"[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 

 

"They [Jews] have no problem in lining the pockets of the politicians. They don't need the politicians to believe in their causes. They just need to line their pockets so the politicians will ... advocate for them. And that's what I need you to think about."

"The Zionist lobby does this amazingly well."

Navaid Aziz, director, religious and social services, Islamic Information Society of Calgary 

 

"[Your friends] will either help [you] in life or encourage [you] to go down a path that is wrong and bad for [you] and there will be a point in time where our friends need to stop us from committing haram [sins and help [you] turn to Allah instead]."

"Your friends should be people who, when you look at them they remind you of Allah."

"Sometimes you find a brother who says, 'This is my girlfriend;. OK, that's weird, right. But we live in a society where yes, young brothers and sisters are going to school, going to university, and they have friends, and those friends get a lot closer to them and they become boyfriend and girlfriend, and that we know in Islam is not permissible, right?"

"I encourage youth, and adults as well, to respect the institutions of marriage and its sanctity."

Daod Butt, director of community outreach and education, Islamic Community Centre, Milton, Ontario 

 

"[Rules in western societies come from human legislators instead of Allah. Muslim youth have been] brainwashed [ by the western paradigm]."

"The reason why some individuals start thinking this way [to stand with the LGBT community is] because they have already been brainwashed by this western paradigm, and they are  trying to compare it with the Islamic paradigm, which they have no idea what it is."

"We should not go and join them [and should instead ] de-secularize."

Yasir Nadeem al Wajidi, founder, president, private K12 Islamic school, Illinois  

Segregated seating at the LIT Convention, Laval, QC, July 26, 2026. Photo by Postmedia

 

On July 26 in Quebec, the Montreal suburb of Laval hosted an Islamic convention titled "LIT", at the Embassy Plaza. At the website for the conference it was stated the convention's target audience was youth between the ages of 15 to 30. The purpose of 'Montreal's largest Islamic convention', was to "unify the Muslims", it further explained. That unification was scaffolded on lectures directing Muslim youth to detach themselves from mainstream non-Muslim society in every conceivable way. From understanding that Western societal mores and values were not those of Islam. 

 

The Qibla Foundation was the title sponsor of this event. A grant of over $20,000 was recently given it from the federal government. The event hall was duly reflective of Islamic values to the point of initial delivery when women and men were segregated in their seating accommodation -- with women on one side and their male counterparts on the other -- a curtain discreetly separating them physically. 

 

Speeches were delivered by eleven Islamic worthies for the one-day conference. Three in particular came right to the point. Navaid Aziz began his address by noting how pleased he was to see Halal food featured and available everywhere, although Quebec's laicite laws were "very, very disheartening". That regrettably, despite the robust and growing number of Muslims in the province, Muslims in Quebec "are still unable to protect" themselves. 

 

Sharia Portfolio document which was made available to attendees at the LIT convention in Laval, QC, on July, 26, 2026. Postmedia

 

Political aspirations among Muslim youth are commendable, noted Mr. Aziz but "there's a ceiling that Muslims will reach in the political sphere" which would inevitably lead to a situation where "eventually you will have to compromise on your beliefs". Muslims, he went on, should seek to amass wealth to enable the process of influencing politics; in that sense emulating the "Zionist lobby". A "circular economy", he went on, where Muslims patronize their own community is paramount to create wealth.

 

After all, he commented, for every dollar that Jews spend, 92 to 97 cents remain within the Jewish community. "At a time of rising Islamophobia, Canadian Muslims, like all Canadians, should consider buying Canadian first, and should also support businesses owned by disenfranchised communities", he later clarified when questioned by a skeptical journalist. When asked to explain his assertion about Jewish spending confined to Jewish-owned businesses, there was a flat response.

 

As for the speech delivered by Mr. Butt, the audience was warned that lifestyles and habits of their closest friends would invariably transfer to them; the solution to which would be to confine friendships to members of their own faith. Pressed by that same journalist (Terry Newman, National Post), his response was more equivocal: "I urge Canadians and especially young people to reflect on their friends, and whether their friends, both Muslim and non-Muslim, help them improve as ethical beings or are bad company that take them away from being the highest versions of themselves."

 

Speaker Yasir Nadeem al Wajidi argued that if  youth were struggling to change the framework in a country to an Islamic one, they would be viewed as terrorists, rather than political activists. Western man-made laws, it was emphasized to the Muslim youth attending the convention, are immoral. They would do best to operate in economic and social spheres that would minimize interactions with others among Canadian society, should they become interested in amassing wealth to exert political influence. 

 

Barakah.com promotional material available at LIT convention in Laval, QC, on July 26, 2026.

 

The 'Unnoticed' Presence of Islamist Terror Groups in Canada

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

"Those allegations [accusations of paramilitary group Kata'ib Hezbollah linked to the IRGC] include two attacks here in Canada; the March 10 shooting at the United States consulate in Toronto and an attack against a Canadian synagogue."

"He [Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi] also allegedly said he was running multiple teams and sought help carrying out further attacks against Jewish and other targets in Canada and the United States." 

"There is no justification for the delay [in placing the group with Canada's terrorist list]."

"Jewish Canadians have watched their synagogues, schools and businesses targeted by shootings, vandalism, firebombings and threats."

"Iranian Canadians who escaped the brutality of the Islamic Republic have faced surveillance, harassment and intimidation from the same regime on Canadian soil." 

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, Parliamentary opposition

Counter-rally against the Al-Quds day event in Toronto  The Hub

 

The Liberal government of Canada -- under both prime ministers Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney -- has failed to stem the duress under which Canadian Jews have found themselves over the past three years, assailed verbally and physically, threatened and slandered by 'pro-Palestinian' groups in Canadian society led by Palestinian student groups supported by the Islamic Republic of Iran and funded by Qatar. Led by the fundamentalist Islamist focus on jihad. This is a jihad that penetrates Western society through sanctimoniously disingenuous diplomacy that government cannot see through, and the violent jihad of the terrorist battlefield. 

 

While moderate Islamic governments in the Middle East recognize the Muslim Brotherhood and its many offshoots and associates for the threat they represent not only to the West but to their own governance and security, and have taken steps to outlaw it, the West is amenable to its presence, its infiltration through ingratiating itself as a reasonable, moderate representative of Islam to be respected and heeded as a portal to understanding and welcoming the presence of inordinate numbers of Muslims through immigration, refugee intake and migrant presence. 

 

The little-recognized presence of terrorist groups within Western society working to undermine democracy and to silence critics and opponents present the other side of penetrative jihad. These groups, like the members of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps whose presence in Canada affront and concern Canadian Iranians who fled their brutal dictatorial rule in Iran, operate with impunity, with little-to-no 'notice' taken of the menace they represent, by Canada's Liberal government.

 

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pointed out to Canada's Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree through a letter, that American authorities arrested Mohammad Baqer Saad Daewood Al-Saadi, senior commander of Kata'ib Hezbollah, accused of coordinating dozens of attempted and completed terrorist attacks in Europe and North America. 

 

Founded in 2007, Kata'ib Hezbollah, according to the office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, has some 7,000 to 10,000 members. They operate primarily in Iraq with a purported presence in Bahrain, Iran, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia. They were listed in 2009 as a terrorist organization by the U.S. State Department. Mr. Poilievre asked the Minister of Safety to investigate whether operatives for the group have established networks in Canada. To further investigate linkages between Iranian terrorist proxies and organized crime. 

 

Further, that it be disclosed the number of operatives connected to the Iranian regime and its proxies that have been identified, denied entry, investigated, detained or removed from Canada. Previously Minister Anandasangaree, pressed by the opposition why the government had deported only one Iranian official from among the dozens known to be present in Canada, the minister cited a requirement to follow due process, to explain the delay. The reality is that of 24 individuals identified as former IRGC officials, one only has been deported.

 

Iran-Inspired Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto    The Hub

 

The Liberals have failed to enforce Canada’s terrorist laws with the urgency and strength Canadians expect. Parliament did not list terrorist entities merely to put their names on a government website. Canadians expect their laws to be enforced to the fullest extent: terrorist assets frozen and seized, financing networks dismantled, and operatives stopped at the border or removed from the country. Yet Canadians have seen little evidence of serious enforcement against the IRGC and other listed terrorist groups threatening our people, our communities and our national interests. A terrorist listing is only as strong as the action that follows it.

Jewish Canadians have watched their synagogues, schools and businesses targeted by shootings, vandalism, firebombings and threats. Iranian Canadians who escaped the brutality of the Islamic Republic have faced surveillance, harassment and intimidation from the same regime on Canadian soil.

A year-long Global News investigation reported that upwards of 700 Iranian regime-linked associates were operating in Canada and threatening the lives of Canadians. The RCMP subsequently acknowledged receiving reports of foreign interference committed by, or at the direction of, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Canadians deserve to know who these individuals are, how they entered Canada and what your government is doing to remove those who pose a threat.

The IRGC was finally listed as a terrorist entity only after years of pressure from Conservatives. Even now, your government has been unable to tell Canadians how many IRGC operatives have been identified, denied entry or removed from the country.

Listing the parent organization means little if its commanders, proxies, financiers and hired criminals remain free to operate here.

You must therefore:

• Immediately list Kata’ib Hezbollah as a terrorist entity under the Criminal Code;
• Investigate whether its members, operatives, facilitators or financial networks are operating in Canada;
• Disclose how many individuals connected to the Iranian regime and its proxies have been identified, denied entry, investigated, detained or removed;
• Investigate and disclose any known links between Iranian terrorist proxies and organized crime in Canada; and
• Explain what action Canadian authorities are taking in response to the alleged Kata’ib Hezbollah-directed attacks in Toronto.

Canada must be a safe haven for Canadians, not for the terrorists, agents and proxies sent to silence the victims of the Iranian regime.

Canadians must be free to worship without fear of gunfire. Iranian Canadians must be free to oppose the regime without facing its enforcers here at home. All Canadians deserve a government that stops terrorists before they attack rather than making excuses after the damage is done.

Conservative Party of Canada  

Protesters and counter-protesters demonstrate by the U.S. Consulate during a rally for Al-Quds Day in Toronto, on Saturday, March 14, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sammy Kogan

 

"It is already impossible to imagine defence without drones, and the same applies to UGVs [unmanned ground vehicles]."

"Logistics on the front line, evacuation of the wounded, combat missions -- the use of UGVs is now expanding at the fastest pace."

"The future is already on the front lines and Ukraine is creating it."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

 

"At least 25 kilometres from the line of contact is effectively a 'kill zone', where the risks of casualties are extremely high due to the density of drones."

"So replacing human involvement with drones significantly reduces losses."

"[Some of these Unmanned Systems Forces are used in the delivery of mines or to conduct] kamikaze [attacks]." 

Robert Brovdi, commander, Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces

 

"Replacing the infantryman is totally impossible."

"We are talking about helping the infantryman."

Taras Ostapchuk, CEO, Ratel Robotics 

The Droid TW 12.7, by DevDroid, is shown here outfitted with a 0.50-caliber M2 Browning machine gun that can be aimed and fired by a remote operator using a tablet and an encrypted communications link.  DevDroid

 

In the early years of the conflict imposed on Ukraine by the full invasion of the country by Russian forces it was tank formations and large-scale troop movements, the conventional mechanisms in the pursuit of offensive dominance and defensive responses that typified the war. Now approaching the second-half of its fourth year, not taking into account Russia's military annexation of the Crimean peninsula, the eastern and southern front line is at a stalemate, monitored by drones set to strike moving targets. 

 

Ukraine's surprise counteroffensive took Russia's Vladimir Putin off guard; despite its much smaller population, military, arms, and economy. Ukraine stopped the Russian military dead in its tracks, even recovering some of its territory. Ukraine steadily advanced from desperately attempting to down Russian missiles and drones to protect its civilian infrastructure targeted by Moscow, to striking back across the border into Russia, first hitting only border targets then moving on to strike as far as Moscow and beyond.

 

Now, Ukrainian infantry units are using robot vehicles on combat missions as Ukraine has out-innovated Russia. The asymmetric technological approach with the use of drones and robots is Ukraine's winning ticket to defeating the Russian military. Like Mykhailo Fedorov the Ukrainian Defence Minister recently removed, Ukraine's new Commander-in-Chief Mykhailo Drapatryi advocates leveraging drone and robotics know-how for advantage on the battlefield. 

 

Recently a battle robot armed with a flame thrower approached a group of Russian assault troops planning to challenge Ukrainian defences on a section of the eastern Donetsk front lines. The robot turned the area where the Russians were positioned near a tree line to into a flaming cauldron, followed up by a machine gun crew to clean up the surviving attackers. A new battlefield technique employed by Ukraine's 93rd Separate Mechanized Brigade.

 

A heavy lift drone (top circle) transporting a ground robot (bottom circle) in a combat operation  Russian MoD via X

 

That robot represents an expanding Ukrainian corps of unmanned ground vehicles equipped with such offensive devices as rifles, to rocket-propelled grenade launchers. At least 50,000 of these UGVs are set to be produced for the battlefield to reinforce human troops tasked to confront Russian servicemen. A remote-controlled combat robot was landed using an unmanned naval drone reaching the shore 11 kilometres away at the occupied Kinburn Spit in southern Ukraine. 

 

The  ground robot, a Wolly 7.62, carried an ammunition-loaded machine gun firing on Russian troop positions, who were forced to pull back, then self-destructed.

 

The $11,000 robot was made use of by the 123rd Separate Territorial Defence Brigade with four Ukrainian operators conducting the assault. "We are already fighting with drones in many areas, and we are very polite to our robots in advance", laughingly explained a solder with the call sign "House Goblin" archly referring to the Terminator movie series. According to Ukrainian officials, unmanned systems help manage the manpower gap with Russia, freeing up soldiers, saving lives on tasks with dangerous logistics in supporting front-line troops and evacuating the wounded. 

 

While Ukraine's wish to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization remains endlessly deferred, NATO members are eager to learn from Ukraine's tactical innovations with the use of its advanced technology in the production of drones and robots. Some European states have signed defence production partnerships with Ukraine as Kyiv strives to become central to the security structures of the continent. 

 

Zysko Sergii/Shutterstock

 

"Absolutely incredible,  [Ukraine] fully integrates every single drone every sensor, and every shooting platform into just one single network", the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee was advised by U.S. army secretary Dan Driscoll. "Ours does not." Ukraine has signed drone deals with countries as disparate as Saudi Arabia and the Netherlands, with an increasing number of partnerships being floated, including with the United States.  

"They accomplished something never done in warfare."

"They pushed Russians off a position that was being defended by humans and they pushed them off the position with no humans in the fight."

Former U.S. army vice-chief of staff Jack Keane  

RoverTech’s Zmiy uncrewed ground vehicle moved through a forest during a demonstration. RoverTech  

"[A deal to bring peace to Gaza represents a] great breakthrough [despite signs from both Hamas and Israel that significant hurdles remained before a deal can be implemented]."

"It's a big step for the Middle East, and people are really impressed by it, and they're surprised by it."  

"[Israel is] very happy [about the deal]."

"Israel helped us, and they've been very good."

"Will it go through its ups and downs? It's a very complex situation over there."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

 

"Israel has conveyed its comments and concerns on the proposed framework to our American counterparts."

"The version that has been made public does not reflect Israel's positions."

Doron Spielman, spokesman, office of Israeli Prime Minister 

President Donald Trump gestures during a family photo during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, as Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani watch. In back are the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmad Al Sabah, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Netherland’s Prime Minister Dick Schoof (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

 

"[Hamas will not change its mentality and] resisting the occupation is its holy mission."

"This is an exceptional phase in Palestinian history. Because of forced necessity, the hard circumstances in Gaza, we accept this agreement."

"But I think that as Hamas, I can confirm that we didn't change our mentality, our goal to end the occupation, to continue to end the occupation with the Palestinian factions, because this is our holy mission."

Hamas's Ghazi Hamad 

Ghazi Hamad, member of Hamas Political Office, speaks during a protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 29, 2023; illustrative. (credit: REUTERS/AMR ALFIKY)

 

U.S. President Donald Trump may make his triumphant 'peace' statements to burnish his efforts to be recognized as a global peacemaker, in the process leaving the most affected party to continue to cope with the fallout, but that doesn't mean that the nation whose existential future is impacted by such decisions must accept them. And Israel did not, voicing its objections over the plan promoted by Mr. Trump to bring an end to the Gaza war. 

 

Demanding "verifiable" disarmament by the terrorist group Hamas, which had declared for Western consumption that it was prepared to surrender its weapons under a plan supported by the American president, to a Palestinian governing committee yet to be established, Israel knows what the U.S. president prefers not to acknowledge. Any seeming cooperation on the part of Hamas to appear to be on board with that peace plan simply buys it more time to get on with its goal.

 

That time fruitfully used in restoring what it has lost, post October 7, 2023; weaponry, territory, trust of Palestinians in Gaza, and Hamas operatives lost to the Israel Defense Forces huntdown of Hamas members, hiding behind the civilian population in Gaza. The latest document the Board of Peace released calling for Israel to cease its military operations "without delay", for "phased withdrawal" from Gaza is a losing proposition.

 

In control of 60 percent of Gaza, Israel "will not retreat" -- stated an Israeli politician -- from its position in the Gaza Strip. Which essentially protects Israeli citizens --from a repeat of October 7, promised time and again by members of the Hamas politboro. Yet the Board of Peace insists: "We have provided a pragmatic path forward to transform Gaza by removing Hamas from power and seeing it hand over its weapons" said one of the Board's officials. The plan is meant to result in "improvement of life in Gaza and enhancement of security in Israel".

 

The 20-point plan focused on ending Hamas rule along with its stockpile of weapons to be replaced with a Palestinian government and police to enable reconstruction and reconciliation with Israel. Reconciliation means what...a recognition of Israel's right to exist, a fundamental issue the Palestinian Authority has never agreed to? 

 

Hamas to shed its heavy weaponry as part of a bridging proposal reviving the peace process following months of mediated negotiations in Cairo. Heavy weaponry...rockets and other violent propulsion systems, but arms so beloved by the Hamas rank-and-file, an issue set aside for the present... Pointing out that actions by Hamas since both signed that plan, signify unmistakably that preparations for "further October 7-type massacres", went nowhere.

 

Hamas has agreed to a disarmament plan, according to the Gaza Board of Peace, but only if Israel withdraws from the territory. Former Canadian ambassador to Israel Jon Allen is 'highly skeptical' about the deal announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, saying the president has made many promises, but significant controversy remains over the outcome.  CBC News

 

 

The Canadian Museum for Human Rights has unveiled a controversial exhibit on the Nakba, the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Still from video, CBC

 

"My dad [Izzie Asper] always said the most important asset you have is  your reputation."

"I think that this exhibit [Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present] is going to have a lot of people lose faith in the museum's trustworthiness for being an honest purveyor of accurate historical and current-day information."

"[The museum piece] deliberately omits key, relevant facts about the conflict [that are crucial to understanding its full context]."

"It's inaccurate, and in my opinion shows bias on the part of the curators of the museum, and is not at the level of scholarship befitting a federal institution." 

Gail Asper founder, Canadian Human Rights Museum in Winnipeg 

Photo: CMHR, Aaron Cohen

 

"The story of the Nakba is a complex one. It's not reduced to a quick little sound bite. There's a lot of nuance with it, there's a lot of history that preceded it and a lot of history that developed over the years of the Nakba."

"Hamas terrorists launched the greatest large-scale massacre against Jewish civilians since World War II, where over 1,150 or so Jewish babies and children and mothers and young people were brutally murdered in the most horrific fashion."

"The failure to describe that horror, and then simply say, Oh, ya, these people were displaced', is an error in judgment."

Mark Berlin, former CMHR board member

 

"The frame, or the scope, of the exhibit is to centre Palestinian experiences of forced displacement. So it's told through their stories, through their lens, and that's an approach the museum takes in a variety of other places."

"Every word in the exhibit is backed up by credible research. We had our research sources academically reviewed internally, and then we took an additional step to have them reviewed externally." 

CMHR chief Executive Isha Khan

A multimedia gallery on the museum's second floor that introduces visitors to a timeline of human rights acknowledges 'hundreds of thousands of people became refugees' in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, including Palestinian Arabs and Jews from surrounding Arab countries. (Tyson Koschik/CBC)

 

The Canadian Human Rights Museum, established in Winnipeg, was the brainchild of Israel (Izzie) Asper, former Canadian media magnate. The initial $24 million required to move the idea of the museum to its actual presence was donated by the Asper Foundation. There was also a public subscription, and later financial support from the federal government. From conception in 2003 to opening in 2014, the museum set out to inform the public of human rights and the world's most egregious assaults against human rights. There were ten permanent exhibits when the museum opened, the Holocaust among them.

 

Most recently the seven-story museum has mounted a Nakba exhibit that includes a collection of photos, video testimonies family heirlooms and artworks to portray the experience of Palestinian Arabs who fled conflict in the area. Keys to Palestinian homes that had been left are among the exhibits. Beginning at the Arab-Israeli war in 1948 when Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan and Syria attacked the fledgling Jewish state to destroy it in response to the Partition Plan offered by the United Nations empowering Jews to return to their ancestral home, 750,000 Palestinian Arabs fled.

 

Most left on the promise by the invading Arab armies that when Israel was destroyed they could return to claim the entire territory; others fled to escape the incipient war situation while others still were forced to leave as enemies of the new state. Over a million Palestinians chose to remain, where there are now 2 million Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. Concurrently with the re-establishment of the Jewish state, surrounding Arab countries forcefully expelled their Jewish residents who had lived there since antiquity, confiscating their properties. 850,000 Jews found themselves homeless, more than balancing the number of Palestinian Arabs who became refugees through an event they named their Nakba (catastrophe).

 

The exhibit makes no mention of the expulsion of 850,000 Jews from the very Arab countries that went to war on Israel, amidst others. In this mass displacement, the Jews found homes for themselves in Israel or elsewhere in the greater diaspora. The Palestinians who settled in refugee camps in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon were there ostensibly on a temporary basis; none of the neighbouring Arab/Muslim countries offered them permanent status, much less citizenship.

Palestine Uprooted at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights Photo: Annie Kierans. Courtesy the Canadian Museum for Human Rights

 

And while there is mention of the infamous October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel led by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, joined by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Fatah alongside the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, along with ordinary Palestinian/Gaza citizens, it fails to identify the victims of that mass atrocity as Jews, only as 'people'. That 'people', the Jews and their country, Israel, responded to that horrific event as any other country would do to protect its own, by invading the area responsible -- Gaza -- in search of the murderous terrorists.

 

That time and place in more recent history was included as illustrative of ongoing Palestinian suffering at the hands of Israel's military 'occupation'. It is disingenuous for the chief executive of the museum to declare that there was academic scholarship involved in the setting up of this one-sided, dreadfully canted exhibition in its obvious obfuscation of cause-and-effect, showcasing Palestinian victimhood by a heartless, 'genocidal' neighbour.   

"I think that the board clearly didn't understand the risks of doing inaccurate exhibits on volatile subjects."

"They didn't understand the impact it could have on their reputation, or they were indifferent, or they were too deferential to management."

Gail Asper 

Protesters gathered outside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights on June 26 to protest the Nakba exhibit. (Rudi Pawlychyn/CBC)

 

"Among the several commitments Canada has made to Qatar in the hopes of convincing the Gulf autocracy's ruling Al Thani family to double down on its energy investments in Canada is a June 25 memorandum of understanding between Canada's Public Safety ministry and Qatar's Internal Security Force. It's also under wraps, like the RCMP agreement with Beijing's Public Security ministry."

"The deal is supposed to extend Canada's co-operation on a variety of law enforcement portfolios, including money laundering, financial crime and terrorism."

"This will be unavoidably awkward, owing to the Al Thani family's conviction that the terrorist front Hamas, the Palestinian offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, is merely a national liberation movement."

"Qatar is already notorious in Canada's national security circles for the hundreds of millions of dollars it lavishes on the Muslim Brotherhood and its Canadian fronts and affiliates."

Terry Glavin, journalist, National Post  

Carney is greeted by Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani as he arrives to Amiri Diwan in Doha, Qatar. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

 

Canada is at an impasse in attempting to deal with mercurial U.S. President Donald Trump, wedded to the big stick he wields with wild abandon, striking friend and foe alike with threatening tariffs geared to make them tremble in trepidation over the suddenly-wobbly state of their economy. The entire world economy is shaken to its foundations when America suddenly becomes unreliable, both in its trade and commerce cooperation with allies and competitors alike, ditching diplomacy for belligerence in expressions of bad faith and contempt toward other nations.

 

"I like this guy!" CBC

 

Trade dependency on a geographic neighbour may make common sense when one country is viewed as the junior, valued for its abundance of natural resources, prepared to continue its trade relationship with the other whose appetite for energy and mineral extraction is boundless. The exchange of raw resources with finished products has always been reflected in the trade relationship. Advanced to the junior partner in later decades through the sharing of production to the benefit of both. 

 

Canada's standard of living reliant on the good graces of its neighbour, received a shock when that neighbour suddenly began growling and grumbling about being taken for granted, insufficiently adored for its generosity, and become fed up with being milked in unfair trade practises. And the trade deficit!!!Then the junior reeled back in dismay at the very pronouncements of a trade-enforced geographic-sovereign-lost-merger, genially imposed by its powerful neighbour. 

 

Trade-diversion and -diversity imposed becoming the order of the day, the month, the year, stretching into infinity. Pierre Elliott Trudeau back in the distant past embarked on a similar adventure, but it somehow never progressed to the point of being. Canada's new foreign-policy trade agreements under current prime minister Mark Carney, a self-professed economic genius, now has his turn. Jean Chretien in his day made frequent exploratory-trade visits to China with a full regalia of government ministers and corporate elites in tow.

 

Prime Minister Mark Carney and Diana Fox Carney disembark a government plane in Ankara, Turkey, Tuesday, July 7, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

 

In a year-and-a-half, Mr. Carney and his ministers have gone to 29 foreign capitals to drum up trade agreements with countries Canada has much in common with; Liberal democracies, and unsavoury others as well. He launched a "new world order" partnership with China, opening Canadian manufacturing and vehicle production in particular, to the trade-predatory Chinese Communist Party in Beijing. Taking no notice at the same time of China's human rights record on Tibet and Xinjiang.

 

China's predation is right out there in plain sight; countries that have imported cheaply-produced Chinese products valued by global consumers for their low prices have seen their own industries eviscerated,  unable to complete with the low wages and CCP subsidies to make Chinese goods preferable to their own. Europe's vast trade deficit with China was exemplified by the president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China commenting on the situation comparing it to a "400-metre-long giant container ship loaded with 24,000 containers going to Europe, and coming back almost empty". 

 

Mark Carney — pictured with Chinese President Xi Jinping — reached a 'landmark' trade deal with China. (Sean Kilpatrick/Reuters)

 

Volkswagen's plans to rescue its Osnabruck plant along with 2,300 jobs y converting to production of components for Israel's Iron Dome defence system met a roadblock when Qatar objected, since the Qatari sovereign wealth fund purchased 10.4 percent of Volkswagen shares and 17 percent of its voting rights. Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey is another potential trade partner for Canada under Mr. Carney's wide-ranging plans of rescue from the American trade orbit. 

 

Turkey's Erdogan is committed to the reestablishment of a Global Caliphate. Achieved perhaps, in a trifle more sophisticated way -- without the beheadings and crucifixions seen exercised by the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, but equally devoted to its inevitability, with the considerable assistance of the Muslim Brotherhood globally, and regionally the MB offshoot, Hamas in Gaza. Only two weeks earlier Mr. Carney announced Ottawa's negotiations with Ankara toward a free trade agreement.   

"Last year, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy [ISGAP] published an in-depth study of the reach of Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood in Canada, recommending that Canada's intelligence agencies keep much closer tabs on Qatar's promotion of extremist ideology and support for extremist organizations in Canada:

"'It is imperative to assess their level of penetration, areas of influence, and long-term goals in order to effectively manage the risks posed to Canada' [ISGAP]."

Terry Glavin  

Another opportunity for Canada's Liberal Carney government arose with discussions on a free trade agreement with the 11-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc of which Myanmar is a member, albeit a police state. Myanmar is listed among three other countries -- Iran and North Korea -- on the Paris-based Financial Action Task Force. Details, inconvenient details, so inconsequential, no need to bother with them. 

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan gifted Prime Minister Mark Carney and other NATO leaders a custom revolver with each recipient's name engraved on the barrel during the alliance's summit in Ankara, Turkey. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

 

"So it's all well and good for Canada to be looking for deep-pocketed police state investors and maybe even some customers beyond the United States, at least for now."

"But the lasting damage to Canada's national security, diplomatic sovereignty, moral conscience, democratic alliances and international reputation might also be taken into account from time to time."

Terry Glavin, journalist extraordinaire, National Post 

"[The deal] took months of very difficult negotiations."

"What happens next maters even more. Implementation and verification have to be real."

"Withdrawal must move in lockstep with decommissioning."

Nikolay Mladenov, Board of Peace high representative for Gaza

 

"[The movement -- Gaza -- was making] concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip."

"Israel will not intervene in the issue of disarmament. The National Committee [National Committee for Administration of Gaza (NCAG)] is the body that will undertake this task." 

Ghazi Hamad, member Hamas negotiating team 

 

"The only good news in recent days is the announcement by the U.S. president of an agreement for Hamas to relinquish their weapons and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza."

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres 

Palestinian Hamas terrorists keep guard on the day Hamas hands over deceased hostages, identified at the time by Palestinian militant groups as Oded Lifschitz, Shiri Bibas and her two children Kfir and Ariel Bibas, seized during the deadly October 7, 2023 attack, to the Red Cross, as part of a ceasefire and hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip February 20, 2025. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo

 

Western news media have published the story that Gaza's terrorist-governing Hamas -- an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood whose radical Islamist program of enduring jihad by polished 'public relations' that appeal to the Western press, and liberal-minded Western governments have given them entre to Democratic-liberal countries failing to recognition the stealth infiltration-by-diplomacy and the threat it ultimately poses to their foundational cultures and values and systems of justice, also by extension give credence to Palestinian terrorism as a 'liberating' force from 'occupation' -- is prepared to surrender its arms. 

 

Hamas is the other face of the Muslim Brotherhood, the one dedicated to a different type of jihad, through violent force necessitated by the intent to produce mass murder.

 

That mass murder took place once again on a scale significant enough to persuade Israel that this time around there would be no negotiations with the terrorist entity for a break in hostilities. Each of those breaks between mass assaults on Jews in Israel had Israel breathe a sigh of relief in the belief that the fury of hate would be healed by the passage of time, while Hamas took those breaks as a traditional Islamist 'hudna', an opportunity to recruit, retrain, rearm, and return to the attack. 

 

That would be repeated time and again, between assaults-and-defence. The reality that the Hamas reason for existence is the elimination of Israel is one that human decency, where it exists, fails to fully grasp.

 

The Conversation

 

The Hamas charter is a pledge to eliminate Israel from its ancestral geographical heritage, as Judeans indigenous to only part of the land that the renewed state of Israel sits upon. In a fit of generosity, the UN General Assembly reached a consensus in 1947 to offer its Partition Plan, giving Jews the opportunity to establish their state on a tiny portion of its original territory -- and Palestinian Arabs a like opportunity on another portion of Judean heritage land, while Jordan occupied a major portion. While Israel reestablished its ancient presence in 1948, the Palestinians refused the offer. 

 

They have refused to recognize Israel's right of existence ever since. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have never resulted in that recognition, nor in the Palestinians accepting concessions from Israel for an agreement that would satisfy the aspirations of both in enabling the establishment of a Palestinian state next door to Israel's. Palestinians have been taught over the decades closing in on 80 years that the entire region belongs to them and that Israel's reestablishment is that of a colonial enterprise. That Israel must be destroyed, leaving Palestinians to claim 'their' geographical entitlement 'from the river to the sea'.

 

When Ghazi Hamad, negotiating for Hamas, speaks of "concessions for the sake of our people in the Gaza Strip", it is meant to appeal to the gullibility of a Western audience, the very liberal-left Westerners who ascribe an empathetic motivation for Palestinian violence against Jews, as a victimized people -- a designation cultivated by Palestinians to gather empathy for their 'cause' -- fighting back against their oppressors. The oppressors being in reality Jews who fight back to ensure their existential security against neighbours dedicated to their extermination.  

 

Two Palestinian youth react to the news of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas from Khan Younis. Ramadan Abed/Reuters

 

Hamas doesn't care one whit for the well-being and safety of Palestinians in Gaza, proven time and again their use as living shields, the outcome of which is Palestinian civilians dying, directly caused by Hamas deadly provocations against Israel; the greater the number of dead, the more emphatic those numbers become in seeking the sympathy of the international community, attributing those deaths solely to Israeli intentionality, not Hamas contrivance.

 

Hamas has no intention of surrendering its weapons, precious to them as the instruments enabling them to carry out their charter obligations in destroying Israel. Hamas demands the complete withdrawal of all Israeli troops before it will agree to finalize the surrender of its weapons. Without those weapons there would be no Hamas, completely emasculated of actionable intent. In that portion of Gaza where Hamas maintains its monopoly of complete control, it has reestablished itself as the sole authority, having overcome the resistance of Hamas tribal groups that had attempted to dislodge it from its primacy.

 

An Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza at this juncture would ultimately reward Hamas for its October 7 mass slaughter of Israeli civilians, with the assistance of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and ordinary Palestinian civilians for their ravaging of southern Israel kibbutsim, the mass rapes of Israeli girls and women at the Noma Music Festival for Peace, and the hostage-taking of Jewish children, the elderly and infirm, entire families, women and men of the Israeli military and foreign farm workers.  

 

The October 7 War    International Affairs