"If Ebola comes, we'll be wiped out as we're packed like sardines."

"I've already heard of Ebola and it's a disease that scares me a lot."

"We displaced people here have no hygiene. Our children play next to filthy toilets and even relieve themselves on the ground, in the middle of the tarpaulins that serve as our homes."

Dorcas Mapenzi, Kingonze displaced tent camp, Bunia, Democratic Republic of Congo 

 

"Given these conditions, how are we going to protect ourselves against this disease, when everyone tells us we need to distance ourselves to fight Ebola?"

"We sleep piled on top of each other, with everyone's sweat."

"If a single person gets infected here in this camp, everyone will die."

Deborah Nzale, widowed family head, Kingonze camp, Bunia, Ituro Province, DR Congo

DR Congo is the epicentre of the outbreak though a few cases have been detected in Uganda  Getty Images

 

"Two weeks after the declaration of the Ebola disease outbreak in Ituri Province, the situation is deeply alarming."

"Never before has an Ebola outbreak recorded so many cases so soon after its declaration. [Teams on the ground were] witnessing a response that has not yet caught up to the rapid spread of the epidemic."

"The reality today is that nobody knows the true scale and severity of this outbreak. New suspected cases are being reported daily, yet hundreds of samples remain untested."

MSF deputy director Dr Alan Gonzales  

According to the military governor of Ituri province in the Democratic Republic of Congo, there are roughly 61 displaced persons camps in the area, within which are close to 970,000 people being housed. "We need to deploy equipment and qualified specialist medical staff as quickly as possible, to spare this province from disaster", stated Lt. Gen. Johnny Luboya Nkashama. Certainly, the fearful people in those camps having been alerted by posters at camp entrances that warn "Ebola really kills", would be grateful. 

 

In the Kingonze camp alone, where Dorcas Mapenzi, Deborah Nzale and Budjo Amos reside with other family groups, their elders and their children, a total of 25,000 people are co-housed. They are there, far from their native towns and villages, displaced by conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Having fled proximity to the conflict, they now face another enemy whose death count may be higher than the potential threats from the conflict they fled.

 

WHO/Joël Lumbala The Rwampara General Referral Hospital in Ituri Province, DR Congo.

 

Since conditions in the camp are absolutely horrendous in terms of infection potential, if government health agencies fail to move quickly to ameliorate the vulnerability situation of the people crammed into those sites, the results could be phenomenally devastating. Medical assistance and supplies are coming into the country and into Uganda from other countries better equipped to deal with such emergencies, but nature can be unforgiving in the pathogens she throws around that wreak havoc on animals, including humans.

 

The central African country's east, where decades of armed conflicts forced millions of civilians from their homes has created the perfect storm. Ituri province has both armed militia groups battling one another and hordes of people driven from their homes in the impoverished DRC. The World Health Organization warned that the eastern DRC "faces a catastrophic collision of disease and conflict"; fighting in the affected province interferes with efforts to try to manage the epidemic. 

 

There have been 223 suspected Ebola deaths in the DRC since an Ebola outbreak was declared on May15 by the WHO, with another thousand suspected and confirmed cases up to May 24. Although no cases of infection have been recorded as yet at the Kingonze camp built in 2018, conditions are optimum for the disease where infection through close physical contact and bodily fluids, can prey on the unprotected. In tarpaulin shelters measuring three square meters, up to nine people live crammed together.

 

The strain of Ebola -- Bundibugyo -- responsible for this latest outbreak, lacks a vaccine or any measure of treatment, leaving efforts to contain its spread reliant for the most part on protective measures and rapid contact tracing. Clearly those measures are absent from the Kingonze camp, and likely most other camps in the province as well. No protective gear has reached Kingonze's displaced residents. 

 

With a single borehole in the entire camp to draw  up water, the tap flows for just a few hours daily. The Congolese state's slow response to the outbreak hasn't helped. Regional hospitals lack essential equipment, in particular isolation tents for affected patients.   

"People looking to raise awareness come through here with messages but, surprisingly, we don't have the kit we need to protect ourselves." 

"I don't even have soap to wash my hands."

"The most urgent thing is to give us clean water. The state has to intervene urgently."

Budjo Amos, displaced man, Kingonze camp  

 

"The Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) reaffirm their strong partnership and shared commitment to protect the health and well-being of the people of Ituri Province and the nation at large, following the joint mission to Bunia led by Dr Samuel Roger Kamba, Minister of Health, Mr. Patrick Muyaya Katembwe, Minister of Communication and Medias, and the visit of WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus."

"While the Bundibugyo strain presents additional challenges, including the absence of a licensed vaccine or specific treatment, proven public health measures remain effective in slowing transmission and potential full recovery. The Ministry of Health, WHO and partners are working to rapidly undertake randomized control trials on candidate vaccines and treatments."

"Persistent challenges include early detection and isolation of cases, contact tracing, safe and dignified burials, robust infection prevention and control in health facilities, and strong community awareness. The Government and WHO call on all communities to continue adopting protective behaviours, including regular hand hygiene, early care seeking in health facilities, and sharing accurate information."

"The DRC brings unparalleled experience to this response, having successfully contained multiple previous Ebola outbreaks. This experience, combined with strong political leadership at the highest level of the State and renewed international solidarity, provides a firm foundation for bringing the current outbreak under control."

Government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) 

 

 

"They sell their weapons to Israel, or to the Philippine government, to other governments that are carrying out genocide." 

"They fuel dictatorships, and every deal made here at CANSEC is a death sentence to a colonized person, to working people all around the world."

"This is their playground. This is their marketplace."

Rosie Lucente, spokesperson, Shut Down CANSEC campaign

 

"We take care of patients, we think about community well-being, we think about healing."

"What's happening behind us at this conference, CANSEC, is the buying and selling of weapons and technologies that fuel an industry of war, terror, and genocide."

Yipeng Ge, family doctor, Ottawa Healthcare Professionals for Palestine 

Anti CANSEC demonstrators tangle with police. The demonstrators were organized by Shut Down CANSEC,demonstrated against Canada’s largest weapons show held in Ottawa, May 28, 2026. Photo by JEAN LEVAC /POSTMEDIA

 

Held on Wednesday and Thursday of this week at the Cohere convention centre in south-end Ottawa, hosted by the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries (CADSI), this year's CANSEC arms trade show turned out to be the largest of its kind of the annual event yet held, bringing together those involved in the arms industry and those who are interested in their wares. 

 

There were about 20,000 registered delegates,  with 320 exhibitors and 100 delegations from 60 countries. In contrast, 2025 saw 285 exhibitors, and 2024, 265 companies displaying equipment and military systems. The trade show attendance is limited to the industry, military and government staff.

 

Also in evidence were some 200 demonstrators protesting the trade show, who gathered in front of the centre by 7:00 a.m. blowing whistles, banging drums and jeering at CANSEC attendees entering the conference. Minor tussles broke out between police and protesters when an attempt was made to block a crosswalk.

 

Banners held by protesters included one with the names of children purportedly killed in Gaza. Large images of Prime Minister Mark Carney, Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita Anand and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were carried by other demonstrators.  

 

Anti CANSEC demonstrators were organized by Shut Down CANSEC,demonstrated against Canada’s largest weapons show held in Ottawa, May 28, 2026. Photo by JEAN LEVAC /POSTMEDIA

 

There are brutal wars being carried out in many parts of the world, from Sudan to Yemen, Syria to Libya involving 45 armed conflicts taking place in the Middle East and North Africa. These are Muslim countries in their tribal, sectarian wars, killing, maiming, raping, displacing populations, creating humanitarian crises with malnourished children forced to live in tent encampments. The protesters have no interest whatever in the plight of the hundreds of thousands of people being killed, the millions displaced from their homes, the children dying. Their focus is entirely on Israel.

 

 

One tiny nation forced by ongoing attacks by terrorist groups backed by the very protesters who decry Israel's military, fighting the genocidal Muslim terror groups that target Israeli civilians and the Jewish state for total annihilation. That is genocide, yet these hate-indoctrinated minds whose brains have been completely addled by antisemitism inherent in their upbringing and convictions, relish slandering Israel for genocide against Palestinians, the very source of terrorist-central. 

 

Their rage against the manufacturers and purveyors of military equipment is entirely predicated on their certainty that all those arms are destined for the Israeli military. The only military with which these locked minds find fault with, for responding to lethal attacks geared to destroying their nation, with the due force required to put a stop to the never-ending acts of war it suffers from its neighbours. Although groups like Hamas and Hezbollah are on Canada's terror list, the pro-Palestinian protesters defend their deadly violence as acting from a just cause. 

 

Anti CANSEC demonstrators tangle with police. The demonstrators were organized by Shut Down CANSEC,demonstrated against Canada’s largest weapons show held in Ottawa, May 28, 2026. Photo by JEAN LEVAC /POSTMEDIA

 

The Liberal government's decision to respond to NATO's injunction requiring all its members to step up their defence spending by doing just that, represents the impetus of weapons manufacturers' anticipatory presence at a massive show where their offerings can be influentially showcased for future sales to a country that has authorized massive expenditures in military gear. In lock-step with Europe, North America realizes the threat to democracy and national security represented by Russia's President Vladimir Putin in his ambitions to enlarge the geographic reach of Greater Russia, emulating the late lamented USSR.

 

All countries of the world are aware of the need to 'walk softly and carry a big stick'. To own and stockpile weaponry that will assist their militaries in defending their nations against hostile nations' aspirations to territorial expansion. It represents the single most important, and mostly unused counterthreat to invasion by foreign forces that all nations are obligated by history to respect and prepare for. In Israel's case, it has never known peace with its neighbours, and not because the Jewish state did not yearn for that peace, but because since its re-appearance in 1948, neighbouring states threatened its presence and wrought wars they always lost.

 

Now that those neighbours, for the most part, have finally accepted the fact that Israel lives and will always live on its ancestral geography, some among them prepared to live in peace and trust, it has been left to the fundamentalist totalitarian ideologues of Islamist diehards dedicated to jihad to continue to violently harass, threaten and attack the Jewish state. Forcing that Jewish state to retaliate and to destroy those continued threats against its sovereign rights and its peoples' safety. The 'pro-Palestinian' Jew-haters decipher reality and historical accuracy in their warped minds to suit the venom of their hatred. 

 

Anti CANSEC demonstrators were organized by Shut Down CANSEC,demonstrated against Canada’s largest weapons show held in Ottawa, May 28, 2026. Photo by JEAN LEVAC /POSTMEDIA

 

"I love Canada but there comes a point where the abject antipathy that you experience from Canadian society forces you to look elsewhere to a place where you might be appreciated and allowed to flourish."

"It's when all of the parasitic idea, jointly in a perfect orchestra as a cocktail, flew the planes of bulls--t into our edifices of reason. So first, I hit you with postmodernism. There are no absolute truths. Up is down. Left is right. Women are men. Peace is freedom."

"Islam is peace. Judaism is terrorism, and so on. Because if there are no absolute objective truths, no calculus of adjudicating truth, then all bets are off."

"So the West is uniquely evil. Not all those other beautiful cultures in Waziristan and Yemen. And therefore, how do I expiate this original existential sin? I do that by becoming orgiastically empathetic to the noble other."

"I would say by about 30 years ago, the ground was set for a nice warm swim in the infinity pool of suicidal empathy."

Gad Saad, Canadian Professor of Marketing, Evolutionary Behavioural Scientist, Concordia University

A woman cries in shock after a car bomb killed 13 in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War on August 8, 1986. (Khalil Dehaini via Getty Images)

 

Born in 1964 Beirut, Gad Saad's family fled the Lebanese civil war to settle a world away, in Montreal.  A scholar at the Declaration of Independence Center for the Study of American Freedom, University of Mississippi, his professional career is backgrounded by 32 years at Concordia University as a professor of marketing. More latterly, he has become a public intellectual with a global reputation. The most recent of his publications is the book Suicidal Empathy. Highlighting how enlightened Western values of democratic liberalism have been gradually overtaken by a process of dark, mindless imprinting of 'colonialist' guilt.

 

He speaks of the weaponization of empathy, playing on the 'nice' factor in Western society, an implicit uncertainty whether perceived 'white' society is sufficiently deferential to all the ethnic, social, religious, ideological, gendered groups that have traditionally been conceived of as peripheral and unimportant. Above all, he points out, the minds that shrink at the possibility that they could be thought of as uncivilly intolerant of others. Bringing to mind the issues of immigration, crime and extreme fanaticism. People like to have warm feelings about themselves; constantly being castigated as being cruel to others can be devastating to one's self-regard. 

"Empathy within well modulated, evolutionarily appropriate ranges is exactly what you want in a social species. In order for you and I to have a meaningful conversation, we need to have empathy toward one another. I understand your pain, I feel your pain."

"Suicidal empathy erases all that evolutionary calculus. It targets the wrong target like: Guatemalan gang members are more important to let into the country than investing in American vets."

"Homeless people who take over our parks are more important than the children whose parents have paid taxes, so that their children can play in the park."

"It becomes suicidal both at the individual level -- you have some rape victims who feel guilty reporting their rapist, because it might spread Islamophobia -- but it also then results in domestic and foreign policies that result in the suicide of the West."

Gad Saad 

Because, he points out, the new philosophy of guilt and empathy must agree that the foundation of the West sits on the rubble of Indigenous genocide, transphobia and Islamophobia and misogyny, it is an evil human construct. Whereas anyone with morals knows that all other cultures are to be admired and emulated; the West simply misunderstands female genital mutilation, the objectification of women, capital punishment for offending the state, animal cruelty because what are animals other than unfeeling objects? The countries that go to war with one another to resolve issues that diplomacy could solve know their tribal/sectarian values better than we do. 

 

Westerners who find fault with immigrant cultures that tend to break the social compact and justice system of the West are all out to sea; it is the values, customs and legal system of the West that counteracts normal human actions by forcing people to conform in ways that nature never intended them to. Conquest has merit, when it unites people, whether by common agreement or forcibly, and the West had better get used to it, because that accommodation is an expectation of the increasing hordes of refugee claimants, immigrants, and migrants flooding Western shores. 

 

The patterning of Western minds and their governments has been a long and steady progression of infiltration and studied understanding of accepted Western social mores, the language of acceptable discourse, the taboos and the fears. And that manipulation and deft exploitation by malicious forces whose adherence to the noble cause of jihad, for example, exploiting the byways of Western thought, accommodation and expectations has led to the undermining of foundational concepts, values and verities. Leaving us as craven idiots, mired in the swamp of suicidal empathy. 

 

 

"All of the insane policies that are destroying the West are rooted in suicidal empathy. Return to a commitment of liberty freedom and an individual dignity that made the West great."

"Throughout human history, most societies did not adhere to the ethos of the West."

"The West is really a miracle, within the buffet of human societies that have ever existed, and we're now seeing that it takes very little for us to lose it."

"You can practise your homophobia and genocidal hatred of the Jews and cutting off of the clitorises in your own beautiful countries. We don't want that here."

Gad Saad 

"Hamas relies on a diverse web of international partners to expand its malign political influence, facilitate violent terrorist activity, and undermine international efforts to achieve lasting peace in Gaza."

"[The key backer of the flotilla, and previous iterations, is the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad [PCPA], an organization that] is clandestinely controlled [by Palestinian terrorists]."

"In reality, the PCPA was established with funding from Hamas's International Relations Bureau and Hamas directs its activity through the placement of Hamas officials throughout the organization."

"The PCPA does not only work with, and in support of, Hamas -- it operates at Hamas's behest." 

US. Department of the Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) 

 

"I am both honoured and humbled to be a part of this year's mission to Gaza."

"The aid that we have isn't sufficient to the structural issues in a post 'ceasefire' Gaza [clearly not a 'humanitarian' mission."

"For me, as someone who, I think at this juncture in history, is very wedded to direct action, I feel like directly confronting the Israeli occupation forces at sea as we try to break this 20-year genocidal siege, to me is like a historic responsibility."

Flotilla activist Rosa Martinez 

Basque police officers detain members of the Global Sumud Flotilla upon their arrival at Bilbao Airport on May 23, 2026. (Idurre Etxaburu / AFP)

 

On Monday, Canada's prime minister Mark Carney held a telephone conversation with Israeli President Isaac Herzog, a summary of which was released for public viewing by the Prime Minister's Office. From that summary we learn that Mr. Carney 'underscored' Canada's support for a negotiated two-state 'solution', a solution that the Palestinian leadership has time and again rejected. As well, the imperative of regional de-escalation was 'underlined' by the prime minister who 'raised' the issue of the Gaza crisis, and 'expressed concern' for civilian displacement in Lebanon.

 

Gaza crisis? Hamas designed, directed and deployed. Civilian displacement in Lebanon? Hezbollah rockets fired incessantly into Israel leading to civilian displacement of Israeli citizens. Both crises caused by terrorists' actions meant to lead to the destruction of the Jewish state. Condemn Hamas and Hezbollah, and empathize with Israel under constant fire? Heaven forfend. 

 

"The Prime Minister reiterated that the appalling treatment of civilians, including Canadian citizens, aboard the Gaza-bound flotilla was unacceptable, and he called for an independent investigation." 

 

This, from a leader whose most grave homeland concerns are 'elbows  up' against a powerful neighbour who enjoys needling Canadian sovereignty and imposing ridiculous self-harming tariffs in vital resources to remind Canada just who leads throughout the global community. Contrasted with a national leadership forced to focus on military self-defense from a implacably violence-devoted neighbours who will go to any lengths to see that citizens of Israel pay the ultimate price for squatting as colonialists on their own singular indigenous ancestral land.

 

Israeli naval commandos intercept boats in the Global Sumud Flotilla off the coast of Cyprus on May 18, 2026. (Global Sumud Flotilla)

 

If there was ever any doubt that Mark Carny is an unreconstructed Judeophobe, his complacency over Palestinian-led slanderous propaganda carousing through the cities and streets of Canada, threatening the security of Canadian Jews, leading a viral campaign of pure Jew-hate -- failing in his duty as the current executive administrator of Canada's commitment in law and social agreement to protect and provide equality of treatment to all of the country's various ethnic-cultural-religious groups -- sealed that apprehension comprehensively.

 

To which, in turn during the conversation, Israel's President responded in his own version of the lines spoken during their telephone call: 

"I expressed my deep alarm over the rise in antisemitic violence in Canada."

"I called on Prime Minister Carney and his government to address the fear and sense of abandonment felt by our sisters and brothers in the Canadian Jewish community before it's too late."

 

It is clear that Mark Carney has a special regard for Hamas which despite being on Canada's terrorist list, must obviously be doing something right in 'resisting the occupation' he so deplores. Israel, in its never-ending vigilance against new violence perpetrated against the Jewish state and its citizens on the other hand, offends Mr. Carney's sensibilities. In other words, a democratic Jewish state which far from intolerance, has absorbed Muslims, Christians, Druze, Kurds, Circassians, B'hai, and Bedouin among others into its citizenship, as far as Carney is concerned is violently intolerant, whereas Palestinian terrorism merely represents the frustration of 'occupation'.

 

Carney cannot be bothered with history, not when identities are clearly defined and give the lie to his contentious beliefs in Palestinian indigeneity and historical rights, when in fact they are part and parcel of the lie of Palestinian victimhood. Ismail Haniyeh who led the mass atrocity of October 7, 2023 when thousands of Palestinian terrorists streamed across the border from Gaza into southern Israel to wreak rape and murder, spoke of the Popular Conference for Palestinians Abroad as a strategy to "boost Hamas's international outreach".

 

Activists from the global Sumud flotilla in Italy May 21. Reuters

 

"This is the fourth flotilla organized for provocation rather than humanitarian concern."

"The flotillas have not been driven by legitimate humanitarian objectives, but by an orchestrated political campaign that serves the interests of Hamas."

Israeli Embassy, Canberra 

"[Montreal4Palestine has spend years raising awareness in Montreal, consistently working to] unite Montrealers of all religious backgrounds."

"[We have] stood firmly against all forms of hate, including antisemitism [and uphold] values of human dignity, freedom of expression and solidarity among communities."

"[We are] deeply concerned by efforts to falsely characterize a side-profile image of an effigy as depicting a 'man in a kippah.'"

"[The effigies displayed] were directed specifically at political figures [and] at no point were [they] intended to represent Judaism, Jewish people, or any religious, ethnic, or identifiable community."

Montreal4Palestine

Montreal4Palestine posted this image to Instagram on Wednesday in response to the public outcry, clarifying that the three figures hanging in effigy at a rally on Saturday in Montreal were directed specifically at political figures. (mtl4pal/Instagram)

 

"The incitement to violence, hate symbols, and displays of intimidation that we see in our streets are unacceptable."

"Images of hangings or effigies have no place in Montreal, nor anywhere else."

"Montreal must remain a city of dialogue, respect, and living together, where everyone can feel safe and treated with dignity."

Montreal Mayor Soraya Martinez Ferrara 

 

"This is not a debate about the Middle East."

"Hanging effigies of Jews in the streets of Montreal evokes some of the darkest antisemitic imagery in history and is completely unacceptable."

"This is not 'peaceful activism.' It is the promotion of hatred and the incitement of violence that fuels the radicalization of our social climate."

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs 

A still from the footage that appears to show the effigy of a Jewish figure being hung (Photo: X)

 

The ongoing spectacles of Palestinian 'protests' alongside their far-left-wing supporters that denigrate the state of Israel as a genocidal entity with the usual chants of 'globalize the Intifada', 'Final Solution' and 'From the river to the sea!' do not, and cannot be construed as free speech, when a simple analysis of these chants reveal their true meaning; the 'final solution' hearking back to the Holocaust and the infamous Nazi final solution to the Jewish 'problem'; the bookending chants' meaning the destruction of Israel, the Jewish homeland. 

 

The usual commentary by government officials, decrying the obvious antisemitic and violent nature of such protests amount to public dressing and no more by authority figures who deny that antisemitism reflects the values of society, but their declarations of denials are pablum and nothing more. Disrupting the social order to the extent that has become so depressingly commonplace since the Palestinian terrorist attacks on southern Israel of 7 October 2023, with no penalties attached for those who slander, threaten, and aggressively harass Jews within their communities represents a blot of shame for both elected officials and Canadian police services for their inattention and inaction.

 

No segment of society representing an ethnic, cultural, religious group should ever be forced by government unwillingness to apply the law as it should be done, to be constantly victimized with no consequences resulting from their violently verbal attackers. The government leaders that prefer to turn a blind eye, blinkered by their own political animus against a legitimate democratic state constantly under attack by destructive and violent neighbours, prefer to do nothing rather than alienate a voting block of Muslim Canadians that have become through immigration, migrant and refugee intake, far larger than that of the Jewish-Canadian demographic with its much longer historical roots in Canada. 

 

Mock hangings at a pro-Palestinian event in Montreal on Sunday, May 24, 2026 appear to show effigies depicting U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. (Montreal4Palestine / Instagram)

 

Finally, the Montreal Police Service has announced an investigation following yet another anti-Israel march that saw the hanging of effigy figures on the May 24 weekend. Effigies purporting to depict U.S. President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir amused the crowd no end. But, claimed the protest organizers, there was nothing antisemitic about the spectacle, nothing at all. Islamists who have succeeded in infiltrating Canada know how to play the game of using Western social justice values to their advantage, mouthing denials and claiming adherence to human rights.

 

Montreal police emailed their intention to investigate these most recent examples of Montreal4Palestine honouring Canadian values. The matter, they declared, was being investigated by their hate-crimes unit, with further details to be released at a later date. "As city councillor, I reached out to the local commander and asked for the latest information on the protest. I had received a lot of complaints from people in my district", explained Leslie Roberts, a Montreal councillor whose district the protest rally took place in.  

"In my view, depiction of violence against anyone crosses the line. I contacted the police to find out if what they were doing was within the Charter of Rights [and Freedoms] or not."

"Depiction of a Jewish man hanging with a kippah, depiction of anyone hanging, is crossing the line, in my opinion."

Montreal City Councillor Leslie Roberts   

"Hanging effigies, burning effigies, that sort of thing, is a very common form of political protest. The courts have said over and over again that political speech is, in a sense, the highest form of free speech, because it engages with our understanding of self-expression, it engages with the broader public sphere", stated Pearl Eliadis, a lawyer and McGill associate professor at the Max Bell School of Public Policy. The exception under Canadian law, is when violence is used to foment hatred. And if this display fails to fall into that category, then what does?!!

 

The animus and hostility toward Jews is fully expressed by Montreal4Palestine and other like groups practising their very special brand of antisemitism in Canada. While the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms protect free expression, they do not extend that freedom to the expression of viral hatred of the depth and degree demonstrated at this May 24 rally featuring a hanging-in-effigy of world leaders and by obvious extension Jews in general, which the kippah-clad effigy represented.

 

 

"[The] harm to Canadian Jews won't stop until we all have the courage to name the problem accurately and to identify the specific people perpetuating it: Islamist religious extremists in collaboration with progressive activists."

"[Canadians are experiencing a] polite pogrom." 

Jesse Brown, Canadaland publisher

 

"I have often thought about making aliya [moving to Israel] but for familial reasons, I was tethered to Canada."

"Whenever I go to Israel, I experience a sense of calm. It is because I don't have to explain, or justify or excuse."

"I can be who I am in a way that I cannot in Canada."

Jack Novack, retired Dalhousie University professor 

 

"It's not even drip, drip, drip anymore. It's like a freaking firehose [rampant antisemitism]."

"[The NDP has made]a crude political calculation [to win over the much larger, faster-growing Canadian Muslim community over Jewish voters, choosing to overlook  antisemitism in their ranks]."

"[People in 1940s Montreal would call her father maudit Juif ['damn Jew']. But I never experienced that in Montreal [in the '60s and '70s]. So trying to figure out:What did we miss? Were there signs? And I think that's a very Jewish experience right now."

"Along with that comes tremendous grief. The overwhelming emotion is grief. Grief at, I would suggest, a loss of innocence for Jews and for others."

"Because Canada is supposed to be, and was supposed to be, a place where we could all be all that we are with full identity."

Selina Robinson, former NDP B.C. cabinet minister

This shot of three figures hanging in effigy of Israeli leaders was part of a reel posted by the group mtl4pal on Instagram following the group's pro-Palestinian rally in Montreal on Saturday, May 24. (mtl4pal/Instagram)

 

Jews in Canada no longer have any reason to place their confidence in law enforcement and the legal system in Canada. A high rate of the criminal charges against anti-Israel protests -- according to a Toronto digital media outlet -- sees that of the 150 people criminally charged in Toronto between October 2023 and January 2026, close to two-thirds of the cases were dropped or stayed. For further lack of trust, the recently published memoir of retired Toronto police inspector Hank Idsinga accuses the Toronto Police Service of institutionalized antisemitism. 

 

Mr. Idsinga's book recounts antisemitic incidents prior to his leaving the force in late 2023 for retirement, when colleagues were prone to state "I can't believe we have to pander to this f--king Jew". When his colleagues in the force, not aware that he was Jewish, would baldly make outright antisemitic statements. Mr. Idsinga unequivocally states from his own experience that antisemitism permeates every level of the Toronto Police Service, from the very top on down.  

"Every time I wake up and I realize that the water's getting hotter [like being a frog in a pot of boiling water], somebody greases the bowl."

"The level of tolerance that this country seems to have adopted in terms of antisemitism is breathtaking." 

"[Even as European Jews see politicians abandoning smaller Jewish electoral communities for larger and fast-growing Muslim ones, so too do Canadian Jews]. [Case in point: Belgian Jews] fear that they might be abandoned by politicians who look for new voters in Belgian society, for example among the Muslim population."

"Many politicians lack the political will [to address antisemitism and recognize a] jihadi ideology [has] now come to Canada."

Talia Klein Leighton, president, Canadian Women Against Antisemitism 

More than fifty Toronto police officers receive a morning briefing Sunday April 5 at Sheppard Plaza in North York before ensuring any anti-Israel or pro-Israel protesters remain out of residential neighbourhood streets. (Photo by Ellin Bessner/The CJN)

 

"Of all the groups" sociology Professor emeritus Robert Brym at University of Toronto studied, including racialized Canadians, left-leaning Canadians, Quebecers and others, it is Canadian Muslims whose attitudes toward Jews stands out for their malevolence in regarding Jews, where 28 percent agree in polls that "Jewish people are largely to blame for the negative consequences of globalization", while 34 percent feel Jews "talk too much about the Holocaust". Four percent of non-Jewish Canadian adults on the other hand, agreed with the former, 13 percent with the latter statement.

 

"The percentage of Muslims among the most extreme antisemites is considerably higher than the corresponding percentage of non-Muslims", Professor Brym wrote in an academic paper. In Australia that same differential also is reflected in attitudes toward Jews. Surveys to gauge European Christians and Muslims on whether they view "Jews cannot be trusted" reveal huge differences, where in Australia 10.7 percent of Christians agree with the statement, and a whopping 64.1 percent of Muslims agreed. 

 

In France, similar research reveals that the Muslim community's antisemitic views are at levels higher than the far left and the far right, where French Muslims in the majority believe that "Jews have too much" economic power (67 percent) and that "Jews today use their status as victims of the Nazi genocide during the Second World War for their own interest", at 56 percent. When these issues are pointed out, that the great upheavals seen in publicly expressed antisemitism, are led by Muslims throughout Europe and North America, executive government levels invariably while denouncing antisemitism never fail to link that social sin with 'Islamophobia'.

 

And then the popular version of fault rests on a totally unaccountable source, the nationalists and far right groups. To publicly agree that Muslim extremism is responsible for the raging antisemitism seen everywhere today is a non-starter. And because it remains unrecognized officially and institutionally, there can be no amelioration of the situation if the specific people perpetrating and perpetuating Islamist religious extremism are not held responsible, much less checked. 

 

The minority antidote when government itself will not do its work in upholding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

The Council of Muslims Against Antisemitism (CMAA) is a group of global
Muslim thinkers, professionals and activists, led by its founder director
Raheel Raza that is committed to fighting antisemitism in all its guises. This
group took its foundational inspiration from Canadian values of tolerance,
justice and peace among Canadian diverse communities living together
side-by-side.
We recognize antisemitism for what it is – a uniquely pervasive, enduring,
and lethal form of hatred which has insinuated itself into multiple cultural,
religious and political frameworks across the globe. We recognize the
particular threat posed by the meteoric rise of antisemitism in the 21st
century. Often genocidal or eliminationist in intent or expression, it
represents an unprecedented amalgam of the more familiar strains of
antisemitism promoted in extremist right-wing, left wing and Islamist
ideologies. The spread of contemporary antisemitism has been accelerated
by globalization and the advent of 21st century technologies.
The CMAA endorses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
(IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition constitutes the
world’s most widely accepted definition of antisemitism which has been
adopted or endorsed by 43 countries including Canada. It appropriately
recognizes that the demonization of the State of Israel as a Jewish state is
antisemitic, whereas criticism of Israel, its government, policies or actions
of a type that all countries are subject to, is not.
Despite challenges that include receiving death threats, we are committed
to working with like-minded groups to challenge antisemitism wherever it
may appear. We are working relentlessly towards the goal of attaining a
hate-free Canadian community.                                                                                          Council of Canadian Muslims Against Antisemitism

 

"Located in southern Ukraine on the banks of the Dniepr River across from the Russian army, Kherson has become a hunting ground for what locals call a “human safari”." 

"The Russian forces are using drones to target civilians – whether they are on foot, driving, or even on bicycles. The drones they use are known as FPVs, for “first-person view”, meaning the operators see what the drone sees in real time."

"For residents of Kherson, these drones have become a daily threat."

"At least 577 civilians were killed by short-range drones in Ukraine in 2025, and more than 3,000 were injured, according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU). Nearly 95% of civilian casualties were recorded in territory held by the Ukrainian government." 

"In an October 2025 report focusing on the Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, the UN Commission of Inquiry of Ukraine found that 'Russian armed forces’ short-range drone attacks ... amount to a crime against humanity ... and war crimes'."

France 24

 

"It starts in the evening. Sometimes, from 8 or 9pm, they start terrorising us. Sirens go off, drones start hitting."

"But in our practice, based on statistics, the peak is around 2, 3 or 4 am. That is when most strikes occur, when people are peacefully sleeping." 

Maryna Averina, spokesperson, State Emergency Service of Ukraine, Odessa region 

FPV drone with a spool of fibre-optic cable. Image credit: Armyinform.com.ua

 

The buzz of drones alert Ukrainians of incoming drones equipped with cameras, rigged out with explosives and steered by joysticks in the hands of a Russian military operative a mere dozen kilometres' distance. They know from experience that they will be tracked, chased and attacked by these drones. Familiarity with the phenomenon and the drones' random, unexpected presence, they are familiarly named as Russia's 'human safari' scheme of population demoralization. Translated; a terror campaign begun in Kherson which evolved with new technology, then spread to border areas within Ukraine. 

 

This hunting down of civilians for the quite obvious purpose of a reign of terror, part of the Kremlin's 

'special military operation', in Vladimir Putin's obsession with destroying Ukraine as a sovereign state, while annexing southern Ukraine bit by bit as it did in 2022 when it captured Crimea in 2014. The United Nations has recognized the deadly tactic as a war crime, one that has crossed the border from one army battling another, to an army deliberately targeting civilians, in opposition to international prohibitions on targeting civilian populations. 

 

"It's a really horrible problem the Russians are imposing on Ukrainian civilians in these towns where they're using the human safari tactic", observed Robert Tollast, military sciences researcher at the Royal United Services Institute, London. Russians just across the Dnieper River began two years ago deploying cheap commercial first-person view (FPV) quadcopters to stalk and strike civilians as they went about the course of their days; biking, standing at bus stops, walking their dogs.

 

The spool of fibre-optic cable is usually quite large. Image credit: Armyinform.com.ua

 

Begun in Kherson, by April of 2025 the attacks killed 42 civilians each month, injuring close to 300, according to an independent UN human rights commission report. The campaign, determined investigators, was ordered by Moscow for the purpose of systematically terrorizing the population, amounting to "murder as a crime against humanity". At  first Ukraine took to jamming -- flooding the drone frequencies with empty radio noise, which worked for a while.  Until Russia equipped the drones with fibre-optic filament.

 

These hair-thin tethers unspool in flight for 19 kilometres; with small payloads even further, as they carry video to the operator who commands the drone in return. Equipped with these filaments that bypass radio signals, the drones could no longer be jammed. It was  found that if someone knowledgeable, like a soldier, could grasp a filament it could be snapped through a combination of loops and pinches. Someone in the right place at the right time who could muster the speed required to pull off that simple solution could save another person's life, as the drone, the integrity of the fibre-optic threat broken, could no longer relay video and messages back to the operator. 

"The Russian drones are said to “zero in on vulnerable, everyday locations: crowded markets, petrol stations, cafes, post offices, and humanitarian aid centers.” Some days, the drones target ambulances, police officers, nurses, doctors, and garbage collectors. "

"However, most days, the drones “hunt and wound or kill commuters on their way to work, or target pensioners eking out survival in the winter cold.” The drones also scatter butterfly anti-personnel mines “along streets, courtyards, playgrounds and public squares.” These small, camouflaged mines are hard to see, easily blending in with leaves and brush, and have led to a rise in foot amputations."

"The attacks have become so prevalent that civilians are unable to leave their houses during the day unless there is heavy rain or overcast conditions that prevent the drones from flying or decrease their accuracy. When they do venture out, many residents carry radio frequency drone detectors [devices designed to detect the radio frequencies used to control drones] and only travel after dark. "

Articles of War  

Articles of War