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If you are a Canadian Jew, or you are one of the many who supports Canadian Jews and Israel, it’s been a bad week.

The mayor of Canada’s largest city refused to attend the raising of one (1) Israeli flag at City Hall, because it was too “divisive.”  McGill University failed to get an injunction to remove a weeks-long anti-Israel, pro-Hamas encampment.

A Jewish kid was beaten up by a Muslim kid at a Fredericton-area school, and teachers did nothing to stop it. Vancouver anrtists are being kicked out of exhibits for being Jewish. Canada, for the first time, showed its willingness to recognize a Palestinian “state” run by Hamas – a listed terror organization.

And, to top it all off, CBC broadcast a couple “facts checks,” as they called them, about whether the aforementioned encampments – the Infant-fada – were receiving support from outside.

The “fact checks” were so replete with errors, so completely unbalanced, we will not even link to them, because we have a policy against publishing fake news at this organization.  Suffice to say that the “investigative reporter” who broadcast the stories mainly relied upon (a) other CBC reporters (b) Israel-hating protestors and (c) an anti-Zionist professor for his sources.  Tells you all you need to know.

So, what is the truth?  Are the protests we are seeing on our university campuses, and in our streets – across Canada and the United States – planned and connected? Are they being funded by others?

Well, yes and yes.  As far back as January, this newspaper has published multiple sourced reports about “pro-Palestine” protestors getting paid to protest, from Victoria to Montreal.  We have documented that self-styled “progressive” organizations here and in the U.S. are using their non-profit status to pass along millions to those who despise Jews and the Jewish state. It’s all right there in Google, by us and other news organizations.

But perhaps CBC can’t afford Google.  Perhaps, too, they didn’t see a bombshell lawsuit that was commenced earlier this month – and well before CBC broadcast their fake news reports – in the Virginia’s District Court.  It wasn’t hard to find.  We certainly found it, within minutes.

That lawsuit, all 49 pages of it, lays out in granular detail the way in which the anti-Semitic American Muslims for Palestine (AMP, which isn’t as active in Canada) and the pro-Hamas Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP, which assuredly is, with 200 chapters here and around the globe) “serve as Hamas’ propaganda divisions” in Canada and the U.S. and elsewhere.

In Canada, some SJP chapters have taken slightly different names, like Students Against Israeli Apartheid (SAIA), or Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights (SPHR).  But they’re all branches of the same poisonous tree – about which the Anti-Defamation League has said: “Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and many of the organization’s campus chapters explicitly endorsed the actions of Hamas and their armed attacks on Israeli civilians…SJP chapters issue pro-Hamas messaging and/or promote violent anti-Israel messaging channels.”

So, SJP is here and they are very active on campuses – and they help oversee just about every anti-Semitic protest in this country.  What does the lawsuit say about them?  And who is suing them, and for what?

The lawsuit is brought by young people, mainly, who somehow survived the slaughter at the Nova Music Festival on October 7, or the mass-murder of innocents at Kibbutz Holit on the same terrible day.  Fifteen people were killed at the kibbutz, Israelis and non-Israelis alike.  At Nova, the site of the worst atrocities on that day, 364 mainly young people were killed.

Their lawsuit against SJP and AMP is a legal work of art, basically. It is a thing of beauty. It meticulously and surgically lays out the ways in which SJP and its allied organizations “provide on-campus management and control hundreds of university chapters of SJP.” Why? “To operate a propaganda machine for Hamas and its affiliates across campuses.”

The legal action has been brought by five of some of the biggest and best law firms in the United States.  It seeks a jury trial, and unspecified damages for the plaintiffs.  To date, representatives of SJP and AMP have not responded to multiple requests for comment on the lawsuit.

In the statement of clim, the victims write: “[SJP and its affiliates] provide ongoing, continuous, systematic and material support for Hamas its affiliates…by operating and managing Hamas’s mouthpiece for North America, dedicated to sanitizing Hamas’ atrocities and normalizing its terrorism.”

It’s all right there, page after page of it.  The allegations haven’t been tested in court yet.  But would it have killed CBC to, say, reach out to someone involved in the lawsuit, and try and get both sides of the story?

Apparently.  Perhaps they were too busy counting their taxpayer-funded bonuses to, you know, go out and do some real reporting.

No matter.  The rest of us know the truth: the Jew-hating protests, rallies and encampments we are seeing are funded, in whole or in part, by outside interests who do not wish to reveal themselves.  They are the hidden hand.

But the rest of us will not rest until the hidden hand is exposed.

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Olivia Chow has made her choice.

For months, she’s bobbed and weaved. For months, she has refused to be crystal clear about the orgy of anti-Semitism and Jew-hating crime that has gripped Toronto.

The mayor of Canada’s largest city will issue an occasional sympathetic tweet, sure, when things get particularly bad. But clearly showing support for Toronto’s Jewish community, when they are feeling under siege? When they are feeling isolated and maligned and scared?

Not Olivia Chow.

On Tuesday morning, Chow finally made a clear choice. On Tuesday morning, a small ceremony took place: the raising of Israel’s flag in a remote corner of City Hall, as has been done for years, without any problem.

Chow refused to attend.

Before the ceremony, someone sent her an email about it. Chow sent back a response, which was circulated online late Monday night. She did a bit of buck-passing, claiming that the city’s protocol office decided to let Israel’s flag be raised, not her. And then she said this:

“The Mayor did not decide to fly the flag, and does not have the authority to approve or deny flag raising requests. The Mayor will not attend the flag raising. She believes raising it is divisive at this time, and understands the deep pain and anguish felt by many in the community.”

That’s pretty clear: “The Mayor will not attend the flag raising.” And, so, she didn’t.

Councillor James Pasternak was there, and some others. A few Israel-haters showed up, too, but they were kept a safe distance away. But no Olivia Chow, who claims to be mayor of all of Toronto.

Well, it turns out she’s mayor of just some of Toronto – a Toronto where some citizens are more equal than others. She’s not mayor anymore to any of Toronto’s many Jews, apparently.

Five problems with that.

1. Fair is fair, Mayor Chow. If Israel’s flag is “divisive,” then Palestinian flags shouldn’t be displayed at protests and rallies anymore, either. Because, you know, that’s “divisive.”
(And by the by: There are Israeli flags on homes all over Toronto, which has a big Jewish population. Does Toronto’s erstwhile mayor want them taken down, too, because they’re “divisive?”)

2. This flag-raising, as noted, has happened for years. But this year – when Jews are under unprecedented assault, and want reassurance that they are welcome in Toronto, where they pay taxes and contribute to the betterment of the city – Olivia Chow wants Jews to be invisible. She wants them erased.

3. By falsely claiming there is a “security” issue, Olivia Chow has made it into one. In previous years, no one had “security” issues. This year, Toronto’s mayor is making it into one – by recklessly pitting one side against the other. Is safety truly an issue? Well, if safety is an issue, then pick up the phone and call the police, Mayor Chow. You’ve got their number, don’t you? I mean, you appoint the Chief and set the Toronto Police Service budget, after all.

4. A few days ago, the logo and propaganda of Hamas’ military wing was projected onto the side of a building at the University of Toronto, which happens to be blocks from where Chow lives. From her, not a peep. But, now, Israel’s flag is “divisive”? Seriously?

5. Final point, about which there can be no mistake: this no-show is a profound insult to Toronto’s Jews, who see this as more than a mere flag-raising. To them, it’s making a choice. To them, it’s expressing a desire that they aren’t here anymore. Erasing them. Removing them.

Which happened in a certain European country in the 1930s, didn’t it?

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JERUSALEM – One of the first things you notice about this country, when you come here, is the people. Not the beautiful sights, so much, these days. The people.

At your hotel, there aren’t any spare rooms. They’re all full. In the mornings at the included breakfast, you see exhausted parents trying to corral their kids, who are wearing pajamas all the time and look sadder than a child ever should.

Out on the streets, the restaurants and shops are mostly empty. Fewer people than usual can be seen walking around.

And outside the cities like Jerusalem, you see soldiers everywhere – lots and lots of them, so young, carrying around M-16s and Glock and Sig Sauer sidearms. The citizens you meet, meanwhile, don’t smile much. They look sad and anxious. Some of them carry guns, too.

Why so are the hotels so full? Simple. They’re full of refugees. When Hamas attacked in the South and slaughtered 1,200 people and incinerated their homes, the survivors needed somewhere to live. So, they moved to hotel rooms in the cities, where they’ve been trapped for months. Many don’t want to return with their kids to the kibbutzim, so near are they to the border with Gaza.

Same with the ones from the North, the ones within easy rocket and missile range of Hezbollah. They’ll likely never be allowed back – thousands and thousands of them. Families with kids, the elderly.

And why so few people on the streets, in the shops and restaurants? Because the tourists are staying away in droves. Because many Israelis are unenthusiastic to be out somewhere and caught in an attack, that’s why.

All over Old Jerusalem, near the holiest places in Christianity and Judaism and Islam, are bilingual signs recalling who was shot to death or stabbed to death on that spot. There’s a lot of those signs.

And why the sad faces? That, too, is obvious. Because everyone knows someone who was killed or taken hostage. Everyone has a relative in the army, because service is mandatory here. Everyone feels completely and totally abandoned by those they formerly considered friends and allies.

Like, say, us. Canadians. As they live refugee lives in cramped hotel rooms far from their homes, Israelis watch the news carefully. (There’s not much else to do.) They see the hate rallies in our streets. They see the attacks on Canadian synagogues and Jewish community centers and businesses. They see our kids – white, privileged kids hiding behind masks – camping out at universities, mouthing tributes to actual terrorists.

The Israelis see all that, and they feel utterly and completely alone. They feel abandoned by those they considered allies and friends, like Canadians. And they wonder if October 7, 2023 is some new Kristallnacht, a reprise of what followed it. They wonder if Hamas and Iran and their Satanic brethren will finish what the Nazis started.

Over and over, Israelis expressed bewilderment to us, Canadian media. Why do so many in the West regard us as a war-mongering, white supremacist, Islamophobic apartheid regime led by a fascist? Why?

It’s true: lots of people think Israelis fully support the government of Benjamin Netanyahu and the senior leadership of the armed forces and the intelligence agencies. But they don’t. They just don’t.

Every single Israeli I met – every one – expressed barely-controlled rage about Netanyahu and his generals and advisors. They want all of them gone. They want to clean out the stables.

They are livid Netanyahu et al. didn’t foresee October 7 coming. They are shocked, still, that it happened. Some openly detest Netanyahu for it.

Similarly, the notion that Israel is a far-Right theocratic backwater that hates Muslims? It’s absurd. It’s wrong. Almost all of the men, women, children and babies slaughtered on the Seventh were farmers and rural people who live off the land. Mostly socialistic, atheistic people who wouldn’t ever vote for Netanyahu.

Their families are the ones who protest every single day outside Netanyahu’s official residence here, because they don’t think the government has done enough to get back the hostages.

And 20 percent of Israel’s population? It’s Muslim. Muslims were murdered and kidnapped in October 7, too. They are mourned and missed here as much as Jews are.

So, does Israel possess military might? Yes, of course. But Israelis  want peace more than land. Over and over since 1967, they’ve ceded land to hostile Muslim forces, betting that it will foster peace. Every time, they’ve lost the bet. Case in point: a ceasefire existed until October 6. It was broken by Hamas. Not Israel.

Are the Israelis as militaristic as the campus Infant-fada claim? Well, after Iran bombarded Israel with hundreds of missiles, rockets and drones less than a month ago, not one Arab nation (apart from Syria) would’ve objected if Israel had bombed Iran’s regime back to the Stone Age. But Israel didn’t. They fired off a few warnings, and then withdrew. The Allies didn’t do that in Dresden or Hiroshima.

At Nir Oz, a kibbutz where many residents were murdered or kidnapped, we were led around by Rita Lifshitz. She stood in front of the ruined home of her octogenarian father-in-law, a pro-Palestinian Israeli who used to take sick Gazans to hospital. They kidnapped him.

Rita looks like she hasn’t smiled in seven months. She probably hasn’t.

Casting her gaze over the charred ruins of her father-in-law’s home, she whispers just loud enough to be heard:  “It’s like a holocaust.”

Israel doesn’t feel so much like a country, these days. It feels like an open wound.

It needs healing.

 

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Back home from Israel.

Photo: where Hamas came into Kfar Aza on Oct. 7. I’m on the spot where they killed 20 young people before killing many more.

Jews and Israel feel isolated and afraid. They feel alone.

Well, I’m with them. And I am going to bear witness to the truth.

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JERUSALEM – Israel’s government is paying close attention to pro-Hamas, anti-Semitic protests and rallies happening in Canada and the West – and is very concerned, says a senior Israeli government spokesman.

Israel believes what is happening abroad isn’t organic or spontaneous, said Alex Gandler, deputy spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“There is definitely a hidden hand,” helping to organize and assist the anti-Israel protests, said Gandler. “This is not organic. This is not a coincidence.”

He adds: “This is this has been going on for years. And the infrastructure for the existence of these protests was set up years ago, pre-Hamas.”

The anti-Israel, pro-Hamas agitation is exceptionally well-organized and well-funded, Gandler said. “State-driven voices have been pushing these messages, and investing a lot of money [in the rallies and protests]. And not just money, but time – and they have been shaping what they want response to be when the day comes.”

And, following October 7, that day has come. As this newspaper has reported for months, foreign interests – Iran and Qatar – are supplying considerable material and rhetorical support to the anti-Israel forces. And, as we have also reported, protestors are even being paid to show up in cities like Victoria and Montreal.

And Israel isn’t their only target, says Gandler.

“This is more than that,” he says. “There has been heavy investing in changing or rearranging the political map of other countries. It is a political push.”

And, as Russia sought to do in the 2016 US presidential election – and as China did in the 2019 and 2021 Canadian federal elections – the anti-Israel “hidden hand” wants to destabilize and ultimately destroy Western-style democracy.

“It is Western liberal democracy that is on the line,” he says. “That is, Western democracy that is represented in Canada and the United States and Western Europe and also in Israel. The aim, at the end of the day,  is to change all that into something else.”

Israel’s main focus at the moment is – understandably – winning its war against Hamas, getting back the hostages, and disarming Gaza. But, when the war is over – hopefully soon, Israelis hope – attention will turn to the other war. The global propaganda war against Israel and her allies.

Concludes Gandler: “We need to protect ourselves from the worst –  by being the better.”

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TEL AVIV – Israel won’t stop its military advance against the Hamas stronghold of Rafah, says a former senior ranking Israeli military commander – whether the United States and Western allies approve or not.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has no choice, says retired Israeli Brigadier General Amir Avivi , who spoke to Postmedia the morning after news broke that Hamas is now prepared to sign a ceasefire deal.

Quoting what his close friend and Caesarea neighbor Netanyahu has told him, Avivi said: “Nothing will stop us now from going into Rafah.”

That even includes the Biden administration, says Avivi, who has founded and leads a powerful political and cultural force in Israeli society: the Israel Defence and Security Forum, which is made up of more than 30,000 former IDF soldiers and officers.

“Israel set very clear goals for this war,” said Avivi. “The complete destruction of Hamas as a governmental and military entity; bringing back all the hostages; and making sure that there will be never never again be a terror army in Gaza.”

Those goals simply have not been achieved yet, says Avivi, who has significant contacts within the Netanyahu coalition, and is regularly consulted with by key government ministers.  Says Avivi: “To achieve these goals, you basically need to conquer the whole Gaza Strip – and there is no way to destroy Hamas without taking over the whole Gaza Strip.”

But that’s not what President Joe Biden, Canada and other Israeli allies want. They’ve repeatedly said they strongly oppose any Israeli military action on Rafah, where a million Palestinians have congregated to escape the fighting.

When the news about Hamas’ decision to accept a ceasefire deal broke here late last night, it was immediately greeted with muted hostility in Jerusalem. Israel hadn’t even seen the terms of the deal, Netanyahu government sources said.

Notwithstanding that seeming opposition to a ceasefire deal, Israel announced that it was still willing to send a team to Egypt to look at the details and possibly negotiate. Asked about that apparent contradiction – keep fighting but also re-start negotiations – Avivi said:

“Israel is saying nothing will stop us from going to Rafah – even if the US is against it. Even if the whole world is against it.  In one of their meetings, [Netanyahu] said to Biden that, ‘If we have to conquer Gaza with our fingernails, we are going to do it.’ We’re going to do it even if you don’t give us ammunition, even if you don’t give us weapons – we’re going in and we’re not going to lose the war.”

Participating in the negotiations in Egypt doesn’t change that imperative, says Avivi.

“Israel is saying, if we have a chance to release the women hostages, the elderly hostages, in a deal that will be a ceasefire of a month or 40 days? Fine,” he adds, with a shrug. “And, following that, we will renew the attack on Rafah.”

The U.S., Canada and Europe may get their desired ceasefire, Avivi concludes. But nothing will stop Israel’s coalition government and war cabinet from also finishing the job of wiping out Hamas, he says.

“We have no choice.”

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KIBBUTZ NIR OZ AND SDEROT – On this, Holocaust Remembrance Day 2024, the image that is difficult to forget is found on a bed at Nir Oz.

It is of a child’s clothing, fresh out of the laundry: a stack of tiny, carefully-folded underwear, toddler-sized, placed on the corner of a bed. The child’s clothing is covered in ash and dust and dirt, frozen in time. There’s a Cookie Monster shirt, and what looks like some little dresses. All unused, all untouched since October 7.

The room that it is in resembles the inside of a long-unattended pizza oven – blackened and blistered from the Hamas attack. Bits and pieces of a former life are seen everywhere: broken dishes, a melted television, charred children’s toys.

No shell casings or bodies can be seen – those are long gone. But thirty people were slaughtered in Nir Oz, some still in their beds. Children, too. In the abandoned homes of the 400 people who once lived there, we wonder if the shadows on the walls and the floors are bloodstains.

The room is surveyed by resident Rita Lifshitz, who looked after the seniors at this kibbutz, but is showing some Canadians a massive crime scene on this day. She finally speaks: “It’s like a holocaust.”

As artillery shells explode a few kilometres away, Lifshitz takes us to the rooftop of a mamad (a shelter) that is closest to the fence that separates the kibbutz from Gaza. We can see a small vineyard alongside the fence. An elderly man, Amitai Ben Zvi, used to sit here, watching the sunsets over Gaza, looking West over the Negev. He was one of the first to be killed by Hamas.

From where we stand, Gaza is just a kilometer or so away. It looks quite lovely, from here. Certainly not an “open-air prison.”

Rita points towards Rafa in the South, and Khan Younis to the North. Just an hour or so earlier, about five kilometers South of us in Kfar Aza, three young IDF soldiers were killed by a Hamas rocket barrage. And, right around the same time, Hamas was at a negotiating table in Egypt, claiming to be seeking a ceasefire.

Back at the kibbutz, Rita sounds wistful. “We are still standing,” she says, waving an arm in the direction of the ghosts of Nir Oz. “We will rebuild.” She pauses. “We hope to live in peace with the Palestinians. We want to live in peace. We don’t want terror.”

All of that is no doubt heartfelt, but when you walk through Nir Oz it feels like you are trampling on an fresh grave. It feels like war tourism and a transgression. But every Israeli you meet wants you here, to bear witness. Over and over, they mention the protests and the campus occupations in Canada and elsewhere.

“We don’t understand what the students are talking about,” says Rita. “They need to see what happened here.” She regards the gaggle of Canadian journalists She points at us. “You need to tell the world the real story about Hamas.” Some of us nod and say that we will. We will try.

Sderot isn’t a kibbutz – it isn’t a farm community, but it’s also in the Negev desert – the population is about 33,000. In Sderot, the images to remember are not a child’s underclothing, covered in ash. The images are found in different places.

One is found on the South edge of town, where Greisha Yakubovich now stands.

Yakubovich was born in the former Soviet Union, and came to Israel as a child. He served in the IDF as an officer, and has worked for thirty years to provide Gaza – where he was long stationed – with food, water and power. He points at a row of tall concrete barricades.

Put in place a few weeks ago, the barricades were required to prevent Hanna’s rockets from hitting two of Sderot’s newest kindergartens, Meitar and Tzlil. Hamas has outposts within eyeshot, within range of artillery, to the West.

Says Greisha, pointing at the kindergartens: “Until October 7, nobody imagined it could happen here. Nobody expected a kindergarten would become a target.”

But Hamas targeted and targets kindergartens.

Greisha goes to speak again, and then stops as a loud siren is heard. It isn’t a warning to head to a bomb shelter – it is precisely 10 a.m. on May 6, the time when everyone and everything stops in Israel to remember the six million victims of the Holocaust.

But not everything stops. As the siren rings out, a barrage of gunfire is heard. Is it Hamas?

It isn’t. It is the IDF. Hamas knows that all of Israel would come to a halt at ten o’clock. So the IDF commenced firing artillery to deter them – to literally provide cover fire for ten million people.

That reality of this place has necessitated other unsettling changes to everyone’s lives, including those of children. At the Good Wishes Park for example – in the shadow of the Chabad Center of Sderot – bomb shelters have been painted to look like play structures for children.

Greisha looks at them, and wonders aloud: “Why can’t Hamas do the same thing? Why don’t they create shelters for the children in Gaza?” He pauses. “But they don’t.”

They don’t. They haven’t. And they never will.

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HOSTAGE SQUARE, TEL AVIV –
They haven’t missed it. They’ve seen what’s happening on our campuses.

They’ve seen and read the news reports – reports showing over-privileged white Gen Z and Millennial types in keffiyahs, demanding if the visitors to their campus encampments, their “Little Gazas,” are Jews. They’ve seen the chanted tributes to Hamas and Iran and the horrors of October 7. They’ve seen all that.

And they’re disgusted. They’re shocked. They’re appalled. They’re absolutely baffled why young Canadians – and young Americans, and young Europeans – are openly expressing so much contempt towards the Jewish state.

In other circumstances, at other times, Israelis are used to seeing protests against them in Canada and the United States and Europe. Those protests have been happening, more or less continuously, since Israel was founded in 1948. They’re not new.

But the anti-Israel encampments at places of higher learning in North America – the pro-Hamas, pro-Iran, pro-terror encampments, in too many cases? That, they can’t believe. That is new.

At a table selling T-shirts and bracelets to raise funds for the families of the 128 October 7thhostages, Judy Goldman shakes her head. Goldman is a former Montrealer, and still has family in Toronto and the Vancouver area.

She’s present this day with a dark-haired friend, whose son, 23-year-old Yosef Haim Ohana, is still being held hostage by Hamas. Her friend doesn’t want to talk about politics, she says. But Judy does. She has a few things to get off her mind.

“I am shocked by what I have seen at these campuses,” she says. “Shocked. It is pure anti-Semitism.

“Anti-Semitism is always there. It bubbles underneath the surface. Any excuse can bring it out. But I’m very surprised to see what young Canadians, at universities in places like Toronto, are doing.” She shakes her head again.

She continues: “It’s shocking, because universities are supposed to be places where morality is taught. And what’s happening in those places is just outlandish. It shouldn’t be happening! At places like McGill, too, which I know well.”

It’s normal for young people to be preoccupied with issues like climate change or the future, says Judy. But to praise Hamas, who slaughtered 1,200 men, women, children and babies on October 7, 2023? “It is absolutely beyond words,” says Judy.

A few feet away, at a booth that has been set up for the hostages taken from the kibbutz Nahal Oz, Iris Shellhav Nahal is talking to whoever will listen. She’s wearing a T-shirt bearing the images of some of her neighbours who were killed or kidnapped on October 7.

“It’s terrible,” she says of the encampments and protests.  “What I have seen? It’s not good. Where did [the students] get these terrible ideas? They’re ignorant. They don’t know history – they don’t know what Hamas means to us!”

Iris softens a bit and leans back in her chair. “Some of the students, I’m sure they’re not bad people,” she says, pausing. “But how can they say we are so terrible when we are the ones who were attacked first? It’s just terrible.”

Next door, there is a booth to promote the memory of the victims of the Re’im Music Festival on the 7th. There’s an older man sitting there, but he doesn’t speak English. Two women who are present, Liora and Aziza – they speak a little English, but not so well, they say – won’t give their last names. “It makes me mad,” says Liora of the encampments. Says Aziza: “We know kids who were killed at the music festival. Why don’t these kids in Canada and America understand? They look like our kids.”

Asked why they think young people in Western universities have embraced the hateful rhetoric of Hamas and its ilk, all of  the women have theories about that, too. They speculate that there are many anti-Israel Muslims or Arabs at North American universities who have manipulated the protests they see in TV. They also wonder if the ones camped out have been brainwashed by their professors.

At the same booth where Judy Goldman volunteers, a lovely woman from Manchester is working. Her name is Sara Omer and she still has a thick Manchurian accent.

Sara explains she has three sons in the Israel Defence Force, one stationed this day in the South of Gaza. He’s been sleeping under the stars, she says, and he’s excited that some toilets and showers have finally been shipped in. She smiles when she talks about him.

Sara’s husband was killed in military action a few years back, and she works with the hostage families, she says, because she understands what it means to lose someone to the fight for Israel.

She doesn’t, however, understand how any North American young person can raise their voice in support of a racist, hateful death cult like Hamas.

“I read the New York Times every day, ” Sara says.  “I read over the weekend was that in Columbia University 60 per cent at the encampments are just outsiders. They’re not students. They’re outsiders and they’re coming and they’re firing up the others.

She goes on: “And some of the students who were interviewed –  they don’t even know what they’re protesting. They don’t understand.”

“It makes my blood boil.”

Two things to conclude with: everyone here – everyone this writer spoke to – is here because they want to be. Not only do they not work for the Netanyahu government – they’re furious with the Netanyahu government. They want the hostages home, now, and feel the Israeli Prime Minister has botched the job.

The other thing: everyone here is carefully watching what is happening in North America, at supposed places of higher education. They haven’t missed it.

And they don’t understand it. At all.

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