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Words.

In Washington, D.C., two Israeli embassy staff were gunned down in the street on May 21. They were assassinated as they were leaving the Capital Jewish Museum by a man who fired 21 bullets into the bodies of the young couple, whose names were Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky.

The man waited for the police to arrive. When they did, he pulled out a red keffiyeh and started shouting “free free Palestine.” Some time later, when speaking to investigators, the man said: “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”

Words.

A couple days later, in the obligatory reports about the dark origins of the alleged killer’s hate, it was revealed that he had written a manifesto titled “Escalate For Gaza, Bring The War Home.” The manifesto railed against “atrocities committed by the Israelis against Palestine” and called for “armed action.” Violence is “the only sane thing to do,” the manifesto said.

Previously, the alleged killer had many years of involvement with something called the Party for Liberation and Socialism. Among other things, that group has celebrated Hamas’ slaughter of 1,200 Jews in Israel on October 7, 2023, and published a statement on that date declaring: “Resistance to apartheid and fascist-type oppression is not a crime!…The actions of the resistance over the course of the last day is a morally and legally legitimate response to occupation.” 

Words.

Eleven days after the killings in Washington, another attack on Jews: this time, in Boulder, Colorado. As a small group of elderly Jews gathered to call for Hamas to release the remaining Israeli hostages, a man threw firebombs at them, injuring eight, some critically. Police said the accused had a “makeshift flamethrower,” as well, and – like the shooter in Washington – had been yelling “free Palestine. “End Zionists,” too.

The man, an Egyptian national, had reportedly been in the United States illegally. Less is known about how he was radicalized. It’s noteworthy, however, that he and the Washington, shooter allegedly used the same words: “free Palestine.”

Words.

Those words – like “genocide,” “Intifada,” “from the river to the sea,” and others – have been heard many, many times in the 600-odd days since the atrocities of October 7. They are ubiquitous now, tossed around like confetti at “anti-Zionist” university encampments, and at antisemitic mob scenes outside synagogues and gatherings of Jews, across North America and Europe.

The words are important, because hateful words always, always precede hateful deeds. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot fashion a Jew-hating terrorist out of thin air. You need to radicalize him, first, using words that denude Jews and their allies of their humanity, and which obliterate all truth.

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I’ll let you in on a little secret: they’re lot friendlier than you know.

Members of Parliament, that is. Partisan differences notwithstanding, durable friendships persist behind the scenes. And evidence of that crept into full public view, this week, as King Charles alighted on Canadian soil to read the Liberal Platform Speech from the Throne. Ministers, MPs, Senators and staffers gathered on the Hill for the historic event, and things previously unseen became seen.

Conservative and Liberal partisans were astounded, for example, by the widely-circulated photo of former Prime Ministers Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau, clearly enjoying each others’ company. Harper was smiling, and Trudeau was seemingly convulsed with laughter. (Harper, unbeknownst to many, is a very, very funny guy.)

Some readers, who apparently actually believe Question Period is real life, were astounded and appalled. “Two-faced!” said “Macaw” over on a Reddit thread, although it is uncertain which leader he/she was referring to. Trudeau “behaved like a child!” pronounced “Ask Revolutionary1517.” And: “Weak men in suits!” declared “Basedregular1917.”

And so on, and so on. Knowledgeable commenters thought the Trudeau-Harper exchange wasn’t all that unusual – it was nice, even – but the uninformed still don’t seem to understand that Ottawa will always, always be our Hollywood for ugly people. It’s like pro wrestling, but without the sparkly wrestling singlets. The hate is fake.

Another example: Trudeau’s footwear. Several conservative members of the commentariat were positively in a lather that the former Liberal leader would have the effrontery to show up in running shoes. CBC (natch) even spent time researching the provenance of the Prime Ministerial sneakers: Trudeau was wearing a pair of Adidas Gazelle shoes, reported an agog CBC journalist – who (natch) was paid by you, the taxpayer, to find out.

The shoes cost about $150 over on the Adidas website, and Trudeau-haters were in a spit-flecked fury about the indignity of it all. Dimitri Soudas, who was one of Harper’s PR fart-catchers, declared: “I don’t know what to say.” (That’s a first.) Some Trudeau critics even consulted Debretts, the style guide for British etiquette: “Those invited to royal events usually want to do their best to be correct. Specific dress codes, such as black tie, should be adhered to. It is generally best to err on the more conservative side.”

Well, Trudeau didn’t. The world didn’t end, no one died.

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Does antisemitism come from the Left or the Right?

In truth, Jew-hatred is a shape-shifter. It isn’t practiced by one ideology – it’s embraced, at different moments in history, by every ideology, Right and Left. It is an ideology unto itself, in fact, one that is older than capitalism, communism, and all the other isms.

It adapts; it changes with the times. It endures, like a pestilence for which we have no cure.

But in the 600 days since October 7, 2023 – when Hamas and Palestinian civilians slaughtered 1,200 Jews in Israel, raped 200 women and girls, and kidnapped 250 Jews and non-Jews – antisemitism has been overwhelmingly seeping out of just one side of the ideological spectrum: the Left.

Many readers won’t be particularly surprised by that. Since October 7, my colleagues and I have been writing about the unspooling of sanity in the West, and documenting the delusional psychosis that has seized the new generation of Jew-haters: Gen Z and Millennials who overwhelmingly classify themselves as “progressives.”

There’s nothing “progressive” about hating someone because of their faith, race or sexual orientation, you might say, and you’d be right. But the youthful Leftist Israel-haters have seemingly convinced themselves that they are opposing a colonialist, settler, white supremacist apartheid state – and, ipso facto, they aren’t antisemites. They’re fighting racism.

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“…for those of us who are in the business of predicting the future, it feels like blood will be spilled — and not in Gaza City or an Israeli kibbutz, either.

Here. It feels like someone is going to get killed. It feels like there will be blood.”

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Is Benjamin Netanyahu Israel? Is Israel Benjamin Netanyahu?

If you spend a few weeks there, talking to Israelis, the answer is pretty clear: no. To many Israelis, their Prime Minister no longer represents them. Israeli pollsters say around two-thirds of the country want him gone.

I came back from Israel a few days ago. I was there to film a documentary about the propaganda war against the Jewish state and the West. The documentary argues there is a coordinated, effective and well-funded campaign against the Jewish state, one that has unleashed a torrent of antisemitism around the world.

Official antisemitism has again reared its foul head in Canada, some claim. On Monday morning, Canada – along with Britain and France – issued a statement that said: “We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable.” The statement warned of “targeted sanctions” against Israel, but also called for the release of the remaining hostages and an end to Hamas’ control of Gaza.

The day before, Netanyahu had already announced that trucks carrying food and aid would be permitted into Gaza. “We must not reach a situation of famine, both from a practical and a diplomatic standpoint,” the Israeli Prime Minister said in a video.

If you talk to people in Israel – and this writer did, with around 100 people from all walks of life, all over the country – you will find widespread disapproval of Benjamin Netanyahu, and somewhat less disapproval of his governing Likud Party. Israelis will tell you that Netanyahu facilitated Qatar’s funding of Hamas before its attack on October 7; that he did not prevent the atrocities of October 7; that he has not won the war against Hamas, after nearly 600 days of trying; and – most critically – he has shown too little interest in returning the remaining hostages to Israel.

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Forty-five years ago today, Ian Curtis took his life.

I was in Calgary, and getting ready to start at Carleton and later – I figured – a journalism degree. In Calgary, I had been involved with the punk scene for many years. I had my own record label, I put on shows with my great friend Nasty Bob Haslam, and I was a member of a seminal prairies punk band, the Hot Nasties.

Punk rock had started to break my heart, however. Skinheads were showing up at our shows to start fights and to promote neo-Naziism. The violence and destruction at gigs was insane. Ras Pierre Schenk and I led the Nasties, and we had had enough.

Punk rock, too, seemed to have lost its way. The Pistols had broken up, the Ramones were getting over-produced by Phil Spector, and the Clash were starting their bizarre dalliance with Rockabilly. It felt like the punk scene was dying, or dead.

Then, along came this band from Manchester that was totally and completely different than anything we had ever heard. Joy Division were dark and (seemingly) despairing, but nobody had done before what they were doing. Their sound, their songs, their words: it was all just so unprecedented. Unknown Pleasures was their first record, and listening to it, for me, was like listening to someone’s soul. A lost one.

The lost soul at the centre of Joy Division was Ian Curtis, a young and married civil servant who was the antithesis of every rock star that had preceded him. He struggled with epilepsy and many demons. On the eve of their first tour in North America, however, he hanged himself in his kitchen. Shortly afterwards, the group’s second and final record, Closer, was released. It is still one of the best records ever made.

Joy Division had a huge, huge influence on me. One of Curtis’s lyrics – from the final song he performed with the band, Ceremony – is tattooed on my arm. “Lean towards this time.”

I still do that, and I remain so sad that he did not. Gone, too soon, too young, 45 years ago today.

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