I’ve been saying that for months, and I’ve been daring them to sue me for months. I guess it’ll never happen now!
It’s made headlines around the world: Canada’s national government believes that a malign foreign entity – India – engaged in a campaign of intimidation, harassment, assaults and murder against Canadians.
Why, then, has it been so difficult for Canada’s national government to also believe that malign foreign entities — Iran, Hamas, aided and abetted by Russia and China — have also engaged in a campaign of intimidation, harassment, assaults and attempted murder against Canadian Jews?
Because they have. Hamas and its axis are not merely conducting a war against Israel’s democracy. They are engaged in a simultaneous war against Western democracies. Canada included.
It’s not a conspiracy theory. In July, no less than the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, Avril Haines, said this: “Iranian government actors have sought to opportunistically take advantage of ongoing protests regarding the war in Gaza, using a playbook we’ve seen other actors use over the years. We have observed actors tied to Iran’s government posing as activists online, seeking to encourage protests, and even providing financial support to protesters.”
It has been “an Iranian campaign,” Haines said, speaking on behalf of the FBI and the entire American intelligence establishment.
That revelation came months after reporting by this newspaper that anti-Israel, pro-Hamas extremists were indeed being paid in a malevolent campaign to cause chaos in Canadian streets, and target Canadian Jews. The participants have been a mix of antisemitic agitators in the Muslim community, radicalized students, and far-Left NGOs and individuals who hate America and Western democracy.
The allegations against India’s regime, meanwhile, are deeply serious. They include assassination plots and acts of violence against members of another religious minority, Canada’s Sikh community. India has denied the allegations, but then hurriedly withdrew six of their diplomats before the RCMP could get the opportunity to question them.
Outstanding reporting by Sam Cooper, Stewart Bell and Mercedes Stephenson has established that Justin Trudeau and his ministers were repeatedly warned about Indian criminal activity on Canadian soil. The record will ultimately show Trudeau and his cabal did nothing about it.
So, too, with the threats and attacks by agents of Hamas, Iran and by violent Marxist extremists in Canada over the past year. Trudeau and his government were warned about all of that, as well. And they again did nothing to stop it.
Consider what Canadian Jews and their allies have experienced since Oct. 7, 2023:
— Schools for young Jewish children being shot up more than once in Montreal and Toronto.
— Firebombing of Jewish businesses, community centres and synagogues across Canada.
— Hospitals, schools, businesses and even entire Jewish neighbourhoods being targeted with vandalism and violence and threats.
— Federally approved organizations like Vancouver’s Samidoun applauding the murder of Jews and unapologetically calling for “death to Canada.”
And on and on and on. Unlike the alleged Indian campaign, the Iranian version only lacks a murder victim. But it has not been for lack of trying. To some observers, it is just a matter of time before a Canadian Jew is slain.
We live in an era where outlaw regimes are aggressively exporting their wars against their enemies to Canada, the United States and other Western democracies. To the likes of India and Iran, national borders are just squiggles on a map. They are disinterested in diplomatic niceties and international law.
All of that is obvious. Less obvious, however, is this:
Canada is finally moving against India for its alleged campaign of terror against Canadians.
Why isn’t Canada also moving against Iran, Hamas et al. for their campaign of terror against Canadian Jews?
Always trust my gut over polls. My gut is telling me Harris is slowly losing the election.
I’m a war room guy, so I always favor bringing the heat. Harris hasn’t.
Maybe the Dems figure the polls will panic their vote. All I know is: whatever they’re doing? It hasn’t worked.
To remain human, the writer Graham Greene once said, you have to take sides.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has chosen a side: Jews, the Jewish state, Western democracy. Poilievre sometimes gets himself in trouble for lack of nuance. But this week, his refusal to equivocate on Israel deserves high praise.
On Parliament Hill, Poilievre condemned the avalanche of antisemitism, the likes of which he said “we’ve never seen before in this country.” The Conservative leader cited the “firebombing of synagogues, the hateful, genocidal protests, [the] chants in front of Jewish businesses, homes and hospitals,” and – this week – the burning of the Canadian flag, and the “death to Canada” chants of Samidoun, the federally-registered nonprofit that Poilievre rightly describes as a pro-terror organization.
Said Poilievre: “Let’s unify our people…Let’s secure our borders. Let’s keep terrorists out of our country. And let’s stand up for what’s right once again, and stand with our allies against terrorism, and for decency. Let’s bring home the country that we knew and still love.”
Compare that to the spinelessness of Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who this week was notably absent from a Toronto ceremony to mark the terrible events of October 7, 2023. Ontario Premier Doug Ford and two dozen politicians from all levels were there. But not Chow.
She – who is mayor in a region where half of Canada’s 400,000 Jews live – literally suggested to media that the multiple invitations she was sent somehow ended up in someone’s spam folder. When that didn’t work – because Toronto councillors had reminded her about the event in person, too – Chow actually said she didn’t go because she was, and I quote, “tired.”
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Couldn’t CBC have shown some respect, even on Oct. 7?
More than 1,200 men, women, children and babies slaughtered by Hamas and Gazans in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023: On the day that Israel was mourning those many slain, could CBC have shown some restraint? More than 100 hostages, including babies and toddlers, held in captivity for a year: On the very day that Israel was hoping for their safe return, could CBC not show some decency?
No, it couldn’t. It didn’t.
On Oct. 7, and in the lead-up to that sad anniversary, CBC did what it has done throughout: Show that it is indifferent to the suffering of Jews in Israel and Canada — and demonstrate that it is unfair to its readers, listeners and viewers in Canada. The people who pay for it, and expect it to do better.
Case in point: Mohamed El Saife. El Saife is paid by CBC to work as a “videographer.” An extensive essay about El Saife was posted on the main CBC website on the day before, and on, Oct. 7. On that same day, a fawning profile of him was broadcast on CBC’s main news programs, on both CBC News Network and on its main network. There, he was described as CBC’s “eyes and ears” in Gaza.
Let’s take a look at what Mohamed El Saife, CBC’s taxpayer-subsidized “eyes and ears,” has to say on social media, shall we?
• El Saife says “Israel” — he puts the Jewish state’s name in quotation marks, to suggest that it is a fiction — has falsely stated that Israel has an “occupation army that violates the dignity of of the bodies of martyrs.”
• El Saife has falsely accused Israel of “massacring” citizens in the Gazan city of Khan Yunis.
• El Saife has published an A.I.-generated image of a Palestinian child wearing wings, and chased by weapons-toting IDF troops.
• El Saife (on his main post on Oct. 7, no less) has falsely said “Israeli threats” have resulted in the “displacement of Palestinians” — even though, in reality, Israel has taken the unprecedented step to warn, and help to evacuate, Palestinians before military actions.
None of this, regrettably, is news.
As this writer revealed a few days ago, the Jewish human rights organization B’nai Brith conducted an analysis of CBC coverage of the Israel-Hamas war after Oct. 7. Of 150 stories in the final analysis, about half were considered openly pro-Palestinian. Only a fraction of that, 32, were possibly pro-Israel. The remainder were considered “balanced.”
The bottom line, according to the analysis: The CBC is wildly biased against Israel. And CBC would not even meet with B’nai Brith to look at their numbers.
That’s not all. CBC has repeatedly refused to call Hamas terrorists what they are – terrorists. They have accepted Israel-Hamas war casualty counts that come directly from Hamas. And they have established a secretive internal group, “Middle East 2023,” to oversee coverage of Israel.
Most recently, we’ve revealed that a member of their digital team wears a keffiyeh to work, and has posted online that Israel is “an oppressive, destructive” country and “you’re a vile human being if you still defend or excuse Israel.”
And, now, we have Mohamed El Saife — who the CBC itself describes as their “eyes and ears” in Gaza — publishing statements that, at a minimum, call into question what CBC insists is its commitment to fairness, balance and impartiality.
“Mohamed El Saife is an independent videographer. The content he shares on his X account presumably reflects his lived experience,” CBC’s chief spokesman, Chuck Thompson, said in response for comment. “That said, it has nothing to do with the content he provides CBC News as a freelance videographer. His views are his own and he does not speak for CBC.”
Is that good enough? Is that adequate? As one veteran and senior Jewish reporter at CBC said to this writer: “We are frustrated that our bosses have not taken a single concern seriously. They’re tried to manage this as a public relations exercise — without addressing the ethical problems plaguing CBC News.”
We, the people who pay for CBC, deserve better. We deserve a public broadcaster that is fair, balanced and impartial.
A broadcaster that is telling the truth.
October 7, 2023.
It dawned with a sky that was so clear and blue, it seemed like you could see forever. It was a Saturday, so quiet, and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. In Israel, it was a religious holiday for Jews, too, so few people were working, or ready for what was about to happen.
Around 6:30 a.m., as the sun was coming up, tiny figures could be seen in the sky, coming from West, coming closer. At the site of the Nova Music Festival in the South, in the Negev, some sirens started to sound, and the music stopped. Those in attendance looked up, and saw the killers on their motorized paragliders, coming towards them. They started to run, but it was already too late. Some other killers had arrived, too, in Toyota SUVs and wearing military fatigues and carrying GoPro digital cameras, to record what they were about to do.
An estimated 4,000 members of assorted terror groups – Hamas, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, others – spilled across the border, along with 2,000 or so Palestinian citizens. They broke through the fences in more than 100 locations, near army bases and kibbutz farm communities. The atrocities would last for hours: 1,200 murders of men, women, children and babies; more than 100 rapes of women and girls; 250 people taken hostage, including infants. Most of the murders would happen at Nova, to people in their teens and twenties.
The set fire to children, and beheaded babies. They killed entire families. They raped a woman and hacked off her breasts; others, they raped and then filled their vaginas with nails or bullets. It went on lack that, for hours.
We know these things because Hamas live-streamed much of it on Telegram, or they kept footage that they uploaded later to social media. It showed them laughing and smiling and posing for selfies, the walls of the kibbutzim smeared with blood and viscera. Bodies of Jews sprawled behind them on the ground.
Not everyone they killed was a Jew. They killed non-Jews, too. But their main target, then and now, was Jews.
While the orgy of rape and murder was still underway, Hamas and its axis – Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iran, Qatar, Russia and China – flipped the switch on a massive, global propaganda campaign to justify the atrocities of October 7, and to spread their homily of hate throughout Western democracy. Soon enough, via bots and fake accounts and conspiracy theories, the antisemitic hate was everywhere, like a snake. Licking at our windows, trying to get in.
It got in. It is here. Here, in the civilized world of 2024, which now every much resembles another time and place, when all of the world was dark.
Where did their hate, their antisemitism, come from? Why have so many – Generation Z and Millennials, in particular – embraced them, filling our streets and computer screens with things that we thought would never happen again?
I’ve written five books about racism and anti-Semitism, filed hundreds of newspaper columns and stories, and I’ve been on the receiving end of plenty of death threats from haters over the years. In all that time, I’ve formed the opinion that antisemitism is a shape-shifter. It isn’t practiced by one ideology – it’s embraced, at different times, 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.
To me, it is a tumor that metastasizes when exposed to the many successes of the Jewish people. Resentment about the extraordinary resilience of their faith, resentment about their strength as a people, resentment about their obvious love for each other and God. The antisemites seethe with envy and then hate. They are losers and, like all losers, they hate perceived winners.
So: today, now. Lots of news stories and opinion columns will be published this weekend, recalling the horrors of October 7, 2023. Many will express the hope that such a shoah, such a catastrophe, will never happen again. Some will even say it won’t.
Me, I don’t know anymore. All I can think about is the documentary filmmaker who came to see me a few weeks ago. He was doing documentary about the history of antisemitism in Canada. Near the end, he told me he grew up with a Jewish mother who always told him to have a suitcase packed, in case the killers returned. In case he had to leave quickly.
But this is Canada, I said to him. It’s 2024. It’s not Germany in 1939.
“Yes,” he said, and then he took out his wallet, and then he pulled a small crucifix from it. He held it up. He was crying.
“This,” he said, “is so I can pretend not to be a Jew.”
