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.

Comments (9)

They’re being paid to protest.

What many have suspected has now been confirmed by this newspaper and a few courageous Canadians: pro-Palestine – and, increasingly, pro-Hamas – protestors are being paid to protest. To block highways and roads. To intimidate and threaten Jews and non-Jews. To cause chaos.

They’re being paid.

In years past, anti-Israel protests were typically small, disorganized and ineffective. Not many people came out. Since October 7, when 1,200 Israeli men, women, children and babies were slaughtered, and hundreds taken hostage, the protests have been dramatically different.

Hundreds, sometimes thousands, participate. They’ve got professionally-rendered signs and banners. They’ve got transportation, and food and drink. And they’ve got organizers who wear uniforms and control the crowds.

And who distribute the cash.

This week, this newspaper was alerted to the fact that a Victoria, B.C. organization was distributing thousands of dollars to anti-Israel protestors. The Plenty Collective, as it calls itself, created what it called a “Solidarity Fund” for Victoria-area “folks or groups” to pay for “costs related to supporting or organizing actions in solidarity with Palestine and Palestinian people.”

Said the Plenty Collective: “This fund is to help cover costs incurred when organizing or participating in local actions. This can include, but is not limited to, the costs of lost wages, supplies, items for fundraising, paying speakers, etc.”

Priority was given to Palestinian, black or Indigenous people. And thousands have been paid out for weeks now – typically close to $20,000 every month. The Plenty Collective did not respond to multiple attempts to seek comment.

Ian Ward is a municipal councillor for Colwood on Vancouver Island. He, along with local activist Charles Bodi, discovered the pay-a-protestor payment scheme. And he’s seen the effectiveness of the paid-protests up close. Says he: “They are highly organized. I’ve watched them. A van pulls up, and they’ve got flags, signs, and they’ve got organizers from the Plenty Collective wearing orange vests controlling the crowds.”

“And they have control because they are holding the cash for the protestors.”

Much of the money is being generated locally, says Ward, who was the first to break the news that Victoria city councillor Susan Kim – along with Ontario MPP Sarah Jama – had signed on to a pro-Hamas letter that denied Israeli women and girls were sexually assaulted on October 7. But some of the money, he says, seems to be coming from elsewhere: “We don’t see them being this organized, and this well-funded, without offshore money.”

It’s not just happening in Victoria, B.C. In the U.S., there is now confirmation that anti-Israel – and often anti-Semitic and violent – protestors are getting paid to protest. A multimillionaire tech mogul, Neville Roy Singham, has – along with his wife Jodie Evans – have been bankrolling pro-Palestinian protests since last year. Their “People’s Forum” has organized multiple anti-Israel protests since October 7 – including a number of efforts designed to “shut down” public and private sector offices. On November 24, they posted on X: “Are you ready to disrupt business as usual? No celebrating in peace while genocide takes place!”

Some of the anti-Israel funding has seemingly been right out in the open. On Craigslist, a now-deleted November ad read: “We are looking for 5-7 actors or activists to hold panels and distribute flyers in front of a venue as a peaceful, legal protest. Needed for November 24th, evening, 2-3 hours, paying $30/hour.”

November 24 was the same day, of course, as the pro-Palestine “shut down” protests, where 34 were arrested trying to disrupt the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade and Black Friday sales.

“They’re paying for protestors to try and lend credibility to their movement,” says Ian Ward. “October 7 was just stage one. These carefully-crafted and controlled protests are a public relations campaign, and I think are the real objective.

“They are really an attack on Western democracy and Western values. Our way of life is literally being challenged here. And we are in danger.”

Comments (10)

In less than a week, we’ve seen them disrupting the Mayor’s skate party.

We’ve seen them scream curses and epithets at the regular folks there. We’ve seen them intimidating an elderly couple at the same event. We’ve seen them blocking highways and roads and getting coffee and doughnuts from the cops.

And, of course, we’ve someone – almost certainly one of their fellow travellers – firebomb a delicatessen and scrawl FREE PALESTINE on its walls.

Again: that’s in less than a week, in the City of Toronto, Canada.

Lots of questions: why aren’t the police doing more? Why isn’t Toronto – and other cities in Canada – cracking down on law-breakers, as New York City Mayor Eric Adams did this week, and haul away hundreds of “pro-Palestine” types blocking the Brooklyn Bridge?

The “they,” here, need to be defined. There are people who support Palestine, and oppose Israel’s government and the war, and are not anti-Semites. They post on social media and write letters to the editor, but that’s about it.

Then there’s a group in the ideological middle – mainly the younger Generation Z, according to multiple polls – who are actually pro-Hamas and anti-Israel. Much of this group are anti-Semitic, or on their way to embracing Jew hatred.

But they, too, tend to be keyboard warriors. They probably don’t mind picking up a brick, to quote the Clash, but they don’t ever actually toss it. They’re Slacktivists.

Then there is the third group, the hardcore. These are the ones we see on TV, and read about in the newspapers, and hear about on the radio. These masked thugs favour intimidation and violence, or the threat of violence, to make their point.

As this writer and others have argued, they are the hardcore: the blood-libelling, committed Jew-haters who meet the dictionary definition of “terrorism.” The ones who favour the use of violence, and/or intimidation, to make a political point.

Why do they do it?

More to the point: don’t they understand that they are losing support, and not gaining it? Because, make no mistake: they are.

Lots of polls have now been done across North America and Europe. Overwhelmingly, the majority – the silent majority, for now – are appalled by the behaviour of the Hamas horde. These respondents want the police to crack down on them. And, across the board, they are becoming less enamoured with the Palestinian cause because of the law-breaking, not despite it.

A sampling:

• A Leger-Postmedia poll found that “a strong majority of Canadians said they believed non-permanent residents who express hate towards minorities or support for terrorist groups such as Hamas should be deported from Canada.” And “51 per cent agreed with the statement that Canadian authorities “should do more to ensure newcomers accept Canadian values.” Up to and including deportation if they don’t.
• On the protests, the numbers are even more stark: “75 per cent also backed the notion that non-citizens should face deportation if they publicly express hatred towards a minority group or support a terrorist organization.” Hamas among them.
• In Britain, a pro-Palestine/Hamas protest on Armistice Day – their Remembrance Day – outraged a majority of Britons. Not only did they oppose the protests, polling found, but a majority wanted the protests banned entirely. And a significant number, Sky News reported, believed the protests in the U.K. “have mostly been about expressing hatred of Israel and Jewish people.”
• Meanwhile, a British YouGov poll found that respondents feel – by a factor of two to one – that police there have been “too soft” on the protestors. At least “41 per cent of respondents responded saying that the rules were ‘too relaxed, and should be tightened’.”
• Meanwhile, in the United States, the anti-Palestine-protestor view is much the same. As PBS reported: “Though larger than past Palestinian solidarity protests, they still do not necessarily reflect the views of most Americans on Israel. According to a PBS NewsHour/Marist poll conducted Nov. 6 to Nov. 9, most Americans, about six in 10, said they sympathize with Israel.” And: “The Palestinian solidarity protests have not been supported publicly by the vast majority of politicians.”

There’s more polls and surveys like those, but you get the point. The protests are turning off the majority of voters across Western democracy – including those who sympathize more with the Palestinian cause. Their tactics, in effect, are blowing up in their faces.

And, of course, the literal blowing up of things – as at a Jewish delicatessen in Toronto six days ago – sure isn’t helping their cause, either.

Comments (8)