Gaza: Terror-Free Zone?

"Gaza will be a deradicalized  terror-free zone that does not pose a threat to its neighbours."

"[Hamas members  who commit to] peaceful co-existence and to decommission their weapons [will be given amnesty]."

"[In time] conditions may finally be in place for a credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood."

U.S. President Trump's peace plan

 

"[The] pride heroism, and honour [of the Palestinian people had] thwarted the Israeli occupation's plan for subjugation and displacement."

"[Hamas] will not abandon our people's national rights: to achieve freedom, independence, and self-determination."

Hamas' reaction to ceasefire plan

 

"With the approval of the first phase of the plan, all our hostages will be brought home."

"This is a diplomatic success and a national and moral victory for the State of Israel."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Thousands gather at Hostages Square to celebrate the return of the hostages, October 13, 2025.

 

If the nature of Hamas as a dedicated death-cult led to a preordained barbaric assault against Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023 for which Israel was unprepared, and the targets of the murderous rampage might never have imagined that such savagery would be launched against them, since those that lived in the kibbutzim and farming communities regularly employed their Gaza neighbours as farm labourers and were in total sympathy with their plight under Hamas, it follows that the government of Israel was preordained to respond with a full, all-out invasion and corresponding assaults on the Hamas terrorists.

 

The leaders of Hamas had long planned the details of the impending incursion into southern Israel. On the surface it appeared that their cult mission to destroy the Jewish state had abated with the weight of government in Gaza shifting to civic infrastructure, when the extent of the underground maze of tunnels under the Strip had not yet been fully realized by Israeli intelligence and its military. Only to discover their numbers and sophistication with the understanding that Israeli children, women and men were incarcerated there as hostages, abducted from their homes on October 7.

 

Hamas command posts and weapons depots established in Gaza hospitals, rocket launchers placed in the midst of crowded civilian enclaves, and Hamas operatives along with those of Islamic Jihad doffing uniforms to meld into the civilian population, leaving little option for the Israel Defense Forces but to bomb identified terrorist posts, buildings used as headquarters, communications, and planning centers with associated and unpreventable civilian Palestinian harms.

 

People wrapped in US and Israeli flags stand around a portrait of US President Donald Trump as they wait for the release of hostages from Gaza at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv early on October 13, 2025.

 

All of which fell as planned by Hamas; documenting the rising death toll among Palestinians as fodder for their public relations machinery geared to Western news media, gullible populations and governments, while destabilizing the Middle East and preventing Sunni Muslim governments from the momentum gained by Bahrain, the UAE and Morocco, continuing to swell the ranks of those making peace with Israel through the Abraham Accords. Hamas called upon its sister terror groups in Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon as well as their mentor-state Iran to swell their own Israel-demolishing ranks.

 

So, now, the world celebrates a ceasefire, hoping for a lasting peace between Israel and its Middle East neighbours and for the immediate moment, a cessation of military hostilities  between Israel and Gaza. Despite the serious losses sustained by Hamas in the two years since the  horrors of October 7's mass murder of innocent lives in Israel, the terrorists continued their rocket fire, joined by Hezbollah and Yemen's Houthis. Hamas glories in its supposed fighting prowess, lusts after Jewish blood, takes pride in its death mission.

 

Palestinian Hamas terrorists stand guard on the day of the handover of hostages held in Gaza since the deadly October 7 2023 attack, as part of a ceasefire and a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, February 22, 2025. REUTERS/Hatem Khaled/

 

There will never be peace in the Middle East while Hamas persists. And while Israel and Jews everywhere are joyful and relieved at the return of the still-living hostages, awaiting the full return of those who died in captivity along with the dead taken from Israel to Gaza, expectations that the ceasefire plan's points of Hamas surrendering its weapons, and leaving Gaza are not remotely credible. Much less the ease with which deradicalization of Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank under the PA can be accomplished.

 

Palestinian culture is based on clan loyalties, and while Hamas still reigns in Gaza however temporarily, an orgy of revenge-killings is on overdrive. Prominent Palestinian clans that ordinarily prey on each other and on the wider Palestinian populations who rival Hamas in its dominant role, are engaged in wholesale armed conflict with Hamas, even as Hamas hunts down those Palestinians it claims to be disloyal to their cause. Bloodshed is the order of the day. Public executions of Palestinians by Hamas as traitors become events enjoyed by other Palestinians assembled to witness the cold-blooded murder of fellow citizens.

 

How likely is it that this culture is prepared to become entirely civilized and accepting finally of a Jewish state, one they have violently opposed for 70 years and more? In a realm where Israel's population is accepting of over a million Palestinians as citizens, and where, should an Israeli Jew venture into Palestinian territory, it would mean instant death. How possible is it to wean millions of people taught from the cradle to infancy, teen years to adulthood to despise Jews and consider martyrdom in the act of murdering Jews to represent the highest point to which anyone could aspire? 

 

 

Hamas Spurns Safe Passage Offer

"I'm ready to provide safe passage to Sinwar, his family, whoever wants to join  him."

"We want the hostages back. We want demilitarization, de-radicalization of course -- a new system that will manage Gaza."

"In parallel, I must work on plan B, C and D because we must bring the hostages back home. The clock is ticking, the hostages do not have time."

"There will be a price for these murders [hostage deaths]."

Gal Hirsch, Israel's hostage envoy

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was one of the masterminds of the October 7 attacks and is thought to be living in a network of tunnels under Gaza. AFP

 

"I see how the Saudis and other moderate Arab states, including potentially Indonesia and others, are waiting to have a window of opportunity to enter and expand the Abraham Accords -- we bless it."

"It's in our best interest, it's in their best interest, it's in America's best interest to align with the moderate Arab states."

Israeli Economy Minister Nir Barkat

In exchange for freeing the hostages held by Hamas, and surrendering control of the Gaza Strip, Israel has proposed to Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar a guaranteed safe passage out of Gaza. This, as the ongoing attempts at a ceasefire accord have accomplished nothing; Hamas may be on its back foot as a consequence of its attack on southern Israel's farming communities on October 7 but it still feels entitled to control all the points of any agreement with Israel for a ceasefire, prepared to negotiate no concessions beyond its own demands.

In response to which Israel's chief envoy representing the Jewish state's commitment to rescuing its citizens from the talons of the terrorists who succeeded in that facet of their orders beyond committing mass rape, plunder, destruction and the bloodlust of savage mass murders, to round up and abduct some 250 Israeli children, elderly, entire families and IDF soldiers to be used as bait and exchange for Palestinian criminals and terrorists in Israeli prisons.

The offer of safe passage for the mastermind of the sadistic terrorism that rocked Israel eleven months ago leading to the Israeli military's invasion of Gaza for the stated purpose of obliterating the threat of any further Palestinian terrorist attacks against Israel, has had an expected response. It was turned down. Perhaps it occurs to Sinwar and his close colleagues that the offer has a limited guarantee; once safely out of Gaza, they will be hunted and the accountability they bear for the unspeakable massacre of Jews number the days of their existence.

They shouldn't mind that, however, since their boast of loving, not fearing death, as a heroic sacrifice to their 'cause' and to Islam glorifies martyrdom, as an achievement by the faithful to the greater glory of Islam demonstrating the proud heritage of self-destruction while in the process of committing mass murder of an 'enemy' and none so aptly earn that description as do Jews, perfidious and dangerous to Islam, whom the faithful aspire to destroy in honour of their Prophet who invited Jewish tribes to convert only to be shunned and refused.

 

Six Israeli captives were found dead at the end of August, re-energizing the protest movement calling for a hostage deal  The National

 

Although the hostage envoy made the offer of safe passage it has a limited life. Gal Hirsch knows with whom he is dealing, a fanatic mind so steeped in Jew-hate he could only be compared to Hitler, for each of them devised a 'final solution' for Jews. Safe passage aside, once a temporary agreement had been accomplished, Hirsch envisions a "Munich-type response" targeting those who executed six Israeli hostages last month; alluding to the assassination of those involved in the deaths of 11 Israeli athletes in 1972 at the Munich Olympics.

Previously, Prime Minister Netanyahu had stated that the solution of exile "is there, we have always discussed it, but I think the most important thing is that they surrender. If they lay down their arms, the war is over".

Details emerged of the captivity conditions of the six executed hostages, of the tunnel in which they were imprisoned; a space some100 yards in length and five feet in height. "Very humid and hard to breathe in", described Israel Defense spokesman Daniel Hagari. A makeshift toilet was discovered alongside bottles of urine, mattresses, energy bars and tuna fish tins where the hostages had lived in a cramped space for months. Hostages known to have protected each other before they were shot.

Despite the deadly turmoil and ongoing attacks against Israel by Hamas operatives, by Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon, border skirmishes from Jordan and the maritime shipping threats of the Yemeni Houthis, all orchestrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran, Israel remains invested in normalizing diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia and other Arab states, expanding the Abraham Accords when ties were established with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and tentative overtures to others.

Tunnel where six Israeli hostages were found killed seen in this still image taken from a handout video released on September 10, 2024. Israeli Army/Handout via REUTERS

 

 

University of Toronto Antisemitic Encampment & the University's Shocking Complicity

"[The University of Toronto encampment and accompanying anti-Israel movement] was not primarily a grassroots student protest."

"A slew of outside agitators, including faculty, health care workers, climate justice groups, labour activists, trade unionists, gay rights activists, socialists/Marxists and activists with local chapters [of] the Palestine Youth Movement and Samidoun [linked themselves with the 'People's Circle for Palestine']"

The Canary Mission report: University of Toronto Antisemitic Encampment & the University's Shocking Complicity 

"[There were numerous documented instances of overtly antisemitic statements, including:] "kike", "We need another Holocaust", "Jews belong in the sea Palestine will be free" "Death to the Jews", "Hamas for Prime Minister", "You dirty f--cking Jew", "Go back to Europe", and "Itbach El Yahood" ["slaughter the Jews"]."

Ontario Superior Court Judge Markus Koehnen

An anti-Israel tent encampment protesting the war in Gaza continues to stand at the University of Toronto campus on Tuesday May 7, 2024. (Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post)

 

Canary Mission, founded to document antisemitic and anti-Israel actions on the campuses of North American universities, has released a study of University of Toronto, concluding its administrators failed to respond while their campus was taken over by supporters of terrorism, organized by outside agitators. Dozens of U of T faculty were listed as supporters of the pro-Hamas demonstrations that characterized the activities of the encampment. On May 2nd, a group of protesters breached a fence, then occupied the King's College Circle courtyard for two months.

The fence was lined with posters celebrating the atrocities in southern Israel committed by Hamas operatives, calling for more violent uprisings both in Israel and in Canada as well. In their study and subsequent report, Canary Mission pointed out 153 professors, 123 employed by the university included, publicly gave their support to the encampment, while 45 of them took active participation and six delivered addresses to the gathering of antisemites bitterly condemning Israel's counterterrorism action in Gaza.

Concealing identities behind keffiyehs and medical masks, these were sociopathic thugs who acted to confine access to the occupied area where any who wished to enter were first forced to commit to agreeing with a number of statements that excluded 'Zionists' or Israel-sympathizers, much less Jews themselves from gaining access. The report's authors are scathing in their condemnation of the  university's administration which took no action to arrest the protest movement that posed a hostile environment for Jewish students and faculty.

The pathetic excuse given was a wish to avoid violence by confronting and attempting to dismantle the camp, much less enforce the university's own code of conduct. Nor did the university ever appear to address the issue of its own professors supporting the encampment. Some of whom have been identified as members of the university's chapter of Faculty for Palestine, credited in the report with forcing the administration to retreat from its threat of disciplining faculty members refusing to comply with the initial trespass notice.

The Faculty for Palestine complained that the university had ignored its responsibility to its own "supposed commitment to academic freedom, anti-racism and human rights", while they were themselves instrumental in denying those freedoms and respect for human rights while practising racism against the Jewish student body and faculty members. As well, many of the F4P members have involvement in the Hearing Palestine initiative at the university, "an intellectual hub at the University of Toronto that centres the study of Palestine and facilitates advanced interdisciplinary research on Palestine, past, present and future".

This is, of course, a Palestine of their imaginative choosing, linked with Arab Palestinians and de-linked from the primary presence of Palestinian Jews, when during the pre-Christian era of the Roman Occupation of the Middle East, the province known as Judea was renamed Syria Palaestina by the Roman administration. Its occupants were Jews. There never was a 'Palestine' dedicated to Arabs, not in the dim and distant past, not in the recent past, and not at the present time, other than an Arab co-opting of ancestral Judea.

The former encampment at the University of Toronto. Photo by Jesse Kline/National Post

What They Endured -- From Darkness To Light

"If it means the world will learn the truth about what they did to us, what we endured in captivity -- I'm on board."

"Let's just say he [heir captor] had an issue with us moving around."

"If he caught one of us standing, he'd suddenly declare: 'Oh, you stood up? Fine. Now I want you sitting for a week. If you need the bathroom -- crawl."

"I don't want to see you on your feet."

"We were itching to retaliate, but we suppressed it, detaching ourselves emotionally."

Almog Meir Jan

"But we'd wear him down after about four days. We did our best to comply."

"We'd win him over by playing the role of obedient children."

Shlomi Ziv

"For those who've returned, the most crucial mission now is saving lives."

"They carry the weight of responsibility for those they had to leave behind."

Susie Ozsinay Aranya, co-project lead, Government Press Office

Shlomi Ziv and Almog Meir Jan, Photo Efrat Eshel

 

These are the fortunate unfortunates. Their misfortune was to have been taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7. Their good fortune was to have been among those of the hostages that the Operation Arnon rescue by the IDF released in June, after 246 days of captivity in Gaza. Two of the hostages have agreed to relive the details of their captivity by revealing details seared into their psyches by their experiences at the hands of their Hamas captors.

Their testimony in recounting their ordeal before they were released will form part of a project of documentation for posterity of returned hostages and their families; a project led by Israel's Government Press Office. That same rescue, Operation Arnon, freed other survivors of the Hamas hostage-taking, Andrey Kozlov and Noa Argamani, held separately from Kozlov, Shlomo Ziv and Almog Meir Jan. 

 

The two men described, among other tormenting punishments, what they speak of as 'creative' assaults on human dignity.

 

Families of hostages march into Gaza during the protest on August 29, 2024 (Photo: Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

“I saw Yaya [Yaakov Tal her husband] outside the house, sitting on his knees and two terrorists were holding him by his sides. He was with his back [to] me. They were holding weapons. And he yelled at me, 'I'm going to die!'”

“And I'm on a Vespa and I told him 'Don't resist'. One [of the terrorists] who was sitting [on the Vespa] was holding a knife to my neck. They brought me down from the Vespa, someone hit me on the head. I almost lost consciousness.”

Merav Tal, October 7 hostage

 

“There were shouts of ‘Jew, Jew’ in Arabic. They broke in [to the bomb shelter] screaming and shooting, bullet marks on the door. We understood my husband was shot. He was lying on the floor with his hands up. This was all in front of our eyes.”

“And then I ran to check on Yam [her oldest daughter], and I see that she was shot in the face. I just saw this for a few seconds, it was a shocking sight. Something got opened right here and blood was coming out of her head. Such a convulsion, she was half passed out. I was simply stunned, in shock, I was asking myself: 'Is what I'm seeing right now really happening?'” 

Chen Goldstein-Almog, abducted from Kfar Aza with her three children

In all, 25 former hostages of various ages have agreed to share their personal experiences since their return, to be part of the project. As well, 21 family members of those still in captivity will also add to the record-keeping. An estimated 100 hostages of the 250 taken into Gaza as pawns for future prisoner exchanges, remain in Gaza. Israeli authorities believe that some 70 of those prisoners remain yet alive. Their numbers are diminishing, murdered by their captors.

"Since the Holocaust until October 7, the Jewish people have not experienced such systematic slaughter and murderous acts on such a scale. On Holocaust Memorial Day this year, amid severe antisemitic events worldwide, we will show testimonies of the atrocities committed against women, men, the elderly, and children in captivity in the Gaza Strip to foreign journalists from around the world." 

"Soon, the Public Diplomacy Directorate will release the testimonies of the national project to the media to serve the ongoing campaign against the dehumanization and delegitimization of the State of Israel."

Nitzan Chen, director of the GPO

Even the videoed documented evidence of the Hamas orgy of sadistic savagery in mutilating, raping, burning families alive, hunting down and taking captive young people at the Nova Music Festival, slaughtering hundreds in farming villages close to the Gaza border, has failed to fully convince the international community that Israelis had been forced to undergo a massive atrocity by Palestinian terrorists. Personal witness testimony, along with the incriminating videos have been insufficient to convince an uncaring United Nations and skeptic national leaders of the scale of the horror. 

Rally in Jerusalem marks six months of captivity

(Photo: Alex Kolomoisky)

Something's Happening Here -- What It Is is Quite Clear

"It's dangerous for Israel and it may also be dangerous for Canada [growing incidence of anti-Israel extremism in Canada]."

"It's a wake-up call for the international communities that something is happening here."

"Within the international context, it's dangerous."

"The most important and prevalent feeling you'll encounter among any Israeli is that we want to have our hostages back. Everybody is looking for this situation to end."

"Israel wants peace. Israel wants to live in peace with its neighbours."

Iddo Moed, Israeli Ambassador to Canada

 

"While we are relieved that no innocent lives were lost in this attack, we are deeply shocked that a Canadian citizen would travel to Israel and retraumatize the Neti Ha'asara community already devastated by the twenty lives stolen in Hamas' murderous rampage on October 7."

"This incident highlights the potential consequences of pervasive misinformation and disinformation surrounding Israel's conflict with Hamas -- where Israel is demonized and held solely responsible, and where Hamas has been absolved of responsibility for the impact on Palestinian civilians of the war they started."

"When demonstrations glorify terrorists as martyrs and call for global intifada without condemnation from our political leaders, it sets the stage for tragedies like today's attack in the Israeli town of Netiv Ha'asara."

David Cooper, vice-president of government relations, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

The Canadian passport of terrorist Zachareah Adam Quraishi  IDF

 Netiv Ha'asara in southern Israel is a communal agricultural community, a Kibbutz located in the Negev desert some 6 kilometres south of Tel Aviv. It abuts the northern border of Gaza. During the October 7, 2023 incursion into Israel of thousands of Palestinian terrorists coordinated by Gaza's governing Hamas group, some twenty of its residents were killed. Communities such as this one were swarmed with terror operatives in a well-planned mass atrocity of truly savage proportions. 

On July 22, a young Arab Canadian, born in Canada, who had travelled to Israel on a student visa, arriving the day before the attack at the village, rented a vehicle and drove to the commune. He had parked his vehicle at a compound close to where Israeli guards were stationed. His suspicious behaviour had alerted the guards, and as he left the parked car and ran over to the men on guard, attempted to stab them. He was shot dead before he could consummate his intended carnage.

According to reports from eyewitnesses, he shouted "free Palestine" as he ran toward the Netiv Ha'asara security personnel with a kitchen knife. The attack had been videoed and was released by the Israel Defense forces. Armed guards are shown patrolling the fortified front gate of the community. It showed Quraishi charging the guards before he was shot dead. He had arrived at the town in a white Hyundai rental car.

Since the notorious October 7 attack by Palestinian terrorists orchestrated by Hamas, the Arab Muslim propaganda machine has gone into overdrive with a vengeance, portraying Israel as the aggressor intent on committing genocide against the Palestinians. Throughout the Western world crowds of Muslims claiming to represent the human rights interests of Palestinians, decrying their victimization and oppression by Israel, have organized anti-Israel, pro-Hamas rallies.

They have been joined by fellow travellers, sympathizers of the 'cause' of decrying Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories, along with Canadian antisemites for whom any cause that vilifies Jews is a just one for them to dedicate their time and energies to. They have marched through city streets, closed down highways, set up encampments at colleges and universities to demand divestment from Israeli companies and the enforced isolation of Israeli academics, while generally threatening local Jewish populations.

 

In most European countries action has been taken, however belatedly, to shut down these hateful displays of social dysfunction, but not in Canada, where ongoing protests continue to shut down bridges and highway overpasses, carrying signs that demonize Israel and lionize Palestinian 'resistance', of which the sadistic savagery of October 7 is a symbol of righteousness over domination of an imperialist nation against a vulnerable population. The inversion of victim and victimizer while distorting reality has become a popular rallying cry against Zionism.

Chants of 'Intifada', 'From the river to the sea', 'final solution' and 'we are all Hamas', are code for the destruction of Israel, a Western democracy seated within a geography of anti-democratic tyranny. These Jew-demonizing, threatening 'protests', illegal in every sense, morally and under criminal law, are permitted to roil the streets and byways of Canadian cities. Criminal acts of bombing synagogues, defacing Jewish social centres, marching threateningly through Jewish neighbourhoods, all illegal under Canadian law, see no government opposition.

The growing radicalization of Muslim-Canadians is palpable and augers a boiling cauldron of antisemitism preparing to explode. Yet no authorities at any level, no police services, no justice system, no religious institution, no corporate interests, no legacy media appear inclined to interrupt this orgy of Jew-hate and bring order and security back to Canadian cities. Jewish institutions continue to be vandalized, rallies and demonstrations continue to be held, without government intervention.

 

A large Palestinian protest began on Parliament Hill on Saturday, Aug. 10, 2024. Participants marched from the Hill to 50 O’Connor, the building housing the Israeli Embassy, and then proceeded through downtown Ottawa. Photo by Ashley Fraser /POSTMEDIA

"Canada has a history of having foreign fighters -- Canadian citizens go off to distant lands in the Middle East and commit egregious acts of violence."

"We were a country that garnered, and rightfully so international attention during allied operations to counter ISIS, because of how many Canadians have gone off to join the caliphate."

"You have people calling for the erasure of the only Jewish state standing in front of crowds of thousands calling for the death of Zionists -- which is just a code word for Jews -- you have decapitated mannequin heads of Bibi Netanyahu being kicked around like soccer balls in Toronto -- you have synagogues being burned -- you have Jewish day schools being shot at."

"When the overwhelming majority of this goes on without any repercussions, you allow these ideas to take root and become normalized."

Casey Babb, senior fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Hello, Canada? Your Jews Calling...

"[The posters are] plain antisemitism."

"It's sad to see this in my own city. This is intended to stigmatize, to target and to make you afraid to say what you want to say."

"[There has been an] absolutely extraordinary amount [of hate in the past nine months, threats issued on social media]. This [the posters] sort of continues down that path. Except it's another sign on the streets of Montreal where others are also exposed to it, not just me and my staff." 

"And then to tell a Canadian Jew who was born in Montreal, whose parents and grandparents were born in Montreal, that I should go somewhere else ... it's telling us that we don't have a place in our country just because we believe that Israel has a right to exist."

Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather

Anthony Housefather shared a photo on social media of a poster equating Zionism with terrorism. Photo by Anthony Housefather via X

At every turn, throughout Canada mobs of people, incited equally by groups that have established themselves comprised primarily by Arab-Canadians to promote the 'rights' of Palestinians in their contested claims of authenticity as indigenous to the land called Palestine originally (so named during the Roman Occupation of the Middle East, meant to describe heritage Judaean lands as Roman provinces), against their claims of Israeli 'colonialism' and 'apartheid'. Re-awakening on the other hand, slumbering antisemitism residing deep in the subconscious of some Canadians.

 

That Jews and the establishment of the modern State of Israel have illegally taken the land claimed by Arabs styling themselves Palestinians. Arabs who, though not indigenous to Palestine, arrived as migrants from Egypt and Syria to find opportunities for economic advancement for their future. For generations Arabs and Jews lived alongside one another, simmering resentment bubbling over from time to time each claiming entitlement to land ancestral to Jewish heritage identity. During the British Mandate administering Palestine, sparks of adversarial rage lit the fires of bloody pogroms.

 

And while Arab federations in Canada claim rights to the land that Israel sits on, their hugely successful public relations machinery portrays Israel as both the foreign intruder on the land and the aggressor against Palestinian rights. This, despite Palestinians having spurned the UN's Partition Plan that offered land equally to Arabs and Jews. Since the establishment of the modern State of Israel, Palestinians have established not a civil infrastructure that would advance their own interests in establishing a state of their own, but chose instead to invest time, energy and the financial charity of the international community in securing militias grounded in terrorism to confront Israel and murder Jews.

 

On October 7 of 2023, several of those terrorist militias led by Hamas which governed the Gaza Strip, dispatched thousands of their operatives into Israel across the Gaza border through the heavily damaged border fence, to converge on southern Israel's farming kibbutzim on a mission to slaughter Jews, young and old, in a campaign of mass rape, mutilation and hostage-taking. The horror of over 1,200 civilians killed, women and girls raped, mutilated and killed, others taken as hostages into Gaza was a nightmare that defenders of the concept of Palestinians as victims of Israeli violence denied. 

 

A protest outside the Federation CJA in Montreal, home to the Jewish Community Foundation of Montreal and the Montreal Holocaust Museum. Photo by CIJA /X

The more recent rise of skilled public relations overtures to the West, to convince populations there of the victimization of Palestinians by unscrupulous Israeli government human rights defilers portray Jews as committing genocide against Arab Palestinians, arousing indignation and censure of Israel in some quarters. Perpetrating the lies of genocide and victimization through apartheid so far from reality which is the charter of the Palestinian anti-Israel, violence-prone militias pledging to destroy Israel and kill Jews.

 

These ambitions veiled in victimhood and entitlement have entered the West along with Arab/Palestinian/Muslim immigration bringing with them all the tools of slanderous allegations damning Israel in the minds and attitudes of those who accept the narratives of 'victim' and an 'apartheid' regime. Despite the reality of millions of Palestinian Arabs with Israeli citizenship free to elect their own government representation. Jew-hate, however, sells well and gullible people driven by latent antisemitism awakened join the Muslim-Canadian squads demanding the villainization of Israel and Jews.

Canadian Jews are painted with the broad brush of villainy against Palestinian rights and entitlements when they express loyalty to the existence of Israel as a Jewish homeland and present-day haven for a people that has been persecuted throughout the diaspora during its millennias of exile from ancient Judea. The posters that have upset and angered Liberal MP Anthony Housefather show the flag of Nazi Germany alongside that of Israel as ideological compatriots. As one of the most outspoken politicians in Canada supporting Israel, the mobs call him a neo-Nazi and call for him to "get out of Canada".

 

Strategically placed in areas of Montreal traditionally hosting Montreal's Jewish communities, the posters are far more than an affront given the Nazi World War II ambition to eradicate Europe's Jews, succeeding to the degree that six million Jewish children, women and men were annihilated in German-led death squads and the establishment of death camps in Nazi-occupied Europe. An episode in modern history of horrendous consequences, the Holocaust represented proof positive of a dire need for a national haven for the world's Jews.

• Petrified young people at the Nova music festival seeking shelter in port-a-potties, and then terrorists spraying bullets into them to ensure they are dead. Other young people running through open fields to escape the gunmen. 
• Terrorists invading a home, killing a father with a grenade. His two young boys who miraculously survived wailing while the murderers loot the home. 
• Two beheadings shown in full – one done with a garden hoe, the other with a crude knife. The terrorists were ecstatic while committing these barbaric acts.
• Unsuspecting civilians slaughtered while driving past, dragged out of their cars and left to bleed in the streets like animals.
• Burned and mutilated bodies (including children) reflecting the inhuman way they met their end.
• Terrorists bringing kidnapped victims into Gaza, met with the cheers of Palestinians.
• Murdered women with blood running down their legs, indicating rape and torture.

Yet here we are generations later when Jews continue to mourn the horrors of the Holocaust that largely obliterated the Jewish presence in Europe, and this time an Islamist-generated program of eradication of Israel and world Jewry has relit the inextinguishable flame of  Jew-hate to unprecedented proportions placing Jews once again on notice that they are unsafe everywhere, their security and citizenship called into question, and the governments that ensure the safety and security of their populations, fail to react in response to violent rhetoric and simmering threats, along with criminal racist acts of Jew-hate.

 

Once again, unbelievably, but all too obviously, the general population of non-Jews of every description which has lived for generation after generation among the minority Jewish population throughout Europe and North America, has failed to respond, to reject the separation of Jews from the general population for the purpose of slander, demonization and threats.

"Our country has gained so much from the contributions of our Jewish community; it is past time for the rest of us [Canadians] to come together and say 'no more'."

"It is our duty to stand in front of them [Canadian Jews] to protect them, behind them to support them, and beside them in true friendship."

Deborah Lyons, Canada's special envoy for combating antisemitism

Anti-Israel protesters demonstrate outside the McGill University’s Bronfman building in Montreal. (John Mahoney / MONTREAL GAZETTE)

Surprise, Violent Intimidation Works! Jews Need Not Apply...

"For Judaism, the Menorah was chosen over the Star of David due to its purely religious significance, while the Star of David carries political connotations with the State of Israel."

York Region School Board

 

"When the theatre received some threatening phone calls and letters over renting their venue to the Hamilton Jewish Federation for a Jewish cultural film festival, instead of standing up to the hate, they caved to it."

Judy Zelikovitz, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

 

"[The Exhibition had] got a complaint from a group of Vancouver artists who didn't think I should be showing because of the war in Israel and Gaza..."

"She told me they were fearful of being vandalized."

Dina Goldstein, Vancouver art photographer

 

It's open season on disinvitations going out to artists of every form of expression in Canada if they're Jewish, have an Israeli background, empathize with the victims of October 7's rapist dream, even if the art they produce is met with public acclaim for its innovative aesthetic, and presents as authentically unique. The world was treated to a dramatic hate-fest in the recently concluded Eurovision Song Contest when the Israeli entrant in the event held in Sweden was met by mobs who demanded the exclusion of Israeli singer Eden Golan, and other contestants disavowed her eligibility to compete, as an Israeli. 

 

In the final analysis, though she was unmercifully hounded by ravening detractors, requiring a large detail of police protection, she was declared fit to compete and did her country proud. Her vote-expressed popularity by the greater popular vote from the television audience accounting for half the score's total, saw Israel at second place, which ended up balancing the total score which brought a fifth place win to Eden Golan, overturning the contest judges' low approval count. Justice righted injustice in that instance.

Closer to home for the Canadian public, Dina Goldstein, a Vancouver photographer whose Dollhouse photo series staged through a series of tableaus of whimsy featuring domestic scenes using actors representing a Barbie-and-Ken spin-off pair that held a large public appeal, was cancelled for inclusion in an exhibition at the Vancouver Centre of International Contemporary Art. Born in Tel Aviv, organizers of the exhibit, citing fears of vandalism cancelled the appearance of her art. 

In The Dollhouse    Art Mur

 

Jewish holidays are denoted by the York Regional District School Board with an icon of a menorah. Holidays of other religions are marked with representative symbols such as a cross for Christians, and the star and crescent for Islamic holidays. Administrators had avoided using the Star of David for Jewish holidays although it is Judaism's traditional symbol, for fear of alienating non-Jews, and reminding students of its link to Israel. A public backlash convinced the school board to change to the Star of David.

Non-Jewish playwright Christopher Morris who wrote The Runner -- the story of an Israeli volunteer paramedic attending the aftermath of a terror attack, deciding to treat the suspected Palestinian perpetrator instead of her Israeli victim -- which had enjoyed great acclaim for its "accessible yet poignant conduit for audiences to better understand the people and the fractured lives that are to be found in the fissures of this heightened political and social division", which failed to save it from the ignominy of cancellation.

The Belfry Theatre in Victoria, British Columbia faced a strong backlash when it decided to capitulate to protesters who had vandalized the venue with "Free Palestine" stickers and graffiti in their 'cultural boycott' of any performance art that had the even remotest link to Israel. Despite that the petition presented to the Belfry to recant the cancellation had far more signatures that the petition that demanded the play's cancellation, they upheld the cancellation justifying it by claiming the play "Does not ensure the well-being of all segments of our community."

 

The Playhouse Cinema in Hamilton had agreed to host a three-day Hamilton Jewish Film Festival in early April. Three weeks prior to the festival's start, the festival was informed they would not, after all, be welcome in view of "safety and security concerns at this particularly sensitive time", citing "numerous security and safety related emails, phone calls, and social media messages" targeting the Playhouse Cinema. Israeli filmmaker Yahav Winner, (murdered by Hamas on October 7)'s The Boy was to have been screened.

Leah Goldstein in 2005. Photo by Mark van Manen/Vancouver Sun

In Peterborough, Ontario, an International Women's Day event was to have featured cyclist Leah Goldstein  who had three years earlier become the first woman to win the solo category of the gruelling endurance Race Across America. Pre-event promotions had featured the address by this award-winning cyclist who planned to describe her life story of overcoming 'bullies, sexism, and terrorism'. She was cancelled for the sin of having been born in Canada, but raised in Israel.

Massive international pressure overturned a decision by the International Ice Hockey Federation to cancel the Israeli national team which had some Canadian players on board because, they were informed, their safety could not be guaranteed at the arena in Bulgaria where the tournament was located close to a "large student population from the affected areas in the Middle East". Although their decision was reversed, for future tournaments the IIHF has crossed Israel off the roster even though Israel swept the tournament, winning gold.

International Ice Hockey Federation

 

 

Israel -- Going It Alone -- As Usual

"[The] surprise [warning has caught Israel off guard and will compel the war cabinet to reconsider whether and how it will enter Rafah]."

"If it will bear the consequence of going in without American support, or if it will stop the operation, which will allow Hamas to be unharmed in the area."

Yaakov Amidror, former National security advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu 

"Israel will continue to fight Hamas until its destruction."

"There is no war more just than this."

Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz

"[Biden's decision is] disappointing and frustrating. [It] could harm Israel's ability to obtain one of this war's main objectives -- toppling Hamas, for a better future for the entire region."

"Any pressure on Israel, any limitations on it, even from close allies who care for our interests, are being interpreted by our enemies ... as something that gives them hope."

Gilad Erdan, Israeli envoy to the United Nations

Displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip carry their belongings as they prepare to leave following an evacuation order by the Israeli army on May 6, 2024. (AFP)

 

In the sobering wake of American President Joe Biden's warning that his administration will see to it that the United States would stop sending offensive weapons shipments to Israel, should the Israeli military advance into Rafah, Israel has been sent into crisis mode, the war cabinet forced to recalibrate next steps of the war against Hamas.  Rafah, the southern city in Gaza harbours over a million Palestinians. Most of whom were coerced by Hamas to migrate to Rafah where they could find safe harbour.

 

What they found was that Rafah was the very place where four of the Hamas six battalions were being stationed. Which accounts for the Israel Defense Forces preparations to enter Rafah for the very specific purpose of rounding up or demolishing the battalions and their weaponry in their bid to destroy Hamas's military capabilities and its entire infrastructure, to neuter its capacity to carry on further destructive incursions into Israel, to slaughter Jews, as they have promised to do. 

 

The presence of Palestinian civilians in such large numbers, orchestrated by Hamas has its purpose and its purpose was to rouse concerns over the fate of the civilians in the line of fire while the IDF engages with Hamas.  Palestinian terrorist calculations to use the non-combatant population as human shields has two purposes, the most obvious one is that they are used as shields, their lives dispensable in the greater interests of terrorist lives saved, as well as using civilian deaths as propaganda fuel in portraying Israel as bent on 'genocide'.

Israel, in accommodating itself to the situation, long familiar to it from past encounters with Hamas and their human-shield strategies placing civilians in direct line of fire while protecting the precious lives of the terrorist operatives in its network of tunnels which civilians are barred entry to, has notified the civilian population that it must decamp from Rafah, to go elsewhere, primarily in areas prepared to receive them where they will be out of the danger zone. The difficulties inherent in moving a million people to safety are legion.

Ceasefire negotiations with Hamas where Israel's first line of demands is the freeing of the hostages left in the hands of the terrorists have proven a stumbling block; many of those Israeli hostages may no longer be alive, and those that are, still have immense value to Hamas as bargaining tools. Israel's points that must be met for it to agree to a limited ceasefire are rejected by Hamas, and Hamas makes demands that make it obvious that it feels itself to have an upper hand in the negotiations.

Vows to dismantle the four remaining battalions in Rafah and to seal off the border with Egypt are being repeated by Israeli officials in response to Biden's threat. Israel's concern is the subterranean tunnel network at Rafah known to facilitate the smuggling of weapons. Recent days have seen an estimated 110,000 people evacuate from eastern Rafah, but that number is small in comparison to the total whose security is of primary consideration.

"We confirm that any military offensive in Rafah will not be a picnic to the fascist occupation army."

"Our brave resistance on top of them, the Qassam Brigades, is fully prepared to defend our people and defeat this enemy."

Hamas statement

A picture taken on May 6, 2024, shows smoke billowing following bombardment east of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (AFP)

Never Put Off Until Today What You Should have Said Yesterday

"There is a difference between peaceful protest and hateful intimidation."

"It is unconscionable to glorify the antisemitic violence and murder perpetrated by Hamas on October 7th."

"This rhetoric has no place in Canada. This is not who were are."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Anti-Israel protest in Ottawa on April 20, 2024. Photo by Dacey Media

A message of condemnation. From the Prime Minister of Canada. After months of often more muted messages of hate, threats, viral antisemitism. At no time did this man who for too long has been the executive leader of Canada see fit to condemn antisemitism without linking it to his cautions against 'Islamophobia'. Puzzling, given that Muslims in Canada face very few obstacles to living an inclusive, normal life of acceptance and equality. While at the same time Palestinian agitators have sought every opportunity to slander Israel, deny that Hamas is a terrorist entity, and harass Jewish-Canadians.

And nor is he the sole politician in Canada to look the other way and murmur approval of Canada's laws justifying free speech, even though there are other laws that condemn and criminalize the deliberate spread of racism, hate expressed against an identifiable group as an indictable offence. The steady growth of a Muslim demographic in Canada make them an impressive voting bloc, one recognized all too readily by politicians more concerned over their re-election than representing basic security issues.

This past Saturday downtown Ottawa saw swarms of masked anti-Israel protesters marching, waving banners, and flags, chanting directly before Parliament Hill to support the terrorist attacks in southern Israel that took place on October 7, 2023, killing over a thousand innocent civilian Israelis, mass-raping girls and women, mutilating their tortured bodies and slaughtering them, then taking hundreds of children, women and the elderly as hostages back with them to Gaza where it became a celebratory event.

 

Ottawa police’s hate crime unit is investigating allegations of hate speech at a pro-Palestinian rally on Parliament Hill over the weekend, where some participants were heard chanting in support of the deadly Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack in Israel.

 

"Our resistance and attacks are proof that we are almost free. October 7 is proof that we're almost free. Long live October 7. Long live the intifada. Long live every form of resistance", shouted one of the speakers. So, after all, this is Canada. The Canada that we never realized existed. But it does. And Jews in Canada are being hounded, harassed, threatened while their places of worship are vandalized, Jewish children entering their parochial school are cursed and shouted at, Jewish university students ostracized.

There was a time, early on, long before that fateful October 7, when a strong leader would have expressed his condemnation of rising antisemitism and acknowledged its source, and taken steps to criminalize the burgeoning racism splitting Canadian society. Having done nothing of the kind, even when Palestinian 'students' in Canada began organizing 'pro-Palestinian' marches celebrating the savagery visited on Israelis by Palestinian terrorist groups starting the very day following the carnage in southern Israel, the haters took it as tacit approval.

The prime minister who cannot condemn the scourge of rising and rampant antisemitism emanating from within the Canadian-Muslim demographic, without also parenthetically mentioning 'Islamophobia' has, in very fact, supported the antisemitism he has done nothing to tame, to adequately censure, to reassure Canadian Jews that their place in Canada is assured, safe and secure because Canadians care and Canadian politicians are determined to ensure that Canada remains a nation where justice and equality are not just words but conditions applicable to all its citizens.

To them a badge of dishonour by their lack of concern, by their lack of remedial action, by their lack of assurances to Canadian Jewry that Canada is their home, a place of origin where they are appreciated, where they are safe and free from threats and violence.

Police are investigating allegations of hate speech used at a pro-Palestinian rally in downtown Ottawa on Saturday. (Radio-Canada/Maxim Saavedra-Ducharmes)

Shallow, Untrustworthy, Fickle, Morally-Challenged: Justin Trudeau

 "I was very, very clear on this last week, and I'm happy to repeat it. Canada has always supported the international rules-based order and the structures around international law, including and especially the International Court of Justice."

"We have a direct engagement in five different cases before the ICJ right now because we believe in the work it does."

"At the same time, our support for the ICJ and its processes does not mean that we accept the premise of the case brought forward by South Africa and we are watching carefully as all the steps unfold."

"I'm not going to comment on what could be an eventual finding by a process that we support as it unfolds."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"Canada's position is confusing and ambiguous."

"As were other allies of Israel, the government of Canada should have been clear and unequivocal in their condemnation of South Africa's accusations."

"After all, if Canada truly stands against terror, against antisemitism, and with international law, it should denounce the application and issue a response similar to those of the United States and Germany."

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

"Disagreeing with the 'premise' of such allegations, while failing to disprove any of South Africa's arguments, is a grave and shocking abdication of Canada's responsibilities under the Genocide Convention."

"(We are) outraged (by Canada`s refusal to back South Africa).`

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East

Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hold a press conference. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

 

While iterating that Canada `believes in the work`of the International Court of Justice, Canada`s notoriously fickle prime minister would not commit to saying outright how his Liberal government would respond, should the court find Israel to be committing genocide in its response to the savagely sadistic attack mounted by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad against Israeli civilians in southern Israel on October 7. Committed by two groups among many in the Islamic world that have pledged to destroy Israel and free the ME of its presence. 

 

Yet despite that true genocidal commitment, South Africa has brought a despicable charge of genocide against Israel to the International Criminal Court. In the process, delighting Hamas no end. At this juncture, Hamas has congratulated both Justin Trudeau`s government (for voting against Israel in December at a UN General Assembly motion to condemn Israel and demand a ceasefire) and South Africa a month later for declaring Israel`s genocidal intentions against the very group committed to the Jewish state`s extermination.

For its part, Israel has responded by condemning South Africa`s claim as `distorted`, reminding the world that under international law, including that of the United Nations, Israel has the internationally-recognized right to respond to an attack of atrociously barbaric proportions where Palestinian psychopaths ran amok with the dementia of Jew-hate to slaughter over 1,200 civilian children, women, elderly and infirm, as well as foreign farm workers in its campaign to demoralize and destroy Israel.

`I don`t think there`d be any impact on Canada other than a moral impact.`

`The ICJ would have to find that it has jurisdiction and that a dispute exists under the Genocide Convention between South Africa and Israel. That is not a given and that is absolutely critical.`

`People forget that this is first and foremost a legal case brought before a court with a very strictly circumscribed area of jurisdiction.` 

`(The ICJ will) probably (put out a statement saying it deplores the loss of civilian life and exhort both parties to minimize civilian casualties).`

`(At face value) it`s a moral issue for Israel to cease responding or defending itself. Frankly, I don`t see the court ordering that because the inherent right of self defence is enshrined in the UN charter.`

`Are they going to tell Israel you can no longer defend yourself ... I don`t think they`re going to say that even if they take jurisdiction.`

Sabine Nolke, retired diplomat, former Canadian representative to international courts