Donors, Endowment Funding Fleeing...

"As a university, we are committed to fostering an environment where all members of our community can feel safe, welcomed, heard, and supported."

"This commitment is jeopardized when our leaders, even those in volunteer positions, make divisive statements."

Western University statement

Western University's statement says it is looking for a new Muslim chaplain in consultation with Muslim community leaders. Photo Derek Ruttan/London Free Press

"In 2015 PM Harper [former Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper] tried to make it a crime to glorify and promote terrorism. [Justin] Trudeau blocked his efforts and here we are."

"There exists no law in Canada to prevent this orgy of celebration for the beheading of babies and the rape and execution of little girls."

"Time for a new PM."

Former Senator Linda Frum

 

"Stop spreading lies of beheading babies or rape of little girls. It's been debunked."

"No one is celebrating the murder of Israeli babies."

"Palestinians are mourning the death of their babies. It's incredible how Israel sympathizers simultaneously are the oppressor and the victim."

Aarij Anwer, Muslim chaplain, Western University, London, Ontario

A crowd estimated to be in the thousands marches through the streets of downtown Toronto calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. (Mike Walker)

 

The statement issued by Western University  explained its dismissal of a volunteer Muslim chaplain following comments he placed on line that "do not align with Western's commitment to peaceful and respectful dialogue". The university's statement did not include the wording of the statements issued by the chaplain, but there was a recent exchange online with former Conservative senator Linda Frum respecting her comments on a Toronto vigil that was titled "Glory to our Martyrs".

The martyrs, needless to say represented by Hamas terrorists who have met death at the hands of the Israel Defense Forces following the atrocities committed by those terrorists during their invasion from Gaza into Israel when mass rapes, torture, mutilation, slaughter and hostage-taking of over 200 children, women, men and soldiers took place on October 7. The vigil emphasized that these 'martyrs' were glorious and of course luxuriating in Paradise, each with their 72 virgins.

Western University is now searching for a new Muslim chaplain, in consultation with Muslim community leaders "to seek their advice. We will ensure our Muslim and Palestinian community members feel our support and can share their thoughts".

Israel on the Defense

"CUPE Local 3906 asked their colleagues to show support for Palestinians after the mass murder of innocent Israelis, claiming Palestinians are righteously taking back their land."

"Seriously? Israelis have over 3,000 years of history on that land. The State of Israel, even with notable flaws, is one of the greatest examples of indigenous reclamation in the world. In fact, it is known that the Jews are indigenous to the lands, having been there since at least 1,000 BC, nearly two millennia before the Arab occupation of Syria and Palestine in the mid 600s AD. The Jews were there long before the Arabs and Muslims. Jerusalem is their capital and has been for 3,000 years. The Jews are not colonizers, nor are they occupiers. Canadian professors and academic support staff need to get their history right."

"The Israelis left Gaza in 2005, ceding control to the Palestinian people. There are over two million Arabs living in Israel, the vast majority of whom are citizens who are entitled to the same rights as their Jewish neighbours. Canadian professors and academic support staff need to get their history right."

"There are Arabs in he Israel Defense Forces. Arab Israelis are also police officers, belong to political parties [including the Joint Arab List] and participate in government as members of the Knesset. This is not to say that they face no discrimination, but Arabs in Israel arguably enjoy greater democratic rights and civil liberties than they do anywhere else in the region."

"By contrast, there are signs on the road to the Palestinian-controlled West Bank that warn Jewish people not to enter the area. Today, no Jewish people live in Gaza."

Chris Sankey, former councillor, Lax Kw Alaams Band, businessman, senior fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute

"[The Canadian government] is providing cover for atrocities."

"Saying Israel has the right to defend itself is complicity in the genocide that is taking place right now."

"You do not get to tell a colonized people how to fight for their liberation."

"If anything, this exposes your white liberal guilt and fragility, and even supremacy. So, please, spare us."

Hassan Husseini, Public Service Alliance of Canada negotiator, member, Labour for Palestine

Pro-Palestine demonstrators march through downtown Ottawa, as seen at Rideau and Sussex. Oct. 29, 2023. (City of Ottawa traffic camera)

 

Out in full force on Canadian streets, labour activists and Palestinian groups calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip while they held a downtown 'solidarity rally', at the human rights monument in Ottawa. To the 200 people who gathered, Hussein spoke of the bombs that continued to fall on the people of Gaza. He must have forgotten that Hamas rockets too continue to fall in Israel, as far as central Israel. The terrorist group that has raided UNRWA storehouses for food and fuel to stockpile in their tunnels has energy and to spare, given what it takes to launch rockets.

This government of Canada employee is faulting the Canadian government for failing to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Untroubled by evidence of Hamas terrorists' savagery in torturing and mutilating Israelis as they entered from Gaza, to slaughter families in their houses located in the southern Israel, Gaza-bordering towns and villages and kibbutzim, filming their grotesque escapades of unlimited atrocities in a pride of accomplishment, this man upbraids the government that allows him and his Jew-hating cohorts to gather in public to chant "gas the Jews" and other love messages.

The very verbiage used by this hate-instigator comes straight out of the government's own playbook on Diversity, Equality and Inclusion, along with Critical Race Theory espoused widely and wildly by government departments, unions and academia. An all-inclusive agenda touted by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau that encourages the Palestinian Youth Movement organized in Canada to arrange and orchestrate 'pro-Palestinian' events calling for Israel's demise. 

"All over the world, there have been active and relentless attempts to suppress the voices that advocate for the freedom of Palestinians", charged Aseel Munir, a member of the movement's Ottawa chapter. When, in fact, few governments the world have taken steps to restore order and disallow these events over where these Jew-hate-charged violent mobs of uncivil rioters have wreaked havoc calling for Jews to be gassed in a proposed new attempt at annihilation. Germany's was the sole effort to impose a blanket ban on Palestinian-support protests.

Another uncivil but progressive woke adherent, an organizing officer for the Canadian Association of University Teachers, stated that the labour movement had no option but to join the battle for Palestinian liberation: "It's very clear we need to end the brutal -- I'm not going to say war -- I'm going to say genocide and war crimes against Palestinians", huffed James Hutt yet another committed Jew-hater who can find it in him to overlook any level of atrocity perpetrated against Jews.

With the death of over 1,400 Israeli citizens and hapless foreigners caught up in the Hamas slaughter of October 7, and the abduction of 220 infants, children, the elderly, families and Israeli soldiers, the rape of girls and women, and apart from the 15,000 Israelis wounded in the barbaric Hamas invasion details of which relating to the inhumanity of the terrorists' atrocities committed against helpless people, committed Israel in response to impose a blockade of all supplies, food and fuel from entering Gaza.

Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment on Gaza City, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2023. (AP Photo/Abed Khaled)The Associated Press

Despite that Israel had completely withdrawn from the Gaza Strip in a unilateral decision meant to leave that parcel of land entirely to the Gazans that call themselves Palestinians in the hope that peace might result, in 2005, the raging lunacy of Hamas and Fatah in conflict over the competition to determine which of them would rule the strip ended in Hamas's favour. Instead of building a forward-looking infrastructure for future prosperity, Hamas milked the international community's generosity in aid to the 'refugees', building a vast infrastructure of underground tunnels.

 

Hamas, whose founding charter promises the elimination of Israel, and the reunification of the land in question into a geographic unity that would be an Islamist theocratic state, in conflict with the plans of the secular Fatah movement represented by the Palestinian Authority, the needs of Palestinians in both territories have been subordinate to the perceived needs of their leaders whose focus has always been -- from their individual perspectives -- the destruction of Israel.

From highjacking planes and ocean liners to message the world at large that Palestinians were prepared to take by force what they could have had in peace had they accepted the 1947 offer of Partition by the United Nations, to developing the death cult of martyrdom in training Palestinian youth to become suicide bombers, the stealth incursion of Palestinians into Israel for the direct purpose of killing Jews has never ended.

The crowds of protesters that gather now that Israel is finally confronting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists directly and with a purpose to finally exterminate their agenda along with themselves, who shout in cities the world over for the liberation of Palestine and "from the river to the sea" (Jordan to the Mediterranean) advocates for the destruction of Israel and a Palestinian state incorporating the West Bank, Gaza and Israel into one body exclusively for Arab Muslims.

It is Israel's right and it is Israel's duty -- and international law upholds both -- to ensure that this never happens, that the Jewish state established on a portion of the ancient ancestral lands of Judaea, and that now exists for the singular purpose of protecting Jewish human rights and their very existence remains strong and intact, even while as a democracy, there is acceptance of non-Jews as citizens comprised of Christians, Arab Muslims, Druze, Bedouin, Kurds, Circassians, Baha'i and many others.

Israeli Ground Invasion of Gaza Proceeds

"[Israel’s upcoming ground offensive in the Gaza Strip] may last three months, but it will be the very last one [if Israel succeeds in eliminating the Hamas terror group]."

"This needs to be the last [ground] maneuver in Gaza, for the simple reason that after it there will be no Hamas. It will take a month, two months, three, but in the end, there will be no Hamas."

"Before the enemy meets the armored and infantry forces, it will meet the bombs of the Air Force."

"I am under the impression that you know [IAF] how to do it in a lethal, precise, and very high-quality way, as it has been proven until now."

Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant 

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (center) is seen at the IAF's command center in Tel Aviv, October 22, 2023. (Ariel Hermoni/ Defense Ministry)

Bluntly, in addressing top IAF commanders, Defense Minister Gallant spoke of a ground campaign meant to undertake the highly dangerous work of dismantling the vast network of tunnels that reflect the most vital strategic advantage of the Hamas terrorist group in supplying and re-supplying its military needs, in reconnaissance, in weapons storage, in sheltering Hamas operatives from the missiles their rockets invite to rain down on Gaza, and as exits into newly-formulated plans for guerrilla invasions into Israel.

The new phase of Israel's war against Hamas is on the cusp of fully unfolding; it is expected to be gruelling and open-ended following on the savagely bloody incursion by Hamas into southern Israel and the relentless rocket bombardment from Gaza accompanying and following the mass slaughter of Israeli families from children to the elderly, alongside the gang rapes of Israeli girls and women, and the hostage-taking of 222 Israelis to barter them for criminal Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Israel expanding Gaza ground operation, communications cut off.  Still from video, CBCNews

 

Later, the Defense Minister spoke to a group of foreign reporters of the invasion that "will take a long time", to be followed by a lengthy phase of lower intensity fighting as Israel gets on with destroying "pockets of resistance". Its aim is to crush the rule of Hamas in Gaza and its future capacity to again turn to threatening Israel. Israel has no intention of ruling the territory despite the description of a long-term insurgency.

There are allied issues also at play with American warplanes striking eastern Syria targets the Pentagon identified as linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard group following a number of attacks on American forces. The military on Friday stated that ground forces backed by fighter jets and drones raided within Gaza, striking dozens of terrorist targets in 24 hours. A similar raid to Thursday's took place on Friday. And by Saturday the  full-scale invasion was put into action.

Israeli soldier at tunnel on Israeli side Gaza border

On each of these incursions on the outskirts of Gaza City, reports were that Israeli servicemen exited without sustaining casualties. The Gazan Health Ministry -- part of the Hamas administrative apparatus -- released a list of names and identification numbers of Gazans killed, among them over 3,000 minors and more than 1,500 women. Men are in short numbers, as are terrorists; the population seems comprised in its majority of children and women.

Thousands of rockets have been and continue to be fired into Israel, inclusive of one that hit a Tel Aviv residential building Friday wounding four. The expectation is that a full ground invasion will result in a marked increase of civilian casualties as well as military while Israeli forces and Hamas face one another in battle in close confines of residential areas. Even as desperate messages of energy shortages fuelling a shut-down of vital hospital services ring out, Hamas uses enormous energy assets for its rockets.

Israel, explained Gallant, is of the opinion based on experience that should fuel be provided for Gaza hospitals, it would find its way into the hands of Hamas, not the emergency generators to power incubators and life-saving medical equipment. Such acts of commandeering food and energy supplies for Hamas needs, taking humanitarian supplies meant for the besieged population has generally seen agreement on the part of Western observers.

As for the sacrosanct protection of hospitals, reporters were shown Hamas weapons depots and Hamas command installations on the grounds in and around al-Shifa hospital, Gaza's largest. The Israeli army released photographs a week earlier showing Hamas installations. And clarification was made of Hamas use of generators to pump air into hundreds of kilometres of tunnels, originating in areas of civilian density. One tunnel shaft was shown built adjacent a hospital.

Hamas terrorists guarding tunnels on the Gaza-Israeli border earlier this year. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

"Entering tunnels presents unique tactical challenges, many of which cannot be addressed without specialized equipment. In some cases it can be impossible to breathe without oxygen tanks in tunnels, depending on their depth and air ventilation."

"It can also be impossible simply to see. Most military night-vision goggles rely on some ambient light and cannot function when it is entirely absent. Any military navigation and communication equipment that relies on satellite or line-of-sight signals will not work underground."

"A weapon fired in compact spaces of tunnels, even a rifle, can produce a concussive effect that can physically harm the firer. A single defender can hold a narrow tunnel against a much superior force."

Modern War Institute at West Point, John Spencer, chair, urban warfare studies

Hamas Savage Barbarity Excused

"To say otherwise is to accept and endorse colonialism in all its forms. [To say otherwise is not allowed]."

"We condemn any statement that denies or shifts away from the narrative of colonialism."

"Palestinians are the subjects of Israel's colonization and genocide."

Metropolitan University Lincoln Alexander law school, Toronto

"There are any number of sobering lessons that might be drawn from the obscene celebrations of mass murder that have erupted across Canada in the aftermath of the October 7 massacres in Israel, when "special forces" units of the Hamas terrorist organization carried out the bloodiest pogrom in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

"That a genteel, faculty-lounge variety of antisemitism has gone unchallenged for too long is certainly one lesson. Another is that Canada's official toleration of the propaganda, recruitment and fundraising arms of terrorist organizations is bad policy that free-speech rights cannot be allowed to excuse."

Terry Glavin, journalist, National Post

Israeli forces extracting dead bodies of Israeli residents from a destroyed house in Kfar Aza, Israel, on October 10. Ilia Yefimovich/picture-alliance/dpa/AP

 

To be perfectly clear here, Palestinian Gaza's Hamas rulers committed unspeakable acts of inhumanity against thousands of infants, teens, girls and women, elderly and Israeli soldiers in their brazen demonstration of savagery unlike anything the world can imagine perpetrated by trained killers purporting to be liberators of Palestine. So proud of their inhumanity that they recorded for posterity in real time the atrocities they committed against helpless people. Crimes that will join the annals of the world's evil excesses in barbarity.

Perhaps even more shocking is that hordes of ordinary Palestinian men and teens flooded into Israel after the Hamas operatives to take joy and pleasure in the circumstances that allowed them to commit violence similar to what the terrorists themselves were perpetrating in an orgy of blood-letting and merciless mutilations. These are the people who support Hamas, these are the people who emulate Hamas, and for whom inflicting terror and vicious pain on people they've been instructed and taught to hate is entertainment.

The prime minister of Canada himself, in full knowledge of the extent of the excruciatingly dreadful acts committed by the terrorist group chose to instantly believe what their 'Health Authority' claimed in charging that Israeli forces bombed a hospital and that 500 innocent Palestinians were killed, as a result. Israel's immediate rejoinder explaining that it was Palestinian Islamic Jihad which was firing rockets off from nearby grounds and that one of the rockets exploded and fell onto the hospital parking lot was rejected 'until proof could be found' their explanation reflected reality.

"I'm horrified by the loss of life at Al Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza. My thoughts are with those who lost loved ones."

"It is imperative that innocent civilians be protected and international law upheld."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

The prime minister's insinuation that Israel was responsible for bombing the hospital and must be held to account was belied when days later Defence Minister Bill Blair made the announcement that the Canadian Forces Intelligence Command's independent analyses indicated "with a high degree of confidence" that it was not Israel that struck the hospital; that "the more likely scenario is that the strike was caused by an errant rocket fired from Gaza". Trudeau has not since apologized.

And nor was the hospital destroyed, much less hit. It was vehicles parked in the hospital parking lot that took the brunt of the damage. No doubt there were casualties; the hospital director himself some days later minimized the total afflicted. But to critics and haters of Israel, the guilt will remain with the original accusations that also blame it for the rampage by Hamas terrorists for the slaughter of families in their homes and streets of the towns and kibbutzim and the music festival at Re'im.

In Canada, since the horrors of October 7, dozens of demonstrations have taken place, rallying protesters around the fiction that Israel is intent on carrying out a "genocide" of Palestinians in Gaza. Organizers exhort Canadians to support a "resistance" that legitimates terrorism that sees nothing amiss when proof is provided, courtesy of Hamas operatives themselves, of dismembered babies and families burned alive in their homes after being tortured.

Now, there are universal calls for a "ceasefire" in Gaza based on the narrative that the "root cause" of the horrors that took place in Gaza can be attributed to "Israel's decades-long occupation of Palestinian territory", which just happens to be a Biblical-era-forward geography of ancestral Judaean land reclaimed by its rightful indigenous inheritors.

People attend a vigil for Israeli victims at the Stephen Wise Temple, October 8, 2023, after the terrorist  group Hamas launched an attack on Israel. Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP

Palestinians for Peace and Good Governance

"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it. [Jihad is] the individual duty of every Muslim."

"The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [holy possession] consecrated for future Muslim generations until Judgement Day."

"No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it."

Hamas Covenant

 

"There will never be peace ... We'll take what you give, but we will never give up our armed struggle."

"As long as I, Sheikh Yassin, am alive, I shall make sure that there will be no peace talks with Israel."

"I do not have a time problem: ten more years, 100 more years -- in the end you will be wiped off the face of the earth."

Ahmed Yassin, Hamas founder

 

Any onlooker into the Middle East conflict between the State of Israel and the Islamist terrorist groups -- first the Palestine Liberation Organization and its various arms, now its reiteration in Fatah and the Palestinian Authority, and the even grimmer Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and lesser but lethally determined groups to obliterate the Jewish state -- who believes that reason and practical intelligence can prevail over institutionalized violence bred and led by the Arab/Muslim states that greeted the fledgling state in 1948 with a military welcome, suffers from inattention.

It is not possible to negotiate with groups dedicated to the eradication of a legally constituted state on the ancestral lands of its predecessors which welcomes a vast diaspora of people who have suffered indignities, discrimination, oppression, pogroms, exiles, and finally genocide over the millennia since they rebelled against an occupation of a foreign dynasty with a global reach. Fatah, which governs the area the West and the UN refers to as the 'West Bank', shares the Hamas agenda of re-occupying the land Israel sits upon, but it is far more discreet than Hamas; the former is secular, the latter religious.

"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them. Then the Jews will hide behind rocks and tees, and the rocks and trees will cry out: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him'."

Islamic Hadith

When the founder of Hamas, Ahmed Yassin, was imprisoned in an Israeli jail, he managed to control and order Hamas, giving the group instructions on how to proceed with their deadly agenda. Around 1992 the Hamas campaign of suicide bombing attacks began against Israelis. In 1992 a group of soldiers close to a West Bank settlement was targeted.

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords, brokered by the U.S., meant to lead to peace and eventually, a Palestinian state. A situation that led Yassin to increase the frequency and deadliness of the suicide attacks. A similarity can be seen in the current situation, where Israel, with U.S. brokering assistance has signed peace agreements under the Abraham Accords with Morocco, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

The long-awaited rapprochement between Saudi Arabia and Israel, which would in time lead to additional members of the Arab League joining the accord for peace with Israel, alarmed the Islamic Republic of Iran, which called upon its proxies to take action that would destroy any opportunities for peace agreements beyond that of Israel with Jordan, Egypt and the latter three states. What happened when Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fired hundreds of rockets into Israel and Hamas broke through the separating wall to slaughter 1,400 mostly civilian Israelis was to create dire tension.

Thirty years ago, Hamas expanded targeting of Israel into Israel's internationally recognized borders to target civilians on commuter buses, gathering places, restaurants, on the street, committing carnage on a larger scale, in reaction to the Oslo Accord. Negotiations for a peace agreement in 2000 saw Israel offering self-harming concessions to the Palestinians in their eagerness to avoid an increase in attacks and hope for a cessation to all attacks. Only to be met with refusals, followed by more suicide bombing.

Yassin was finally assassinated in 2004, effectively martyring him as a celebrated figure of 'resistance' for Palestinians enamoured of deadly violence. The general view outside of the Middle East is that Palestinians who are exploited by their Hamas rulers in Gaza, and who become civilian shields when Hamas places rocket launch sites inside schools, hospitals, apartment complexes, and in other densely populated enclaves, fear and detest Hamas for failing to provide them with opportunities to prosper.

Nothing could be further from the truth. The 2006 Palestinian legislative election saw Hamas win 44.5 percent of the vote, giving them 74 of 132 seats. An election judged by international observers to be free and fair. A year and a half later, Hamas violently seized control of Gaza from Fatah, after Israel had pulled out all its settlements and its military presence, leaving the enclave to the Palestinians entirely. The struggle between Fatah and Hamas was violent and conclusive; Fatah outed and Hamas in control.

No follow-up election has ever been held. Current politics, according to the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research saw its most recent poll in June concluding that "two-thirds of the public do not believe that Israel will celebrate its centenary (in 2048), and a majority, albeit a small one, believes that the Palestinian people will, in the future, be able to recover Palestine and return its refugees to their homes".

The concept of a two-state solution, overwhelmingly supported by the Western world whose charity has supported the Palestinian territories for the past 70 years, is supported by a mere 28 percent of Palestinians, with 70 percent in opposition to it. The Palestinian Authority is not favoured by Palestinians, half looking for its collapse, while 71 percent are in support of the formation of independent armed militias.

And while 69 percent of the Palestinian population would like to have an election, if one were held, 56 percent would vote for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and a mere 33 percent for Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority. As for hopes of peace, 53 percent  percent of Palestinians are in support of a return to an armed intifada, with 47 percent in support of peaceful resistance. Overall, a population choosing to reject Israel's right of existence, believing that achieving a Palestinian state is only achievable through violence.

 

The Palestinian militant group has struggled to govern Gaza and remains committed to violently resisting Israel. Its surprise attack against Israel in 2023 threatens a wider conflagration in the Middle East. Council on Foreign Relations

The Smouldering Arab Middle East

Smoke rises in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in the northern part of the Gaza Strip, as viewed from the Israeli city of Sderot on Wednesday. (Ronaldo Schemidt/AFP/Getty Images)

"The [Arab] street to a large extent is now in charge."

"We were told for the last ten years that the Arab world and Muslim world didn't care about Palestine anymore, and Abraham Accords were proof of that."

"Well, Palestine has come back. I don't think it ever went away."

Bruce Riedel, senior fellow, Brookings Institution

"With 600,000 Americans in Israel and threats to other Americans across the region, it's hard to think of an evacuation that might compare to this in scale, scope ad complexity."

"The sort of advisories the State Department has put out lately have been fairly blunt."

Suzanne Maloney, director, foreign policy, Brookings Institution

"[A] broader escalation [is possible] in the days ahead. [Senior military leaders are taking] all necessary measures [to safeguard U.S. personnel]."

"We don't necessarily see that Iran has explicitly ordered them to take these kinds of attacks."

"That said, by virtue of the fact that they [varied terrorist groups serving as Iran's proxies] are supported by Iran, we will  ultimately hold Iran responsible."

Brig.-Gen. Patrick Ryder, spokesman, Pentagon

Israel Defense Forces spokesman  Lt. Col. Richard Hecht speaks to an auditorium full of journalists at a military base north of Tel Aviv, Oct. 23, 2023. CBS News/Cameron Stewart

 

As Israeli forces, supported by U.S. weapons and military advisers prepare for a widely anticipated ground offensive against the Hamas terrorists responsible for the cross-border attack of barbaric proportions that surprised Israel's intelligence and military apparatus, leading Israel to mount an offensive of wide proportions in Gaza, the operation is acknowledged to come with grave risks of reigniting hostilities from the greater Arab/Muslim region.

Addressing that fraught issue, unidentified officials have detailed internal deliberations from the American perspective; including that U.S. citizens living in Israel and Lebanon have become particularly concerning to the U.S. administration, even as it considers an evacuation of that magnitude to be a nightmarish worse-case scenario, that leads to hopes that alternate outcomes may be more likely to occur.

Evidently irrespective of the administration's vigorous public support for Israel, it is alarmed by the potential of escalation, forcing it to turn attention to complicated logistics involved of having to swiftly relocate large numbers of people. About 600,000 US. citizens are in Israel, with another 86,000 believed to be living in Lebanon at the time of the Hamas attack, in reflection of State Department estimates. Hezbollah, a proxy Iranian terrorist group deeply entrenched politically in Lebanon is of particular concern.

The Party of God, as they call themselves was originally formed by the Quds Division of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps, trained and armed and answerable to the Islamic Republic of Iran. Concerns are that it seems quite likely that Hezbollah, with its immense stockpile of technologically updated rockets could be drawn into attacking Israel from the north, and in the process a two-front war could erupt stretching Israeli forces. Initial skirmishes have already occurred along their shared border.

 

Hamas uses an elaborate network of tunnels for everything from storage to staging attacks, and they pose a big challenge for Israel. Tunnels change the war and make things more dangerous for the Israeli military and the Palestinians who live above them. Still from video CBC News

 

"This has become a real issue. The administration is very, very, very worried that this thing is going to get out of hand", cautioned one of the three in-the-know American officials who have spoken on condition of anonymity. Careful watch is being mounted on street protests spread across the Arab world, placing U.S. personnel and citizens in the region at heightened risk. The Gaza bombardment clearly inflaming regional fury with Israel and its purported treatment of Palestinians, once believed to have faded from public concern.

In the hopes of avoiding setting off a panic among Americans in the region, top American officials have refrained from discussing concerns and possible contingency plans publicly. The events of recent days, however, have shifted that posture, reflecting anxiety about other state actors entering the conflict. An advisory was issued last week by the State Department to all U.S. citizens worldwide "to exercise increased caution" reflecting "increased tensions in various locations around the world, the potential for terrorist attacks (and) demonstrations or violent actions against U.S. citizens and interests".

The Pentagon this week also signalled that it is bracing for a significant increase of attacks on US. troops stationed in the Middle East. Iran was singled out for its extensive sponsorship of terrorist groups with a history of using rockets and drones to target American military positions. In view of those concerns, Pentagon officials are surging additional missile-defence systems to the region.

The estimated 3,400 troops deployed in Iraq and Syria are considered to be particularly vulnerable as the situation unfolds; their deployment in Iraq and Syria saw U.S. personnel based close to the Jordanian border intercept two one-way attack drones. For years Americans operating in those countries were targeted by Iranian-backed militias. 

Extensive destruction at the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Photograph: Adel al-Hwajre/ImagesLive/Zuma Press/Shutterstock

The Moral Compass

"Canadians hail from every corner of the world and are proud of being Canadian but also proud of their links to home and right now, Canadians of Muslim, Arab and particularly Palestinian origin, are extremely worried as are Canadians of the Jewish faith, Canadians with ties to Israel."

"Canadians of all backgrounds who are represented in Parliament are reflecting the very real fears and concerns that everyone has."

"Our jobs as parliamentarians, is, yes, to speak for our community, speak for our constituents, speak for Canadians and make sure everyone's fears are being heard and reflected upon and acted on. But our job is also ... to reassure everyone that this is Canada and, here, our differences must and will remain a source of strength."

"So yes, there are lots of different perspectives. But there are shared fears and concerns amongst all parliamentarians and a commitment every single day to keep everyone safe here in Canada, and everywhere around the world."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"We may not entirely agree on events in the Middle East but we do agree that all communities must and deserve to feel safe in Canada and we will work together to do this."

Montreal MP Anthony Housefather, chair, Canada-Israel Friendship Group

"Families don't always agree on everything [but they met] to reaffirm [their] commitment to being there for one another in the most difficult times, just as families do."

Vancouver MP Taleeb Noormohamed

“In Gaza, as elsewhere, international law, including humanitarian law, must be upheld by all. Even wars have rules,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, lecturing Israel in the House of Commons. Photo by Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press

It is becoming increasingly evident even to Justin Trudeau -- perhaps particularly to Trudeau -- that there is growing dissent in Parliament over the way he has handled Canada's reaction to the spectacularly brutal attack by Gazan terrorist groups Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, not to mention the freelance Palestinians who took advantage of a horribly gruesome invasion on Israeli border villages and kibbutzim to exercise the most barbaric atrocities against Israelis imaginable. 

Thousands of good Canadian citizens -- Palestinians, their Arab/Muslim colleagues and sympathetic others have gone out repeatedly in a surprising force of numbers to actually cheer on the deaths of over 1,400 Israelis, most of them citizens that included the elderly, infants and children, women, the disabled, along with soldiers. And the violent abduction of hundreds; children and elderly people, along with women who had been raped to hold them hostage. An explosion of celebration and congratulations greeted the sight of frightened children and fearful women as they were paraded through Gaza.

And the celebratory news of the horrific event in Israel on October 7 by the Hamas incursion meant to take Israel's security apparatus by surprise, and succeeding to an unfathomable degree has been seen on the streets of Canadian cities in wild congratulations to Hamas and Islamic Jihad by Canadian citizens of Middle Eastern descent. While the prime minister has condemned the parades of gleeful joy expressed by Canadians, he has done nothing whatever about them, despite that Hamas is listed as a terrorist group, and the crowds, holding Hamas flags aloft, have been chanting gentle phrases like "gas the Jews!" and "Death to the Jews!"

 

It is the ensuing casualty and death rate among Palestinians in Gaza as Israel responds, that consume the attention of much of legacy media, the public, Canadian unions and academia which have glossed over the abominations that Israelis have suffered. And that too was promoted by Justin Trudeau when the Hamas Health Authority -- which serves Hamas's interests -- claimed that Israel was responsible for an explosion that took place at a Gaza hospital and Canada's prime minister chose to take the word of a terrorist group against Israel's denial of responsibility -- which days later was authoritatively affirmed. 

 

Liberal Members of Parliament of Jewish origin are not entirely pleased with the performance of this prime minister for obvious reasons. Opposition Conservatives and Jewish groups in Canada have taken to criticizing the prime minister for his refusal in taking a clear position on the responsibility for the Gaza hospital explosion which was not an Israeli missile strike but in fact a failed rocket launch from Gaza itself which went awry as their rockets often do, striking the hospital parking lot where people were gathered. An immediate death toll of 500 was announced, later considerably diminished in numbers by the hospital authority.

Trudeau's statement, oblique yet obviously pointing to Israel, that this was an illegal strike according to the "rules around wars", culminated with his informing reporters he planned to take the "necessary time" to examine the evidence prior to drawing conclusions. His choice to give credence to accusations levelled by a terrorist group, rather than depending on the forthright statement issued by the Israeli government spoke volumes about his reliability as an ally to a fellow democracy heavily involved in defending itself from unspeakably lethal violence inflicted on its population.

 

In stark contrast, the U.S. president, relying on an immediate investigation result left no doubt whom he gave his support to, as did the British Prime Minister: "We don't treat what comes out of the Kremlin as the gospel truth, we should not do the same with Hamas", commented Rishi Sunak. Canada's own ambassador to the United Nations, Bob Rae, informed an Ottawa gathering that Canadians should offer support to Israel in an existential fight, drawing a direct line with Russia's invasion of Ukraine, condemned unequivocally by Canada.

 

"It is not only a fight for Israel and the Jewish people. It's a fight for all people to be able to live with security and with recognition of who they are", stated Ambassador Rae.

"Canadians have the right to feel safe to practise their faith and express their beliefs. There is no place for supporting terrorism or advocating for violence in Canada", read a joint statement from federal, provincial and territorial ministers urging "unity and respect in the face of calls for protests".

Two rallies were held in Halifax on Thanksgiving Monday — one in support of Israel, the other in support of Palestinians (Jeorge Sadi/CBC)

'Canada is Back' Has Morphed Into Canada's Descent Into Hell

"[There is a] distinction between freedom of speech and freedom of hate."

"I don't think that democracies allow people to hate and to incite, and I think that that is something that is looked at very carefully in many places, including Canada. [It is perfectly fine [if people feel strongly about support for Palestinians]."

"The only issue is, I think that we, as democracies, should look at ... when is a line crossed that is between supporting a cause and between changing our values in a way that incites hatred and violence and even glorification of horrendous terrorist attacks."

"That's very, very important." 

Iddo Moed, Israeli Ambassador to Canada

"To all those who saw fit to promote genocide, glorify terrorism and mock the murder of Jewish people, including women and babies -- the police are coming for you."

U.K. Home Secretary Suella Braverman

 

"Let me be clear about Hamas. Its members are not freedom fighters. They are not a resistance. They are terrorists."

"There are so many people in Canada who are afraid of the escalating tension here at home. We must not let worry, suspicion and mistrust divide us."

"We must remember that it is a short path from mistrusting one's neighbour to entrenching division. A peaceful society does not happen by accident and will not continue without effort."

"Canadians' liberty is not about taking away the freedoms of others but living in a way that expands and strengthens freedom for everyone."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

 

"People are free to state their own opinions, even opinions that I find abhorrent."

"That said, I’m free to state my opinion, which is that Hamas is a sadistic, terrorist death cult and it must be defeated, and I find it abhorrent that anyone in Canada or anywhere else would show their support for Hamas."

"Hamas is not a militant organization. It is not a government. It is not an activist group; Hamas is a sadistic criminal terrorist death cult, and it must be defeated."

"This kind of peace between Muslims and Jews, between Israelis and Arabs [the signatories to the Abraham Accords], would be a nightmare for Hamas and for the dictatorship in Iran, which seek to perpetuate the conflict and the divisions as a source of power. They need to perpetuate the hatred in order to justify their dictatorships."

"It is unthinkable that the IRGC can operate legally in Canada. It can raise funds. It can prepare logistics. It can recruit new followers. Some of the people attached to the highest levels of the IRGC live in Canada today, their very presence terrorizing peaceful Canadians of Iranian descent who desperately want to kick these terrorists out of our country. They are right."

"The terrorists must be kicked out. This organization must be made a criminal entity."

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre 

Hundreds of people attend a pro-Palestinian rally in Mississauga, Ont. The rally was one of many taking place across North America and around the world this weekend. (Alexis Raymon/Radio-Canada)

 

Canada's prime minister speaks of unity and division among people. He fails to address the scandalous fact that disunity and division runs rampant in Canada. It begins with his own actions, in alienating Canada's western provinces from its eastern provinces. It carries on when protesters arrive in convoys of dissenters to legally express their indignation over an autocratic government that issues diktats and when people object he names them as scum, homophobes, racists. 

The most recent examples carrying on from years of hate-mongering, are the crowds of Canadian Arab and Muslim citizens and their followers, including those illegally in Canada, who gather in numbers to decry and foment hatred against Israel and Jews. The most recent propellant of which is the horrendous slaughter of Israelis in villages and kibbutzim by Hamas terrorists invading from Gaza, causing Israel to launch a defensive/offensive conflict into Gaza to extirpate Hamas and its sibling organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both offshoots of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

In Germany, the United Kingdom and Australia, among other Western collegial democracies, these hate-filled, incitement-to-violence rallies have seen remedial responses from authorities. Canada's prime minister prefers to daintily deplore them, but will do nothing to forcefully put a stop to them. Protesters who last winter arrived in Ottawa demanding he resign merited the calling of the Emergencies Act and police dispersal and trials. That was personal to him, going so far as to freeze their bank accounts.

 

Pro-Palestinian supporters during a demonstration in Toronto on October 9, 2023. Photo by Cole Burston/AFP via Getty Images

Arab Muslims in Canada who promote violence against Jews and Israel, leaving the Canadian Jewish community in fear, and necessitating that precautions against violence be undertaken with a police presence and guards around Jewish institutions fail to reflect the idealized Canadian unity that Justin Trudeau hypocritically promotes, but does nothing to ensure actually exists. Even welcoming into Canadian society people from cultures that nurse ancient tribal and religious antipathies toward others, incapable of adopting Canadian values, is an act of national destruction.

Pierre Poilievre, Justin Trudeau's political opposition in Parliament, calls for Canada to take action on criminalizing Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps -- the acknowledged financial supporter of Hamas -- listing them as a terrorist entity. Hamas is on that terror list, yet Hamas flags and even the black flag of the Islamic State appear prominently in the anti-Israel Palestinian mobs that scream 'gas the Jews', suggesting another try at a 'final solution' and other vile imprecations and threats against fellow Canadian citizens. 

Palestinian groups in Canada came out immediately following the grisly news out of Israel that an invasion of terrorist death-cult operatives from Hamas had invaded border villages, towns and kibbutzes under cover of emerging dawn on October 7 to massacre families in their homes, people waiting at bus stops, stopping cars to kill motorists and passengers, raping women beside the dead bodies of their friends at a music festival, abducting babies, infants, teens, women, the elderly to use them as hostages in exchange for criminal Palestinians in Israeli prisons. A time of wild celebration for Palestinians.

 

This proved to be a week of many revelations for Canadians, prompting many to question the character of our country and its citizenry. Pictured: Pro-Palestinian protestors take to the streets of Montreal on Oct. 8, 2023, mere hours after Hamas launched its initial assault on Israel. Photo credit: The Canadian Press/Graham Hughes

 

The scale of the butchery, the evidence of torture, including forcing parents and children to witness the mutilation each was undergoing before delivering the death blows, was beyond mere inhumanity. In Gaza, Palestinians rejoiced and celebrated over the slaughter. Palestinian men and teens used the opportunity of the protective fence that had been smashed through to enter those same villages to not only loot possessions of the dead, but to commit murder themselves, some of them the very Gazans who were permitted employment in Israel.

Palestinians in the West Bank joined the congratulatory celebrations at the great victory achieved by Hamas in murdering over a thousand civilian Israelis. Those celebrations spread throughout the Middle East. That such butchery is inconceivable to a civilized society merely emphasizes that Middle Eastern countries in general, but certainly not all, are firmly anchored in societal dysfunction, emotional and enlightened stagnation of a heritage dating back millennia of tribal and sectarian hatreds.

And that very same syndrome is seen now throughout the world wherever Arabs and Muslims have penetrated, shifting their presence in a great diaspora of migration and bringing with them their heritage and cultural values of Islamist dominance, detestation of social enlightenment as they adhere to the precepts of Sharia, refusing to integrate themselves with the laws and social mores of the countries they now prosper in while spreading the fiction of colonialist victimhood of a people returned to their ancestral home.

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly listen to Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Keith Rowley during a working session at the Canada CARICOM Summit, in Ottawa, Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

 

In Justin Trudeau's Canada, disunity and division, hatred and incitement to violence has been normalized. He speaks of justice and fairness, of adherence to the law, of equality and security yet he has allowed Canada to be manipulated by China, he has accepted the presence of people who connive to disrupt life and security for other segments of the Canadian population that they target for eradication and censure. His focus on 'feminism' of a type known only to himself; on the virtues of celebrating the uniqueness of the trans community disruptive in their infantile circus of theatrics further divides parental rights from children's welfare.

There is a vast litany of national failures in Canada now, thanks to the Liberal government headed by Justin Trudeau who boasts of a once-proud nation's post-national state of freedom, liberation, equality, diversity and inclusion. Delusional myths of hatefully bickering disunity in a country whose vast natural resources may no longer be exploited in favour of achieving environmental balance which fails to meet the demands of a global society capable of harnessing itself to respect for nature and the environment while responsibly harvesting its resources.

The most recent  riots of celebrations over the barbaric murders of innocent people, the torture of helpless civilians, the anguish over the fate of hundreds of children, women and men of all ages and health conditions in the hands of a remorseless murderous sect of religious fanatics whose public relations enterprise seems to attract the world's population of social deviants and psychopaths viewing the apathy in reaction of other segments of society against the horrors of terrorism sending us into a Dark Age of nihilism.

Le Monde