Feature, Musings —01.11.2024 10:44 AM
—My latest: follow the money
Follow the money.
In any scandal, that’s the rule: follow the money. When you see who is paying, and who is benefiting, you learn plenty.
Yesterday, this newspaper followed the money, and broke some news: anti-Israel protestors are getting paid to protest.
After the horrors of October 7 – and after the pro-Hamas crowd started showing up in big numbers, with professional-looking organizers and signage – suspicion grew. In the past, anti-Israel protests were rag-tag efforts, and few and far between.
The post-October 7 protests were anything but. They were big, they were noisy, and they were causing chaos from the island of Manhattan to the island of Vancouver. They looked like the sort of rallies that professional
political parties put together.
Did that many people really hate the Jewish state?
No. Because if you’re getting paid to be there – effectively just an actor – then you’re just playing a role. Which suggests that the anti-Israel protests are as phony as a three-dollar bill.
A recap of yesterday’s Toronto Sun scoop:
• a Victoria BC group called the Plenty Collective has been distributing thousands of dollars to individuals and groups to show up at anti-Israel rallies
• the Collective was dispersing as much as $20,000 a month, going back months
• the Plenty Collective gave priority to indigenous people and people of color – to project the false media notion that Israel was all-white, and opposed by a diverse group
• there managers would show up at anti-Israel rallies with vans stocked with professionally-rendered signs, banners and flags – and the organizers would wear uniforms and provide food and drink to the people they hired to be there
The scam wasn’t just happening in far away Victoria, BC. It’s been happening across the continent, too.
In December, Montreal pro-Israel activist Beryl Wajsman told this newspaper that police sources firmly believed that protestors in that city were also being paid. Organizers had divided the city up into sections, he said, with paid ward “captains” able to quickly put together noisy anti-Israel street demonstrations.
In the US, it has been confirmed that protestors are getting paid, as well. Millionaire tech mogul Neville Roy Singham has bankrolled multiple pro-Palestinian protests since last year.
His “People’s Forum” has organized multiple anti-Israel protests since Oct. 7 — and, prior to that, has helped spread propaganda favoring China’s communist regime. A massive 2023 New York Times investigation revealed Singham funded a group called Code Pink – which in turn has funded anti-Israel protests, along with allying with Hamas and Holocaust deniers.
Victoria-area Councillor Ian Ward, who has led an effort to expose the anti-Israel efforts of the Plenty Collective and its fellow travelers, says it’s critical that people know the truth about the ostensibly pro-Palestine protests.
“These organizations are paying people to be the face of their movement,” Ward says. “And it’s all organized by a lot of the same individuals and groups who have been arrested at past protests. They’re linked. And we know they are getting money from outside.”
Qatar, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the like have funded Hamas, Ward notes. It’s not a stretch to suggest they are funding protests in North America and Europe as well, he says. It’s not difficult to find proof of the linkages: a group calling itself the “Anarchist Movement of Vancouver Island,” for example, has been openly fundraising for pro-Hamas activities, using untraceable Bitcoin as its currency.
It isn’t easy to find evidence that anti-Israel protestors are just actors, and getting paid to show up. But it is critical that media and government pull back the mask, and expose who is really paying for the performance.
And, with anti-Semitism surging everywhere, it’s critical we do that now.
Follow the money.
Warren, I saw your Tweet re Hamas leader lifestyle in Gaza. I followed the link and voila; a luxurious vacation home in Gaza owned by Marwan Issa, a senior official of the Hamas Al-Qassam military wing.
It even has a swimming pool.
Paid for by Trudeau’s Palestinian funding?
https://www.jewishpress.com/news/eye-on-palestine/hamas/see-hamas-military-leaders-luxurious-lifestyle-in-gaza/2024/01/10/
Joe,
LADY: That’s a priceless Steinway!
CLOUSEAU: Not anymore.
I suspect with this information being made public, the Hamas cheerleaders will slither back under the rock whence they came. At least one can hope.
Kudos to all that shone a light on these ignoble groups that do nothing but foster mayhem and discord.
They won’t. These people are without shame. Like all extremist loons, they think whatever they do in furtherance of their cause is justified.
It’s why I loathe ultra-partisans.
Has Salma Zahid been kicked out of the Liberal Party yet?
Sir…..the story you broke, I believe has legs…..
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/first-reading-the-evidence-for-paid-protesters-in-the-canadian-anti-israel-camp/ar-AA1mRKh1?ocid=msedgntp&pc=SCOOBE&cvid=8d0a20bb140e4c2abd22f57dd9f16f1e&ei=9
And in Halifax today, the railway corridor was blocked and police watched. Blocking critical infrastructure and nothing done about it?
Why are we descending into chaos? Aren’t we a country of laws or not?
I am a very annoyed Canadian as I watch this unfold from coast to coast. The deafening silence from our law makers, federally, provincial and municipal is appalling. Can the KKK do the same with no consequences?
https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/more/protestors-block-section-of-cn-rail-line-along-bedford-basin-friday-1.6723211
The CN police should have removed them for trespassing. Non-action just emboldens these paid Hamas cheerleaders to escalate their mayhem and disorder.
It is to weep.
Lynn,
I hope people remember all of this when they vote in various elections. We need to send a message all across the country that this is no longer acceptable.