"I want to speak to you from the heart about a photo going around from last weekend. I'm so sorry for the harm it caused."

"At one of the many public events at Stampede, I was approached by the Israeli ambassador. We had a very brief and frank exchange during which a photo was taken."

"After talking to many people in the community over the last couple of days, I better understand the immense hurt this has caused a lot of folks [taking into account the famine, children's deaths, the horrors of the war in Gaza]." 

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi

 

"It always starts with anti-Israel talk and then grows into something far, far worse."

"If you want to be premier, start acting like it."

"We meet with the ambassador of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Israel. The Aga Khan comes this year You have to respect them and refrain at all costs from demonizing."

"[Nenshi's action] shows a real lack of maturity."

Rob Anderson, chief of staff, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi with Iddo Moed, Israeli Ambassador to Canada, at the Calgary Stampede. (Photo credit: Embassy of Israel photo/via Facebook)

 

The provincial NDP leader, Naheed Nenshi saw fit to publicly apologize for his photo in which he stands smiling next to Iddo Moed, the Israeli ambassador, during the Calgary Stampede festivities. In so doing, more than adequately demonstrating the lack of honour and judgemental capabilities that reside deep within the New Democratic Party and Nenshi's own sense of self-preservation within that atmosphere. 

 

For a more well-rounded perspective on democratic points of view and an obviously better understanding that the Israel Defense Forces entered Gaza following the devastatingly grotesque invasion by thousands of Palestinian terrorists -- hell-bent on slaughtering Israeli civilians, from children to entire families, the elderly and the young alike, while triumphantly videoing the mass rape and torture of Jewish girls and women -- in a reaction that any country within the international community would commit to in defense of its own, Quebec Senator Leo Housakos unequivocally stated that he stands "shoulder to shoulder" with Ambassador Moed and the people of Israel, "the only democracy in the Middle East, where freedom, human rights, and the rule of law prevail".

 

When that photo of the two men; Nenshi and Ambassador Moed went public the response from among the public element that decries Israel's very existence and considers mass rape and slaughter of Jews to be nothing less than a 'push-back' against 'occupation' reminded Nenshi of his NDP-stripe obligations where the October 7, 2023 atrocities were hailed as pay-back for Israel's very existence. That his stance, having the effect of empathizing with 'Palestinian victims' of a response to their terrorist government's declaration of war, mentioning nothing that might have caused the Israeli military's campaign to destroy Hamas, adds substantially to the current climate of faulting Jewish Canadians for Palestinian feral war-mongering, is obviously of no concern to Naheed Nenshi. 

 

At that same event, Ambassador Moed had set up brief greeting and photo ops with a number of others. Premier Danielle Smith, Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Conservative Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre, and former federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair had no problems with such standard diplomatic overtures, but then none of them are infused either, with that very special undercurrent that operates in certain circles, of opposition to the very reality of existence of the Jewish state.  

"No democratic leader should apologize for engaging with the accredited representative of a sovereign democratic nation."

"Such remarks reinforce efforts to isolate Israel, legitimize anti-Zionist exclusion, and contribute to an environment in which antisemitism increasingly flourishes."

Abraham Global Peace Initiative president Avi Abraham Benlolo 

Stand With Us Canada

"[I do this] To speak up for those whose voice was taken [those who were murdered] but also to those tortured, raped, wounded, held hostage, abused; to the victims' families and the massacre's survivors, who want their story and the truth out, but some of them are still too traumatized, mentally unprepared, to share these stories themselves."

"I documented the atrocities and wrote the book because already on October 7, I immediately foresaw the worldwide denial that we would face. I realized the urgency for documentation. I knew something must be created so that what happened would be commemorated for generations to come -- and so I did."

"The reason I decided to write the book in the most unfiltered, graphic and unapologetic way possible, without censoring any of the atrocities' details, as challenging as it is for the reader, was to shock the international community. To wake them up. To make them comprehend the extent of the cruelty, the evil, the inhumanity."

Alon Penzel, former IDF spokesman

 

"A lot of what Hamas was doing was recorded. So it's not like you can deny it, even though a lot of people around the world are trying to deny that this even happened."

"What we're seeing around the world, all the demonstrations, all this chanting of 'From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', I think that people basically don't understand that means no state of Israel."

"They have no idea which river and which sea. They don't even know where we are on the globe. So a lot of people are watching TikToks of 30 seconds, and they're sure that they're experts on Israeli history."

Shelly Tal Merton, Knesset member, Yesh Atid party 

 

"The further we get from the 7th, the easier it is for people to change the narrative. If you can deny what happened on the 7th, then it's much easier to demonize and blood libel Israel."

"In Canada, many try to 'blur the lines'. Our state-funded broadcaster and mainstream media disregarding the 7th, glossing over it, to look at it like a footnote."

"[Film industry colleagues] outright minimized the rape of Israeli women, [some denying rapes occurred at all]."

Igal Hecht, October 7 documentary film The Killing Roads

 

"I actually have family members who either don't believe October 7 happened, or that it was an inside job planned by Netanyahu."

"I've met others with similar and worse beliefs. It's put a strain on my family, and I've lost friends over this."

"It's also interesting that these people refuse to watch our film."

Chris Atkins, filmmaker

Moshe Weitzman, left, one of the first EMIs to respond after the October 7 attacks, is filmed by Igal Hecht, who released his October 7 documentary The Killing Roads online for free in hopes of cutting through misinformation and denialism over the 2023 Hamas attacks on Israel. Photo by Igal Hecht

 

Knesset member Shelly Tal Meron, acting chair of the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality, wrote over 100 letters to human rights organizations and women's groups in weeks after the October 7 atrocities in southern Israel, inviting them to condemn sexual assaults as a war weapon. "It's not the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It's not right or left. It's simply the moral thing to do, to say that this is wrong. Nobody responded. Not one."

 

Former IDF spokesman Alon Penzel spoke last year at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands. His efforts led to protesters breaking windows, threatening him with violence, denying the atrocities committed by Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas, screaming "lies", insisting no women were raped on October 7, 2023.  That experience will not deter him from his goal to take speaking engagements across Canada, two years after the invasion of Israeli troops into Gaza.

 

An assistant professor of geography at Radboud university, Harry Pettit, added his own take to Penzel's initiative, posting that he was a "terrorist", on social media, and that Israel was committing a "holocaust". The school, this professor avowed, "should refuse to normalize platforming Zionists". 

 

Documentary filmmaker Igal Hecht. Photo by Igal Hecht.

 

Five months following the October 7 atrocities, Alon Penzel wrote Testimonies Without Boundaries, Israel: October 7th 2023. The publication contained fifty first-hand accounts of the horrors victims had suffered, in an effort to record the reality of what happened, against a tsunami of rejection of the reality of the situation, replacing the actual event with self-serving ideological propaganda seething with hatred of Israel and condemnation of Jews everywhere.

 

Mr. Penzel's speaking tour is organized by the group StandWithUs, through a combination of appearances before student groups at university campuses and at community events, to counter the narrative so widely accepted that characterizes the war in Gaza as a deliberate ploy to destroy Palestinian lives in a 'genocide', shredding the actual atrocities that took place in southern Israel as a figment of imaginary Israeli public relations to turn the world against Palestinians. What motivates Mr. Penzel's determination is the shock of witnessing the world public accepting Hamas's distortion of reality.

 

Shelly Tal Meron, on the other hand, has met with a level of success through a coalition along with France's minister of gender equality, to lead others around the world in acknowledgement that sexual assault is being normalized as a war weapon "not only Israeli, Yazidi women, Ukrainian women, Druze women that just suffered this in Syria and many other conflict areas". Even some countries without Israeli ties have agreed to support the committee against war rape.

 

In the near wake of the October 7 monstrosity, filmmaker Chris Atkins was contacted by a friend, human rights advocate Majed el-Shaffie, Egyptian-born, with a like intention to record the event. Majed el-Shaffie had contracted with a cameraman in Israel to initiate the documenting of the atrocities. Both Atkins and el-Shafie, Christians, agreed to partner in putting together footage and work together to document Dying to Live, screened November 2024 in Toronto. The film documents areas devastated by violence, including the Nova music festival site, using October 7 archival footage, interviewing survivors and victims' families.

 

Toronto lawyer Adam Hummel published Essays from Afar: 700 Days of the Diaspora Experience Since October 7, containing collected accounts from his Catch Substack and two years' worth of weekly commentary in his concern that scant few sources have taken the trouble to fully comprehend what precipitated the Gaza war, how it is being conducted, and the Hamas scheme to sacrifice the lives of Gazans to round out its anti-Israel propaganda fed to the West.  

"[The UN Commission of Inquiry report alleging "genocide" perpetrated by Israel is an  unfortunately misguided piece of fiction."

"I often say that if Israel wanted to kill all the Palestinians, this war would have been over on October 8, 2023."

"They do not, however, which is why 900-plus Israeli soldiers have been killed over the last two years, because Israel has gone above and beyond to protect the lives of innocent Palestinians in Gaza, who have been put in the line of fire because of their own leaders."

Adam Hummel, Toronto lawyer 

 

Threatening Canadian Jews

"Mr. Trudeau, we accuse you and your government, through your actions and inactions, of having contributed to the antisemitism we see running rampant in Canada today. You have permitted it to fester and rage like a fire burning out of control. Your indifference and relative silence in response to antisemitism contribute to the marginalization and isolation of Jews in Canada and their erasure for the public square."

"We accuse you and your government of abandoning Canadian Jews in our time of great peril. Your failure to speak out against the attacks on Jews, the threats to Jewish schools, the targeting and vandalism of businesses and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and places of worship is incomprehensible."

"Your moral failings have contributed to what we regard as the explosion of Jew hatred in Canada."

"Your government's inaction and appeasement toward Hamas supporters achieves nothing but embarrassment and shame for Canada on the world stage."

"We have passed an awful milestone in our long  history by allowing members of Parliament to shamefully accommodate radicals and stand with terrorists."

"Canada's honourable and longstanding record of support for the cause of freedom, justice and against all forms of hatred and antisemitism has been ineradicably stained by the actions of your government."

J'Accuse...! An Open Letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Palestinian supporters hold a rally in downtown Toronto on Oct. 9, 2023. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

 

Hundreds of disruptive, hate-filled protests have roiled Canadian cities in the past five months in the wake of the mass murder of Israeli civilians who were raped, mutilated, burned to death when Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas and joined by the PLFP and PIJ along with ordinary Palestinian civilians flooded across the border from Gaza to Israel to raid border villages and jubilantly record their sadistic savagery in killing children, babies, women and the elderly, celebrating the success of their 'victory' over the 'enemy'.

The protests were not to express outrage that such barbarity could occur against defenceless civilians by a neighbouring population, but to champion the very terrorist hordes that had perpetrated the shocking mutilation, rape, and slaughter of Jews. Crowds of pro-Hamas celebrants who shouted 'Intefada!', 'From the river to the sea!' and 'Final Solution'. All slogans with a readily identifiable meaning representing a hate crime against an identifiable group.

Jews represent a small minority ethnic/religious/cultural group within Canada, roughly 400,000 in number; about 1% of the population. The Jewish presence in Canada dates back before Confederation. From much later years forward Canada has amassed through immigration, refugee and migrant entries a much larger proportion of Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa to the point where Toronto, Canada's largest city, is ten percent Muslim. There are close to two million Muslims living in Canada, representing 5% of the population.

"On that Saturday [March 30], police arrested a man for allegedly driving a truck with people riding in the bed of the vehicle. They said the man was charged with stunt driving."

"While officers were seizing the truck, police say demonstrators became "aggressive and assaultive" toward the officers. Several arrests followed, and two women were charged with assaulting a peace officer with a weapon. One woman allegedly used a flagpole as a spear, while the other is accused of throwing horse manure at officers."

CBC report

Organizers of a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Toronto on March 30 where seven people were arrested say officers used excessive force against protesters, an allegation firmly rejected by police. Still from video, CBC

Arabs and Palestinians among them have organized events and rallies that demonize Israel and persecute Canadian Jews. They represent a formidable voting bloc, and there are now, under the prime ministership of Justin Trudeau, a large number of Members of Parliament of Muslim heritage, a good number of whom are in the Liberal caucus, with some appointed to influential Cabinet posts. The demographics and voting patterns constrain meaningful action against illegal, threatening, increasingly violent pro-Hamas protests and actions threatening Jews.

The great numbers of Muslims guarantee that many Canadian cities now have a substantial number of Jew-hostile groups igniting latent antisemitism from among the general population of those inclined to racist fear-mongering. Everywhere and anywhere now, Jews realize that some of their neighbours are insensitive to their vulnerabilities as a minority in a growing environment of social hostility. Much less that in their neighbourhoods, living on the same streets are those who view Jews as anathema.

Six Toronto city councillors last week gave support to pro-Hamas rallies, including the annual Al Quds Day events initiated by the Islamic Republic of Iran which publicly vocalize Iran's intention of destroying Israel. These councillors produced a statement: "Protecting the Right to Protest in Our City: freedom of assembly is a protected right in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In these difficult times of heightened tension in the world and Toronto these rights must be protected as part of our democratic society."

 

The federal government under Justin Trudeau, given direct and compromising evidence that UNRWA employed hundreds of Palestinian Gazans in its operations, some of whom are also members of groups like Hamas who are listed on Canada's terror list and that among them were individuals who took direct action during the murderous terrorist raid of October 7, taking part in the butchery, the rapes, the destruction and the abduction of hundreds of children, women and elderly as hostages taken to Gaza, decided to continue funding UNRWA.

For this current government of Canada, it has become glaringly clear that terrorizing Jews in Israel is of little concern, and what's more to the point, is that threatening and violating the civil rights of Canadian Jews is also of no concern to Justin Trudeau's government. This government flouts its own anti-terrorism laws and sanctions, among them that Canadians are forbidden to participate, facilitate, instruct or harbour terrorists.

People take part in a pro-Palestinian rally in Montreal, Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023. Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes