"The term 'genocide', along with other international legal terms, has been deliberately and systematically hijacked, redefined, inverted and weaponized to demonize, delegitimize, and apply double standards to 'the Jews' among nations."

"This well-orchestrated campaign to spread a modern blood libel accusing Israel of 'genocide' began before any Israeli response to Hamas' genocidal war crimes and crimes against humanity of October 7." 

Michal Cotler Wunsh, CEO, International Legal Forum  

Gaza GenoLIE logo.  (photo credit: Courtesy)

 

A campaign has been launched naming itself the "Gaza GenoLIE", supported by over 35 organizations worldwide in a campaign they have joined for the purpose of debunking "Hamas genocidal propaganda" surrounding the war in Gaza. Organizations beside the International Legal Forum include the Anti-Defamation League, the Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, and the World Jewish Congress. 

 

The claims of genocide were initiated on October 8, 2023, a day following the invasion of southern Israel from Gaza by Palestinian terrorist groups led by Hamas, when 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilian, were slaughtered. A somewhat precipitate accusation, given the reality that Israel's ground operation into Gaza began on October 27. 

 

According to Amnesty International, a number of United Nations bodies and other international groups --their investigations have uncovered evidence that they claim validates the assertions that Israel committed genocide during the Gaza War. Bearing in mind that these very organizations are anything but neutral with respect to their accusations against the Jewish state. 

 

For its part, Israel has repeatedly explained that its military has gone to extraordinary lengths that no other country in a war situation has ever committed to, in striving to limit civilian casualties. This is a war where it is well proven that Palestinian terrorist groups consider the Palestinian public expendable to their plans of attacking Israel and preparing for the response by using their civilian population as shields.

 

People take part in the National March for Palestine - hands off Gaza, a pro-Palestinian protest calling for the government to ''end the genocide and stop arming Israel'', in London, Britain, January 31, 2026. (credit: REUTERS/Jack Taylor)

 

There is a double purpose in that tried-and-true strategy; the first being that using human shields results in the actual terrorists having the protection of soft bodies, and the second that those civilians -- all the better when women and particularly children are killed in the line of battle -- are welcome fodder for public relations campaigns that move the hearts and minds of Western democracies.

 

While acknowledging that some 70,000 people have perished in the war situation deliberately created by Hamas schemes to not only lethally assault Israeli civilian populations -- but to successfully sketch out a scenario naively believed in the West amenable to having its latent simmering antisemitism aroused by the accusations of Israeli 'genocide' against the forever-victims of Palestine -- their terrorist leaders celebrate scoring in their campaign of slander and isolation of Jews from the rest of society. 

 

According to the Gaza GenoLIE website, its purpose is that of an educational initiative relating to the "generated and orchestrated genocide lie promoted by anti-Zionist and antisemitic networks in the United States, Europe and around the world". The campaign argues the most crucial element in claims of genocide is the word "intent"; the 1948 Genocide Convention drafted following the Holocaust refers to certain acts inclusive of killing, causing serious harm, inflicting destructive conditions of life, committed "with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such."

 

A Toronto pedestrian walks past signage stating "End The Genocide In Gaza" as a truck with digital displays of the Israeli citizens taken hostage by Hamas terrorists with signage stating "Bring Them Home" drives by back in November 2023. (Photo Peter J. Thompson/National Post)

 

The convention, they contend, asks whether the perpetrator acted for the specific goal of destroying a protected group. Israel, they argue, waged war to dismantle Hamas and bring the release of the Israeli hostages; the civilian death toll a consequence of urban combat against an enemy that "purposely and cynically embed(ed) itself among its own population."

 

The war Israel fought was to target Hamas, not the Palestinians. When, on October 8, Israel declared war, four aims were made clear: recover the hostages; dismantle Hamas's military capacity; remove Hamas as Gaza's governing authority; ensure Gaza could never again carry out such a horrendous attack.

 

Israel, moreover, issued evacuation warnings in advance of military operations, dropped millions of Arabic-language leaflets and placed tens of millions of phone calls, texts, and recorded messages in Arabic to urge civilians to leave identified combat zones. "None of the aims reference Palestinians. They refer to an armed terror organization -- its fighters, weapons, and rule." 

 

List of all 40 organizations involved in the campaign.

 

"[Hamas's claim of Israel's 'genocide' against Palestinians threatens foundational principles of law by hijacking the term genocide to spread] a modern blood libel [in accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people]." 

Michal Cotler Wunsch 

"On Aug. 7, 2026, the Court of King’s Bench issued a decision allowing the termination of the $30,000 Yaroslav and Margaret Hunka Ukrainian Research Endowment Fund, and authorizing the return of the donation to the Hunka family. We acknowledge and respect the Court's decision. While this concludes the legal process, we remain mindful of the varied and deeply felt impacts this decision can have on individuals and the community. This court decision brings to a close an issue that began in September 2023, following Mr. Hunka’s introduction in the Canadian House of Commons."

"Since this process began, the university has strengthened its approach to naming and gift acceptance to ensure appropriate due diligence is conducted before creating a named endowment and that clear mechanisms are in place to reconsider or revoke naming arrangements when circumstances warrant. This includes updates to the Naming Policy and Gift Acceptance Policy, as well as the establishment of a Naming Advisory Group to provide recommendations on university namings informed by internal and external consultation. Drawing on lessons from this case, the Naming Advisory Group now provides additional oversight and review of named endowments, objects and spaces across the university."

"There are an additional eight endowments the university administers as trustee that are named for individuals with connections to the Galicia Division – the same division Mr. Hunka was a member of. The eight endowments vary in their specific purposes, and some include multiple donors. All of the endowments support valued research and education in Ukrainian studies. After consulting with partners and other organizations, including the Canadian Institute for Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) and the Jewish Federation of Edmonton, we will not undertake the time- and cost-intensive application process required to seek court approval to terminate or alter them."

University of Alberta Website statement 

The University of Alberta

 

The University of Alberta was given legal approval to proceed with the dissolution of a research trust named in honour of Ukrainian SS veteran Yaroslav Hunka. The Yaroslav & Margaret Hunka Ukrainian Research Endowment Fund, valued at $30,000 given to the university by Martin Hunka, son of Yaroslav, was meant to further research into Ukrainian history. If so, it would be quite embarrassing to the Hunka family if that research highlighted that the Waffen SS unit Mr. Hunka served with in the Galicia Division was comprised of Ukrainians who volunteered to serve with the Nazis. Their service aided Nazi German in its persecution of, carnage and mass murder of Poles and Jews during World War II.

 

In 2023, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was visiting Canada to express his appreciation for the considerable material and financial assistance by Canada given war-torn Ukraine through Russian President Vladimir Putin's full-fledged military campaign to continue wresting Ukrainian regional geographic assets into the Russian grasp of  territorial annexation with its full-scale invasion of February 2022, following its 2014 partial invasion of Ukraine's Donbas when Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula, Yaroslav Hunka was introduced as a Ukrainian hero and feted in the House of Commons. 

 

He had fought courageously against the Russians, proudly declared Parliament's then-Speaker Anthony Rota who declared him as a hero "who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians". A standing ovation ensued by Parliamentarians whose memories had been swamped by the occasion. It took no time at all for others who had no problem recalling such details that Russia had joined the Allied Forces against the Axis Forces in the wake of Germany invading its up-to-then Axis partner. Ukraine vastly preferred German occupation to that of the Soviets.  

 

Yaroslav Hunka, who served in a Ukrainian SS unit during World War Two, found himself in the middle of an international firestorm after receiving a standing ovation in Canada's House of Commons in 2023. The University of Alberta was granted permission to dissolve a charitable endowment in Hunka's name Aug. 7, 2026, over protests from his family. Photo by Handout photo

 

"The university did not terminate the Hunka Trust because it determined that Yaroslav [Hunka] was a war criminal or anti-Semitic."

"Rather, it did so because it perceived that any continued association with an individual who had served in a regiment connected to the Nazis would adversely affect the University of Alberta." 

"The House of Commons incident, and the public response that followed, made it clear that maintaining the Hunka Trust was not in the university's best interests."

Justice Debra Yungwirth, Court of Kings Bench, Alberta  

The $30,000 trust fund in honour of his parents made in 2019 by Martin Hunka was to be used for research into the underground activities of the Ukrainian Catholic Church during the Second World War. According to Martin Hunka, the university authority was made aware by him when he made the endowment, that his father Yaroslav had served in the Galicia Division, comprised of Nazi-favouring fascist 'nationalist' Ukrainians. 

 

Ukrainian nationalists contend that the decision by Mr. Hunka and others to become members in the unit should be considered a pragmatic choice, in exchange for which they would receive arms and training to enable them to respond to the dreaded Soviet reoccupation of Ukraine. For which the unit took an oath to Adolf Hitler. Their fascist inclination would be difficult to explain away, for a group operating under SS direction and implicated in wartime atrocities. 

 

Once this history was re-kindled through the controversy of Parliamentarians in Canada honouring a then-98-year-old veteran of World War II as a distinguished war hero, public censure ran high. Speaker Anthony Rota resigned his position and the University of Alberta informed Martin Hunka that the funding for the study he had directed would be returned. The Hunka family was set against the intention to dissolve the trust which led the university to seek formal court permission to proceed.

 

Yaroslav Hunka, right, sits in the House of Commons in Ottawa, Ontario on Friday, September 22, 2023.

Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press/AP

 

Now, despite that the university, while acknowledging other trusts set up to honour other World War II Ukrainians who voluntarily joined the Galicia Division to fight alongside other Waffen SS units and that they would not move to dissolve them, it should realize that its integrity and moral choices have been stained and will continue to be viewed with the suspicion they deserve if it just allows matters to rest there. Its concern over losing the over $1-million in endowments from all these sources, should never override its moral compass. 

"The Waffen SS was founded by Heinrich Himmler in 1943 and soldiers swore an oath to Hitler."

"The entire SS was declared a criminal organization by the International Military Tribunal during the Nuremberg trials after the war."

"The 1986 Deschênes Commission, which investigated how Nazi war criminals arrived in Canada, concluded in a decision that was disputed at the time by Jewish groups, that membership in the Waffen SS was not a war crime."

Zenith Wolfe,  Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Canadian Jewish News

 

"For years, FSWC has called on the University of Alberta to divest itself of all endowments that honour individuals who served in the Waffen-SS. FSWC has identified numerous additional such endowments held by the university that are collectively worth millions of dollars. Among them is an endowment named after Peter Savaryn who later became Chancellor of the University of Alberta. In 2023, the Governor General’s office expressed deep regret for awarding Savaryn the Order of Canada in 1987, given revelations about his Nazi past."

"Justice Yungwirth’s ruling affirms the University of Alberta’s decision to dissolve the Hunka endowment and return the funds to the Hunka family. However, in a statement released yesterday, the university indicated it did not intend to take similar action with respect to its other remaining endowments linked to individuals who served in the Waffen-SS. Instead, the university announced it would commit $100,000 over three years to research this Nazi division and “other complex and difficult aspects of twentieth-century history” through the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies."

"These actions do not resolve the fundamental concern: the University of Alberta is currently honouring individuals who served in the Waffen-SS by maintaining endowments that bear their names. As long as these endowments remain, they compound the harm to the Jewish community and Canadians more broadly, while leaving serious unanswered questions about the university’s decision to accept these funds in the first place. Research can deepen the historical record, but it cannot substitute for institutional accountability. That accountability must begin with eliminating the endowments."

“The university should now exercise its authority to dissolve its remaining endowments honouring individuals who served in the Waffen-SS. Such endowments have no place at the University of Alberta or any other institution of higher learning in this country,” said Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy at FSWC. “The university must act without delay to right this longstanding wrong and ensure all future naming and gifting practices reflect historical truth and respect the victims and survivors of the Holocaust.”

Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre 

Over a week after Yaroslav Hunka was cheered in the House of Commons, Jewish groups are calling for Ottawa to release a decades-old report from the Deschênes Commission containing details about alleged Nazi war criminals living in Canada.  CBC News

 

"[Hate crime counts show how] an intensely hostile minority can generate a disproportionate number of incidents against a particular community even when attitudes toward that community are less negative."

"[Half of Canadians express a negative opinion of Islam] but more than half of that group place themselves in the most negative category."

"[Suggesting attitudes are] not merely characterized by uncertainty or discomfort but are fairly entrenched for more than one in four."

"The biggest change is in views toward Judaism." 

Jack Jedwab, president, Association for Canadian Studies 

Statistics Canada recorded 788 hate crimes targeting Jewish people in 2025, down 16 per cent from 943 a year earlier, but still 71 per cent of all religion-motivated incidents. Photo by Ashley Fraser/Postmedia

 

The results of a new opinion poll, commissioned by the Association for Canadian Studies, in a Leger survey, leaves the message that Islam is the most negatively viewed faith in Canada. Even so, public opinion of Judaism was seen to have fallen furthest over a 15-month period, summed up by Jack Jedwab, president of the Association for Canadian Studies that "the biggest change is in views toward Judaism."

 

The opinion of twenty-six percent of Canadians was positive for Islam, while 50 percent gave their opinion as negative; more people were negatively disposed toward Islam which in the poll stood out as the only faith tested where  more people expressed negative opinions than positive.  A year earlier the same question saw the split at 30 percent positive, and 49 percent negative for Islam. 

 

On every survey measure, Judaism shifted, with forty percent saying they had a positive (down from 49 percent) and 32 percent claiming a negative opinion (increased from 25 percent). Nine percent noted their opinion of Judaism as very positive, a decrease from 15 percent, while 12 percent called their Judaism opinion very negative, increased from its former eight percent position. For Islam, on the other hand, 28 percent gave their opinion as very negative increased from 24 percent in March of 2025.

 

According to Leger’s latest survey on perceptions of Israel, only 22% of Canadians say they have a favourable impression of Israel. That is down from 33% in 2023. At the same time, unfavourable views have risen sharply, reaching 61%. The findings point to a major deterioration in public sentiment, even as Canadians continue to hold more balanced views on certain underlying principles tied to security, statehood, and coexistence.  Leger

 

788 hate crimes were recorded by Statistics Canada targeting Jewish people in 2025, a decrease of 15 percent from 943 a year earlier. Which still left the position of 71 percent of all religion-motivated incidents targeting people of Jewish extraction. While religion-motivated hate crime fell 18 percent overall to 1,115 incidents and Muslims were targets in 204, a decease of 11 percent. 

"Christianity] is more familiar and elicits a response from a larger share of Canadians."

"[It] consequently has the higher positive rating across the complete sample, but not among respondents who actually express a view."

Jack Jedwab  

In 2023, incidents targeting Jewish people peaked at 959, last year's 788 events being 60 percent above the 492 incidents recorded in 2021. The survey questions posed separately on Jews and Arabs as groups, resulted in 50 percent positive for Jews, 20 points higher than for Judaism, and 44 percent claimed positive for Arabs, as opposed to the 25 percent for Islam. Negative views of Arabs rose to 33 percent from 25 percent in 2025, with negative views of Jews rising two percentage points to 15 percent.

 

Fifty-seven percent of respondents were positive on Christianity, a reduction from the previous 58, while the portion calling for very positive fell six points to 20 percent. On the survey for the first time, Atheism was treated positive by fifty percent, and 29 percent had no opinion. Among Canadians aged 18 to 24, 41 percent were positive for Islam, as opposed to 22 to 25  percent in every other age group. 

 

Among francophone respondents, 15 percent were positive on Islam and 25 percent on Judaism. representing the lowest on both, of any language group. Francophones were the sole group to rate Atheism above Christianity. Judaism sat at 27 percent positive in Quebec, 13 percentage points below the national figure. The online survey reached 1,428 people from June 19 to 21 through an online panel. Sikhism,Hinduism and Buddhism were not among the tested categories. 

 

50% of Canadians Hold a Negative View of Islam. Muslim Network TV

 

"[Antisemitism is producing] an exceptionally high and disproportionate share of religion-motivated criminal incidents."

"[But that] shouldn't diminish the importance of addressing hostility toward all faith communities."

Jack Jedwab, President Association for Canadian Studies 

"It is our ethical duty to speak out against the genocide being committed against the Palestinian people."

"I was born in apartheid South Africa where my family were lesser humans under the law. Our freedom is incomplete without freedom for the Palestinians."

"I did go to a small number of protests on work days but would take vacation days for that."

"I could no loner bring myself to give my labour to a workplace where people were targeted for speaking out against a genocide, including the bombing of hospitals and the murder and abduction of our Palestinian colleagues."

Kavita Algu, one-time palliative care MD, Mount Sinai Hospital, Toronto 

 

"Sinai Health is committed to fostering a respectful, inclusive and professional workplace where all our people feel supported, and patient care remains our top priority."

"We don't share details or comment about our employees, physicians, scientists, learners or volunteers."

"Our highest priority is to ensure accessible and safe care for all."

"[We take] any concerns related to workplace culture, professionalism, or discrimination seriously and address them through established policies and fair, confidential processes."

Mount Sinai Hospital spokesperson 

Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto

 

Dr. Algu worked at Mount Sinai Hospital as a palliative care doctor for a decade. Then came October 7, 2023, and she became an instant advocate for Palestinian rights when Israel responded to the massacre, rapes, mutilations, hostage-taking by Palestinian terrorists flooding into southern Israel from Gaza, led by Hamas. All the propaganda of Palestinian victimhood by a racist-occupying Jewish state that was propagated in the West by willing news media convinced many people, validated by Palestinian student groups marching through Canadian cities to label Israel genocidal, set the stage for savage harassment of Canadian Jews.

 

Mount Sinai Hospital was created in the early 20th century by Jewish-Canadian doctors and other Jewish health-care professionals who found themselves locked out of Canada's health and medical institutions at a time of severe national antisemitism. The hospital gained a reputation as an outstanding institution delivering top health care. And nor did it confine its services to the Jewish-Canadian population; anyone could be treated there, and in time staff expanded to include non-Jewish health practitioners.

 

Dr. Algu resigned from her post at the hospital months after October 7. A result of the palliative care department being roiled with disorder stemming from her anti-Israel activities condemning the Jewish state as genocidal. The hospital administration, alarmed at the sudden dysfunction among formerly collegial medical staff called in a a workplace investigator when Dr Algu lodged a complaint of discrimination. The investigation found that she was disruptive, unprofessional and her disproportionately negative impact in the workplace culture was injurious to the delivery of health care. 

 

 

Some unit physicians declared their feelings of antisemitism within the discord; this when Jewish healthcare workers in other hospitals reported rising prejudice and trauma dismissal resulting from the Hamas attack in Israel, within clinical, academic and social-media institutions. While divisions within the Mount Sinai palliative care unit deepened, departmental heads attempting to be fair and supportive to all, hesitated to delineate clear expectations and boundaries, according to a separate workplace assessment.

 

Deep divisions arose among some hospital staff in the wake of the Israel-Gaza conflict. An open letter was signed by some doctors including Algu's supervisor from the palliative care unit stating that accusing Israel of "apartheid" or "genocide" was untruthful and antisemitic. In response Dr. Algu wrote an open letter of her own, invoking the Canadian government's intervention to broker a ceasefire and support access to medical aid in Gaza.

 

Another doctor at the palliative care unit, Hershl Berman, posted a screenshot of an earlier tweet by Algu on X. She had demanded the University of Toronto stop investing in companies profiting from what the International Court of Justice "has already deemed plausible genocide". Dr. Algu's name and profile photo appeared on Dr. Berman's post, with the caption: "Just because a loud racist minority is yelling hate and lies does not mean U of T has to bow to their wishes even if those people are doctors". 

 

Another of Dr. Berman's X posts stated that people who would avoid a Jewish doctor who supports Israel were fee to find other doctors, given that there were ample nonracist patients to look after. Dr. Algu stated that the post targeted her specifically, creating an "unsafe professional and academic environment". One that she contended violated Sinai Health's respectful workplace policy, forbidding "any act of discrimination, harassment, bullying, or incivility toward any of Sinai Health's people".

 

The environment assessment found Sinai Health leadership failed to manage challenges relating to the expression of views around Israel-Palestine as the leaders had practised a "softer, compassionate approach" and did not clearly and decisively communicate expectations and boundaries during a complex geopolitical situation. The report concluded that Dr. Algu appeared to have a "disproportionately negative impact" on the workplace culture.  

 

A letter was sent to Dr. Algu by the hospital referencing concerns that she posed a risk to safety, including the investigator's assessment of unspecified colleagues who said her social media advocacy was "irresponsible" and inconsiderate of the impact it had on them. She was notified of potential consequences such as sanctions or penalties that could impact the scope of her practise or ability to work in the health system. 

 

"It was  difficult to walk away from a career path I had invested so much into, and a team I genuinely loved."

"I left accepting that I may no longer get to practise in palliative care."

"I lost my job over Palestine, but I found a deeper commitment to life and justice."

Kavita Algu 

 

"Footage from a protest shared by Sa’d showed Algu speaking, apparently in support of activists arrested for their involvement in Palestine Action, a banned terrorist group in the UK."

"Just before she spoke, Tsabar and another protester were bellowing “long live intifada” on bullhorns. The intifada was a period of Palestinian terrorism from 2000 to 2005 which killed around 1,000 Israelis, mostly civilians."

"The intifada was perpetuated largely by Palestinians in the “West Bank” (Judea & Samaria), though this has not stopped Algu from claiming there is “no Hamas” there, a brazen falsehood."

"Algu practices medicine under Duncan Algu Medicine Professional Corporation, alongside Dallas Duncan, an cardiac anesthesiologist at Toronto General Hospital and assistant professor in the Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine department at University of Toronto."

"Like Algu, Duncan is a prolific social media user, repeatedly demonizing Israel online."

"Algu wrote that the world is “witnessing — a livestreamed extermination of Palestinian life.” As evidence, she cited a United Nations report making those scandalous accusations, evidently expecting readers to be impressed by the magnitude of her source. But her evidence is lacking. It was a measly three authors who authored said report: anti-Jewish conspiracy theorist Miloon Kothari, longtime vocal anti-Israel activist Navi Pillay, and Chris Sidoti, affiliated with the anti-Israel boycott movement."  

Honest Reporting Canada 

"[Joint statement announcing the signing of the] Mecca Joint Defence Agreement."

"[A] shared commitment to further strengthening collective security and to promoting peace, security and stability in the region and beyond."

Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan 

 

"The agreement does not represent an effort to establish a military axis or a sectarian bloc."

"Nor is it linked to any nuclear ambitions or arms race. Rather it is focused on building sustainable capabilities."

"[The agreement] does not constitute a threat to the security of any country in the region."

Saudi Deputy Minister for Public Diplomacy Rayed Krimly 

 

"[The alignment] is clearly oriented toward Iran and meant to address Iran's new strategic approach which is geared toward dominance of the broader Gulf region."

"[The fact that Turkey and Pakistan border Iran means they could exercise a different kind of leverage [on Tehran]."

Umar Karim, Saudi foreign policy expert, University of Birmingham, England

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif sign a trilateral joint defense agreement Friday in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.  Murat Cetinmuhurdar / Anadolu via Getty Images

 

What an alliance. Saudi Arabia, the keeper of the holiest site in Islam; Mecca. Turkey, with its second-largest military within the membership of the North American Treaty Organization. And Pakistan, the sole Islamic country that possesses nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia has been confronted by Iran over its custodianship of Mecca. Since Turkey is a member of NATO, should it be attacked by a regional antagonist like Iran, would that bring the NATO alliance into conflict to protect one of its members? As a nuclear power, Pakistan is not exactly the most stable of countries, beset by its own version of the Taliban. 

 

What an alliance of insecure, tribal, sectarian, ancient-antipathies-alive-to-the-present we have here. A trifecta of genuine Islamist Sunni states prepared to confront the Iranian Shi'ite Axis of 'Resistance'. Mind, they do have a lot in common. Each of those Sunni nations view the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East as a grave offence against Islam's most sacred concept, that land once consecrated to Islam can never return to the aegis of another religion. Never mind that Judean ancestral heritage long predated the appearance of Islam by millennia.

 

As though to emphasize that the Sunni alliance is meant for the promotion of peace and stability in the region, only a few days earlier, Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, stated that his country considers that "Israel is a threat to the entire Muslim world", calling for "a united military front" against it, just a day after Pakistan signed the joint defense agreement with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. "In the context of Israel, all Muslim countries must unite. I have no doubt about this" said Asif.

 

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis attacked a Saudi Aramco refinery on Sunday, two days after Saudi Arabia forged a defense pact with Turkey and Pakistan. The alliance pledges mutual defense, which means an armed attack on any one member counts as an attack on all. But after Sunday’s attack, it was not immediately clear whether Turkey or Pakistan would respond.  Democracy Now

 

Not to be outdone by Pakistan, Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdogan always has an opinion about Israel, with his opinions anything but friendly in the least, despite his sanctimonious statements in support of peace and stability in the region. Obviously peace and stability does not include Israel's presence. The champion of Hamas who celebrates the terrorist group's role in 'resistance', claims that Turkey feels threatened by Israel's attacks on Syria and Lebanon. In the former event, protecting the Syrian Druze community against deadly aggression, and in the latter, fighting back against Hezbollah terrorists sending rockets into Israeli communities in the Golan.

 

But for Erdogan it is Israel that is at fault for "aggression" that poses a threat to the world, and must be stopped. "If the Israeli thuggery is not stopped, the consequences will be borne by the entire region and all of humanity", Erdogan thundered in Turkey's parliament. "Israel must be stopped; this is the duty of humanity and the humanitarian front. History must not be allowed to repeat itself", he righteously spouted.

 

And as though modelled on NATO, the foreign ministry of Pakistan explained the pact would recognize that an attack on any member would be regarded as an attack on all; a rule that was "intended to strengthen collective deterrence". One, however, "not aimed at any particular country". 

 

This image taken from video broadcast by Al-Masirah TV, a Houthi-controlled news channel, shows an explosion at the Sanaa International Airport compound during what the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said were several Saudi airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, July 13, 2026. (Al-Masirah TV via AP)

 

Saudi Arabia is being attacked anew by the Houthis in Yemen. That terrorist group is yet another Iranian proxy, doing the work for the Islamic Republic, the head of the snake that calls itself the Axis of Resistance. Yet that attack has gone unaddressed by this new coalition. Saudi Arabia has responded to the Houthi attacks by counterattacking them, and not the source of their orders, which is Iran. Iran is the sole source responsible for the agitation, fear and absolute instability wracking the region.

 

Yet the regional powers that have been targeted by the Islamic Republican Guard Corps that really run the country now, while seeking to protect themselves and their geographic installations from the destructive Iranian missiles and drones sent their way, fail repeatedly to go on the offensive and counter-attack, putting an end to decades of insecurity wrought by Shi'ite Iran in its deliberate goal to entirely destabilize the region and ensconce itself as the Persian uber-nation in control of the Arab Sunni Middle East.  

"Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan are not trying to replace the United States. They are building the capacity to protect their interests when Washington cannot or will not do so."

"[Riyadh, in particular], wants several layers of security rather than one American umbrella [following the shock of the Iran war]."

Andreas Krieg, King's College London 

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, accompanied by their ministers of Foreign Affairs and Defence, pose after signing a joint defence agreement in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, August 7, 2026. Saudi Press Agency/Handout via REUTERS

Russian Missile attacks on Kyiv, Atlantic Council

  

"The situation in Ukraine is difficult. There was another missile strike last night — ballistic missiles targeting our infrastructure. There were also attack drones."

"Ballistic missile interceptors could have saved the lives of those killed today. It is very important that our partners understand that delays in supplying them, or an unwillingness to provide anti-ballistic systems, lead directly to such horrific casualties and destruction."

"[The number of air defence missiles supplied by partners] has dropped threefold compared with 2025."

"Our partners do have the missiles. It is important that the necessary political decisions on supplies and the acceleration of production processes are ultimately made."

"[More sanctions are required to] prevent the production of these ballistic missiles [along with] anti-ballistic capabilities [and] interceptor missiles."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy  

Patriot missile battery: in simple terms, Ukraine does not have enough of them and their interceptors. TVP World

 

During the latest aerial bombardment of Kyiv and surrounding region, Ukrainian forces were unable to shoot down any of the missiles. A situation attributable to the lack of anti-ballistic systems supplied to Ukraine by its European partners in the conflict that Moscow has imposed against its neighbour. On August 5 as a result of a massive bombardment, 17 people were killed and 44 injured during the Kyiv attack. That Wednesday attack was the third in the space of a single week.

 

This, at a critical time for Ukraine's counteroffensive, when its president cautioned that his country no longer had any air defence interceptors. Overnight Wednesday Russia launched 24 ballistic and four hypersonic cruise missiles, accompanied with 115 attack drones. Constituting yet another war crime, by deliberately targeting civilian areas. A commission of outright criminal intent so normalized by Russian repeat performances that the targeting of civilian infrastructure no longer brings notice of international condemnation.

 

All of the missiles and drones struck targets. On the evidence, Russian forces appear to have expanded their civilian targets to now include Ukraine's major supermarket chains. The Russian Defence Ministry stated the "massive strike" it carried out resulted "in the destruction of transportation, logistics, and distribution centres in the city of Kyiv and the Kyiv region".  

 

Ukraine's reliance on the tried-and-true U.S.-designed Patriot air defence systems as its solution in shooting down Russian ballistic missiles gave it the success it required in intercepting a large number of them. Those very same interceptor missiles are now in short supply, partially as a result of the large numbers used during the war against Iran launched by U.S. and Israeli forces, and being carried on by the U.S. military.  

 

The Franco-Italian SAMP/T system could help fill the Patriot hole but comes at a cost.  TVP World

 

For their part, European governments which have been the chief military backers for Ukraine, are themselves wary of handing over more of their own Patriots in concern that to do so would certainly impact their own defences. Several European countries were prodded by the Trump administration early in the year, to deliver their Patriot missiles to Kyiv; some of whom declined, reflecting their unwillingness to find themselves short on self-defence.

 

Production of the U.S.-made batteries and other air defences, according to NATO officials, lags behind the pace of global conflict, a situation that affects not only the United States but other countries as well. A month earlier, a partial solution seemed in the offing when President Trump agreed to provide Ukraine with licenses to produce their own interceptor missiles, only to have the agreement rescinded, on second thought.

 

Stating that "a significant share" of the components used by Moscow and obtained abroad for its ballistic missile production were not under sanctions, President Zelenskyy called for Ukraine's allies to impose additional sanctions to rectify the situation. This latest attack destroyed commercial civic warehouses and logistics centres of some of the largest retail companies in Ukraine.

  

Police officers and security guard at the site of the building of a supermarket warehouse hit by a Russian missile strike in Kyiv, Ukraine, August 5, 2026. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

 

"Today I was supposed to post about Rozetka turning 21. To thank our customers, partners, and team for this long journey we have travelled together."

"Instead, at night I watched as my life's work burned down after three ballistic missiles hit."

Iryna Chechotkina, co-founder, Rozetka, Ukraine's largest online marketplace  

A distribution warehouse in the Kyiv suburb of Brovary, where more than 100,000 orders were processed daily for Rozetka, Ukraine's largest online marketplace, was completely destroyed, with no hope of restoration possible. On the other hand, in recent weeks Ukrainian drones have bombarded warehouses operated by Russia's largest e-commerce marketplace, Wildberries.

 

Ukrainian drones on Wednesday attacked a facility in Russia's central Tula region, according to local officials and Telegram channels.  "Fire crews are working at the company’s logistics facility in Yekaterinburg, Sverdlovsk region, where a fire broke out as a result of the attack. The facility was evacuated in advance. Acceptance of current deliveries has been temporarily restricted, and they are being redirected to other facilities", stated Wildberries.

 

Smoke rising from a Russian Wildberries logistics hub in Yekaterinburg, Russia’s Sverdlovsk region, August 7, 2026. (Source: Polkovnik Gsh)

"In Canada, temperatures have increased by more than one degree Celsius, and in the north, where those fires are having huge consequences, many of those areas have warmed more than two degrees Celsius."

"Doing those improvements [suppression and Indigenous burning practices] isn't going to stop wildfires."

"We are going to be living with more and more fire on our landscape."

Lori Daniels, professor of forest and conservation sciences, University of British Columbia

 

"Thinning and prescribed burning helps us with some particularly problematic components of that fuel equation."

"[Instead of doing what's needed], the fuels have just continued to accumulate [for lack of budgets, commercial markets, liability concerns and insufficient numbers of trained professionals]."

John Bailey, associate forestry professor, Oregon State University 

 

"There are ways that we're having to pay that debt [of tardy forest management]: We're getting bigger fires, more extreme fires, a lot of smoke."

"If we want to pay down the debt, we have to invest in restoration." 

"Even if Canada was doing everything right with climate change, there are things that are going to burn hotter and more aggressively than they used to."

Robert Bonnie, former undersecretary for Farm Production and Conservation, U.S Department of Agriculture

 

"The United States is being unnecessarily invaded by filthy, polluted, and unhealthy air."

"[This is] wilful negligence. [Canada is] not properly maintaining [its forests]."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

Firefighters and first responders wait in line for dinner at the Spokane County Fair and Expo Center which is being utilized as a base camp for firefighters on August 5, 2026 in Spokane, Washington. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

 

Wildfires are ablaze in Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, California and Utah, placing communities, building infrastructures and residential homes -- not to mention the firefighters dispatched to fight those blazes, at high risk. In Canada too, there are wildfires in Ontario, Quebec and the Northwest Territories, and the worst-hit of the Canadian provinces, British Columbia. Smoke wafts everywhere, a threat to human health. Just as the smoke from Quebec and Ontario wildfires float over to the northern U.S. States, smoke from wildfires in Colorado, Oregon and Washington State waft over to British Columbia.

 

Smoke from Canadian boreal forest fires swept into the United States, resulting in air quality alerts for over 120 million Americans. Air quality in New York and Chicago was heavily compromised with smog blanketing their regions. Canada was accused by four Republican lawmakers of failing to prevent wildfire smoke from covering areas in the United States; that "continued inaction" was "unacceptable", they huffed in concert with President Trump's fuming condemnations. 

 

 

 

The U.S. President threatened new levies once again, this time imposed as punishment for the smoke Canada has allowed to drift over the U.S. He more recently announced the finalization of his plan to punish Canada for the smoke. This interpretation of natural events has forest management experts declaring the oversimplification of a complicated problem by the Trump administration. Robert Bonnie, for one, points out that the president's own decision-making has cut Forest Service capacity and  resources, under-investing in fire prevention and restoration.

 

Despite that both countries are facing similar fire pressures, Canada's forests are for the most part public lands that provinces and territories manage. There are far more private forestlands in the United States, with a fragmented federal-state system prevailing. And, as Lori Daniels of the University of British Columbia points out, both countries make use of similar suppression tools even while Canada has far more forest, fewer people and remote boreal areas where wildfires ignited by lightning can be dreadfully difficult to reach.

 

Residents look toward the Bald Range wildfire. (Jay Bertagnolli/CBC)

 

Thinning and prescribed burns are fundamental to fuel management in forests; reducing ladder and surface fuels to make it more difficult for fires to reach up to the mass of forest crowns, spreading the fires with the help of prevailing winds. "Thinning and prescribed burning helps us with some particularly problematic components of that fuel equation", pointed out Oregon State University's John Bailey.

 

The U.S., he points out, has been tardy to adapt that methodology at the required pace and scale, partially as a result of weak commercial markets for small-diameter wood, along with local and state smoke rules. "The fuels have just continued to accumulate", as a result, he added. Both countries, points out Lori Daniels, must move toward forest management, reflecting the hotter drier conditions of today's natural environment. 

 

The areas so susceptible to wildfires have seen multi-year droughts, and since Indigenous burning practices were banned while suppression took its place as the dominant policy, forests grew denser. "I don't think the problem is forest management. I think the problem is climate", stated Jonathan Boucher, researcher at the Canadian Forest Service. While he agrees that thinning out trees, adding fuel breaks, conducting prescribed burning, and producing defensible spaces near communities can be of help, they would not stop every fire. 

 

BCWS crews battling the Bald Range wildfire overnight.  Photo: BCWS

 

"Our agencies work together. We're going to throw smoke your way. You're going to throw smoke our way."

"Let's work together to make sure we can restore our forests in a way that we can contain this problem going forward."

Robert Bonnie, associate forestry professor, Oregon State University 

"[Our] findings indicate that many Jewish students face widespread and persistent antisemitism on Canadian campuses as a defining feature of post-secondary life that shapes their behaviour, their ability to fully participate in campus life, their safety, and their well-being."

"[The Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences report] provides the most comprehensive national evidence to date on antisemitism in Canadian post-secondary institutions."

"These accounts reveal a university culture that is both not welcoming to Jewish students and actively and systematically trying to exclude and vilify them."

Jack Jedwab, Paul Holley, Association for Canadian Studies and the Metropolis Institute 

 

"What this study has confirmed is that Jewish students are being targeted simply for being Jews, and that is completely and utterly unacceptable."

"[I hope the findings will become a] wake-up call [for college and university administrators across Canada."

Jay Solomon, senior executive, Jewish student network Hillel Ontario 

Pro-Israel demonstrators protest outside a pro-Palestinian encampment set up on McGill University's campus in Montreal in the spring of 2024. A new national report says a vast majority of Jewish students have experienced or witnessed antisemitism on campus. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

 

According to a newly-released report commissioned by Heritage Canada, Jewish students in academic institutions throughout Canada face open hostility which has become a "normalized and systemic feature of campus life". Released on Wednesday, the Campus Antisemitism and Student Experiences (CASE) report concludes that over nine in ten Jewish students have experienced or witnessed campus antisemitism over the past year. In actual point of fact, the situation has been ongoing for the past three years, since the invasion from Gaza into southern Israel by Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas which resulted in a horrendous bloodbath. 

 

A survey of 900 Jewish students, along with 755 students from the broader campus population at over two dozen colleges and universities across Canada formed the basis for the survey conclusions. Over one in five Jewish students stated that they had witnessed physical violence targeting Jews, while seventy-one percent reported antisemitic graffiti on campus. Targeted incidents such as mezuzahs torn from Jewish dorm room doors in residence halls were reported. 

 

The survey results point unreservedly to a systemic crisis of antisemitism on the campuses of Canadian post-secondary institutions. "My sense is that, when you see such a high level of reporting of antisemitic incidents, the only way to describe it is systemic", cautioned Mr. Jedwab. Jewish students are not merely facing antisemitism from classmates -- points out a key insight of the report -- but also from professors and other university employees. 

 

 

 

Faculty involvement in harassment and instances of pure antisemitic virulence was cited in 18 percent of incidents reported in the survey.  According to seven in ten Jewish survey respondents their academic institution failed to take antisemitism seriously. Teaching assistants or non-teaching staff were cited as being involved in antisemitic incidents by a further 14 percent of respondents.

 

Of those taking part in the survey, thirty-six percent had encountered antisemitic or biased course content or classroom discussions. Another 34 percent revealed that a professor brought up Jews, Judaism, Israel, or Zionism at times when such references were completely unrelated to the course subject. According to over three in ten students, consideration was given by them to leaving a course or their program as a result of antisemitism expressed by professors or other students.

 

The Hub

 

 In response to the report's findings, federal Heritage Minister Marc Miller characterized the situation as "alarming". "[The findings] echo what we are seeing across Canada. Statistics Canada's most recent data shows that 71 percent of all police-reported religion-motivated hate crimes targeted Jewish Canadians", he pointed out.

 

It is, needless to say, his Liberal government that bears a good deal of responsibility for the situation. The swell of antisemitism arising from the presence of Palestinian student groups on Canadian campuses joined by non-student instigators and prompted and paid for by foreign entities invested in maligning and isolating Jews through the medium of Zionism-slander masking their pure antisemitic hatred has never been addressed by the federal government.

 

The Trudeau, and then the Carney Liberal governments invested heavily in the trifecta of Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, and 'progressive' left wokeism, to set the stage, filtering down through lower levels of government, businesses, unions; permeating throughout society where Canadians seemed to shrug with the notion that it was only Jews being targeted and they could look after themselves. That the entire society, its culture, laws, values and customs have been eroded when one community among all others becomes a target of hate seems to have eluded the consciousness of conscience.

 

 

If the situation is addressed at all by executive-level politicians, it is to express the formula of 'this isn't Canada', when it clearly is. Declarations of disgust with antisemitism come with no sustained institutional efforts to reverse the trend, even when laws are being broken. Politicians can't seem to be able to resist equating the scourge of antisemitism and its meteoric rise with the tepid rise of 'Islamophobia' which evokes a much stronger response from them. 

 

The most telling reaction, however, is municipal, provincial and federal governments' failure to speak of the obvious, a failure that communicates its message to Canada's police forces -- that it is from among the Muslim communities in Canada that the wave of hateful antisemitism arose and that the fundamentalist Islamists among them organized, perpetrated and perpetuated 'protests' against the Jewish community in Canada alongside disparagement and incitement against the state of Israel responding to a terrorism war of jihad against its very existence.

 

The Hub

 

"At a time when synagogues, Jewish schools, and Jewish-owned businesses are being shot at and firebombed, and when Jews are disproportionately the victims of hate crimes, this report makes clear that antisemitism has also taken root in our public institutions -- including our universities."

"We call on university leaders and governments at every level to carefully consider this report.The drivers of this hatred — including antizionism — are well known, and the time to act is now. We need concrete actions to protect Canadian students."

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

B'nai Brith Canada

Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center