Astrophysicist and deputy project scientist of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Amber Straughn canceled her scheduled Israel Physical Society conference appearance due to tensions between Israel and the United States.Straughn told the conference organizers at Bar-Ilan University that the cancelation was due to instructions from the U.S. State Department.In addition to her appearance at the conference, which was slated for next week, Straughn was also scheduled to give a lecture this week sponsored by the university’s physics department to some 300 students and researchers. She additionally was set to hold a lecture open to the public at Jerusalem’s Bloomfield Science Museum on Friday.Straughn said at the start of the week that NASA and the State Department might order her to cancel her appearance due to bilateral tensions.On Tuesday afternoon, a few hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced he was pausing his government’s judicial overhaul legislation, Straughn informed the organizers that the State Department had, in fact, canceled her authorization to fly.

We have different views on these reforms, but many of them parallel existing practice within the United States and all are compatible with democracy. The U.S. Constitution even allows Congress to eliminate most of the federal judiciary, and President Joe Biden himself has considered “packing” the Supreme Court.There is room for criticism and debate, and good friends can disagree, even on fundamental issues. But the attacks have gone too far. They echo the worst claims of Israel’s enemies in the “Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions” (BDS) movement — an antisemitic effort to isolate Israel, as the White House is now doing.It is a slander against the Jewish state to claim that its government is mounting a “coup” because its newly-elected legislature is engaged in the democratic process of lawmaking.