewish scholars for Israeli actions at a BDS meeting in Amsterdam:

This lecture is exactly what the witness from 1920 was talking about.

Sheen makes explicit what BDS and Israel-haters have made implicit: the purpose of these meetings  is to rile people up and cause them to hate mainstream Jews who dare to support the existence of a Jewish state and sanctuary for Jews worldwide.

_______________________

In case you actually watch this antisemitic video, Sheen quotes Maimonides to make it appear that he teaches Jews to ethnically cleanse gentiles. But the quotes are taken out of context, of course; Maimonides says that gentiles who live in Israel and accept the basic moral (Noachide) laws are to be treated with respect:

“Similarly, it appears to me that in regard to respect and honor and also, in regard to charity, a resident alien is to be treated as a Jew for behold, we are commanded to sustain them as Deuteronomy 14:21 states: ‘You may not eat any animal that has not been properly slaughtered… give it to the resident alien in your gates that he may eat it.’ …
However, our Sages commanded us to visit (all) gentiles (not just resident aliens) when ill, to bury their dead in addition to the Jewish dead, and support their poor in addition to the Jewish poor for the sake of peace. Behold, Psalms 145:9 states: ‘God is good to all and His mercies extend over all His works’ and Proverbs 3:17 states: ‘The Torah’s ways are pleasant ways and all its paths are peace.’

וכן יראה לי שנוהגין עם גרי תושב בדרך ארץ וגמילות חסדים כישראל. שהרי אנו מצווין להחיותן שנאמר לגר אשר בשעריך תתננה ואכלה. …. אפילו העכו”ם צוו חכמים לבקר חוליהם. ולקבור מתיהם עם מתי ישראל. ולפרנס ענייהם בכלל עניי ישראל. מפני דרכי שלום. הרי נאמר טוב ה’ לכל ורחמיו על כל מעשיו. ונאמר דרכיה דרכי נועם וכל נתיבותיה שלום:

And Maimonides’ words about how to treat Gentiles come from the Talmud, where they are mentioned (with some variations)  no less than five times without any dispute: Tosefta Gittin 3:13-14, Jerusalem Talmud Gittin 5:9 47c, Jerusalem Talmud Demai 4:6 24a, Jerusalem Talmud Avodah Zara 1:3 39c and Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 61a.

Similarly, Jew-haters like Sheen like to say that when the Talmud says “Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world” it is really referring only to Jewish lives, but the quote is given twice: once in context of Jews, and once in context of everyone including non-Jews (Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:1 22a).

Sheen’s claim that “neighbor” in Leviticus excludes females and the non-religious is too absurd to even discuss. It has no basis in reality, period.
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When you have to deal with a rude BDS Nazi that hates you because you are a Jew or someone who supports the State Of Israel.

9 Comebacks for Dealing with Rude People

-https://www.powerofpositivity.com/9-comebacks-dealing-rude-people/?fbclid=IwAR3b4xxYEEXXwcseRRr6k68iwWokrDJyfzGVPcBWvFgpI_YkVYA5VvPYvsM

When people are rude to you, they reveal who they are, not who you are. Don't take it personally.

When people are rude to you, they reveal who they are, not who you are. Don’t take it personally.

“When someone is rude, keep a smile on your face. When you stay on the high road and keep your joy, you take away their power.” – Joel Osteen

People can tend to have a love/hate relationship with their families, bosses, friends, and even spouses. They can be the sweetest people with loving intentions one second, and the next, say something so offensive that makes you want to call them every name under the sun and react negatively. Questions like “When did you gain so much weight?” or “When will you ever get another boyfriend?” or “Why haven’t you found a job yet?” can really hit below the belt and really set off your temper, if you allow it. People don’t often think about what they say before they say it, which can lead to disaster if the person they are speaking to (you) becomes offended.

You have a right to defend yourself and speak your mind, but you can come up with a retort that allows you to express yourself while still being positive and polite.

Finding the right comeback to deal with rude people isn’t always easy, especially if that person signs your paychecks. If you have been wondering how to handle your mother-in-law who can’t seem to keep her mouth shut about your weight, or your boss who shows no remorse when he gives you extra work to do, consider these comebacks the next time you encounter rudeness.

1. Thank you.

A simple “thank you” speaks volumes when you encounter rudeness. Not only does it show the other person that you didn’t let their words affect you, it reflects maturity on your part. You chose not to ignore the person or get angry, but met both of those tactics somewhere in the middle. A “thank you” usually implies that you acknowledge someone’s thoughtfulness and are responding to that. However, in this case, your “thank you” will mean that you acknowledge the person’s rudeness and you choose not to let it affect you. That will shut the other person down quickly when he or she realizes that the comments didn’t phase you.

You choose how to react in any given situation, so choose happiness. It will keep your thoughts and actions positive, and show others that their rude words simply cannot take your power from you.

2. I appreciate your perspective.

Not only does is this an intelligent approach, it will show the person that you only wish to communicate in an adult manner, and not stoop to their level. Any rude comments reflect the other person’s shaky perception of themselves, so remember that when someone blurts out something tactless. They may want to bring you down, but you don’t have to let them. Show them that you will only continue the conversation with dignity and respect. They may actually respect you more by reacting in such a considerate way. If this doesn’t happen, shift your focus with this next tip.

3. This conversation is now over.

If you find yourself too angry to respond to someone in a civil way, simply end the conversation. You don’t want to cause permanent damage to a relationship by losing your cool, but you also don’t want to disrespect yourself by pretending like the person’s comments or questions are acceptable.

Choose to take the high road and not allow the conversation to carry on, and you will be able to keep your dignity while skipping a potential all-out brawl or heated argument.

4. Why do you feel that was necessary, and do you really expect me to answer?

Especially in group settings, this will likely put the other person in check very quickly. Instead of getting the expected irate response out of you, they will meet a calm, cool and collected you, ready to talk things over sensibly and decently. Also, it will give them a chance to redeem themselves, and apologize to you in front of your friends, family or co-workers.

Other people do need to know that you do not tolerate rude or uncalled for questions and comments, and that you will call attention to their uncouth behavior. If they say “yes” to the second part of your question, you can simply reply with “Well, it looks like this isn’t your lucky day,” and be done with the conversation.

5. That almost hurt my feelings.

While a little on the sarcastic side, it tells the other person that you choose not to absorb their negativity. It also deals with rude people in a mature way, and will probably discourage the other person from making any other remarks once they realize you aren’t affected by them.

6. You’re right.

While most people have a hard time saying these two words, it will benefit you to make the other person believe they were in the right in what they said, and will likely cause the conversation to be cut short. What more can they say after this comeback? You admit their rightness, and then disengage from the conversation. While you might not get as much satisfaction by using this tactic, it will put a damper on the other person’s enjoyment since they won’t get a rise out of you, which is what they were after in the first place.

 7. You always have something negative to say, don’t you?

This takes the attention off of you and back onto them, making them think twice about their choice of conversation topics. Not only will you, rightfully so, draw their focus onto their own words, but also force them to reconsider what they say in the future.

Speaking your mind when a person repeats behavior that offends you is never wrong or uncalled for; if you feel you need to draw attention to someone’s behavior, then listen to your gut. The person’s negativity likely affects other people besides you, so making them aware of their own toxic behavior will actually benefit you and others in future situations with this person.

8. I love myself, and I love you, too.

This may only apply in certain situations with friends, family, and your spouse. If you say it to your boss, you might either get a strange look or get your named removed from the payroll, so use it at your discretion. However, this comeback had to make an appearance on the list because of its effectiveness at shutting down rude people. Kindness always prevails over negativity; darkness cannot thrive where light is present. When you express to the other person just how much you love life and others, their comments become irrelevant and lose power quickly. Their sour mood and bleak outlook on themselves, you, and life will not be a match for your extreme happiness and zest for life. People also aren’t used to such raw emotion from others, and will probably be too surprised to formulate a proper response.

Your words have the ability to boost the entire energy of a room and promote more positive conversation. You can’t go wrong with that!

9. Laugh

This reaction will definitely catch the offender off-guard and make a rude person feel embarrassed for even making the comment in the first place. For instance, if your aunt brings up your recent job loss at dinner again, just laugh. It will make the present moment seem a little less serious, and will send a message that you don’t let other people’s rude comments affect your mood or outlook on life.
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A good apology:

  1. Uses the words “I’m sorry” or “I apologize”
  2. Is specific about what one is apologizing for.
  3. Makes clear that one understands the impact of one’s words or actions on others.
  4. Makes clear how this won’t happen again.
  5. Makes amends. Explanation of one’s actions can be illuminating but is more often risky, because it easily veers into excuse-making.

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French Court: Israel is legitimately entitled to occupy all land beyond the 67 line

First and foremost, the Versailles Court of Appeals had to determine the legal rights of Palestinians and Israelis in West Bank. Their conclusion: Palestinians have no right – in the international legal sense – to the region, unlike Israel, who is legitimately entitled to occupy all land beyond the 67 line. Four different international treaties all state that the land belongs to the Jews and cannot be given to any other group (San Remo Treaty 1920, Covenant of the League of Nations – Article 22 of 1922, Anglo-American Treaty of 1924 and the United Nations Charter – Article 80 1945)
There is no legal claim for the Islamofascist [PA, Hamas, ISIS, Hezbollah et al.] colonists for any of the land

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israellycool-logo https://www.israellycool.com/

Paris Peace Conference On Israel-Palestine Will Ignore French Law

By Brian of London January 15, 2017 http://www.israellycool.com/2017/01/15/paris-peace-conference-on-israel-palestine-will-ignore-french-law/

Eifel Tower base

Eifel Tower base

Today in France 70 nations will come together in Paris and blindly ignore the legal ruling of a highly significant French court (Court of Appeal of Versailles) just a few years ago. They will most likely issue a statement which creates the impression that Israel’s activities in Judea and Samaria are illegal.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago that there hasn’t been a proper legal case to decide the legality of Jews living in the lands captured back from Jordan in ’67, specifically Judea, Samaria and parts of Jerusalem. I was wrong! There was exactly such a case and, even though I’ve written about it, it has received almost no attention and been buried.

Here’s a very simplistic background on how western legal systems operate. In a Western country founded on Judeo-Christian principles, some form of elected body decides to pass and enact laws. Perhaps there is a foundational document (like the US Constitution) or centuries of history and a set of procedures and prior law on how stuff is done (the UK). One thing that unites all these systems is that new laws must be tested in court.

A law enters the books when the elected officials have all agreed on it, but until someone breaks the law or challenges it in some way, it isn’t fully tested.

Fortunately there isn’t a government for the entire world (and plans for such a monstrosity probably took a backward step when Hillary Clinton lost in November). The UN, as a club of dictators, despots and dastardly deed doers (with a sprinkling of decent, democratic states) certainly isn’t remotely close to a single government for the world that any sane person would submit to. The International Criminal Court in the Hague is also similarly problematic. International law, therefore, stems from a bunch of widely (but not universally) accepted treaties and agreements many nations have signed up to going back, in cases, hundreds of years and methods for deciding disputes are confusing.

But just as with nations passing laws, until a court hears a case based on the law, interpretation of that law isn’t set. That’s why there is such a thing as a “legal opinion”. In any given case there are two or more sides arguing that they’ve understood the law correctly and the other side is wrong.

That’s the situation with Israel’s status in territory it captured in various defensive wars since 1948. When I wrote “you can believe arguments one way or another, but you can’t yet say the matter of settlements is settled” I was overlooking one very important case from France in 2013 which I even wrote about back then! A week after the case concluded (with a resounding win for the Israeli side and a defeat for a PLO backed boycott effort) I wrote the following:

As we first reported here on Israellycool last week, a French court has confirmed some aspects of the legal situation regarding Israel and the hills of Judea and Samaria, especially around Jerusalem.

Now the larger news outlets have had time to think about this and get the opinion of greater legal minds than this humble blogger.

And the answer seems to be, it is a victory, but only if you didn’t know anything about international law and the specifics of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Conventions.

Well I’d say that’s just about everyone on earth and doubly so for everyone who is deluded by BDS campaign lies!

Exactly as I noted then, the legacy media completely ignored this ruling or downplayed it because it didn’t fit their lethal narrative: Jews are illegal settlers in what was once their own land. Nobody in the hostile legacy media has referred to it since (try to google for it).

People on the Jerusalem light rail train

People on the Jerusalem light rail train

Jean-Patrick Grumberg (the original reporter I linked to back in 2013 on the story) has now re-published a more detailed account of the technicalities of the case which related to the building, in Jerusalem, of the light rail system which connects both predominantly Arab and Jewish neighbourhoods to the centre of Jerusalem.

The entire blog post is definitely worth reading (a few times) but here are the headlines:

In a historical trial carefully « forgotten » by the media, the 3rd Chamber of the Court of Appeal of Versailles declares that Israel is the legal occupant of the West Bank*.

In the 90s, Israel bid for the construction of the Jerusalem light rail. The tender was won by French companies Veolia and Alstom. The light rail was completed in 2011, and it cross Jerusalem all the way to the east side and the « occupied territories » (more about this term later).

Following this, the PLO filed a complaint with the High Court (Tribunal de Grande Instance) of Versailles France, against Alstom and Veolia, because according to PLO, « the construction of the tram is illegal since the UN, the EU, many NGOs and governments consider that « Israel illegally occupy Palestinian territories ».

By Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) - 2012-08-19OpenStreetMap data for the background, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20740571

By Maximilian Dörrbecker (Chumwa) – 2012-08-19OpenStreetMap data for the background, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=20740571

First and foremost, the Versailles Court of Appeals had to determine the legal rights of Palestinians and Israelis in West Bank. Their conclusion: Palestinians have no right – in the international legal sense – to the region, unlike Israel, who is legitimately entitled to occupy all land beyond the 67 line.

Why is this an historical ruling: it is the first international case since the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948.

The Court of Appeal does not deny the occupation, but it destroys one after another all the Palestinian arguments.

Israeli occupation does not violate any international law.

Propaganda is not international law.

Humanitarian law was not violated.

The PLO and the Palestinians were dismissed.

This is how Jean-Patrick concludes his post (which also includes the entire court decision in French).

The Court of Appeal therefore sentenced the PLO (and Association France Palestine Solidarité AFPS who was co-appellant) to pay 30,000 euros ($32,000) to Alstom, 30,000 euros to Alstom Transport and 30,000 euros to Veolia Transport.

Logo_50-liberation-of-Jerusalem

הסערה הבאה שרת התרבות מירי רגב הורתה להכניס ללוגו הרשמי של חגיגות היובל לאיחוד ירושלים את המילה שחרור ירושלים במקום איחוד העיר
נשלח על ידי
איתמר אייכנר
אחרי

Neither the PLO nor the Palestinian Authority nor the AFPS appealed to the Supreme Court, therefore the judgment has become final.

This is the first time that a Court has legally destroyed all Palestinian legal claim that Israel’s occupation is illegal.

The Jerusalem Chords Bridge or Jerusalem Bridge of Strings גשר המיתרים‎, Gesher HaMeitarim, also called the Jerusalem Light Rail Bridge is a cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge at the entrance to the city of Jerusalem, Israel, designed by the Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava. The bridge is used by Jerusalem Light Rail’s Red Line, Incorporated in the structure is a glass-sided pedestrian bridge enabling pedestrians to cross from Kiryat Moshe to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station.

The Jerusalem Chords Bridge or Jerusalem Bridge of Strings גשר המיתרים‎, Gesher HaMeitarim, also called the Jerusalem Light Rail Bridge is a cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge at the entrance to the city of Jerusalem, Israel, designed by the Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava. The bridge is used by Jerusalem Light Rail’s Red Line, Incorporated in the structure is a glass-sided pedestrian bridge enabling pedestrians to cross from Kiryat Moshe to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station.

Jews Down Under-logo https://jewsdownunder.com

Jews Down Under-logo https://jewsdownunder.com

The Green Line Through Jerusalem.

First.One.Through 28June2020 https://jewsdownunder.com/2020/06/28/the-green-line-through-jerusalem/

When the United Nations considered dividing Israel into an Arab State and a Jewish State in 1947, it sought to remove the contentious religious sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims into a distinct “corpus separatum” which would be under international control. The area of Greater Jerusalem and Greater Bethlehem was to become a “Holy Basin,” and a unique model from the nascent United Nations.

The Arabs rejected partition and five Arab armies invaded Israel. At wars end in 1949, armistice lines with Egypt, Syria and Jordan created new boundaries in the region. Jordan took control and soon annexed the area it seized, including three-quarters of the Holy Basin. The division for the Jordanian frontiers were marked in green and it became known as the “Green Line.”

The division of Jerusalem in the 1949 Armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan.

The division of Jerusalem in the 1949 Armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan.

The division of Jerusalem in the 1949 Armistice agreement between Israel and Jordan.
The Israeli portion of the map was marked in blue and Israel applied sovereignty up to that line. The space between the blue and green lines was considered “no man’s land.”

The Jordanian side included the entirety of the Old City of Jerusalem. The line ran right along the western side of the city, including the Jaffa and New Gates up to the Damascus Gate. The Jordanians forbade Jews from living in, visiting or praying at their holy sites in the city.

The map above is from the United Nations and marks the city’s sacred locations. Note that even though the city is only considered the holiest for Jews, the Jewish locations are listed last. The holiest location, the Jewish Temple Mount, is not even marked as sacred to Jews. The Western Wall is marked as holy – to both Jews and Muslims.

The map lists the Christian holy places first and includes numerous locations including each station of the Cross. It lists but does not show the various sacred spots in Bethlehem.
Muslims have the fewest holy sites of the three monotheistic religions, but occupy the dominant platform of Jerusalem. Uniquely among the monotheistic faiths, Muslims have no sites subject to “the status quo” according to the map.

The only holy location on the Israeli side of the lines is the Tomb of David, curiously listed as the only site holy to all three religions.

……

The world’s vision of Jerusalem from 1949 to 1967 was a place dominated by Christianity in terms of reverence, by Muslims in regards to prominence, and lastly by Jews, whose holiest spot was not even acknowledged and their basic human rights to live and worship were ignored. Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Day Flag Dance Jerusalem Day is a day to mark the upending of that dynamic, at least in part.

The world’s vision of Jerusalem from 1949 to 1967 was a place dominated by Christianity in terms of reverence, by Muslims in regards to prominence, and lastly by Jews, whose holiest spot was not even acknowledged and their basic human rights to live and worship were ignored.
Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Day Flag Dance
Jerusalem Day is a day to mark the upending of that dynamic, at least in part.

The world’s vision of Jerusalem from 1949 to 1967 was a place dominated by Christianity in terms of reverence, by Muslims in regards to prominence, and lastly by Jews, whose holiest spot was not even acknowledged and their basic human rights to live and worship were ignored.
Yom Yerushalayim – Jerusalem Day Flag Dance
Jerusalem Day is a day to mark the upending of that dynamic, at least in part.

Ruthfully Yours-logo

Pompeo Busts the ‘Occupation’ Myth The claim that Israeli settlements are illegal was flimsy in 1978 and is ridiculous in 2019. By Eugene Kontorovich

Posted By   20November2019 http://www.ruthfullyyours.com/2019/11/20/pompeo-busts-the-occupation-myth-the-claim-that-israeli-settlements-are-illegal-was-flimsy-in-1978-and-is-ridiculous-in-2019-by-eugene-kontorovich/

https://www.wsj.com/articles/pompeo-busts-the-occupation-myth-11574207220

Israeli settlements in the West Bank do not violate international law. That is now America’s official view, announced Monday by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. The historic decision repudiates the conclusions of a 1978 State Department memorandum.

For decades, Israel’s detractors have appealed to consensus, asserting that settlements are illegal because the entire international community agrees they are illegal. As with Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the Trump administration has refused to be cowed by a hollow consensus. By dissenting, the U.S. has destroyed both the consensus and the frail arguments that relied on it.

The four-page 1978 memo, written by legal adviser Herbert Hansell, was hardly a thorough study. It painted with broad strokes across several issues and cited no precedent for its key conclusions. Most important, its legal analysis of occupation and settlements has never been applied, by the U.S. or anyone else, to any other comparable situation.

Hansell’s memo took two analytic steps. First, it concluded that Israel was an “occupying power” in the West Bank. Next, it invoked an obscure provision of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which says the “Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Hansell concluded that Jews who have moved past the Green Line into disputed territory have somehow been “deported or transferred” there by the state of Israel.

Under international law, occupation occurs when a country takes over the sovereign territory of another country. But the West Bank was never part of Jordan, which seized it in 1949 and ethnically cleansed its entire Jewish population. Nor was it ever the site of an Arab Palestinian state.

Moreover, a country cannot occupy territory to which it has sovereign title, and Israel has the strongest claim to the land. International law holds that a new country inherits the borders of the prior geopolitical unit in that territory. Israel was preceded by the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, whose borders included the West Bank. Hansell’s memo fails to discuss this principle for determining borders, which has been applied everywhere from Syria and Lebanon to post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine.

Even on its own terms, the memo’s conclusions no longer apply. Because occupation is part of the law of war, Hansell wrote, the state of occupation would end if Israel entered into a peace treaty with Jordan. In 1994 Jerusalem and Amman signed a full and unconditional peace treaty, but the State Department neglected to update the memo.

Even if there were an occupation, the notion that it creates an impermeable demographic bubble around the territory—no Jew can move in—has no basis in the history or application of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Almost every prolonged occupation since 1949—from the Allies’ 40-year administration of West Berlin to Turkey’s 2016 occupation of northern Syria—has seen population movement into the occupied territory. In none of these cases has the U.S., or the United Nations, ever claimed a violation of this Geneva Convention provision.

Mr. Pompeo’s action shows the U.S. understands that we can’t have one international law for one country and another for the rest of the world.

Mr. Kontorovich is a professor at George Mason University Scalia Law School.


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Pompeo Declares BDS Movement Antisemitic, Seeks to Defund Anti-Israel Boycott Campaigners

Posted by Thursday, November 19, 2020 at 3:00pm https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/11/pompeo-declares-bds-movement-antisemitic-seeks-to-defund-anti-israel-boycott-campaigners/

Secretary of State Mike: “We want to join all the other nations that recognize BDS for the cancer that it is.”

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recognized the anti-Israel boycott campaign, or the BDS Movement, as antisemitic.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recognized the anti-Israel boycott campaign, or the BDS Movement, as antisemitic.

The State Department “will regard the global anti-Israel BDS campaign as anti-Semitic,” Secretary Pompeo said during a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

 

The State Department “will immediately take steps to identify organizations that engage in hateful BDS conduct, and withdraw US government support for such groups.” Secretary Pompeo announced on the second day of his Israel trip.

“We want to join all the other nations that recognize BDS for the cancer that it is,” he added.

Thursday’s move will “cut off government support for any organizations taking part in it, a step that could deny funding to Palestinian and international human rights groups,” the Associated Press noted. President Donald Trump’s administration is considering cutting U.S. funding for international activist groups who have been supporting boycott calls against Israel, including big names like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and Oxfam, news reports suggest.

 

Secretary-Pompeo-tweet-19November2020-BDS-AntiSemitism

Secretary-Pompeo-tweet-19November2020-BDS-AntiSemitism

 

Israeli TV network i24News reported Secretary Pompeo’s remarks:

The US government will take action against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement and groups that support it, US State Secretary Mike Pompeo said Thursday.

The statement was made in a joint press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

‘We will regard the global anti-Israel BDS campaign as anti-Semitic,’ Pompeo said, adding that the designation will come along with concrete steps against it.

“We will immediately take steps to identify the organizations that engage in hateful BDS conduct and withdraw US government support from such groups,” he announced.

Pompeo minced no words, comparing the BDS movement with “cancer,” and reinstated the “ironclad” US commitment to Israel’s security: “During the [US President Donald] Trump administration, America stands with Israel like never before.”

 

Lahav-Harkov-tweet-19November2020-labeling-products-made-in-Israel

Lahav-Harkov-tweet-19November2020-labeling-products-made-in-Israel

 

On Thursday, Secretary Pompeo became the first U.S. Secretary of State to visit Israel’s Judea and Samaria region, often referred to in the mainstream media as the “West Bank.” President Trump last year recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the area.

In a symbolic gesture, the Secretary of State visited the Psagot winery in Samaria. The top EU court, the European Court of Justice, in its November 2019 judgment, ruled against the winery, ordering mandatory labeling of products from the Judea and Samaria region as ‘settlement’ goods.

“It is a blessing to be here in Judea and Samaria,” he wrote in the winery guestbook. “May I not be the last secretary of state to visit this beautiful land.”

Rejecting discriminatory labeling of Israeli products as mandated by the EU, Secretary Pompeo announced on Thursday that products made in areas under Israeli sovereignty, which includes Judea and Samaria, “ will be required to mark goods as “Israel,” “Product of Israel,” or “Made in Israel” when exporting to the United States. ”

The Palestinian leadership was angered by Pompeo’s visit to the region and his decision to do away with the discriminatory labeling. “The decision blatantly violates international law,” a spokesman for Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas declared. The PA “condemned” the announcement as “yet another biased, pro-Israeli move by US President Donald Trump’s administration,” the Times of Israel reported.

‘Secretary Mike Pompeo in Israel, Announces US Action Against BDS movement.’

Secretary Mike Pompeo in Israel, Announces US Action Against BDS movement

TOP


 

Department-of-State-tweet-19November2020-Anti-Zionism-is-anti-Semitism

Department-of-State-tweet-19November2020-Anti-Zionism-is-anti-Semitism

 

Arutz Sheva http://www.israelnationalnews.com/

The only question on settlement legality is: Why did it take so long?

When it came to the issue of the settlements, the discussion was not, to quote Professor Eugene Rostow, “about legal rights but about the political will to override legal rights.”

Dr. Richard L. Cravatts, 20November2019 http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/24755

In reversing the Obama administration’s shameful acceding to the UN Security Council’s 2016 resolution that Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria were illegal under international law,  US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo finally stated what was obvious to many legal scholars and others who have assessed the facts on the ground; namely, as Pompeo put it, “The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.” Additionally, as he noted, while the decision “does not prejudice or decide legal conclusions regarding situations in any other parts of the world,” the Secretary emphasized that the affirmation of the settlements’ legality “is based on the unique facts, history, and circumstances presented by the establishment of civilian settlements in the West Bank.”

Those “unique facts, history, and circumstances,” of course, have existed for some time now, but were ignored or purposely contorted to promote a defective diplomacy in which, it was thought, the realization of Palestinian Arab statehood was being compromised by the construction of Jewish housing in the ‘West Bank’.

The settlement debate had also been hijacked by the Arab world and its Western apologists who, willingly blind to history, international law, and fact, continued to assign the blame for the absence of peace on the perceived offenses of occupation and Israeli truculence. Thus, for instance, then-Secretary Hillary Clinton and her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, had both referred to the nuisance Israel caused by letting Jews live in the ‘West Bank’, against the wishes of the Palestinian Arabs who view that territory as once and forever theirs, as “unhelpful” in seeking a viable solution to Palestinian Arab statehood.

What was truly “unhelpful,” however, were the repeated references to the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza, as well as East Jerusalem, as “Arab” land, the putative Palestinian state in waiting, encumbered only by Israeli oppression, the dreaded occupation, and those pesky settlers. This widely held notion that European Jews, with no connection to historic Palestine, colonized Arab land and displaced the indigenous Palestinian Arab population, of course, is a key part of what Professor Richard Landes of Boston University defined as the “cognitive war” against Israel; it serves the perverse purpose of validating Arab territorial rights to the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza, and, more importantly, casts Israelis as squatters who have unlawfully expropriated land that is not—and never was—theirs.

Secretary Pompeo’s confirmation of the legality of the settlements serves to reverse the faulty historical assumptions and misreading of law that has animated the settlement debate, principally the fact that not only all of the land that is current-day Israel, but also Gaza and the ‘West Bank’, is part of the land granted to the Jews as part of the League of Nations Palestine Mandate, which recognized the right of the Jewish people to “close settlement” in a portion of those territories gained after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire after World War I.

According to Eugene V. Rostow, the late legal scholar and one of the authors of UN Security Council Resolution 242 written after the 1967 war to outline peace negotiations, “the Jewish right of settlement in Palestine west of the Jordan River, that is, in Israel, the West Bank, Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, was made unassailable. That right has never been terminated and cannot be terminated except by a recognized peace between Israel and its neighbors,” something which Israel’s intransigent Arab neighbors have never seemed prepared to do.

Moreover, Rostow contended, “The Jewish right of settlement in the West Bank is conferred by the same provisions of the Mandate under which Jews settled in Haifa, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem before the State of Israel was created,” and “the Jewish right of settlement in the area is equivalent in every way to the right of the existing Palestinian population to live there.”

The Six Day War of 1967, in which Israel recaptured Gaza and the ‘West Bank’, including Jerusalem, resulted in Israel being cast in another perfidious role—in addition to colonial usurper of Arab land, the Jewish state became a “brutal” “occupier” of Arab Palestine, lands to which the Jews presumably had no right and now occupied, in the opinion of many in the international community, illegally.

But when did the ‘West Bank’, Gaza, and East Jerusalem become Palestinian land? The answer is: never. In fact, when Israel acquired the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza and other territory in 1967 after being attacked by Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, the Jewish state gained legally recognized title to those areas.

In Israel’s 1948 war of independence, Egypt, it will be recalled, illegally annexed Gaza at the same time Jordan illegally annexed the ‘West Bank’—actions that were not recognized by most of the international community as legitimate in establishing their respective sovereignties.

Israel’s recapture of those territories in 1967, noted Professor Stephen Schwebel, State Department legal advisor and later the President of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, made the Jewish state what is referred to as the High Contracting Party of those territories, both because they were acquired in a defensive, not aggressive, war, and because they were part of the original Mandate and not previously under the sovereignty of any other High Contracting Party. “Where the prior holder of territory had seized that territory unlawfully,” Schwebel wrote, referring to Jordan and Egypt, “the state which subsequently takes that territory in the lawful exercise of self-defense has, against that prior holder, better title.”’

It is also morally repellent, for those arguing on the Palestinian Arab side, that the ‘West Bank’, like Gaza, eventually be made judenrein, totally absent of Jews, that, as Mahmoud Abbas has loudly announced on more than one occasion, the future Palestinian state would not have one Jew living within its borders.

Putting aside the fact that it is Israel that is continually derided for being racist and exclusionary (despite having one million Arab citizens), only in a world turned upside down would diplomats uphold a principle that Jews—and only Jews—not be allowed to live in certain territories, and particularly those areas to which they have irrevocable and inalterable biblical, historic, and legal claims.

In fact, Professor Emeritus Jerold Auerbach of Wellesley College has written that, protests from the State Department and many in the West aside, “Israeli settlement throughout the West Bank is explicitly protected by international agreements dating from the World War I era, subsequently reaffirmed after World War II, and never revoked since . . . The [Mandate for Palestine] recognized ‘the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine’ and ‘the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country’ . . . This was not framed as a gift to the Jewish people; rather, based on recognition of historical rights reaching back into antiquity, it was their entitlement.”

While those seeking Palestinian statehood conveniently overlook the legal rights Jews still enjoy to enable them to occupy all areas of historic Palestine, they have also used another oft-cited, but defective, argument in accusing Israel of violating international law by maintaining settlements in the ‘West Bank’: that since the Six Day War, Israel has conducted a “belligerent occupation.”

But as Professor Julius Stone discussed in his book, Israel and Palestine, the fact that the ‘West Bank’ and Gaza were acquired by Israel in a “sovereignty vacuum,” that is, that there was an absence of High Contracting Party with legal claim to the areas, means that, in this instance, the definition of a belligerent occupant in invalid. “There are solid grounds in international law for denying any sovereign title to Jordan in the West Bank,” Stone wrote, “and therefore any rights as reversioner state under the law of belligerent occupation.”

So, significantly, the absence of any sovereignty on territories acquired in a defensive war—as was the case in the Six Day War of 1967—means the absence of what can legally be called an occupation by Israel of the ‘West Bank’, belligerent or otherwise.

The matter of Israel violating Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention is one that has been used regularly, and disingenuously, as part of the cognitive war by those wishing to criminalize the settlement of Jews in the ‘West Bank’ and demonize Israel for behavior in violation of international law. It asserts that in allowing its citizens to move into occupied territories Israel violates Article 49, which stipulates that “The occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into territory it occupies.”

The use of this particular Geneva Convention seems particularly grotesque in the case of Israel, since it was crafted after World War II specifically to prevent a repetition of the actions of the Nazis in cleansing Germany of its own Jewish citizens and deporting them to Nazi-occupied countries for slave labor or extermination.

Clearly, the intent of the Convention was to prevent belligerents from forcibly moving their citizens to other territories, for malignant purposes— something completely different than the Israel government allowing its citizens to willingly relocate and settle in territories without any current sovereignty, to which Jews have longstanding legal claim, and, whether or not the area may become a future Palestinian state, should certainly be a place where a person could live, even if he or she is a Jew.

And does anyone doubt that once the Palestinians, aided and abetted by mendacious Western elites, diplomats, and an anti-Israel international community of supporters, have purged Gaza, the ‘West Bank’, and East Jerusalem of all Jews, that new calls will then arise accusing Jews of “occupying” more “Arab” lands in Tel Aviv, Netanya, Tiberias, or Haifa?

Professor Rostow himself saw through the disingenuous talk about legal rights and resolutions when it came to the issue of the settlements. The discussion was not, in his mind, “about legal rights but about the political will to override legal rights.” In fact, the settlement debate is part of the decades-old narrative created by the Palestinian Arabs and their Western enablers to write a false historical account that legitimizes Palestinian claims while air-brushing away Jewish history.

“Throughout Israel’s occupation,” Rostow observed, “the Arab countries, helped by the United States, have pushed to keep Jews out of the territories, so that at a convenient moment, or in a peace negotiation, the claim that the West Bank is ‘Arab’ territory could be made more plausible.”

With Secretary Pompeo’s bold statement reversing the legal status of the settlements, at least for the time being, that “convenient moment” may be less likely to occur and at least one key element in the cognitive war against Israel seems to have neutralized.

Richard L. Cravatts, PhD, President Emeritus of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME), is the author of Dispatches From the Campus War Against Israel and Jews.

The Jerusalem Chords Bridge or Jerusalem Bridge of Strings גשר המיתרים‎, Gesher HaMeitarim, also called the Jerusalem Light Rail Bridge is a cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge at the entrance to the city of Jerusalem, Israel, designed by the Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava. The bridge is used by Jerusalem Light Rail’s Red Line, Incorporated in the structure is a glass-sided pedestrian bridge enabling pedestrians to cross from Kiryat Moshe to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station.

The Jerusalem Chords Bridge or Jerusalem Bridge of Strings גשר המיתרים‎, Gesher HaMeitarim, also called the Jerusalem Light Rail Bridge is a cantilever spar cable-stayed bridge at the entrance to the city of Jerusalem, Israel, designed by the Spanish architect and engineer Santiago Calatrava. The bridge is used by Jerusalem Light Rail’s Red Line, Incorporated in the structure is a glass-sided pedestrian bridge enabling pedestrians to cross from Kiryat Moshe to the Jerusalem Central Bus Station.

 

Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely to Arab MKs: You are thieves of history

tzipihotovely
July 12, 2017

In a highly charged debate that developed in the plenum tonight (Wednesday, 12.7.17 [EDD-12July2017]) in the framework of a motion on the subject of UNESCO’s decision on Hebron and the Cave of the Patriarchs, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely responded on behalf of the government to the Arab Knesset members.

Tzipi Hotovely stands up in front of Arabs members:
“You are stealing our history” and then shows them the Old Testament proving Jewish connection to Israel and then the “history” of Palestine… an empty book
Watch her take them apart!

Cat-thus-logo

What the Members of the Knesset need to do is listen to the Gedolim and transfer the terrorist and their supporters out of Israel.

Pew 2016.03.08 Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.

Pew 2016.03.08 Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.

Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel How would you transfer a hostile Arab population? According to the Pew Research Center

Israeli Jews divided on the status of Arabs

Israeli Jews are divided on the question of whether Arabs should be allowed to live in the Jewish state. The survey asked Jews whether they strongly agree, agree, disagree or strongly disagree with the statement that “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.”








This is what we get if we do not transfer the terrorist and their supporters out of  Eretz Israel.

Numbers 33:55:But if you don’t drive out the inhabitants of the land from in front of you, then those you allow to remain will become like thorns in your eyes and stings in your sides — they will harass you in the land where you are living.

15 Seconds in Sderot, Israel

sderotmedia23 June 2, 2008
for more videos and information http://www.sderotmedia.com
Notice: Not for Leftist Antisemites who do not want to know the truth! Age-restricted video (based on Community Guidelines)

8 February 2017: Multiple rockets fired from Egypt into Eilat, Israel 3 hours on and not a single non-Israeli main stream media source has mentioned this, but every major news outlet has headlines screaming about " illegal Jewish aettlements ". Reminder to every news reporter and editor: if you continue to ignore stories like this while headlining the fact that a few houses are being built in the Jewish homeland, then your ARE an antisemite

8 February 2017: Multiple rockets fired from Egypt into Eilat, Israel 3 hours on and not a single non-Israeli main stream media source has mentioned this, but every major news outlet has headlines screaming about ” illegal Jewish aettlements “. Reminder to every news reporter and editor: if you continue to ignore stories like this while headlining the fact that a few houses are being built in the Jewish homeland, then your ARE an antisemite

Mahmoud Abbas Contradicts the Palestinian Narrative on Refugees

This is what we have to deal with.

Real Housewives of ISIS

Now for some real Truth

Alan Dershowitz Brilliantly Strikes down Anti-Israel Question at Conference

Shlomo Winner February 7, 2016

Rabbi Lazer Brody, The End of Days, 7-21-2015 2

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One Raid Shows All You Need to Know About Israel’s Current Predicament

by Stephen M. Flatow / JNS.org (https://www.algemeiner.com/2018/01/23/one-raid-shows-all-you-need-to-know-about-israels-current-predicament/)

Israeli forces operating in the West Bank city of Jenin, Jan. 18, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Mohamad Torokman.

Israeli forces operating in the West Bank city of Jenin, Jan. 18, 2018. Photo: Reuters / Mohamad Torokman.

JNS.org – You wouldn’t think that one isolated Israeli counter-terror raid could explode every major myth about Israel’s conflict with the Palestinian Arabs. But last week’s raid in Jenin came pretty close to doing just that.

Overnight on January 17, Israeli commandos entered the city of Jenin in search of two particular Arab terrorists. When the operation was over a few hours later, the Israeli forces withdrew

Wait — the Israelis withdrew? But isn’t Israel “occupying” the Palestinians? That’s what J Street and Jewish Voice for Peace are always telling us. Just this week, Rabbi Rick Jacobs, head of the Union for Reform Judaism, wrote that Israel is “ruling over millions of Palestinians.”

I guess that Rabbi Jacobs hasn’t been to Jenin lately. In fact, I would imagine that he hasn’t been there since at least 1995. That was the year when Israel withdrew all of its forces from the city (and the other areas where 98 percent of Palestinians reside), and a new power took over: the Palestinian Authority (PA). Counter-terror raids like the one in Jenin are the only occasions when Israeli forces enter PA-ruled cities.

Back to the story. The Israeli commandos were searching for the terrorists who carried out last week’s brutal drive-by murder of Rabbi Raziel Shevach, the father of six young children. As the Israelis were searching, The Times of Israel reports, “a violent riot broke out. … Palestinians hurled improvised explosive devices, rocks and fired at the forces.”

Wait — what? Some on the left have been telling us for decades that ordinary Palestinian Arabs are moderate, peace-seeking, and opposed to terrorism. The residents of Jenin should have been delighted that Israeli forces were coming to rid their city of terrorists. In fact, if they’re so moderate, they should have been actively assisting the anti-terror efforts.

Instead, the local residents impeded the hunt for the terrorists — by trying to shoot, stone and burn the Israeli soldiers to death. Would some J Streeter please explain this? I’m confused. Can these be Israel’s future peaceful neighbors?

I wonder if Jenin residents’ passionate support for terrorism and hatred of Jews and Israel has anything to do with the anti-Jewish textbooks that are used in PA schools, or the non-stop anti-Jewish incitement in the PA-controlled media and mosques.

Or maybe that’s all just a coincidence. Maybe how Palestinians behave has no connection whatsoever to what they watch, hear and read from their teachers, imams and political leaders 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Fortunately, the Israeli forces eventually caught up to two of the terrorists. They killed one and captured the other. Both were identified as members of a local Hamas cell.

But that can’t be. The Palestinian leadership promised, in the Oslo Accords, to disband all terrorist groups, seize their weapons and outlaw them. In other words, to put them out of business. How can it be that, 23 years after the PA took over, Hamas still has active terrorist cells in the city?

Surely the PA has the means to do the job. After all, the PA has one of the largest per-capita security forces in the world. Yet the PA never outlawed Hamas. It never arrested its members or seized its weapons. The PA treats Hamas like brothers, and allows the group to operate freely in Jenin, and everywhere else.

But don’t take my word for it. Look at The New York Times. Every once in a while, the truth about the PA and Palestinian terrorists manages to slip into one of its articles. On March 23, 2014, the Times reported that Israeli troops were forced to enter the Jenin refugee camp in pursuit of terrorists because although Jenin is under the “full control” of the PA, “the Palestinian [security forces] did not generally operate in refugee camps.”

Let me repeat what the Times said: The PA’s security forces do not operate in refugee camps. It doesn’t matter what the Oslo Accords say about the PA’s obligation to fight terrorists. It doesn’t matter how many Israelis the terrorists murder. The PA is not going to shut them down. Never has, never will.

One final fact from the recent Jenin raid. The shots fired — by “moderate” Jenin residents and by terrorists whom the PA lets run free — wounded two of the Israeli soldiers. An Israeli military spokesman said that one soldier was injured “seriously,” and that one was injured “lightly.”

According to IDF terminology, an injury is classified as “serious” if the victim’s life is in danger. A “moderate” injury means the victim could lose a limb. Anything short of losing a limb is categorized as a “light” injury. The victim might have to go through dozens of surgeries. He might have to walk with a severe limp, or he might suffer seizures for years to come. Technically, it’s still a “light” injury.

These two courageous young Israeli men risked their lives to protect their fellow Jews — and their lives may well have been shattered as a result. But you will never hear anything further about it. You will never hear on CNN, or read in The New York Times, about what these two Israelis suffered, or how their future lives will be affected. That kind of news is not considered fit to print.

Stephen M. Flatow, a vice president of the Religious Zionists of America, is an attorney in New Jersey. He is the father of Alisa Flatow, who was murdered in an Iranian-sponsored Palestinian terrorist attack in 1995.

There must be a creator vs. Global Warming



The Purpose of Life

The lies the Academics tell


zerohedge-com-logo

Body Blow To Activists: Whopping 82% Of Berlin’s Voters Refused To Support Net Zero 2030 As Referendum Fails

by Tyler Durden, 01April2023 – https://www.zerohedge.com/political/body-blow-activists-whopping-82-berlins-voters-refused-support-net-zero-2030-referendum

Authored by Paul Gosselin via NoTricksZone.com,

The results of Berlin’s Climate Neutrality By 2030 referendum tell us that FFF and Last Generation are fringe movements, remote of even Berlin’s mainstream.

It’ll take a longtime for the radical climate activists to recover from this major setback

The movement’s leaders reacted in disbelief and sourly to the defeat, as Twitter account holder Georg tweeted:

Translated from German by

Luisa and her climate crusaders probably didn’t expect that 85% would vote NO or not vote at all.
Will she now treat herself to a long-distance journey by plane to recover from the shock of the failed #Volksentscheid |s?

Georg Pazderski-tweet-27March2023-climate crusaders probably didn't expect that 85% would vote NO or not vote at all

Georg Pazderski-tweet-27March2023-climate crusaders probably didn’t expect that 85% would vote NO or not vote at all

Crushing defeat

Last Sunday’s “Berlin Climate Neutrality By 2030” referendum failed resoundingly despite the more than a million euros spent in a massive run-up campaign that included plastering the city with posters, concerts by famous performers, huge support and propaganda by the media and hefty donations coming from left wing activists from the east and west coasts of USA.

 

Once the dust of the referendum had settled, it emerged that the “yes” side fell way short of the quorum 608,000 votes needed to pass the measure. Only 442,210 cast a vote in favor, which represents only 18% of Berlin’s eligible voters. The activists expected a far greater turnout. 82% refused to lend any support.

 

Berlin’s rejection of the climate neutrality by 2030 mandate is a massive body blow to the the radical Fridays for Future and Last Generation movement in Germany, and it will take months for the radicals to recover, it ever, from this setback.

 

The Berlin initiative to make the city climate neutral by 2030 was led by rich, upper class youths like Luisa “Longhaul” Neubauer. But Berliners, having been harassed for months by activists gluing themselves to the streets and blocking traffic, saw the folly of the initiative and the high costs it would entail politically and financially. They decided resoundingly they’d wanted no part of it.

Lashing out at the majority

The agony of referendum defeat was palpable as some of its leaders reacted by lashing out and insulting those who refused to vote “yes”, In a video, movement co-leader Luisa Neubauer sank into cynical accusations against the majority, even calling the uncooperative Berliners “fossil cynics” and “climate destroyers”.

Neubauer added:

“There are forces in this city that are doing everything to get the last spark of climate destruction out.”

In Neubauer’s view these forces include the vast 82% of Berliners who refused to vote “yes”. So troublesome democracy can be.

“Bubble has finally burst”

Germany’s Pleiteticker here commented on the Berlin referendum:

Social Democrat Dario Schramm wept on Twitter at the gloating that would now come from the other side. But he and other supporters of the green ban politics need not be surprised. For years they have been spreading their ideas of good politics for years in a self-righteous, arrogant and sometimes aggressive manner.

 

They, mostly members of the upper middle class, have declared war on the lower and lower middle class with their destructive climate measures. Outside the Berlin political bubble and the other urban feel-good oases of Germany, the Neubauers of this world never possessed much support. And now the bubble has finally burst. In the Marzahn, Köpenick and Lichtenberg districts, the majority of voters voted against the referendum. The normal working population of Berlin decided against the journalistic and political elite.”

But don’t expect the climate radicals to go away. They’ll be back at it soon enough.

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An Inconvenient Truth For Al Gore: The Ice Is Still There

by Tyler Durden 20December2018 https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-12-20/inconvenient-truth-al-gore-ice-still-there

Authored by Onar Am via Liberty Nation,

Former Vice President Al Gore made a ruckus at the COP15 climate conference in December 2009 when he said that “some of the models say that there is a 75% chance that Arctic sea ice could be completely gone during part of the summer in only five to seven years.”

Now, nine years later, the ice is still there, just like the moderate scientists predicted.

It wasn’t just this prophesy that failed abysmally. The legacy media has not reported on it, but most alarmist predictions have failed. The earth did not warm significantly in the last two decades, a phenomenon that scientists refer to as the “pause” or “hiatus” in warming, and the weather has not been getting more extreme. Currently, the climate science community is in the awkward space between recognizing that warming has slowed down and acknowledging that this implies that the computer models are wrong.

Incompetence

President Donald Trump has referred to global warming as a “hoax.” While this, as many of his other statements, is inaccurate, it is directionally true. It did not start as a hoax. Highly ideologically motivated scientists inserted themselves at the center of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). They wanted to be right, and therefore made a few shortcuts.

Until around 2000, the IPCC was still heavily influenced by objective scientists. But in 1999, Dr. Michael Mann published a paper with a graph that became the poster boy of climate alarmism: The Hockey Stick Graph.

Departures in Temperature (C) Northern-Hemisphere

Departures in Temperature (C) Northern-Hemisphere

 

It was rushed through peer review and plastered all over the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report in 2001. After this, no-one was allowed to doubt that humans were dramatically altering the climate. There was only one problem with it: Mann was incompetent, and the conclusions were bogus. A Canadian engineer called Stephen McIntyre started doing what no-one else had done before: He looked at the data and tried to recreate the result.

Mann tried to smear him, but after many years one of the leading statisticians in the U.S., Edward Wegman, was commissioned by Congress to write a report on the Hockey Stick Graph. The Wegman Report was a devastating blow to the credibility of Mann. The report demonstrated that the method he had used to produce the hockey stick graph could be used to create any shape you wanted.

The Cover-Up

The Wegman report should have ended Mann’s career, and many people in the IPCC should have lost their jobs for sloppy work and incompetence, but instead – because they have the media on their side – they’re still around.

Then in 2009, someone leaked emails from this group of tightly knit scientists, and they showed less than an honest handling of the situation. Rather than dealing with the matter in a scientifically rigorous manner, they tried to cover it up. This leak has been referred to as Climategate.

Climategate Scientist-Nixon "Burn the Tapes"

Climategate Scientist-Nixon “Burn the Tapes”

 

We do not have similar information from other areas of climate science, but some of the behavior we observe is consistent with fraud.

The 97% Consensus

One example is the claim that there is a 97% consensus among climate scientists. What is rarely mentioned is that most so-called climate skeptics fall within that 97%. Most skeptics do not believe that humans do not affect the climate. They merely say that the warming is small enough to be of no concern. Why do the alarmists have to falsely boost their credibility with inaccurate claims about how many scientists support their position?

The Temperature Adjustments

Another example is the continual adjustments made to historical temperature data. There are many error sources in temperature measurements that can cause false trends. Population growth, more asphalt and buildings and other things all produce spurious patterns in the data over time, and they, therefore, must be corrected.

NC/DC Change of Monthly Values

NC/DC Change of Monthly Values

 

Most of the known error sources produce a false warming trend, and therefore the data need to be adjusted downward. However, since 2008, the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) has been producing modified data sets with the opposite effect. The graph  shows the changes made to the data lately. Notice how the past has become cooler and the recent decades have been made warmer.

What are the odds that every time a new data set is released, they have found some more warming? The behavior strongly resembles a pattern seen in elections in some districts where there is a close race between Republicans and Democrats. Time after time, if a Republican wins, someone “finds” some “lost” or “late” ballots and when they are counted, they mysteriously turn out to be almost all Democrats. Strange that.

Vigilance Is Needed

It could very well be that the temperature adjustments are scientifically sound, but if it were a fraud, this is precisely what you would expect to see. They leave the strong sense that many career alarmists are worried about their future and reputation and that actions are being made to change the observations so that they are in better agreement with the climate models.

Since the legacy media is staying wholly silent and uncritical of the climate community, it is vital to remain vigilant and remind people of the dubious nature of their endeavor. The science is not settled, and there is even a chance that the greatest scandal in scientific history is in the making. The answer may come sooner than you think.

See also Liberty Nation’s:

  • Five Facts about Climate Change and the Dire Predictions of Environmental Activists
  • Climate Change Hysteria: Part 1
  • Climate Change Hysteria: Part 2

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Predictions have failed


Declaration of Memes-tweet-4July2024-Predictions have failed
Are you paying attention yet?

Declaration of Memes-tweet-4July2024-Predictions have failed

Declaration of Memes-tweet-4July2024-Predictions have failed

 


Roseblite-tweet-5July2024-Been paying attention for years
Been paying attention for YEARS.

Roseblite-tweet-5July2024-Been paying attention for years

Roseblite-tweet-5July2024-Been paying attention for years

 

Predictions have failed timeline

Predictions have failed timeline

 


 


Wide Awake Media-tweet-4July2024-man-made global warming Faked
“The dam is finally cracking.”

Award-winning journalist Alex Newman breaks down how the “man-made global warming” narrative is finally crumbling.

“Three new peer-reviewed papers, published in major prestigious scientific journals… completely undermine the alleged scientific consensus on man-made global warming.”

Credit: @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU

Wide Awake Media-tweet-4July2024-man-made global warming Faked

Wide Awake Media-tweet-4July2024-man-made global warming Faked

 

 


 

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The Scaremongers Are Wrong; Get off twitter, and go have babies!


John Stossel-tweet-7July2024-The Scaremongers Are Wrong-Get off twitter and go have babies
Get off twitter, and go have babies!

The Earth NEEDS more people.

“The biggest problem the world will face in 20 years is population collapse,” says @elonmusk.

I’ll show you why Musk is right.

John Stossel-tweet-7July2024-The Scaremongers Are Wrong-Get off twitter and go have babies

John Stossel-tweet-7July2024-The Scaremongers Are Wrong-Get off twitter and go have babies

 

The Scaremongers Are Wrong

 

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Let’s Play Follow The Climate Money!

by Tyler Durden 07January2019 -https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-07/lets-play-follow-climate-money

Authored by Paul Driessen, originally published at CFACT.org

The climate crisis industry incessantly claims that fossil fuel emissions are causing unprecedented temperature, climate and weather changes that pose existential threats to human civilization and our planet. The only solution, Climate Crisis, Inc. insists, is to eliminate the oil, coal and natural gas that provide 80% of the energy that makes US and global economies, health and living standards possible.

Man-Bear-Pig

Man-Bear-Pig

Failing that, CCI demands steadily increasing taxes on carbon-based fuels and carbon dioxide emissions.

However, as France’s Yellow Vest protests and the latest climate confab in Poland demonstrated, the world is not prepared to go down that dark path. Countries worldwide are expanding their reliable fossil fuel use, and families do not want to reduce their living standards or their aspirations for better lives.

Moreover, climate computer model forecasts are completely out of touch with real-world observations. There is no evidence to support claims that the slight temperature, climate and weather changes we’ve experienced are dangerous, unprecedented or caused by humans, instead of by the powerful solar, oceanic and other natural forces that have driven similar or far more serious changes throughout history.

More importantly, the CCI “solutions” would cause unprecedented disruption of modern industrialized societies; permanent poverty and disease in poor countries; and serious ecological damage worldwide.

Nothing that is required to harness breezes and sunshine to power civilization is clean, green, renewable, climate-friendly or sustainable. Tens of billions of tons of rock would have to be removed, to extract billions of tons of ores, to create millions of tons of metals, concrete and other materials, to manufacture millions of wind turbines and solar panels, and install them on millions of acres of wildlife habitats – to generate expensive, intermittent energy that would be grossly insufficient for humanity’s needs. Every step in this process requires fossil fuels – and some of the mining involves child labor.

How do CCI alarmists respond to these points? They don’t. They refuse to engage in or even permit civil discussion. They rant that anyone “who denies climate change science” is on the fossil fuel industry payroll, thus has a blatant conflict of interest and no credibility, and therefore should be ignored.

“Rebuttals” to my recent “We are still IN” article cited Greenpeace and DeSmogBlog as their “reliable sources” and claimed: I’m “associated with” several “right-wing think tanks that are skeptical of man-made climate change.” One of them “received $582,000 from ExxonMobil” over a 14-year period, another got “$5,716,325 from Koch foundations” over 18 years, and the Koch Brothers gave “at least $100,343,292 to 84 groups denying climate change science” in 20 years, my detractors claimed.

These multi-year contributions work out to $41,571 annually; $317,574 per year; and $59,728 per organization per year, respectively – to pay salaries and overhead at think tanks that are engaged in multiple social, tax, education, medical and other issues … not just energy and climate change.

But let’s assume for a moment that money – especially funding from any organization that has any kind of financial, regulatory or other “special interest” in the outcome of this ongoing energy and economic battle – renders a researcher incapable of analyzing facts fairly and honestly.

Then apply those zero-tolerance, zero-credibility Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-CCI standards to those very same climate alarmists and their allies – who are determined to shut down debate and impose their wind, solar and biofuel policies on the world. Where do they get their money, and how much do they get?

let's do: follow the climate money

let’s do: follow the climate money

 

Billionaire and potential presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg gave the Sierra Club $110 million in a six-year period to fund its campaign against coal-generated electricity. Chesapeake Energy gave the Club $26 million in three years to promote natural gas and attack coal. Ten wealthy liberal foundations gave another $51 million over eight years to the Club and other environmentalist groups to battle coal.

Over a 12-year period, the Environmental Protection Agency gave its 15 Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee members $181 million in grants – and in exchange received quick rubberstamp approvals of various air quality rules. It paid the American Lung Association $20 million to support its regulations.

During the Obama years, the EPA, Interior Department and other federal agencies paid environmental pressure groups tens of millions in collusive, secretive sue-and-settle lawsuit payoffs on dozens of issues.

Then we get to the really big money: taxpayer funds that government agencies hand out to scientists, computer modelers and pressure groups – to promote global warming and climate change alarmism.

As Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore noted recently, citing government and other reports:

* Federal funding for climate change research, technology, international assistance, and adaptation has increased from $2.4 billion in 1993 to $11.6 billion in 2014, with an additional $26.1 billion for climate change programs and activities provided by the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

* The Feds spent an estimated $150 billion on climate change and green energy subsidies during President Obama’s first term.

* That didn’t include the 30% tax credits/subsidies for wind and solar power: $8 billion to $10 billion a year – plus billions more from state programs that require utilities to buy expensive “green” energy.

* Worldwide, according to the “progressive” Climate Policy Initiative, climate change “investment” in 2013 totaled $359 billion – but this “falls far short” of the $5 trillion per year that’s actually needed.

The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change echoes those greedy demands. It says the world must spend $2.4 trillion per year for the next 17 years to subsidize the transition to renewable energy

Bear in mind that $1.5 trillion per year was already being spent in 2014 on Climate Crisis, Inc. research, consulting, carbon trading and renewable projects, according to the Climate Change Business Journal. With 6-8% annual growth, we’re easily looking at a $2-trillion-per-year climate industry by now.

The US Government Accountability Office puts United States taxpayer funding alone at $2.1 billion per year for climate change “science” … $9.0 billion a year for technology R&D … and $1.8 billion a year for international assistance. Total US Government spending on climate change totaled $179 billion (!) from 1993 through 2017, according to the GAO. That’s $20 million per day!

At the September 2018Global Climate Action Summit, 29 leftist foundations pledged to give $4 billion over five years to their new Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming campaign. Sea Change Foundation co-founder Nat Simons made it clear that this “is only a down payment”!

And I get pilloried for working with organizations that received $41,571 to $59,728 per year from fossil fuel interests … questioning claims that fossil fuels are causing climate chaos … and raising inconvenient facts and questions about wind, solar and biofuel replacements for coal, oil and natural gas.

Just as outrageous, tens of millions of dollars are squandered every year to finance “studies” that supposedly show “surging greenhouse gases” and “manmade climate change” are creating dangerous hybrid puffer fish, causing salmon to lose their ability to detect danger, making sharks right-handed and unable to hunt, increasing the number of animal bites, and causing US cities to be overrun by rats.

Let’s apply the Greenpeace-DeSmogBlog-Climate Crisis, Inc. standard all these organizations and researchers.

Their massive multi-billion-dollar conflicts of interest clearly make them incapable of analyzing climate and energy matters fairly and honestly – and disqualify them from participating in any further discussions about America’s and the world’s energy and economic future.

At the very least, they and the institutions that have been getting rich and powerful off the catastrophic manmade global warming and climate hustle should be cut off from any future federal funding.

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Al Gore Forecasted “Ice-Free” Arctic by 2013; Ice Cover Expands 50%

Written by http://thenewamerican.com/tech/environment/item/17207-al-gore-forecasted-ice-free-arctic-by-2013-ice-cover-expands-50

 

Al Gore, Global warming, Freezing Deer,

Al Gore, Global warming, Freezing Deer,

Self-styled “global-warming” guru Al Gore (shown) and a gaggle of supposed “climate scientists” have egg all over their faces — big time. In 2007, 2008 and 2009, Gore publicly and very hysterically warned that the North Pole would be “ice-free” by around 2013 because of alleged “man-made global warming.” Citing “climate” experts, the government-funded BBC hyped the mass hysteria, running a now-embarrassing article under the headline: “Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013’.” Other establishment media outlets did the same.

Well, 2013 is almost over, and contrary to the alarmist “predictions” by Gore and what critics refer to as his “doomsday cult,” the latest satellite data show that Arctic ice cover has actually expanded 50 percent over 2012 levels. In fact, during October, sea-ice levels grew at the fastest pace since records began in 1979. Experts predict the expansion to continue in the years to come, leaving global-warming alarmists scrambling fiendishly for explanations to save face — and to revive the rapidly melting climate hysteria.

In September, meanwhile, data also showed that sea ice levels in Antarctica had expanded to record levels for the second year in a row. Of course, by now, virtually everyone who has been following news about “global warming” — now more often referred to as “climate change” owing to public-relations concerns — also knows that global temperatures have not risen for some 17 years. The spectacular lack of warming demolished all 73 of the “climate models” used by the United Nations to push its controversial theories.

 

According to the dubious theories and predictions advanced by Al Gore and other alarmists, though, none of this should be happening. Speaking to an audience in Germany five years ago, Gore — sometimes ridiculed as “The Goracle” — alleged that “the entire North Polarized [sic] cap will disappear in 5 years.” While the original video of that particular failed prediction appears to have been scrubbed from the Internet, conservative bloggers managed to track down the same footage from other sources. “Five years,” Gore emphasized again, is “the period of time during which it is now expected to disappear.”

 

The following year, Gore made similar claims at a  UN “climate” summit in Copenhagen. “Some of the models … suggest that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years,” Gore claimed in 2009. “We will find out.” Indeed, the bogus prediction appears wildly off the mark, to put it mildly, but the establishment press and Gore apparently do not want the world to find out.

 

In fairness, Gore was hardly the only hysterical climate-doomsday proponent to be left looking foolish. In December of 2007, the BBC highlighted alleged “modeling studies” that supposedly “indicate northern polar waters could be ice-free in summers within just 5-6 years.” Incredibly, some of the supposed “experts” even claimed it could happen before then, citing calculations performed by “super computers” that the BBC noted “has become a standard part of climate science in recent years.”

 

“Our projection of 2013 for the removal of ice in summer is not accounting for the last two minima, in 2005 and 2007,” claimed Professor Wieslaw Maslowski, described as researcher from the Naval Postgraduate School who was working with co-workers at NASA to come up with the now-thoroughly discredited forecasts about polar ice. “So given that fact, you can argue that may be [sic] our projection of 2013 is already too conservative.” Other “experts” quoted in the BBC article agreed with the hysteria.

 

In the real world, however, the scientific evidence demolishing the global-warming theories advanced by Gore, the UN, and government-funded “climate scientists” continues to grow, along with the ice cover in both hemispheres. In the Arctic, for example, data collected by Europe’s Cryosat spacecraft pointed to about 9,000 cubic kilometers of ice at the end of the 2013 melt season. In 2012, which was admittedly a low year, the total volume was about 6,000 cubic kilometers — in other words, Arctic ice grew by some 50 percent in 2013 over the previous year. Polar bear populations are thriving, too.

 

Across the southern hemisphere, the data have proved even more devastating to what supposed “climate scientists” were caught referring to as their “cause” in the deeply embarrassing ClimateGate e-mails. First, the figures from 2012 showed a record high level of sea-ice cover — more than at any point since records began in 1978. This year set another new record, with ice covering more than 19.5 million square kilometers of ocean around Antarctica by September.

 

Around the world, meanwhile, record low temperatures continue to make a mockery of “global warming” theories. While anecdotal, to be sure, Cairo, Egypt, just saw its first snowfall in more than 100 years. In the United States there have been thousands of new records for cold temperatures and snowfalls just in the month of December. In an extremely bizarre twist, some “climate scientists” have even started claiming that the freezing temperatures are actually more evidence of “global warming.”

 

To explain the universally acknowledged lack of warming over the last 17 years in defiance of all UN climate theories, government-funded “climate scientists” and the UN have increasingly touted what critics ridicule as “The Theory of The Ocean Ate My Global Warming.” Under heavy political pressure from the Obama administration and other governments, the UN ran with the theory, despite the lack of any observable evidence to suggest the deep ocean is actually eating the UN’s predicted global warming.

 

Appearing increasingly detached from reality to independent scientists, the UN claimed in its latest global-warming report to be 95 percent sure that human emissions of carbon dioxide were to blame for rising temperatures. Those claims, now widely laughed at around the world, were made despite the fact that every single one of its computer models has been entirely discredited by the lack of warming for the last 17 years. Many experts are now even predicting global cooling.

 

Top scientists and experts around the world — even many who have served on the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — have been ridiculing the global outfit and its discredited “climate” report. Most governments and dictators, however, continue playing along with what some experts call the climate “charade” or “hoax,” mostly due to built-in incentives and taxpayer funds that help perpetuate the unjustified alarmism.

 

For third-world dictators, the goal appears to be securing trillions in Western taxpayer money under the guise of “climate” reparations and “justice.” For governments ruling wealthier nations, the end-game seems to be carbon taxes and a planetary “climate” regime with unprecedented powers over humanity. Assembled in Warsaw for the latest UN climate summit, even as the implosion of the “science” behind global-warming theories was accelerating, member regimes agreed to finalize a global climate treaty by 2015.

 

Polls show that despite hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars squandered on global-warming alarmism, the American public still refuses to widely accept the man-made warming theories advanced by an increasingly discredited UN and its allies. A September Rasmussen survey of likely voters, for example, found that just 43 percent of likely U.S. voters believe alleged “global warming” is caused by human activity. About the same number believe it is not.

 

Despite vicious attacks and threats — some of it exposed in the ClimateGate scandal — scientists are increasingly jumping off the sinking “climate” ship as well. Even some major governments are working to rein in the out-of-control alarmism, with authorities in Australia, elected in a landslide earlier this year, promising to liberate the nation from “carbon taxes” while quashing much of the taxpayer-funded “global-warming” juggernaut. Calls for prosecuting “fraud” by “climate scientists” are growing, too.

So far, despite hyping the absurd claims five years ago, the establishment press has failed to inform its dwindling readership that Al Gore and his fellow alarmists were proven embarrassingly wrong. No apologies have been forthcoming from Gore, either, and none of the “scientists” who made the ridiculous predictions has apologized or lost his U.S. taxpayer-funded job. In fact, almost unbelievably, the establishment press is now parroting new claims from the same discredited “experts” suggesting that the Arctic will be “ice-free” by 2016.

As Gore put it in 2009, “We will find out.”

Alex Newman, a foreign correspondent for The New American, is normally based in Europe. He can be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com.

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Ministry Of Interior Recognizes Environmentalism As Religion

Acknowledgement of a social reality.

http://www.preoccupiedterritory-com/ministry-of-interior-recognizes-environmentalism-as-religion/

Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg

Jerusalem, December 4 – A movement that features doctrine, apostles, saints, a vision to transform society to conform to its tenets, and apocalyptic predictions if that vision does not become reality, has attained official status with Israel’s government office that grants funding to institutions and personnel serving various faiths in the country.

Minister of the Interior Arye Deri signed the order today recognizing the religion of Environmentalism, a move that will facilitate government funding for projects in the Environmentalist community and for the salaries of Environmentalist religious leaders serving that community, as well as official oversight of government funding allocations within Environmentalist institutions.

“Environmentalists deserve the same rights as believers in other faiths,” proclaimed Deri. “We welcome Environmentalists into our society with the same degree of warmth and recognition granted to numerous others. Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, but we take pride in offering full civil and religious rights to all who reside here.”

Scholars of religion note that the movement has long existed in Israel, but only in recent decades has it become a prominent part of the social and political landscape, necessitating its official recognition. “There’s always been at least a few Environmentalists in Israel, sure,” explained Opia Tavdamassus, Professor of Comparative Religion at Tel Aviv University. “But it was marginal most of the time. That changed as the society grew wealthier and people had more spare time and money to devote to causes they hold dear. Now Environmentalism bears all the hallmarks of a more-or-less organized religion: dire warnings of mass destruction for failing to follow the faith’s strictures; belief in the infallibility of the movement’s prophecies despite repeated wrong predictions; wealthy adherents showcasing high-profile adherence and demanding everyone emulate them, when others cannot afford to do so; even allowances for hypocrisy and double standards when it comes to the leaders and public faces of the movement. Official recognition of Environmentalism as a religion is just an acknowledgement of a social reality.”

Some observers see a political effort to divide the movement. “It’s actually quite clever, and cynical, for the government,” remarked columnist Louis Kattorz. “A good number of Environmentalists, some of the more fundamentalist preachers, express quite anti-Israel views, seeing Israel as an important piece in a larger matrix of oppression that subjects people of color – in this case Palestinians – to environmental injustice. Here the minister, I think, seeks to wrest some of the faithful away from those hostile elements in the Church of the Environment. We’ll see only in the long term whether the ploy works.”

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Bombshell Claim: Scientists Find “Man-made Climate Change Doesn’t Exist In Practice”

by Tyler Durden 12July2019 https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-07-11/scientists-finland-japan-man-made-climate-change-doesnt-exist-practice

A new scientific study could bust wide open deeply flawed fundamental assumptions underlying controversial climate legislation and initiatives such as the Green New Deal, namely, the degree to which ‘climate change’ is driven by natural phenomena vs. man-made issues measured as carbon footprint. Scientists in Finland found “practically no anthropogenic [man-made] climate change” after a series of studies. 

“During the last hundred years the temperature increased about 0.1°C because of carbon dioxide. The human contribution was about 0.01°C”, the Finnish researchers bluntly state in one among a series of papers.

This has been collaborated by a team at Kobe University in Japan, which has furthered the Finnish researchers’ theory: “New evidence suggests that high-energy particles from space known as galactic cosmic rays affect the Earth’s climate by increasing cloud cover, causing an ‘umbrella effect’,” the just published study has found, a summary of which has been released in the journal Science Daily. The findings are hugely significant given this ‘umbrella effect’ — an entirely natural occurrence  could be the prime driver of climate warming, and not man-made factors.

Clouds over Los Angeles, via AFP/Getty

Clouds over Los Angeles, via AFP/Getty

The scientists involved in the study are most concerned with the fact that current climate models driving the political side of debate, most notably the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) climate sensitivity scale, fail to incorporate this crucial and potentially central variable of increased cloud cover.

“The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has discussed the impact of cloud cover on climate in their evaluations, but this phenomenon has never been considered in climate predictions due to the insufficient physical understanding of it,” comments Professor Hyodo in Science Daily. “This study provides an opportunity to rethink the impact of clouds on climate. When galactic cosmic rays increase, so do low clouds, and when cosmic rays decrease clouds do as well, so climate warming may be caused by an opposite-umbrella effect.”

In their related paper, aptly titled, “No experimental evidence for the significant anthropogenic [man-made] climate change”, the Finnish scientists find that low cloud cover “practically” controls global temperatures but that “only a small part” of the increased carbon dioxide concentration is anthropogenic, or caused by human activity.

The following is a key bombshell section in one of the studies conducted by Finland’s Turku University team:

We have proven that the GCM-models used in IPCC report AR5 cannot compute correctly the natural component included in the observed global temperature. The reason is that the models fail to derive the influences of low cloud cover fraction on the global temperature. A too small natural component results in a too large portion for the contribution of the greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide. That is why 6 J. KAUPPINEN AND P. MALMI IPCC represents the climate sensitivity more than one order of magnitude larger than our sensitivity 0.24°C. Because the anthropogenic portion in the increased CO2 is less than 10 %, we have practically no anthropogenic climate change. The low clouds control mainly the global temperature.

This raises urgent questions and central contradictions regarding current models which politicians and environmental groups across the globe are using to push radical economic changes on their countries’ populations.

NASA climate change Image source: NASA

NASA climate change Image source: NASA

Conclusions from both the Japanese and Finnish studies strongly suggest, for example, that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “drastic measures to cut carbon emissions” which would ultimately require radical legislation changes to “remake the U.S. economy” would not only potentially bankrupt everyone but simply wouldn’t even work, at least according to the new Finnish research team findings.

To put AOC’s “drastic measures” in perspective  based entirely on the fundamental assumption of the monumental and disastrous impact of human activity on the climate  — consider the following conclusions from the Finnish studies:

“During the last hundred years the temperature increased about 0.1°C because of carbon dioxide. The human contribution was about 0.01°C.

Which leads the scientists to state further:

“Because the anthropogenic portion in the increased carbon dioxide is less than 10 percent, we have practically no anthropogenic climate change,” the researchers concluded.

And the team in Japan has called for a total reevaluation of current climate models, which remain dangerously flawed for dismissing a crucial variable:

This study provides an opportunity to rethink the impact of clouds on climate. When galactic cosmic rays increase, so do low clouds, and when cosmic rays decrease clouds do as well, so climate warming may be caused by an opposite-umbrella effect. The umbrella effect caused by galactic cosmic rays is important when thinking about current global warming as well as the warm period of the medieval era.

Failure to account for this results in the following, according to the one in the series of studies: “The IPCC climate sensitivity is about one order of magnitude too high, because a strong negative feedback of the clouds is missing in climate models.”

green new deal Image source: AFP/Getty

green new deal Image source: AFP/Getty

“If we pay attention to the fact that only a small part of the increased CO2 concentration is anthropogenic, we have to recognize that the anthropogenic climate change does not exist in practice,” the researchers conclude.

Though we doubt the ideologues currently pushing to radically remake the American economy through what ends up being a $93 trillion proposal (according to one study including AOC’s call for a whopping 70% top tax rate — will carefully inquire of this new bombshell scientific confirmation presented in the new research, we at least hope the US scientific community takes heed before it’s too late in the cause of accurate and authentic science that would stave off irreparable economic disaster that would no doubt ripple across the globe, adding to both human and environmental misery.

And “too late” that is, not for some mythical imminent or near-future “global warming Armageddon” as the currently in vogue highly politicized “science” of activists and congress members alike claims.

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Historic deep freeze across North America conclusively proves global warming is getting worse, right?

http://www.naturalnews.com/043395_freezing_weather_global_warming_scientific_evidence.html

January 05, 2014 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger(NaturalNews) Global warming is getting worse. It’s so bad now that it has thrust most of North America into an historic deep freeze with plummeting temperatures that haven’t been seen in decades. This is absolute proof that global warming is worsening, and the way I know that is because the same people who told me that record HOT temperature last summer were caused by global warming — “See? It’s really, really hot!” — are now saying that record COLD temperatures are also caused by global warming. “See? It’s really, really cold!”

Global warming, in other words, is climate voodoo. Worshippers of the false science can invoke it to explain any event whatsoever: hurricanes (or lack of hurricanes), tornados (or lack of tornados), too much rainfall or too little rainfall, high temperatures, low temperatures, and basically any event that we used to simply call “weather.”

Well, gee, if ALL weather events are evidence of global warming, then you have to ask yourself this simple, commonsense question: Which weather evidence would be evidence of global cooling? The answer is “None.” Because ALL weather events are invoked as evidence of global warming.

It’s delusional thinking, in other words.

“Global warming” and the mass hypnosis of the public

Like any sort of false belief system, global warming involves the mass hypnosis of the public — a kind of hypnosis so deep that even when people are shivering from frightful cold, they can still convince themselves, in their own minds, “This is global warming!” in total denial of reality.

Global warming is based on the same sort of wishy washy thinking as flu shots. “Get a flu shot and you won’t get the flu!” Except most people who get flu shots still get the flu. In fact, the drug industry’s own scientific studies show that flu shots don’t work on nearly 99 out of 100 people. The shots are quackery “medical voodoo” that are so fraudulent even Merck’s own scientists blew the whistle and went public with proof that the company entirely fabricated its vaccine science by spiking samples with animal antibodies. This was designed to spread the mumps and measles epidemic, thereby creating widespread panic that would result in more vaccine sales.

Global warming marketed with doomsday predictions

The global warming cultists are using the same kind of false science to spread fraudulent fear in order to sell something else: total government control over all emissions and, hence, all economic activity. If they can spread their doomsday theories far and wide enough, they can demand huge sums of money by forcing entire economies to pay “carbon taxes” which are nothing more than a high-level moneymaking scam.

The lamestream media is so desperate to push this fraudulent delusion of global warming that 98% of the media stories covering the ship full of climate scientists that got stuck in the ice and had to be rescued failed to mention the ship was on a global warming mission. That little fact wouldn’t go over well with the media’s global warming delusion, so they simply decided to censor that fact from the public.

This is just one small example of the routine mental contortions that take place in the lamestream media to front a massive lie. There are many more…

Every cult is based on sheer belief, not real evidence

Fanatical Cult: Global Warming

Fanatical Cult: Global Warming

Like any cult, global warming is based on “belief” instead of actual evidence. People who push global warming do not need to see any real evidence. They only need to have their beliefs reinforced by the media and by others who share their irrational beliefs. That alone is enough to confirm that they are right.

Remember, the lamstream media is the same media that claims the national debt doesn’t matter, Obamacare is awesome, you don’t need the Bill of Rights, war is fun, GMOs are safe to eat and vaccines will increase your IQ. This is the same media where MSNBC, the most wretched tabloid anti-journalism organization to ever exist, makes fun of adopted black children or insists that people should poop in the mouths of political personalities they don’t like.

The same media that says GMOs are safe, vaccines are awesome, war is fun and all white people are racist is now peddling global warming doom-and-gloom theories that fly in the face of reality. They even claim this extreme cold weather is caused by “global warming” and that if you don’t agree to pay more carbon taxes next year, the cold will get even worse. Yep, “warming” is now invoked to explain “freezing.”

How stupid does this get? If the same media were pushing a theory of “global speeding” and claiming the Earth’s spin was accelerating and we would all die from being flung into outer space, they would also proclaim that a slowing of the Earth’s spin was yet more evidence of “global speeding.” Slowing is speeding, you see. Just like cooling is warming. Who needs logic when you own the media and can push total lies day after day to a mind-numbed public dosed up on fluoride and Prozac?

Delusional thinking explained

One of the mental contortions frequently invoked to support delusional thinking is to filter out all the evidence that contradicts your current belief. We are all guilty of this to some degree, but global warming conspiracy theorists take it to a new extreme.

Here’s how it works: When the Midwest suffers a terribly hot drought, global warming theorists proclaim the drought is due to global warming. “It’s hotter, see?” That actually makes logical sense at some level. But by the same logic, when a deep freeze sweeps across the same region, they would logically have to concede that cold is the opposite of hot, and therefore if extreme hot weather is evidence of global warming, then extreme cold weather must be evidence against global warming. This is the litmus test of scientific sanity, you see: If a person is a consistent, clear thinker, they must concede that this current freeze is, indeed, evidence that the planet is not warming.

But that’s not what happens: They proclaim that cold weather, too, is yet more proof of global warming! And with that statement, all their credibility vanishes. Because at that point they are admitting that, essentially, all events are somehow evidence of global warming. All “weather events” somehow magically support their theory.

That idea is, of course, absurd. There are weather events during periods of global cooling, obviously. When the planet is cooling, the wind doesn’t stop blowing. The Earth doesn’t stop rotating. Earthquakes and hurricanes don’t magically cease. Thus, a rational person must be forced to admit that, yes, there are storms, and freak weather events, and droughts and floods when the planet is cooling, too. (The planet has warmed and cooled many times in its long history. These are natural cycles.)

But explaining all this is a waste of time to global warming conspiracy theorists in the first place, because they are not engaged in an exercise of logic and rational thinking. The evidence doesn’t matter. Global warming is their religion, and thus no amount of evidence, or explanation, or logic, or rationality will ever overcome their religious belief in the doom-and-gloom conspiracy theory that we will all soon die as our planet is destroyed.

At some level, it’s quite hilarious because many of the global warming faith believers are the very same people who make fun of conservative Christians and their belief in “the rapture” which essentially says much the same thing. Somehow, “Christians are stupid,” they say, for believing that we will all be destroyed in a massive clean sweep of human civilization caused by God, but they say “we are smart” for believing we will all be destroyed in a massive clean sweep of human civilization caused by carbon emissions.

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Earth Is About To Enter A 30-Year “Mini Ice Age” As The Sun Hibernates, Scientist Warns

by Tyler Durden 05February2020 https://www.zerohedge.com/health/earth-about-enter-30-year-mini-ice-age-sun-hibernates-scientist-warns

Authored by Elias Marat via TheMindUnleashed.com,

A scientist has warned that Earth could be facing a mini ice age due to the Sun radiating less energy and heat toward our planet. According to the expert, this would mean that the planet would be plunged into a period of extreme winter and chilly cold storms during the next 30 years.

 

According to NASA, the Sun will reach its lowest activity in over two centuries in 2020. As a result of it going into a natural period of hibernation, Earth could see temperatures drop, resulting in food shortages on a global scale. The temperature could also drop by as much as one degree Celsius over a period of roughly 12 months—an incremental yet significant change in climate conditions that could have unpredictable results.

Valentina Zharkova, a professor at Northumbria University’s department of mathematics, physics, and electrical engineering, told the Sun that the period will be an expanded version of the solar minimums that naturally occur every 11 years. However, rather than lasting only a few years, the “Grand Solar Minimum” could last for up to 33 years.

The professor, who has published multiple scientific papers on the subject, said:

The Sun is approaching a hibernation period.

Less sunspots will be formed on the solar surface and thus less energy and radiation will be emitted towards the planets and the Earth.

The reduction in temperature will results in cold weathers on Earth, wet and cold summers, cold and wet winters.

We will possibly get big frosts as is happening now in Canada where they see [temperatures] of -50 C (-122 F).

But this is only the start of GSM, there is more to come in the next 33 years.”

The last Grand Solar Minimum known to have occurred was the Maunder Minimum, which lasted from 1645 to 1715. During that frigid 70-year period, temperatures plummeted across the globe and famous waterways in Europe including the Thames and Amsterdam canal completely froze over.

“We can only hope that the mini ice age will not be as severe as it was during the Maunder Minimum.

This would dramatically affect food harvests in middle latitudes, because the vegetables and fruits will not have enough time for harvesting.

So it could lead to a food deficit for people and animals, as we seen in the past couple of years when the snow in Spain and Greece in April and May demolished [their] veggie fields, and the UK had a deficit of broccoli, and other fruits and veggies.”

However, other experts believe that the cold period that occurred during the Maunder Minimum was also triggered by other factors including the gigantic plumes of ash spewed out in a series of volcanic eruptions.

Likewise, experts believe that climate change will ensure that the world remains in the grip of fast-heating planetary conditions regardless of any Grand Solar Minimums.

Professor Matthew Owens, a solar scientist at Reading University, told the Sun:

“The small reduction in the Sun’s energy associated with a solar minimum is vastly offset by effects caused by human activity, such as CO2 in the atmosphere… Thus there will probably be no detectable effect on global climate.”

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1000 Skeptical Peer-Reviewed Climate Papers “Should Put UN IPCC To Shame,” Says Harvard Astrophysicist!

By on 3. January 2017 http://notrickszone.com/2017/01/03/1000-skeptical-peer-reviewed-climate-papers-should-put-un-ipcc-to-shame-says-harvard-astrophysicist/

More than 1000 peer-reviewed papers published over the last 3 years expose climate alarmism as fake science.

Claims that the earth is rapidly heating up because of man-made CO2 and thus heading for a “climate catastrophe” have taken a serious body blow over the past three years as a huge and fresh body of science emerges.

1000 papers in three years

Yesterday Kenneth Richard published his list of 500 climate catastrophe skeptic papers appearing in scientific journals in 2016 alone. It is the latest addition to the 282 papers published in 2015, and the 248 papers published in 2014, bringing the total number of peer-reviewed papers published over the past three years to more than 1000.

As a result the once many dramatic hockey-stick shaped curves put out by some climate scientists over the past two decades showing the earth is headed for disaster have been exposed as fake science, which of course had spawned some 20 years of nonstop fake news – much of it designed to spread panic among the population.

Needlessly hyped

According to Richard, the vast collection of fresh papers show that natural factors play a much larger if not a dominant role when it comes to climate change. The expected global warming has been needlessly hyped, experts are now saying.

Puts IPCC to shame

Harvard astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon thinks the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has strayed way off track. “I’m not surprised by the large number or empirical evidence that rejects the CO2 dangerous global warming alarmism,” wrote Soon in an e-mail. “This sort of literature review ought to put the sort of biased, if not anti-science, reports by the UN IPCC to shame.”

Dr. Soon has long been a sharp critic of the mainstream institutionalized climate science. He added: “It is high time for the wider public to not only bear witness to the unbalance and corruption of our science institutions, but also to demand answers on why there has been such a disregard for truth and fact.”

Climate well within natural variability

Many among the 1000 peer-reviewed scholarly papers show that extreme weather events are in fact NOT increasing in any unusual manner, that they were also common in the past, and that today they are still well within the range of natural variability.

Other papers show that biodiversity is not under any serious threat. Hundreds of other papers have found that solar activity and oceanic cycles are in fact the driving factors behind climate change. In short the latest fresh batch of scientific literature is telling us that all the past alarmism likely has been needlessly shrill and that it’s time to take a step back and to seriously refocus.

Although most of the papers listed by Richard do not refute global warming and that man plays a role – they do cast undeniable doubt over the cause of the warming, especially the warming over the past 35 years. The recent literature clearly shows that natural factors indeed play a major role, and CO2 much less so.

Climate science a UN charade

Not mincing any words, Canadian climatologist Dr. Tim Ball feels that global warming became a charade years ago and that it has gone on too long.

He offers an even harsher assessment of the UN climate science, writing that the IPCC is made up of “bureaucrats” who harbor a political agenda. “Extreme bias of climate research was deliberately created through the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to prove rather than disprove the hypothesis that human CO2 was causing runaway global warming,” he wrote to NTZ in an email.  “The political message and funding were directed to only research that proved their hypothesis. Only journals that favored the objective were used and encouraged, so the preponderance of research and publications supported the predetermined message. It is a classic case of Lysenkoism

Dr. Ball authored the climate science critical book: Human Caused Global warming – The Biggest Deception in History.

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Is 100% Of “US Warming” Due To NOAA Data Tampering?

by Tyler Durden Dec 28, 2016 http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-12-28/100-us-warming-due-noaa-data-tampering

Submitted by Tony Heller via RealClimateScience.com,

Climate Central just ran this piece, which the Washington Post picked up on. They claimed the US was “overwhelmingly hot” in 2016, and temperatures have risen 1,5°F since the 19th century.

Climate Central-US Hot

Climate Central-US Hot

The U.S. Has Been Overwhelmingly Hot This Year | Climate Central

The first problem with their analysis is that the US had very little hot weather in 2016. The percentage of hot days was below average, and ranked 80th since 1895. Only 4.4% of days were over 95°F, compared with the long term average of 4.9%. Climate Central is conflating mild temperatures with hot ones.

Climate Central-US days over 95deg

Climate Central-US days over 95deg

 

They also claim US temperatures rose 1.5°F since the 19th century, which is what NOAA shows.

Climate Central-US Hot 1-5deg

Climate Central-US Hot 1-5deg

 

Climate at a Glance | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

The problem with the NOAA graph is that it is fake data. NOAA creates the warming trend by altering the data. The NOAA raw data shows no warming over the past century

Climate Central-NOAA fake graph

Climate Central-NOAA fake graph

 

The adjustments being made are almost exactly 1.5°F, which is the claimed warming in the article.

Climate Central-NOAA fake graph 1-5deg adjustment

Climate Central-NOAA fake graph 1-5deg adjustment

 

The adjustments correlate almost perfectly with atmospheric CO2. NOAA is adjusting the data to match global warming theory. This is known as PBEM (Policy Based Evidence Making.)

Climate Central-NOAA fake graph CO2

Climate Central-NOAA fake graph CO2

 

The hockey stick of adjustments since 1970 is due almost entirely to NOAA fabricating missing station data. In 2016, more than 42% of their monthly station data was missing, so they simply made it up. This is easy to identify because they mark fabricated temperatures with an “E” in their database.

Climate Central-NOAA fake station data

Climate Central-NOAA fake station data

 

When presented with my claims of fraud, NOAA typically tries to arm wave it away with these two complaints.

  1. They use gridded data and I am using un-gridded data.
  2. They “have to” adjust the data because of Time Of Observation Bias and station moves.

Both claims are easily debunked. The only effect that gridding has is to lower temperatures slightly. The trend of gridded data is almost identical to the trend of un-gridded data.

Climate Central-NOAA fake graph 5 year mean

Climate Central-NOAA fake graph 5 year mean

 

Time of Observation Bias (TOBS) is a real problem, but is very small. TOBS is based on the idea that if you reset a min/max thermometer too close to the afternoon maximum, you will double count warm temperatures (and vice-versa if thermometer is reset in the morning.) Their claim is that during the hot 1930’s most stations reset their thermometers in the afternoon.

This is easy to test by using only the stations which did not reset their thermometers in the afternoon during the 1930’s. The pattern is almost identical to that of all stations. No warming over the past century. Note that the graph below tends to show too much warming due to morning TOBS.

Climate Central-NOAA Temp 5 year Mean

Climate Central-NOAA Temp 5 year Mean

 

NOAA’s own documents show that the TOBS adjustment is small (0.3°F) and goes flat after 1990.

Climate Central-NOAA stepwise diff

Climate Central-NOAA stepwise diff

 

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/img/climate/research/ushcn/ts.ushcn_anom25_diffs_pg.gif

Gavin Schmidt at NASA explains very clearly why the US temperature record does not need to be adjusted.

You could throw out 50 percent of the station data or more, and you’d get basically the same answers.

One recent innovation is the set up of a climate reference network alongside the current stations so that they can look for potentially serious issues at the large scale – and they haven’t found any yet.

Climate Central-NASA

Climate Central-NASA

 

NASA – NASA Climatologist Gavin Schmidt Discusses the Surface Temperature Record

NOAA has always known that the US is not warming.

Climate Central-NOAA no warming

Climate Central-NOAA no warming

 

U.S. Data Since 1895 Fail To Show Warming Trend – NYTimes.com

All of the claims in the Climate Central article are bogus. The US is not warming and 2016 was not a hot year in the US. It was a very mild year.

Jerusalem Cats Comment: They need to throw Al Gore and all the Global Warming Scientist into a Maximum Security Prison. If they lie about Global Warming what are they also lying about, Evolution? The Two State Solution? Land for Peace? It is time to listen to our Gedolim.

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A Climate Alarmist Sued A Skeptic For Defamation… And Lost

Tyler Durden 30August2019 https://www.zerohedge.com/health/climate-alarmist-sued-skeptic-defamation-and-lostAuthored by Onar Am via LibertyNation.com,

The Supreme Court of British Columbia recently dismissed a defamation lawsuit by celebrity climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann against global warming skeptic climatologist Dr. Tim Ball. Mann must pay the full legal costs to the defendant. The ruling is explosive because it means that Ball’s claim that Mann was a scientific fraudster is now supported by the court.

Mann vs Ball

Mann vs Ball

 

Background

In 1999, Mann published a 1000-year-long global temperature reconstruction from tree rings that severely undercut the then-accepted knowledge of climate. IPCC’s 1995 Second Assessment Report acknowledged that it was warmer during the Medieval Warm Period than today and that a significant cooling called the Little Ice Age followed and lasted until the end of the 19th century.

Mann’s reconstruction demolished that view and replaced our climate history with something that looks like a hockey stick: For 900 years, the temperature was a slightly falling straight line and then, during the period of human activity, rapid warming in the 20th century.

Climate catastrophists immediately seized on this persuasive graph and made Mann the poster boy of the IPCC, which was now thoroughly controlled by radical greens appointed by leftist politicians.

Wegman Graph

Wegman Graph

Wegman Graph

There was only one problem with the graph: It was junk science. Future university courses in statistics will undoubtedly teach the hockey stick as a classic case of faulty methodology. In layman terms: Mann was using a statistical technique that cherry-picked the data needed to make the hockey stick shape.

In 2006, Congress commissioned three statisticians led by Dr. Edward Wegman to produce the so-called Wegman report on the controversy. The report proved that the technique Mann used could create any desired outcome and demonstrated this fact by creating the shape of the global temperature data from 1995.

If Mann had produced this graph in a graduate thesis in statistics, he would have flunked.

Hiding The Decline

Canadian engineer Stephen McIntyre spent several years after the publication of the hockey stick graph trying to prove that it was faulty. He ultimately prevailed – but, during this debacle, Mann engaged in what many have described as intellectually dishonest or even fraudulent behavior. He refused to release the full data and source files that he used in his infamous 1999 publication.

In 2011, Tim Ball summarized this by stating that Michael Mann “belonged in a pen, not in Penn University.” This statement was the basis for Mann’s defamation lawsuit.

Ball defended his remark by saying that if Mann released his data, it would prove that he was a fraudster. Nine years of delay tactics later, the court dismissed the case because Mann refused to release the data that could prove his honesty.

While this technically is not a victory for Ball, it is hard to imagine a legitimate reason for a tax-funded scientist to refuse to release the data upon which the global climate disaster narrative largely rests.

Dubious Science

Under normal circumstances, Mann’s career would have been lying in a pool of utter disgrace long ago. Instead, he is still one of the leading scientists in the climate catastrophe mafia. His colleagues had to defend him because if they ever were to admit that the hockey stick graph is junk science, it would discredit the IPCC and the entire field of paleoclimatology that hailed Mann’s result.

They have doubled down and used political pull and a friendly media to the scandal. So far, they have succeeded, but for every year, the gap between the climate models and reality is widening. At some point, nothing can hide the shaky ground upon which the climate hysteria stands.

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Martin Armstrong: 30 Years Of Global Warming Forecasts Have All Failed

by Tyler Durden

25June2018 https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-24/martin-armstrong-30-years-global-warming-forecasts-have-all-failed

Authored by Martin Armstrong via ArmstrongEconomics.com,

The Wall Street Journal just published a review of the Global Warming Forecasts for the past 30 years. They have not even come close to the scenarios they put forth back in 1988…

Hansen James-1988 Testifying on Global Warmning

Hansen James-1988 Testifying on Global Warmning

 

On June 23, 1988, the then NASA scientist James E. Hansen who helped to start all this nonsense testified before the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.

He stated that he expressed had a “high degree of confidence” in “a cause-and-effect relationship between the claimed CO2 induced “greenhouse effect and observed warming.”

That is how government characterizes something when they are guessing – “high degree of confidence” which was the same words used to invade Iraq who had weapons of mass destruction. He later came out and said: “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” (August 25, 2002).

The CIA Director testified before Congress and said: “We said in the estimate with high confidence that Iraq had them.” see Transcript Washington Post).

Why does anyone EVER believe those in government? They cannot even forecast GDP accurately when they fudge the numbers.

Here is Hansen’s forecast.

Hansens-1988-Global Warming Forecast

Hansens-1988-Global Warming Forecast

 

The dark red overlay is actual surface temperatures reported and there is even a controversy surrounding them that they have been constantly skewed higher to not look like complete idiots.  Even the models devised by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, are at least twice the actual temperature by now even with fudged numbers. So why are all these model so exaggerated?

These models are completely VOID of cyclical models and they do not even understand that this is a cycle. They are constructed with same idiotic bases that whatever trend is in motion will remain in motion. The Dow Jones Industrials closed 1932 at 60.26 and 1933 at 98.67. That was a 63.7% gain year over year. By assuming that trend will remain in motion, which was his dire forecast, the Dow would have reach 96,433,885,025.00 by 1975. That makes 50,000 look cheap.

Even averaging a 5-year advance VOID of understanding cycles, fails to provide a valid forecast ever. If I take the closing in the Dow of 2009 and the closing of 2014, the average advance was 1479 points per year. Now take the 2014 closing of 17823.07, that gives me 25,218.09. That is fine because we have been in a bull market. We all know the cycle will change. That is what is wrong with the global warming forecasts.

What actually happened, they got $1 billion for research by scaring the HELL out of everyone. I wonder what kind of chart I should make to get $1 billion handed to me from Congress with no performance requirements. What a deal.
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Trump To Revoke California’s Power To Fight Smog

by Tyler Durden Mon, 07/23/2018 https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-23/trump-revoke-californias-power-fight-smog

In a move that will infuriate environmentalists everywhere, but especially in California, the Trump administration is seeking to repeal California’s authority to regulate automobile emissions in a proposed revision of Obama-era standards, according to Bloomberg citing three people familiar with the plan.

The proposal which will be released later this week represents a “frontal assault” on one of Barack Obama’s signature regulatory programs to curb greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

It also sets up a high-stakes battle over California’s unique ability to combat air pollution and, if finalized, is sure to set off a protracted courtroom battle.

And since the revamp also includes California’s mandate for electric car sales, it represents a gut punch to the likes of Elon Musk, who recently announced (yet again) a deal to begin work on a factory in China.

The proposed overhaul would also put the brakes on federal rules to boost fuel efficiency into the next decade, instead it will cap federal fuel economy requirements at the 2020 level, which under federal law must be at least a 35-mile-per-gallon fleet average, rather than letting them rise to roughly 50 mpg by 2025 as envisioned in the plan left behind by Obama.

As Bloomberg details, as part of the stunning proposal, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will propose revoking the Clean Air Act waiver granted to California that has allowed the state to regulate carbon emissions from vehicle tailpipes and force carmakers to sell electric vehicles in the state in higher numbers.

Separately, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will assert that California is barred from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from autos under the 1975 law that established the first federal fuel-efficiency requirements, the people said.

Agencies are expected to claim it will reduce traffic fatalities by making it cheaper for drivers to replace older, less-safe cars, while paring sticker prices for new vehicles even if motorists have to spend more for gasoline.

In other words, in what amounts to a full-blown war between the White House and California, the administration will put its weight behind the dramatic overhaul, including the revocation of California’s cherished authority.

The state’s 2009 waiver of federal preemption under the Clean Air Act has allowed the California state to set emissions rules for cars and trucks that are more stringent than the federal government’s, but the state has aligned its rules with those set by the EPA and NHTSA in a so-called national program of clean-car rules.

Needless to say, if Trump’s plan sticks it would represent his biggest regulatory rollback yet.

Predictably, California was furious and rejects the idea that its 48-year ability to write its own tailpipe emission rules should end: “We have the law on our side, as well as the people of the country and the people of the world,” said Dan Sperling, a member of the state’s Air Resources Board said.

On May 2, California and 16 others plus the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit seeking to block the Trump administration’s effort to unravel the Obama-era emissions targets. Sperling said that number will grow as more and more people come to realize how fundamentally Trump is attacking the idea of states’ rights.

A key, and still unanswered question is what happens to automakers who are caught somewhere in the middle of this fight between the president and most populous US state. According to Bloomberg, in recent months they have stressed they would not support freezing the federal targets and want Washington and Sacramento to continue linking their vehicle efficiency goals. While they spent the first year of the Trump administration attacking Obama’s rules as too costly, they fear the regulatory uncertainty that a years-long court battle over a rollback would create. In addition, other major auto markets such as China and Europe are pressing forward with tougher mandates of their own for cleaner cars.

Trump’s action will not make him any friends in the Golden State:

“This is nothing less than an outrageous attack on public health and states’ rights,” said Frank O’Donnell, president of Clean Air Watch. “It’s a dumb move for an administration that claims it wants peace, because this will lead to an emissions war: progressive states versus a reactionary federal government. The big question: who will the car companies back?”

Meanwhile, others are secretly pleased: some conservatives have long chafed at the rare authority granted California and welcome the effort to revoke.

“Congress didn’t intend for California to set national fuel economy standards,” said Steve Milloy, a policy adviser for the Heartland Institute, a group critical of climate science. “It’s nutty it’s been allowed to develop. National fuel economy standards are set by the federal government so that’s what we are going to do.”

Meanwhile, as the pollution fight over California cars heats up, one wonders are its cows next? As a reminder, the meat and dairy industry will soon surpass big oil as the world’s biggest polluters. The silver lining for them is that by the time this happens, Trump will be long gone.
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