No one would really care about Mohamad Fakih, if it were not for that little enamel pin on his lapel, and the letters – “C.M.” – he always seems to append to the end of his name.
The Order of Canada is what transforms Fakih, a nobody, into a somebody.
The Order of Canada is important, you see. It is the Canadian equivalent of a British Knighthood. It is like the American Presidential Medal of Freedom. The Order is awarded to a very small group of people for making significant contributions to this country.
Its motto is DESIDERANTES MELIOREM PATRIAM. That’s Latin for “they desire a better country.”
Does Mohamad Fakih desire a better country? Probably, in his own way. What we do know is that Mohamad Fakih also desires a country that prosecutes Jews who served in Israel.
Let us explain. This week, in a post that enraged Canadians from coast to coast, Fakih said that “pro-Israel bots” are “in full panic and spin mode.” Why? Unclear. But Mohamad went on to say that any Canadian “or foreigner” – read: Jews – who served in the IDF “must be prosecuted…no exceptions.”
And: he said anyone who supports Israel doesn’t care about “basic human [and] Canadian values.”
Then came the kicker: Mohamad Fakih and/or his ilk are apparently monitoring certain Canadians. Said Mohamad about those who have served in Israel’s military (where conscription is mandatory), and those who support Israel (which isn’t a crime, at least yet): “If you have done so, you will be remembered for this. This is not a threat.”
Well, actually, it kind of is. It sure feels like a threat. It feels like Fakih, or someone, is keeping the sort of list that was standard in Germany, circa 1933 or so. Names and addresses of Jews. You can go see the Nazi list at Yad Vashem, if you want, in Israel.
Mohamad Fakih is unlikely to visit Israel anytime soon, of course, because he is now way, way out there, piloting alone in some very dark waters.
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Those are the opening words to Spike Lee’s Fight The Power, one of the most important movies ever made.
It’s about racist hate and violence, and how quickly it can spread when left unchecked. It’s about how it can lead to destruction and even murder.
This is a short and simple video by Facts Matter, the group I lead to fight antisemitism in Canada.
There is a fire raging all around us, now. WAKE UP.
What happens when the oppressed become the oppressor?
Because – make no mistake – that’s what has happened since October 7, 2023.
At the start, the pro-Palestine contingent protested the actions of Israel’s government. They protested against Israel’s military, the IDF, and its use of force in the Gaza strip. All of that was constitutionally-protected. While their rhetoric could be excessive – alleging “genocide,” for instance, without any proof whatsoever – they were allowed to do what they did. It wasn’t antisemitic, per se.
As the weeks and months went by, as the war dragged on – mainly due to Hamas’ refusal to lay down their arms, and due to their refusal to release the hostages – Palestine’s acolytes in the West grew impatient.
They started to advocate for a global revolution (“Intifada”). They started to demand that Jews be removed from their ancestral homeland (“From the river to the sea”). They started to use symbols (the red hand, the red triangle) that literally advocate murder.
And they, themselves, changed. They devolved into a dark, dangerous pro-Hamas adjunct. They fully became what they had so often accused Israel of: a violent, intolerant cabal of thugs. Capable, even, of murder, in places like Washington, D.C. or Boulder, Colorado.
Along the way, they started to terrorize kids and families who had gone to see Santa Claus in a shopping mall. They blocked major roads. They vandalized. They started to attack places linked to Jews – even hospitals. And some of them even started to firebomb or shoot up synangogues and Jewish schools. (All in Toronto.)
At that point, they became what they had claimed to always oppose. They had become haters who use force. Against everyone, anyone, who got in their way. To get their way.
Which is the literal definition of terrorism, by the by: using force to achieve some political end.
On the weekend, on a sunny and beautiful Sunday, a bunch of them shut down Ottawa’s big pride event. They actually did that: they blocked the road on which LGBTQ people were peacefully walking. They did that right on Parliament Hill, at the centre of our democracy, demanding that Ottawa Pride “boycott” Jews. In culture, in academia.
The event was cancelled.
If the haters possessed any self-awareness at all, of course, they’d take a look in the nearest mirror, and see that they have changed. They would see that they have become something else. Something bad. But they won’t.
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Meet Davide Mastracci…Jew hunter?
Mastracci is the opinion editor at something called The Maple. It publishes opinions with titles like these:
And so on; you get the picture. There are many more such articles on The Maple, all of which go after Jews, the Jewish state, or what the federally-incorporated publication – like many antisemites do – call “the Zionist lobby.”
Along with his Israel-loathing Maple web site, the Montreal-based writer is now a bounty hunter of sorts: he and his friends at The Maple essentially target Jews. Their new web site is called “Find IDF Soldiers.” Its obvious goal: name and shame Canadians who allegedly served in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF).
As of today’s date, 163 men and women are named on Mastracci’s web site. It links to detailed biographies of those people, describing where they work and live, and even what they do in their spare time. In many cases, Mastracci and The Maple provide hyperlinks to information about those named.
We are not going to link to “Find IDF Soldiers,” however, because it may run afoul of Canadian law. In Canada – unlike in some American states, but like most democratic countries in the world – you cannot offer an incentive to track down individuals because someone thinks they have done something wrong.
Bounty-hunting, in Canada, can lead to all sorts of legal trouble – charges for assault, battery, kidnapping and criminal harassment. The practice can attract civil liability, too, and result in lawsuits.
Mastracci and The Maple insist they aren’t bounty-hunting. They claim they aren’t doing anything wrong. They say they are only doing it because it “is of interest to the public.”
“This project exists because these soldiers and/or their family members willingly shared their status and other details about their lives with public sources,” they say on the site. “Yes, all of the soldiers on the list are at least partially Jewish, and we have not shied away from acknowledging this fact.”
The web site targets Jews who have allegedly served in the IDF, and not any of the many Muslims who have served in it. Why? “[It’s] because Jews are the only ones able to immigrate to Israel as citizens due solely to their ethnoreligious background,” Mastracci and The Maple claim.
Mastracci’s own writing suggest the motivation isn’t nearly so benign.
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PRINCE EDWARD COUNTY – Barack Obama called it the “empathy deficit” – which the former U.S. President defined as “being able to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see the world through their eyes.”
Obama didn’t invent the concept, of course – Jesus Christ did, per Matthew 7:12: “Do to others what you would have them do to you” – but it’s a really important one, politically.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre showed some overdue political empathy on the hustings in Alberta’s Battle River-Crowfoot by-election, and it paid dividends. He won in landslide on Monday night. Said Poilievre before the vote: “I am a born and bred Albertan, with strong Alberta values.
“As leader, I can take the fight for farmers, oil and gas workers, firearms owners, soldiers, for Albertans to the national stage. That means strong, forceful, representation for the people of Battle River-Crowfoot.”
The social scientists remind us that people develop empathy for other people when – like Poilievre, like people who travel abroad a lot, like people who move from one province to another – they uproot themselves and develop something called “neuroplasticity.” That happens when the human brain literally reorganizes itself through new connections throughout life.
This writer’s neuroplasticity moment happened a few years ago, when I moved to rural Canada (Prince Edward County, PEC) from a lifetime in big cities (Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Calgary, Dallas, Ottawa). The pandemic was the impetus, but the payoff was almost immediate: “Why didn’t I do this years ago?” I asked my labs, out loud.
PEC is a wonderful, beautiful, amazing place to live, an hour and a bit outside Toronto. But, in the past few months, no small amount of sadness and anxiety have crept in. Drought is the reason.
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Have our cultural icons lost their collective minds?
Across the cultural landscape – music, film, books – it certainly seems that way. Musicians, filmmakers, authors have apparently persuaded themselves that they alone can solve the Middle Eastern crisis from their distant perches in Canada or the U.S. or Europe.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, most politicians generally know they lack the superpowers to single-handedly end wars like the one raging between Israel and Hamas. But some self-important culture types clearly think they do.
Take TIFF for example (please). In the past few days, as the entire world knows by now, TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey and his Toronto International Film Festival adamantly refused to screen a documentary based in Israel by acclaimed Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich – after having previously promising that they would.
Why? Well, many suspected latent antisemitism played a role with unseen forces at TIFF. This writer wondered if Hamas’ banker – Qatar – had put pressure on TIFF, with whom it has quietly partnered since 2019.
TIFF’s stated reason? Avrich and his fellow producers had failed to secure permission from Hamas – to show some Hamas footage in the documentary! (We are not making this up, as much as we wish that we were.) It was absurd and insane: Bailey and TIFF wanted a terror group’s approval first.
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