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Hate is everywhere, these days. How to stop it?

Jew hatred is statistically the worst, of course, with anti-Semitic crimes and incidents happening everywhere on a near-daily basis. But the Islamophobia is bad, as well. For every four anti-Semitic incidents, there is roughly one Islamophobic one.

It’s a bad situation that is getting worse. The country doesn’t resemble the one that existed before October 7. So what can governments do?

There’s plenty. I’ve been researching and reporting on hate for nearly four decades. Here’s my top ten suggestions.

1. Create bias crimes units – federally and provincially. Most people are surprised to hear that Canada’s police agencies are a patchwork when it comes to hate. Some areas don’t even have police officers trained to deal with the problem. So, the feds and the provinces need to fill in the gaps – with community-based policing where that works, and an umbrella organization of trained federal RCMP cops for the rest.

2. Fund the bias crimes units that already exist. In those few places where hate-fighting cops work, resources are minimal to nonexistent.  If the Trudeau Liberals and the Premiers are as serious about fighting hate they claim to be, they need to ensure the dollars are there for recruitment, training and deployment.

3. Create dedicated prosecutors and courts for hate prosecutions. Other jurisdictions have done this, and it works. It develops and centers expertise in the justice system, and it speeds up prosecutions of hate crime. We already do it for drug crimes. We clearly need to do it for hate crime, too.

4. Create a law prohibiting willfully promoting terror groups. There are laws against promoting hatred against identifiable groups, promoting anti-Semitism, promoting genocide. Incredibly, Canada does not have a law against promoting listed terrorist organizations like Hamas or Hezbollah. That needs to change, now.

5. Remove the Attorney-General’s approval for hate prosecutions. Police and prosecutors don’t need to get anyone’s permission to charge someone for murder or robbery. But they do for promoting hatred and related crimes. That has resulted in a completely-ridiculous situation where many hate crimes are being treated as simple cases of mischief. That needs to be fixed by the Feds. They have the power to do it.

6. Remove those who promote hate. Canada deports for serious crime, and has done so for decades. Meanwhile, it has become obvious that some who are here on study visas are abusing them – which is also grounds for revocation and deportation. The laws are there. They need to be applied with more rigor.

7. Make mandatory funding and teaching of genocide at the national level.  Ontario and British Columbia have recently announced their intention to expand, and make mandatory, teaching about the Holocaust and related genocides. Other provinces need to do likewise – because nothing breeds hate more than ignorance. And, in those provinces that can’t quickly afford to do so on their own, bring in the likes of the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center – which has long maintained a fleet of traveling buses to teach students about hate and genocide – to fill the gaps in the curriculum.

8. Defund universities who permit hate on campus. Academic freedom to say whatever you want, if it ever existed, no longer does. There have always been reasonable limits on what can be said on-campus. In the U.S. Congress, some have recently moved to eliminate federal funding for universities and colleges which permit clear expressions of hatred. Canada needs to do likewise.

9. Call a public inquiry. The Trudeau Liberals, in particular, are fond of reviews and inquiries, but not usually when they are the focus. There needs to be an all-party agreement to establish an inquiry to assess federal laws, regulations and programs – aimed, laser-like, at countering the shocking surge in hate crime and activity across the country.

10. Fund public awareness campaigns. Governments also love to launch advocacy campaigns about everything from the environment to public health. But, as noted, nothing breeds hatred better than ignorance. Canadian governments need to do what they can do better than the private sector: communicate some basic truths. Namely, what hate is, and why it is unwelcome here.

There’s ten concrete things the governments can, and should, do. Tweeting opposition to hate isn’t enough. Toothless resolutions do nothing.

We need to do more, and we need to do it now. Because a bad situation is getting worse every single day.

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If you’re LGBTQ, you’ll be fine in Palestine, right?

I mean, that’s certainly what some folks seem to believe. This week, someone hoisted a banner to that effect at a Canadian university. Here’s what it said, in all caps:

TRANS LIBERATION CAN’T HAPPEN WITHOUT PALESTINIAN LIBERATION

Universities being places of higher learning and all that, it looks like the banner-hoisters maybe forgot the apostrophe in the word “can’t.” So I added it for them.

They must have gotten up on the roof to hang the banner, too, because it’s several stories up. Interesting, that. We’ll come back to that.

Anyway, the banner’s message is clear. If you’re a trans person – if you’re LQBTQ2, too – well, your campaign for liberation is inextricably linked to the liberation of Palestine. Says so, right there on the banner at a place of higher learning.

So, let’s do a fact-check on that one, shall we?

Here’s a short summary of the reality for lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer and two-spirited folks in Palestine, which is mainly run by Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. To avoid any accusations of settler-colonial-genocidal-apartheidish bias, we’ll try and rely on non-Israeli sources, okay?

Okay. Here goes.

• The Palestinian criminal code – still in force, says Human Rights Watch and others – says that anyone who “commits an act of sodomy” faces up to a decade in prison, because it’s “acting against the laws of nature.” So, that’s the law in Palestine, apparently. Not very “liberated,” is it?
• The United Nations – which is otherwise pro-Palestine and always anti-Israel – has intervened on behalf of LGBTQ people facing persecution in Gaza and the West Bank. The UN has resettled these people to Canada, Europe and the United States. This would be the same United Nations that has passed 45 resolutions that condemn, you know, Israel.
• Despite that, a UN committee wasn’t prevented from issuing a report on anti-gay hate in Palestine, however. Said the Human Rights Council: “LGBTQ persons living under Palestinian Authority and Hamas control suffer severe persecution and ostracism. Many Palestinian homosexuals end up fleeing to Israel.” And: “Testimonies from gay Palestinians who managed to escape recount harrowing torture by both family and PA/Hamas security forces, often successful attempts to coerce them to inform on others, forced marriages and death threats, among other things.”
• Likewise, the folks at Amnesty International – who are decidedly against the Jewish state, these days – have agreed that the human rights of LGBTQ people are regularly abused in Palestine. Says Amnesty: “Authorities fail to prevent and investigate homophobic and transphobic threats and attacks.” Most recently, they noted, “[Palestinian] security forces stood by and watched as a mob beat youths and children participating in a parade organized by Ashtar Theatre in Ramallah that included rainbow flags. The attack came amid a wave of incitement to violence and hate speech against LGBTI people and feminists that the authorities failed to investigate.”
• A few years back, an actual Hamas commander, Mahmoud Ishtiwi, was executed. His crime? He was gay. Even though he came from a proud family of Hamas terrorists, even though he commanded 1,000 other homicidal maniacs, three bullets were pumped into his chest. Before that, they tortured him for several days – whipping him, hanging him from the ceiling with wires. Not so liberated.
• Another gay man, Ahmad Abu Marhia, was beheaded for being gay. He’d been seeking asylum in Israel, was kidnapped back to the West Bank, and had his head chopped off. They made sure to videotape that. His murder happened a few weeks before he was going to travel to Canada to start a new life.
• Four gay Palestinian men, and one gay Palestinian woman, recently went public with what they experienced there. One had to enter a fake marriage to avoid persecution and execution. Said this man: “Some have been punished, some have been killed. Others killed themselves. One of my best friends was gay. He took his own life.” There are hundreds of other Palestinians in Israel, seeking asylum, because they believe they will killed if they return to Palestine.

Anyway, you get the picture. It’s not a pretty one. If you are a LGBTQ person, and you relocate to a “liberated Palestine,” you’re a goner.

Which brings us back to the banner, affixed to the UBC student union building, some five floors up.

A bit ironic, that. Because, in Hamas-run Palestine, anyone hanging that banner up near the roof?

They’d be tossed off it.

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It’s a deadly virus, one that has killed for millennia. But the virus has mutated.

It’s not actually a coronavirus. It’s anti-Semitism.

Anti-Semitism – hatred of Jews – is one of the oldest viruses. It pre-dates Christ by Centuries, as far back as Abraham. Before the Common Era (BCE), Hebrews would be persecuted for refusing to conform to the religions or beliefs of regional potentates.

After Jesus Christ, anti-Semitism changed, but it did not go away. Even though Christianity was seen as another Jewish sect – and even though Christ himself was, at all relevant times, a Jew – the Romans sought to destroy the Jewish state. Roman Emperors converted to Christianity, and Jews were again persecuted for refusing to accept Christ as the Messiah. And it all got worse.

Anti-Semitism has been part of Canada for as long as Canada has existed.

Mackenzie King called Hitler “a sweet man” and kept out Jewish refugees fleeing the Holocaust. Social Credit types formed governments in the West and railed against “international Jewish financiers.” And in Quebec, Jew hatred was popular and mainstream, led by the likes of Lionel Groulx (a priest!) and Adrien Arcand.

When this writer first started writing about organized anti-Semitic groups, the Internet wasn’t widespread. So, in those days, haters – the Aryan Nations in Alberta, the Klan in Manitoba, the Heritage Front in Ontario – had a tougher time spreading their hateful gospel.

They were always looking for money: money to print their pamphlets, money to send members out to distribute the pamphlets, money for lawyers if the members got charged.

The Internet changed all of that. They could now reach a global audience, instantaneously, anonymously, for pennies.

The Jew-haters were among the first to embrace the dot-com revolution. For the first time in human history, they could quickly and cheaply promote their vile creed to a mass audience. All they needed was an Internet connection.

So, if you are asking yourself why you are seeing anti-Semitism everywhere these days – if you are wondering why anti-Semites seem more organized and more bold than ever before – the answer is found in your pocket or on your desktop. For the neo-Nazis and the Hitler freaks and the Jew haters, the digital revolution has been a (godless) godsend.

The anti-Semitic groups – from the Proud Boys to Hamas – use the Internet to recruit, fundraise and propagandize.  On all fronts, they have been wildly successful. If you think you are seeing anti-Semitic messages more often, and if you think that the Jew-haters are more numerous and better-organized than before, you’re right. They are.

But it’s not enough to merely say that the Internet has helped them. Those who own and control the biggest online platforms have helped them, too.

Take Elon Musk, for example (please). As the Washington Post revealed this week, in a major report: “Antisemitism was rising online. Then Elon Musk’s X supercharged it.”

Writes the Post’s Elizabeth Dwoskin: “Since Oct. 7, anti-Semitic content has surged more than 900 per cent on X and there have been more than 1,000 incidents of real-world anti-Semitic attacks, vandalism and harassment in America.”

By repeating anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, Musk has also overseen a “dramatic loosening of standards for what can be posted, and [a] boosting of voices that previously had been banned – all have made anti-Semitism more acceptable on what is still one of the world’s most influential social media platforms.”

So, the hashtag “HitlerWasRight” has been used nearly 50,000 times on X since October 7. Meanwhile, an anti-digital-hate group found 200 wildly anti-Semitic posts on X. Musk allowed 196 of them to remain online, and they went on to accumulate nearly 150 million views.

Anti-Semitism has been a seemingly-unkillable virus for Centuries. But it is a virus that is surging again, and is clearly worse than most of us have seen in our lifetimes.

The anti-Semitic virus, like all viruses, is never completely eliminated. But by letting it rampage online, unopposed, we have let it grow too big, too far, too fast.

And too many are now infected.

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Yumna was fifteen years old.

At the school she went to in London, Ont., she painted a big floor-to-ceiling mural. On it, she’d put the Earth in space, alongside the words: “Learn. Lead. Inspire.” Beside it, she wrote: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” Purple was her favorite color.

She was a good kid. She was beautiful, with a big smile. All the kids liked her. She was going into grade ten, and she was looking forward to it. That’s what everyone remembers.

Her Dad, Salman, was 46 years old. He was a physiotherapist, and a good one. He held down two jobs – helping out seniors at the Ritz Lutheran Villa. He also worked with the elderly at the Mitchell Nursing Home. He’d worked with seniors for years, and had been a physiotherapist for a long time, too. His boss said: “He was just a beautiful person.”

Yumna’s Mom, and Salman’s wife, was Madiha, and she was 44. She was an engineer – she had her Master’s in environmental engineering, in fact. She’d won all kinds of scholarships during her time at Western University. She taught there, too. She was a great Mom.

Talat Afzaal was Salman’s Mom. She was 74 and from Pakistan, where her boy had been born. The family came to Canada years ago, in 2007, for a better life. During the pandemic, like lots of people, the family started taking nightly walks together, to get out of the house. The youngest, nine-year-old Fayez, came along too.

It was on one such walk, on a warm night in June, that black truck mounted the curb on Hyde Park Road, and killed all of them, except Fayez. The little boy somehow survived, but with serious injuries that will be with him for the rest of his life.

The rest of the family were all slaughtered, however: Yumna, Salman, Madiha and Talat. At the trial, the doctors said they all died because of “multiple trauma.” But that doesn’t quite cover it.

Talat was murdered right away. Her head, torso and extremities were crushed, mangled. She had internal bleeding. The bodies of her boy, Salman, and his wife, Madiha, were destroyed in similar ways. Yumnah was mainly killed because of what the killer did her torso with his truck.

The gas pedal on the truck was compressed “100 per cent” when it slammed into her and her parents and her grandmother and her brother. The driver had done a U-turn when he spotted the family waiting at the crosswalk, around 8:44 p.m.

He spotted them because they were all wearing traditional Pakistani clothing.

The driver was Nathaniel Veltman, age 22. He’s pale and unremarkable-looking, with a moonish face and a haircut that looks a bit military, but isn’t.

Veltman isn’t human, actually. Like the Hamas terrorists who killed 1,400 Israeli men, woman and children on October 7, Veltman killed the Afzaal family because he hated The Other. Not because he knew them, or had ever met them. Just because they had a different religion than him. Just because they somehow represented a threat to him.

Like the Hamas terrorists, Nathaniel Veltman forfeited his humanity on that day. He ceased to be a human, and became an actual monster. An un-human.

He was into Hitler, of course, like the Hamas guys are. He was into conspiracy theories and online evil, like them. He was proud of what he did – like Hamas, he insisted that the aftermath be filmed, so everyone could see it. Like them, he didn’t claim the murders were an accident. He said he “did it on purpose.”

This week, as members of the London Muslim community silently looked on, a jury found Nathaniel Veltman guilty of four counts of first-degree murder. He didn’t show any emotion, of course, because sociopathic monsters usually don’t. He’s going to be in prison for the rest of his useless, pointless, godless life.

But like his Satanic brethren in Hamas, who also killed families – grandparents, parents, children – this is what he deserves:

He deserves a noose. He deserves the needle. He deserves a firing squad. He deserves to be put down, like the rabid animal that he is.

Most of us would do it, too.

For free.

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