The Martyrs of Hamas

"Join us as we march to honour the martyrs of the past year -- and the past 76 years -- who gave everything for their land, their dignity, and their liberation."

"For Liberation. For our martyrs. For our people. For our land. For Palestine."

Palestinian Youth Movement

The Palestinian Youth Movement is planning a rally outside the Israeli consulate in Montreal on Oct. 7, the anniversary of Hamas' attack on Israel. Photo by Palestinian Youth Movement / Instagram

"It is beyond disgusting that anyone would celebrate the events of October 7 and diminish the murders and injuries that happened that day and the hostages taken, some of whom are still in captivity."

Anthony Housefather, Liberal MP, Montreal Mount Royal riding

"Yet again, pro-Hamas groups are planning to celebrate the brutal massacre and terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, this time on the anniversary of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust."

"They aim to fill the streets with hate. This is not just a celebration of terror or antisemitism; it is an attack on democracy and our Canadian values."

"This should serve as yet another warning that the unchecked hate and incitement in our streets have gone too far. On October 7, these same groups distributed candies to celebrate murder and rape."

Eta Yudin, vice-president, Quebec chapter, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

"On October 8, 2023, students saw their peers celebrating Hamas as 'resistance fighters'."

"A year later, our community cannot even have October 7 to peacefully mourn. With protests and 'days of action' planned for October 7, 2024, students are wary of the threats posed by these agitators."

"Despite these circumstances, our community will come together in unity."

Hillel Montreal

As the time draws ever closer to the one-year mark of the horrendous events of October 7 of last year --when thousands of Palestinian terrorists flooded across the border from Gaza into Israel, led by Hamas on a mission to terrorize, threaten, pillage, destroy, rape, mutilate and slaughter Israeli citizens in a sadistic savagery unimaginable to normal decent humanity -- a time to reflect, to mourn and to find comfort in each other's sorrow within the Jewish community is once again confronted by the presence of the same maleficent hatred from a source in Canada.

Palestinians and other Muslims who have made a place for themselves in Canada -- bringing with them the venomous hatred for Jews that permeates the Middle East where Israel is a tiny enclave of Jewish life on the very ancestral geography that ancient Judea sat upon, surrounded by hostile majority-Muslim countries -- have contaminated Canada with their brand of vicious threats and intimidation. Normal human beings would blanch at the level of savagery revealed by the October 7 atrocities. Within the Muslim community in Canada it is interpreted as 'noble resistance'.

Resistance to the presence of a Jewish state sitting upon its heritage geography on land the Islamic majority feels has been consecrated to Islam through the impact of violent upheaval in the history of Islam's religiously-inspired conquest. In Montreal, a group of terrorist-supporting 'activists' have planned to honour the 'martyrs' of Hamas on the anniversary of the very day that Hamas butchered 1,200 Jews and took 250 infants, elderly, women and men hostage to Gaza.

On an Instagram post their planned triumphalist march in honour of the Hamas terrorists whose exploits in causing human suffering is quite unequalled in the annals of human depravity, calls on like-thinkers and their supporters to join them. The rally is meant to celebrate the medievalism of a culture, society, heritage and religion that calls for the faithful to engage in jihad against the enemy, encompassing all those who fail to submit to Islam.

Montreal has experienced more than its share of antisemitic events in the past year, with Jewish businesses vandalized, Jewish community centers, synagogues and parochial schools being shot at and fire-bombed. Where university students were intimidated by antisemitic mobs of pro-Hamas champions on local campuses. Jewish community leaders have appealed to provincial and federal leaders for steps to be taken to protect Canadian Jews ... and most often to no avail.

 

The Palestinian Youth Movement distinguished itself following the October 7 atrocities by organizing public 'protests' in support of Palestinians and Palestinian terror, crowding city streets across Canada with support for Hamas terrorism, a group on Canada's official terror list, calling for Intifada, chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!", shouting for Jews to return to Europe, and recommending a 'Final Solution', displaying their fascist sympathies.

From Montreal to Edmonton, Calgary to Vancouver, the group that calls itself "a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide", that supports the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another banned terror group in Canada, has organized loud, threatening marches, harassing Jewish neighbourhoods, planning 'protests' outside synagogues and Jewish museums, even Mount Sinai Hospital.

Their presence in Canada is that of a hostile, disruptive, threatening, racist mob of psychological terrorists, more suited to the confines of Islamic-majority countries than free Democracies like Canada. Yet the reality is that most Islamic countries have no wish to host these hate-dominated inciters to violence, even as the West tolerates their presence as a symbol of its wide acceptance of all manner of people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, religions and cultures.

Their objective is that of the Islamic Republic of Iran, of its proxy terrorist militias, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and the many Iran-loyal Shia militias in Syria and Iraq whose goal is the eradication of Israel and the death of Jews worldwide. Their very presence as a group force of lethal hostile intentions is a direct assault on civilizational mores. Their countries of origin will not tolerate their presence, but the generous, civilized West will, and does, and the greater their numbers gather in the West, the greater the danger to the oblivious West.

"Canada has seen far too many displays of hate, violence, and intimidation."

"This is why the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has called for amendments to Canada's anti-terror legislation to include the glorification of terrorism."

"It is time to stop the spread of hate and antisemitism."

Eta Yudin, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau is Wrong and Dishonourable

"There are very few Jews in the world. Not even one percent of the world's population is Jewish. Not even 0.1 percent. In fact, only about 15 million of the world's population of 8 billion people -- less than .02 percent -- are Jewish."

"Canada has the fourth largest population of world Jewry at 335,000, less than one percent of our 39-million population, dramatically smaller than the Muslim population [in Canada], approaching two million."

Howard Levitt, senior partner, Levitt Sheikh, employment and labour lawyers

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.

No one but an unmitigated bigot could ever contest the fact that Jews have been proud Canadians, valuing the country of their birth as second, third, fourth-generation Canadians. There has been a Canadian presence in Canada since before Confederation. Although Canadian Jews infamously faced organized and often institutional antisemitism, nothing dissuaded them that this was their country, too. Even at times when universities were loathe to admit Jewish students, and Jews faced signage indicating that private clubs and public venues were off-limits to their presence, Jews never lost faith in Canada.

 

Jews were proud to contribute to the social weal of the country they loved in any way they could. Jewish contributions to science, medicine, law, education, business, finance and media, culture and politics has always been outsize to their actual numbers. It is and always has been in the Judaic tradition to value education, and to contribute to the society -- anywhere in the world -- where Jews lived throughout the diaspora. Jewish innovation and sheer cerebral power has earned them 22 percent of Nobel prizes.

Despite the reluctance in North America and elsewhere during World War Two, and the accompanying unspeakable Holocaust, when despite the news of Nazi Germany's persecution of Europe's Jews and its institutionalized genocide machinery on a scale unimaginable in its industrialized determination to erase a Jewish presence from the world community, post-war consciences awakened by the liberation of death camps throughout Europe opened immigration and refugee doors for surviving Jews.

Jewish philanthropy outdistances that of any other ethnic/religious group in establishing supports and installations at hospitals and universities through the generosity and sense of responsibility to the public weal through generous donations. Jews were proud of their traditions, their culture, their history, but never hesitated to meld with the public spirit of shared values enhancing the greater community with their presence, sharing satisfaction with their Canadian experiences with other Canadians.

The social compact that eventually resulted in Jews being able to relax in a more inclusive social compact with Canada as equal partners in all that has been important and vital to the future prospects of the country has been shattered. The mutual trust and dependence that took too long to build, but which contributed to a more balanced society, took little time to utterly shatter with the more recent introduction to the Canadian experience of Muslims from abroad arriving as immigrants, refugees and illegal migrants.

Suddenly antisemitism was spurred, re-awakened in the greater general population where it simmered at a low ember for generations, lit by the fire of Muslim hatred of Jews. Since the October 7 attack by Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist groups, aided and abetted by Palestinian civilians who in their thousands flooded across the border from Gaza into Israel to rape and to kill, to torture and to mutilate, to take infants, the elderly, the ill and the unfortunate as hostages to Gaza, Canadian Jews have been embattled. 

Suddenly finding themselves as 'outsiders', with, according to the hordes of pro-Hamas protesters, no right to be in Canada, much less in Israel. Threats to Jewish survival can be shouted endlessly by a chorus of Jew-haters, Jewish university students harassed on campuses, children attending parochial school accosted, fire-bombs targeting synagogues, Jewish schools and community centers, graffiti plastered on Jewish-owned businesses across the country, but apart from tut-tutting, no official at any level of government has used their authority to declare these criminal acts worthy of arrest and prison.

Most of all, the prime minister of the country, purporting to be an arbiter of equality, a proponent of justice, has himself led the fray and set the tone by his -- Justin Trudeau's -- lack of commitment to law and order and the government's responsibility to ensure the safety and security of all Canada's citizens, including Jewish Canadians. Trudeau has as much as indicated that he gives equal weight to the words and actions of the Israeli government and that of Hamas. 

Verbal sympathy for the plight of Canadian Jews faced with an unending storm of antisemitism, fear and threats, has gone no further. No action of any kind to ensure that the perpetrators of unjust and criminal acts in the public arena where university campuses and buildings have been occupied and Jewish students and faculty have been threatened and detained from entering their places of study and employment have gone unchecked. 

 

Canadian Jews have been abandoned by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau and indeed by provincial and municipal governments and police forces.

Canada ... hang your head in shame.

Signs calling for violence against Jews are seen at an encampment at McGill University in Montreal on April 29. Photo by Pierre Obendrauf/MONTREAL GAZETTE

"Our citizens, hated not because they are bombing Gaza, but because they are Jews, are frightened as never before"

"They are frightened by the venomous hatred from so many sources, manifesting in the screaming crowds in their neighbourhoods, vandalizing of businesses, death threats and calls to genocide, as our police and governments stand in silence."

General Rick Hillier, former Chief of the Defense Staff, Canada