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

 

 

What Hamas Has Wrought, Israel Defense Forces Wreck

"The way it is now it's not livable [Beit Hanoun]."

"This is not beautiful what we're doing. There is nothing nice about wars, but this is necessary."

"Our goal is to hurt Hamas and destroy Hamas as a political and military organization, but you can see that these [tunnel] shafts are under normal people's homes."

Lt.Col. Amit, Israel Defense Forces 

Smoke rises over Beit Hanoun in Northern Gaza after an israeli air strike on November 22, 2023. “This is not beautiful what we’re doing ... but this is necessary,” says an Israeli officer. Photo by Christopher Furlong/Getty Images

Israel's mission to destroy an estimated 500 kilometres of Hams tunnels constructed across the Gaza Strip for years at great expense and concentrated labour and care, in the process depriving ordinary Gazan Palestinians with adequate infrastructure in developing a future for an advanced society with aspirations of normalcy, is a time-consuming but necessary burden on the military. And for the inhabitants of Beit Hanon, at one time host to over 50,000 people, most of whom have now fled elsewhere, it is the case of a scale of urban destruction whose reversal cannot be guaranteed.

Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip has been the site of the Israeli military tasked to destroy close to 100 shafts and several dozen tunnels, according to Lt.Col. Amit, overseeing the destruction. This town was among the areas from which Hamas launched its surprise invasion on Israel that resulted in the deaths of some 1,200 people on October 7, a horrific attack of unrestrained savagery, a horror visited upon civilian enclaves that was responsible for launching Israel's retaliatory war on Hamas.

Near Gaza, the Tze'elim military base is where the 252nd Reserve Division is based. This is the Division held responsible for destroying the tunnel network in a part of Gaza, with other IDF Divisions tasked elsewhere with the same difficult, but absolutely necessary goal. The deliberate construction of tunnels throughout Gaza, a labyrinth of secret underground weapons storage units, attack launching sites, safe havens for terrorists, enabled Hamas for decades to challenge Israel's existence.

Tunnel destruction advances Israel's goal of dismantling the infrastructure of Hamas to deny the terrorists the opportunity of repetition of the deadly October 7 assault on southern Israel. The Hamas spokesmen have made no secret of their intention despite all odds at the present time, to repeat that horrendous attack, as many times as their leadership deems necessary to achieve their aspirational destruction of Jews and the Jewish state.

The fighting has driven inhabitants of Gaza south as the IDF has advised them, for their safety. But Israel's plans are also evolving in recognition of the inescapable fact that there is no territory in Gaza that is not riddled underground with Hamas's operative tunnel system. And so the IDF has turned its attention as well to the South, and people there have been advised urgently to move once again. This time, a map indicating 'safe zones' has been produced to help the displaced understand where they will be out of danger during bombardment.

It is the misfortune of Palestinian Gaza's civilian population that Hamas with great calculation built their tunnels under densely populated areas. Many of the tunnels are booby-trapped, as well as are houses and roadways. That being so, heavy de-mining equipment like bulldozers is required in the work of dismantling the tunnels. The military had photographs and videos of rockets, grenades and Kalashnikov automatic rifles found cached in homes, schools and hospitals.

To the present, 800 tunnels have been discovered by the IDF across Gaza which has managed to destroy 500 of them. Beit Hanoun happened to be an area of particular concern. Some of the shafts discovered there are 30 metres in depth. To destroy them remains a painstaking process requiring a considerable amount of explosives to break down concrete walls and blast-resistant doors.

An Israeli soldier shows the media an underground Hamas tunnel found underneath Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. Photo by Victor R. Caivano/AP, File