RUTHFULLY YOURS

Al Gore was a few hours into his 24-hour global warming telethon in Paris, designed to fire up the faithful for the coming climate change conference in Paris in December, when ISIS mass murderers chose that evening to massacre as many innocents as they could find in the city. Gore’s global warming faithful are a large club at this point, attracting all who think the planet faces one primary threat — an apocalyptic overheated future in the next few decades if too much carbon is burned. After all, if one looks at the doctored temperature records, one might think the world has warmed by 0.8 degrees centigrade since the Industrial Revolution began 165 years ago. The “climate change is very scary” club includes Democratic presidential candidates among its ranks, as well as U.S. President Barack Obama. Gore, a former presidential candidate himself, is, of course, the author of “An Inconvenient Truth,” in which he laid out the climate problem as he understood it. The timing of the attacks in Paris was inconvenient for Gore’s broadcast, but also for the climate change army headed to Paris in two weeks, who wanted no distraction from their single minded focus on their issue. International media outlets expected to make Paris and climate change the association that stuck with their audiences, but now it will be Paris and Islamic terror.

Environmentalists have warned of future climate refugees, forced to leave their coastal homes soon to be overrun by rising seas and travel to new lands to find new homes. However, to add one more inconvenient truth, refugees are already on their way, in the millions, and not due to climate change, but rather due to wars in the Islamic world which have driven them out, and the compassionate instincts of many Europeans, who encourage them to migrate in, signaling they will be welcomed and supported by their new societies.

The Paris attacks, in which more than 130 people were murdered, were part of an apparent campaign by ISIS to spread the conflict beyond its so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq. Recent ISIS-claimed slaughters in recent weeks (or those for which they are suspected) include suicide bombings in Shiite areas of Beirut, which killed a few dozen people, and the explosion (due presumably to a bomb) of a Russian plane over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing over 200 people. These attacks have been inconvenient for the narrative spun by Obama that ISIS was not much of a concern — a junior varsity squad, not like NBA star Kobe Bryant suiting up for the Los Angeles Lakers. Just before the Paris slaughter, Obama told an American newsman that ISIS was “contained.” In fairness to Obama, maybe he was referring just to the territory that ISIS controlled in Iraq and Syria (where the group has lost a very small amount of territory in recent months). This was the claim made by loyal Obama sycophant Ben Rhodes on the Sunday talk shows. Obama and his team were clearly not happy to have to respond to questions suggesting that even if ISIS were contained “over there,” hadn’t it become a much greater and more dangerous threat “over here” (European and American cities).

Even more inconvenient than the fact that Obama’s preferred agenda was knocked from the news agenda was the president’s discomfort with having to talk about terrorism and havoc created by Islamic groups. As always, he failed to mention Islamic or Muslim radicalism in his statements. This, of course, is now the preferred approach for every Democratic presidential candidate, none of whom were willing to identify Islamic radicalism as the threat we face during their debate Saturday night, just one night after the Paris attacks. Instead, they talked about terrorists defaming a great world religion.

If one wants to see Obama energized and angry, it is never in a statement after some atrocity committed by Muslims. Ask him to talk about gun violence, the National Rifle Association, the lack of gun control, campaign finance reform, inequality, or even his Republican opponents, and then you see intensity and anger.

After the Paris attacks and so many other similar events, you get resignation and a meek defense of his policies which need to be carried forward, since they are working so well.

Unbelievably, the president did just that on Monday, seeming to argue that his policies were bearing fruit, or as he has defended some of his foreign policy initiatives or inaction in the past, the U.S. is “not doing stupid stuff.”

The Paris attacks took place a few days after the European Union decided to require the labeling of Israeli settlement products. This, of course, differentiates these products from goods made by Palestinians in the West Bank, though in reality Palestinian labor is involved in goods made in both Jewish and Arab communities there. The EU has a goal of making it easier for European opponents of Israel to boycott the “settlement” products, but, if successful, this will almost certainly result in reduced Palestinian employment in the West Bank. This effect is not a concern of the self-righteous European anti-Zionists. Of course, singling out Israel for this punishment for occupation is inconsistent with European behavior with regard to other far more egregious occupations in other places and a violation of international agreements.

Think of Europe’s priorities — 250,000 migrants, the great majority of them Muslims from war zones, are walking into European countries each month, overwhelming resources. The idea that these migrants can be “vetted” to prevent ISIS sympathizers from slipping through is comical. Public opinion in Europe had begun to turn against accepting such a massive wave of migrants even before the Paris attacks. Now the opposition to the massive migrant flows is itself a wave sweeping through country after country. The U.S. had agreed to take a far smaller number than most European countries, and the FBI director has admitted there was no way this group could be adequately vetted before they were sent to hundreds of American cities.

It is a remarkable commentary on European priorities that now was the time the EU chose to join hands to show its common will on a matter of presumably great importance — slapping Israel for its occupation. Of course, a mealymouthed State Department spokesman was unwilling to condemn the European action — claiming it was not a boycott, just labeling, and that the U.S. was opposed to both boycotts and Israeli settlements.

Today, rabid hatred of Israel in Europe surfaced again. The Swedish foreign minister tried to explain the Paris attacks by offering a “root cause” — Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israel.

Sweden was the first European country to recognize “Palestine” as a state, and is the country that has seemingly gone furthest in its attempt to commit national suicide, welcoming in as many as 200,000 Muslims this year to a country of with a population of around 9 million. Sweden may soon be unrecognizable, but if the Swedish government believes they can deflect Muslim immigrant anger in their many no-go zones in the country by lashing out at Israel, they are kidding themselves.

In general, it has been a bad week for many deluded people whose truths and accepted wisdom faced stern tests. But Obama will not be pivoting to any new strategies or actions to deal with ISIS. Sweden will continue blindly adhering to its multicultural fantasy vision of the world. The EU will stick with its labeling program, since settlement products are such a big problem. And global warming hysterics will try to chase away all other news stories. Most importantly, hopefully next year no one will dare wear a scary insensitive Al Gore mask at Yale on Halloween.