Samidoun: Offended It is Recognized as a Terrorist Group

"[Between the three politicians [Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre] recklessly and maliciously [accusing Samidoun as a terrorist entity owing a retraction and apology, a lawsuit has gone forward]."

"The suit will force the biggest mouths in government to actually show proof of the allegation of terrorist activity."

"It is very dangerous if we allow a government to decide who gets to enjoy full rights and who doesn't without showing actual proof."

Toronto lawyer Stephen Ellis

 

"The Liberals cannot legislate away our right to free speech."

"If they contend we are terrorists, let them prove it in court."

Charlotte Kates, co founder, Samidoun

 

"Samidoun does not have any material or organizational ties to entities listed on the terrorist lists of the United States, Canada or the European Union."

Samidoun statement

Anti-Israel demonstrators march in Ottawa on March 9, 2024. Samidoun, a group listed in Israel as a terror organization and banned outright in Germany, is one of the main groups organizing pro-Palestinian protests in Canada. Photo by Ashley Fraser / Postmedia

 

Vancouver-based Samidoun established a global network of support branches to which they give direction in the promulgation of 'public relations' announcements and protests in support of Palestinian 'rights' and entitlements in a world where Palestinian terrorism wreaks havoc as it mounts terrorist assaults against Jews universally and within Israel in particular, exacting a penalty of murder as the price it feels Israel must pay for its insistence that it has a right to exist on its own ancestral land. 

Palestinian terrorism is geared toward penalizing Israel and Jews through a never-ending devotion to lethal assaults against their 'oppressor'. Portraying themselves as victims seeking restitution of land they claim as theirs despite that it is historically Judean land, and Jews the original inhabitants native to the land, those identifying themselves as 'Palestinians' are in fact looting from the indigenous Jewish population the heritage that was never theirs.

There is, and never has been, a shortage of militant terrorism among the Arab Palestinian population. Among the earliest and most barbaric has been the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, involved in plane and sea-going vessel hijacking, hostage-taking and murderous assaults. Samidoun is a later, public-relations manifestation of Palestinian terrorism's realization of what can be accomplished when slanderous lies are repeated frequently enough to seem believable to the history-ignorant West.

Samidoun, ostensibly created to speak for the rights of Palestinians in Israeli prisons serving sentences for violent crimes against Israelis -- to agitate for their recognition as 'freedom fighters' eligible for release by virtue of the fact that whatever crimes were committed were in defense of their right to 'struggle against' their colonialist oppressors -- is committed to portraying violent criminals as merely asserting their humanitarian right to free themselves from imperialist colonizers.

 

Protesters from the Samidoun organization gather in front of the Muelheim train station in Cologne, Germany, on April 15, 2023, to commemorate Palestinian Prisoners' Day (Ying Tang / NurPhoto via Getty Images)

 

Those like Charlotte Kates preach to a public in the West for whom antisemitism is not unknown, that there is a connection between colonizers of the past and those of the present, as despised, indigenous-injurious exploiters of original, authentic territorial populations. Not only do they promote chants of 'death to Israel', but also 'death to Canada', tarred with the same colonizing brush as Israel. Samidoun portrays itself as a human-rights group seeking justice for all disentitled people, with a special emphasis on Jews and Israel, its first and foremost agenda.

Its links with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine are obvious enough, not least since the other of its co-founders, Kates's husband Khaled Barakat, is a prominent leader in the PFLP. Kates has run afoul of Canada's hate-speech prohibitions in law, with Vancouver Police leading an investigation following on her having fulsomely praised the savage Hamas attack in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Jewish groups in Canada have identified Samidoun for what it is, lobbying government to have it recognized as a hate group and enabler of terrorism; linked in its formation and purpose with an already-listed terror group, the PFLP.

Several weeks back, no longer able to ignore the reality of Samidoun's purpose, linkages and incitements the federal government finally relented and announced its decision to place Samidoun on the country's terror list. With the kind of impudent, defiant arrogance recognizable as a hallmark of Samidoun, it now portrays itself as ill done by, a victim of government over-reach, and should apologies not be forthcoming, a full-scale lawsuit is to be mounted.

The leader of the official opposition in Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, had called on the Liberals to designate Samidoun as a terror entity, emphasizing that the group had "clear and direct ties" to designated terror groups abroad. Mr. Poilievre stated, before the official announcement of its designation, that prime minister Trudeau and the federal New Democratic Party "have allowed terrorist organizations to operate freely across Canada", which qualified him a place alongside Canada's public safety minister and prime minister in the pending lawsuit.

A screenshot of the Samidoun-led anti-Israel protest outside the Vancouver Art Gallery where Charlotte Kates was arrested, April 26, 2024. Photo by freepalestinetricitiesbc/Instagram