"It's been 21 years since I attended the first 'Israeli Apartheid Week' at the University of Toronto. Since then, I have been on the front lines witnessing countless demonstrations, anti-Israel speakers and even the now infamous 'boycott, divestment and sanctions' campaigns promulgating hate against the Jewish state and Jewish students. The situation has only gotten worse for our children."

"Who would have thought that the Palestinian flag would make an acceptable appearance at some graduation ceremonies this past spring?"

"The consequences of these sobering statistics are transforming how Jewish students live and learn as they and their parents worry for their safety, given the report's finding that 22 percent have experienced some sort of physical violence."

Avi Abraham Benlolo, CEO, The Abraham Global Peace Initiative 

Arab Israelis make up: 22% of Israel's population   David Jacobs, X

 

Jewish-Canadian students are preparing to return to their university studies for the 2026 school year. The past three years, since October 7, 2023, academic attendance has taught Jewish students, all the way from elementary school, up to high school and post-secondary institutions that they are very special indeed. They are the only minority group in Canada that has been exposed to raw hate, from their teachers, through an altered curriculum, and from their non-Jewish classmates. School trustees rather than focus on academic performance and excellence in the role of schools in teaching a new Canadian generation have been involved in identity politics. School administrations wanly reject antisemitism, but not without pairing it with 'Islamophobia'.

 

What no one seems to want to mention is that these waves of torrid hate toward Jews long kept under wraps within the civilized society Canada once prided itself on being, has been unleashed by Palestinian students with support from the larger Canadian Muslim population involved in the slander of Israel and the none-too-subtle harassment of Canada's Jewish population, with an especial focus on the most vulnerable; the children of Canada's Jewish community. A community dwarfed in size by the presence of a much larger Muslim population which over the last decade has grown enormously through immigration, refugee intake and acceptance of illegal migrants. 

 

For three years and counting, Jewish students and Jewish faculty members of universities across Canada have had to cope with campus encampments dedicated to validating, supporting and mounting campaigns addressed to maligning, belittling, isolating the presence of Jews on campus as dread and unforgivable 'Zionists' who support the right of Jews to favour and defend the Jewish homeland of Israel, the Jewish state reborn on its ancient ancestral geographic footprint in the Middle East. 

 

A sign is seen urging the university's pension plan to divest from companies that do business with Israel, at the encampment set up at the University of Toronto in May 2024. Photo by Jesse Kline/National Post

• A professor wrote that we need to kill all Zionists, that she had worked with them and saw how evil they were.
• I was told by a professor, in class, in the middle of the lecture, that Jews belong in Poland and need to go back.
• I faced extreme pressure from other student organizations to release a statement against Zionism in my position as president of the (redacted) student union, and had my name placed on a list circulating on and off campus as a 'known Zionist'.
• Professor assigned us to listen to a podcast that discussed how Zionism was similar to Nazism, which was  unrelated to the course.
• I was harassed online ... She went as far as spamming my art page for five days straight, sending me radical reels, calling my elderly family 'killers'.
• Residents at my on-campus residence started rumours about me that I am a child killer, white supremacist, racist, and Zionist, all because these people found out that I was Jewish.
• Jews were described as greedy for money in a lecture.
• In a course that had nothing to do with Israel, my professor spent three weeks talking about Gaza and the creation of the State of Israel. He never mentioned the Holocaust as a precursor to its founding, repeatedly calling the state a 'Zionist political project'.
• When discussing characters in a book, my professor described one character by saying that 'based on his last name, he is clearly Jewish and probably has a hooked nose'.
• Working in my labs, I have had people refuse to work with me due to my Jewish identity and purposely try to mess up my data.
• Several faculty members in my program minimized the Holocaust or used it to condemn the Israeli response immediately after October 7.
• Shortly after October 7, I told my PhD supervisor that I did not feel safe on campus and she replied: 'Well, you should see the other side'.
• A member of my anti-racism research lab at the university minimized the impact of the Holocaust while the other lab members remained silent. For example, she said: 'The Holocaust was not the first time gas chambers were used. They were first used against Indigenous peoples in Canada.' When I raised this with my research supervisor, now tenured, her reaction was to protect the student responsible. For example, she said: 'What happens in the lab stays in the lab'.

National Post Staff 

"Over the past few weeks, CAUT has become aware of a number of disturbing cases in which university administrations have limited or suppressed debate on controversial issues. Whether it is banning posters or noisy demonstrations, we believe such heavy-handed actions constitute a clear threat to the purpose of post-secondary education."
"Not surprisingly, the failures involve bitterly contentious issues. One is Middle East politics. Last month Carleton University and the University of Ottawa banned a student organization poster for Israeli Apartheid Week because the universities felt it too provocative. The poster, by noted political cartoonist Carlos Latuff, shows a stylized Israeli warplane firing a missile at a child holding a teddy bear and standing on ground emblazoned with the word “Gaza.” York University has gone even farther, invoking a noise policy to justify handing club suspensions and fines to student organizations that held counter-protests for and against Israeli government policies."
"In invoking the need to be “respectful” and “civil” and to avoid “provo­cation,” too many universities are suppres­sing free speech and freedom of expression. Some universities are even stretching to invoke hu­man rights’ codes to justify suppression when these codes typically address the right to be free from discrimination in employment and in access to services and accommodations and are not meant to silence cam­pus discussion and debate."
"Our institutions must remember the integrity of their central mission, which is so aptly described in the University of Toronto’s statement of institutional purpose: that “within the unique university context, the most crucial of all human rights are the rights of freedom of speech, academic freedom and freedom of research,” and affirms that “these rights are meaningless unless they entail the right to raise deeply disturbing questions and provocative challenges to the cherished beliefs of society at large and of the university itself.”"
"The statement concludes: “It is this human right to radical, critical teaching and research with which the University has a duty above all to be concerned; for there is no one else, no other institution and no other office, in our modern liberal democracy, which is the custodian of this most precious and vulnerable right of the liberated human spirit.” "

The Canadian Association of University Teachers 

 

 

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney, third from right, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Pete Hoekstra, U.S. Ambassador to Canada, listen on the sidelines of the G7 Summit, Monday, June 16, 2025, in Kananaskis, Canada. | Mark Schiefelbein/AP

I'm disappointed that I came to Canada — a Canada that it is very, very difficult to find Canadians who are passionate about the American-Canadian relationship."

You ran a campaign where it was anti-American, elbows up, me too. You know, that was an anti-American campaign. That has continued. That's disappointing.

 “This Canadian government, It is so nice of them to put out a national emergency that the U.S. ambassador is again speaking. Watch out!”

“I’ve got suggestions that I think can get it restarted but it’s not going to be easy.” 

“Here, I’ll just get myself in trouble. I go around the country and people will say, ‘Pete, you just don’t understand why we’re so mad about the 51st state.’ Yeah, you’re right. I don’t.”

“I’m sorry. That does not happen in the United States of America. You do not come into America and start running political ads — government-funded political ads — and expect that there will be no consequences or reaction from the United States of America and the Trump administration.”

“As far as we can tell, it has never happened in America before. And if Canada wants to insert itself and create a new precedent that you’re going to participate in our electoral politics through advertising targeting the president of the United States and his policies … I would suggest that you seriously consider whether that is the best way to try to achieve your objectives in the United States of America.”

"Canadians staying home, that's their business, you know. I don't like it, but if that's what they want to do, it's fine. They want to ban American alcohol. That's fine."

"There are reasons why the president and some of his team referred to Canada as being mean and nasty to deal with, OK, because of some of those steps."

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra  

The U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra speaks during an event at the Halifax Chamber of Commerce in Halifax on Sept. 18. (Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press)

 

"I don’t do ‘diplomatic speak’ very well. I think when they listen to what I have to say, they know exactly what my viewpoint is. And they may disagree with it, but at least they understand where I’m coming from and where the United States of America is coming from.”

"It’s not about me, OK. Donald Trump did not tell me to go to Canada and become liked. Matter of fact, I think he would have said ‘If you go to Canada and you’re liked, it probably means that you’re not doing your job.’"

"I’m not running a campaign here for Pete Hoekstra. And I wouldn’t even try to, because the media made up their mind long before I got here about what they were going to say about a Trump ambassador to Canada." 

"That’s fine. You’re a sovereign country. Your defense relationship and stance with the United States, that is a decision you make."

"We’re going to fix the energy issue for the United States of America.We’re open to doing it together. Canada has to decide whether that’s what they want."

U.S. Ambassador to Canada Pete Hoekstra  

U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra walks to a Fourth of July party at Lornado, the residence of the ambassador from the United States, in Ottawa, on July 4, 2025. | Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press via AP

 

In his relentless campaign to convince Canadians that the trade impasse between Canada and the United States and the ongoing threats of tariff punishments meted out by an irascible American president, are really deserving of Canadian appreciation for the position of the United States in righting a 'wrong' long done the economic behemoth by other countries' penchant for traditionally depending on the good nature of Americans to continue milking them while failing to adequately compensate America for dependence on its singular power to keep the world safe, and being content with their trade agreements that invariably it is charged by Mr. Trump, cheat the U.S. out of its due with huge trade imbalances, Pete Hoekstra has made one charged statement too many for Canadians to digest.

 

Just the contratemps over the Gordie Howe International Bridge alone was enough to make Canadians howl with fury with the formal announcement from Mr. Hoekstra's statement:  "Today we welcome the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge to traffic between Detroit, Michigan, and Windsor, Ontario, adding new capacity to one of the busiest and most economically significant border crossings between the United States and Canada. President Trump made the opening possible and has consistently prioritized a safer, more secure, and more prosperous North America."

 

In fact, Donald J. Trump refused to allow the bridge to open until Canada succumbed to his demands: "The original Deal on the Bridge, which was terribly negotiated by a previous Administration, no longer stands. We changed the terms of the Deal so that the United States of America now gets 50% of the Profit." The original agreement was between Michigan and Canada, that the total cost of the Bridge was to be paid by Canada, with tolls thereafter going to pay off Canada's debt, after which any toll profit would be shared 50% with Michigan, as well as offering the state half-ownership of the bridge.

 

The $6.4 billion Canada paid for the bridge construction made no impression on Mr. Trump, claiming that Canada 'owed' the U.S. profits realized from tolls. Only when Canada agreed to the extortionist demands made by Mr. Trump would he permit the bridge to be opened. So much for the magnanimity of performance in making 'the opening possible', mentioned in the Ambassadorial report. As for a 'more prosperous North America', that should be rectified to a more prosperous America; Canada and Mexico, part of the continent of North America are being beggared by Mr. Trump's unappeasable appetite for tariffs. 

 

 

Top: They wore red and plaid, they carried signs and flags, they chanted “elbows up”. Hundreds gathered in Nathan Phillips Square to protest President Donald Trump’s rhetoric about Canada becoming the 51st state at Toronto City Hall in Toronto. March 22, 2025. Bottom: A sign is placed in front of the American whiskey section at a B.C. Liquor Store before top selling American made products are to be removed from shelves as a demonstration for media in Vancouver, B.C., Sunday, Feb. 2, 2025. | Steve Russell/Toronto Star via Getty Images; Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press via AP

 

Little wonder than that over 120,000 Canadians signed a petition of removal for U.S. Ambassador Peter Hoekstra, whose insulting, demeaning, patronizing and controlling messaging has managed to offend all of Canada's provincial premiers and the Canadian public. Leading many Canadians who would normally vacation in the United States, to cancel any such plans for the foreseeable future. Most premiers' moves to remove U.S. alcohol from provincial liquor shops had the support of the greater public, while infuriating the Trump administration. The whopping tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, softwood and vehicles have led to the loss of tens of thousands of Canadian manufacturing jobs.

 

Mr. Hoekstra's volatile tenure has brought to Canada first-hand the implacable volatility of the American president in in-your-face entitlements amidst Canada put-downs, top of which is the occasional reference to Canada as the 51st U.S. state. Little wonder that the petition  accuses Mr. Hoekstra of normalizing "the Trump administration's threats to annex Canada as the 51st state". This is an effort led by ordinary Canadians, calling for Pete Hoekstra to be declared persona non grata. Once the petition has  been closed to further signatures by November, the document is set to be introduced to the House of Commons for a Parliamentary vote. 

 

The proposed agreement surrounding the opening of the Gordie Howe International Bridge connecting Windsor, Ont., to Detroit, was released amid escalated tariff threats by U.S. President Donald Trump. Still from video, CBC News

 

"The popular view of the Nakba presented by the Canadian Human Rights Museum falls short of the facts regarding events in Palestine following the U.N. partition vote of 1947."

"[Palestinian displacement was partly the result of] weak leadership and military unpreparedness [of the Arab nations who were at war with the newly founded nation of Israel]." 

"[Arabized Jewish refugees who fled conflict in the 1940s were welcomed in Israel and assimilated, while Arab refugees were treated by Arab countries where they lived in refugee camps as] symbols of the heartlessness and murderous intent of the Jews."

"Jewish presence [in Iraq as example] was virtually extinguished in just a few years. Those who fled to Israel were eventually absorbed, given Israeli citizenship, and began to play important parts in Israeli life."

"There was neither desire nor expectation that they would return to Iraq, unlike the desires and expectations of the Palestine Arab refugees in 1948."

David Bercuson and Logan Jaspers, Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy  

Aristotle Foundation report

 

Authors David Bercuson and Logan Jaspers produced a study for the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, beginning with a detailed history of the causes and effects of the Israeli-Arab war of 1948 when the nascent Jewish state was attacked by the combined militaries of its Middle East neighbours, with the intention of destroying the state before it was entrenched, on the basis that land once consecrated to Islam could not host or revert to any other religious communities. Islam, on the other hand, expunged the ancient ancestral indigeneity of Jews in lands once their own long before Islam came into being.

 

With the re-creation of the State of Israel in 1948, hundreds of thousands of both Jews and Arabs were forced from their homes; in the case of Jews, living in Arab and Muslim countries in North Africa and the Middle East there was forcible exile, and expropriation of properties from lands Jews had lived in for millennia. The Arabs who called themselves Palestinians came mostly from Transjordan and Egypt in the last century seeking economic opportunities in the area that hosted Jewish, Christian and Muslim populations whose total numbers were relatively sparse. When the UN in 1947 wrestled with the concept of Partition apportioning a major share of the territory to Jordan, then dividing the 1/3 that was left for Jews and for Arabs, the Jewish Committee accepted, the Arabs did not.

 

The Aristotle Foundation report focuses on the detailed history, commissioned after the Human Rights museum based in Winnipeg had faced a storm of controversy over its decision to host and display an exhibit focused on the displacement of Arab Palestinians with the declaration of Israeli nationhood. That declaration inspired an instant response from Israel's neighbours, a military invasion meant to destroy the possibility that Jews could return to their heritage. Palestinians were promised by the leaders of the invading Arab armies they could return, once Israel's presence was demolished. 

Aristotle Foundation report

 

The Nakba exhibit, according to its critics, focuses on the plight of Palestinian refugees, totally ignoring and  failing to include a similar experience of 800,000 Jews forcibly evacuated from their homes in Muslim and Arab countries, displaced during the conflict. Arab refugees, the authors of the report, point out, were treated by the Arab countries they fled to as "symbols of the heartlessness and murderous intent of the Jews", creating a lasting disparity between how the communities of Arabs and the Jews each view their experience.

 

Years after the initial conflict which failed to dislodge Jews from their homeland, leading the Arab armies to nurse their wounded expectations by declaring their defeat a 'nakba' (catastrophe), 700,000 Palestinians fled their homes seeking refuge in various Arab nations. The reasons were various; some historians claim many fled in response to the violence Arab civilians faced. Jewish paramilitary forces were alleged to have killed some 100 villagers in the Palestinian village of Deir Hassin. There were Palestinian leaders who claimed the outflow of Arabs was an orchestrated project they had planned, as was a later return when Israel was destroyed.

 

The Nakba exhibit is a temporary one at the museum, to run for several months with the use of photos video testimonies, artworks and family heirlooms describing the plight of Palestinian refugees from the 1940s and carrying forward to the present. The fact that around 800,000 Jews were displaced from their homes in Arab and Muslim nations in the Middle East and North Africa is never mentioned. Nor is the  fact that Palestinian terrorists led by Gaza's Hamas leadership committed a sprawling atrocity against Israeli citizens in southern Israel on 7 October 2023, which led to the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.

 

A coalition of civil society groups has called on Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture Marc Miller to retract his statement on viewing the exhibit that it was replete with "errors" that "must be rectified", arguing that any government interference in the museum's exhibits (paid for by the federal government) would be unacceptable. Chief executive Isha Khan of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights argues that the exhibit was designed  explicitly to feature Palestinian experiences, however controversial their personal accounts are.

  

The UN created an orderly plan for the partition of Palestine. The Jewish people accepted it, but the Palestinians refused to even consider the idea.

After 13 months of violence, 700,000 Arabs had fled or been expelled from Mandatory Palestine and Israel, while 800,000 Jews were forced to flee North Africa and the Middle East and settle in Israel between 1948 and the early 1970s.

Prior to 1947 there were major bouts of violence toward Jews in 1920 (the Nebi Musa Riots), 1921 (Jaffa Riots), 1929 (Hebron massacre plus attacks in Safed and Jerusalem), and 1936–1939 and 1945–1946 (Arab Revolts). In the period after 1930, as the Jews became more militarily active, Jews responded to attacks from Arab villages that were perceived as origins of attacks against Jews. Nevertheless, the record of violence after 1920 was overwhelmingly a record of Arab attacks against Jews.

During the civil war both sides carried out unsavoury acts, but Israelis always claimed a military reason for the removal of populations, either to bolster communication lines or stop regular attacks being launched from Arab population centres.

Jewish authorities actively encouraged Arab populations to remain in the new State of Israel but did not try to keep Arabs from fleeing if they so chose.

Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy 

 

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

 

"What then can we conclude from this brief history?"

"First, that the Arab refugees left for several complicated reasons, including weak leadership and military unpreparedness, but the root cause of their flight was the war itself."

"The Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Human Rights Museum] falls short of the  facts."

David Bercuson and Logan Jaspers, Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy 

"It's hard to imagine why an unelected senator should be travelling anywhere outside of the country on taxpayers' dime, so Gagne billing taxpayers almost $1million to fly around the world is completely unacceptable."

"Prime Minister Mark Carney needs to hold Gagne accountable and make sure senators aren't globe-trotting on the taxpayer credit card." 

Franco Terrazzano, Canadian Taxpayers Federation 

 

"Despite their current prevalence in Canada, research has consistently shown that corporate welfare is largely wasteful and generally fails to achieve its stated goals."

Alex Whalen, director, Atlantic Canada Prosperity Initiative, Fraser Institute

 

"[According to a newly published study by the Fraser Institute, corporate subsidies are unfair to businesses that don't receive them, with research showing] there is little connection between sustained, widespread economic growth or job creation and corporate subsidies."

"[Several studies offer various conclusions around the] wasteful nature [of corporate subsidies, including the incentive for firms to lobby government instead of delivering better services]."

Fraser Institute

Senate Speaker Raymonde Gagné    Courtesy of the Senate of Canada

 

Between 2007 and 2015, according to data, spending on subsidies to Canadian businesses (corporate welfare) increased from $22.2 billion to $25.1 billion; 23.8 percent. That increase rose to 44.2 percent from 2014 to 2019. By 2024 the figure was $87.7 billion, tripling and more, the 2015 figure. "Corporate welfare" is defined by the Fraser Institute as payments from government to private businesses intended to achieve specific objectives that are not payments for goods or services rendered". Rather they are paid with an economic objective; to boost a particular industry or to achieve job growth.

 

When accounting for inflation and population, the study found that spending on subsidies increased in every province and at the federal level between 2015 and 2024. Years that coincide with the ruling governing tenure of the Liberal Party, first under PM Justin Trudeau, no economic wizard he, and followed by the former Governor of the Bank of England, internationally renowned economic wizard, who left the Exchequer in a bit of a ruinous state. 

 

Mr. Carney's recent sovereign wealth fund, the Canada Strong Fund, patterned on the one he installed in Britain and generally viewed as a failure, faces criticism from Conservative thinkers for its role in helping the government of Canada to hand out more "corporate welfare", from a fund that as it happens, operates with government-borrowed money. 

 

 

 

In other areas where government appointees have felt entitled to lavish taxpayer funds on personal vanity travels, Canada's recent-past Governor General Mary Simon led the way on entitlements. From rather too-ample clothing allowances, to out-of-this world costs of on-board travel sumptuous catering and reservations at sky-high pricey hotel accommodations, Mary Simon taught the Canadian public just how grand entitlements were for her.

"Taxpayers caught the governor general billing us thousands on absurdly extravagant and expensive trips that she should never have taken in the first place."

"Taxpayers forced the governor general to cut spending following a scandal that included multiple committee testimonies and reports calling for spending restraint. But the governor general hiked travel costs once she thought taxpayers and members of Parliament weren’t looking."

"Now it’s time for MPs to take responsibility and cut wasteful spending at Rideau Hall."

Franco Terrazzano, CTF federal director 

Now it's Raymonde Gagne's turn; she and her entourage billed taxpayers $875,677 on  14 international trips since May of 2023 when she was appointed speaker of the Senate by former PM Justin Trudeau. Since records fail to include costs of her more recent trips to Chile, Tunisia and the Netherlands, total costs of her international trips will total much higher. 

 

Records for her most recent trip of a "courtesy call" by Senator Gagne to Horii Iwao, state minister for Foreign affairs, Japan, turned out to be a 45 minute visit. Yet her entourage included three fellow senators along with two Parliamentary staff and Madam Gagne's husband. That trip alone was $107,594. "If Gagne wants to make a courtesy call to a Japanese politician, then she should pick up the phone instead of billing taxpayers six figures. In what world is it acceptable for an unelected senator to bill taxpayers thousands of dollars for meals and receptions?" queried Franco Terrazzano.

King Charles III receives Canada's Speaker of the Senate Raymonde Gagné during an audience at Buckingham Palace on March 12, 2025. Photo by Aaron Chown /Getty Images

 

A trip to Spain and the United Kingdom including an audience with King Charles III, cost a total of $105,156; the entourage including three other senators, Gagne's spouse, and two staffers in March of 2025. Senator Gagne and seven others took a trip in 2024 to New Zealand for "business calls" in Rotorus, Christchurch and Wellington, for a total cost of $118,965. Senator Gagne posed for a photograph with the mayor of Rotorus Lakes, a popular tourist destination.

 

Senator Gagne, who speaks of her love of travelling, took in Switzerland, France, the United States, Belgium, Brazil Romania, the Czech Republic and South Africa. She had visited 30 counties and almost every continent.  

"A friend encouraged me to travel and I decided to visit the Galapagos Islands with her. As a biology teacher, I have always been fascinated by Charles Darwin's theory of evolution. I had read his book and attended exhibitions on the subject. This trip was an important step for me because I felt the need to keep exploring. I couldn't stay stagnant. It was a pivotal moment, [after the death of her first husband]."

"My current partner also likes to travel, and we have explored India and Japan together. These are countries that are completely different from what we are used to. I cherish those experiences." 

Speaker of the Senate Raymonde Gagne

 

"If senators aren't going to represent anyone but themselves then they need to not represent anyone for a lot less money."

Franco Terrazzano, Canadian Taxpayers Federation 

The Canadian delegation at Rotorua Lakes Council, including HW Tania Tapsell, Mayor. Photo by Office of the Clerk

 

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

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

Michal Cotler Wunsh, CEO, International Legal Forum  

Gaza GenoLIE logo.  (photo credit: Courtesy)

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

List of all 40 organizations involved in the campaign.

 

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

Michal Cotler Wunsch 

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

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

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

University of Alberta Website statement 

The University of Alberta

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

Justice Debra Yungwirth, Court of Kings Bench, Alberta  

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press/AP

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Centre 

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

 

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

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

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

"The biggest change is in views toward Judaism." 

Jack Jedwab, president, Association for Canadian Studies 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

Jack Jedwab  

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

Jack Jedwab, President Association for Canadian Studies 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

Mount Sinai Hospital spokesperson 

Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

Kavita Algu 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Honest Reporting Canada