For The Record

"The organizer of this event wrote : 'As Canadians, we need to condemn this illegal annexation and condemn Trudeau’s support of Israel, as well as show our support for Palestine and demand justice for it’s (sic) people. Palestinian or not, this is a human rights issue and we all need to come together to stand against it'."

"But far from marching 'as Canadians' for a 'human rights issue', the protestors could barely conceal their hatred of Jews and their clear rejection of Canada as their country."

"One slogan chanted by the crowd revealed the true nature of the protest as not being against Israel’s ill-fated annexation bid, but a visceral hatred of Jews and the call for an extermination of the State of Israel itself."

"A video shows the protesters chanting : 'Palestine is our country / The Jews are our dogs'."

"The slogan, 'Free Palestine, From the River to the Sea' is understood by Israelis as a call for their country’s eradication despite many apologists on the left having tried to sugarcoat the slogan with politically correct interpretations."

Tarek Fatah, Toronto Sun

Canada is an immigrant nation insofar as its population is largely comprised of people who migrated to Canada's top third of North America from their places of birth elsewhere, around the globe. And around the globe is precisely where they came from; everywhere in the world. Escaping persecution, conflict, lack of opportunity, hunger; all manner of reasons that would impel people to leave their countries of origin. Refugees too have found their place in Canada, a place where those hounded by fear and terror fled to find safety elsewhere.

In early migrations people were glad to escape their insecurity and to forge a way for themselves to prosper in peace and security, where their children could receive good educations, and future prospects for employment and satisfaction in life were all connected. And while ethnic or religious groups tended to gather in little communities, they also tended to integrate into the larger society's culture and values.

There are populous communities of East Indians, Chinese, Germans, Italians, Portuguese, Vietnamese, Somalians and many others who found comfortable homes in Canada; secure, safe and full of opportunities. People accommodating themselves to the presence of others. Many such communities brought with them the emotional disengagement forced upon them by dictatorial governments, glad to escape, resentful they had to. 

Generation after  generation of hyphenated Canadians, finding their place in the country, learning the language, finding employment, housing, schooling and access to good medical care. Canada has become a nation whose universities draw foreign students to study and achieve and often to become Canadian citizens and remain; students from China, from India, from African countries, Saudi Arabia....

Many of those communities have been in Canada for a century and more, with long-established roots there. All, invariably, retain at least a vestige of connection through extended family and friends in their countries of origin. And then there are the Palestinians, many of whom migrated to Canada to become citizens. And who brought their violent animus against Jews and Israel with them. Leading to mounting public relations ploys to focus on the creation of the State of Israel.

The unrelenting hostility aimed at Israel and targeting Jews of the diaspora in Canada has mounted year after year. The infiltration of academia, the political arena, and social culture has been relentless; the barbs and arrows shooting straight at Jews and Israel. Anywhere in the world can be found fertile ground for Jew-hatred seeping out of the sewers of mindless bigotry, readily harnessed to a 'cause' that vilifies the Jews. The campaign that led to BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions} among them.

Not to be forgotten is the now-annual "Israel Apartheid Week". Labelling Israel as an apartheid state when 2 million of its roughly 9 million population is Arab Palestinian. There are Kurds and Druze, Christians and B'hai with Israeli citizenship. And among the Arabs and the Druze and the Kurds there are those elected to government as MKs, there are non-Jewish judges, ambassadors, professionals of all stripes including Palestinian Arabs staffing hospitals in Israel.

On both the left and the right extremes anti-Semitism flourishes and it is fuelled now in large part by 'sympathy' for the 'Palestinian cause'. Where Jewish or Israeli supporters and speakers are persona non-grata, through the organized Palestinian movement of disenfranchising Israel as a settler-colonist state. It is where Palestinians and their non-Arab supporters raise their anti-Israel placards at any public event, any organized protest having nothing whatever to do with the MidEast; events that are invariably co-opted for the Palestinian 'cause' against 'apartheid' and Israeli 'occupation' of its ancient homeland, Judea.

On the streets of Canadian citizens Jews have been threatened, in Edmonton and Montreal and Toronto, with young Palestinian men chanting "The Jews are our dogs!". When a disturbed (non Jewish) mind ran down a family of Muslims in London, Ontario leading to the death of four people, injuring the fifth, Jews were among those aghast at the targeted carnage. 

And then further aghast when a London imam during a nationally broadcast memorial service for the family intoned "Whatever is happening in Jerusalem and Gaza is related to whatever happened in London, Ontario. Period." Whatever happens anywhere, at any time, occurs through a Jewish plot. The audience at the mosque broke into loud cheers. The producer of an Arabic-language program on OMNI Television repeatedly stated the killer of the Muslim family was a Jew.

This is the Canada today for Jewish Canadians. Generations of Jewish Canadians who at one time suffered public humiliation when signs at golf courses and private clubs read "No Jews, Blacks or dogs permitted entry". Where universities had quotas for Jewish attendance. During World War II the government of the day turned away the St.Louis carrying German Jews trying to escape their fate in Germany, only to be turned back by every national port they entered.

Anti-Jewish discrimination, although unlawful in Canadian law at the present time has resurfaced with a vengeance. Among the documented cases of discriminatory racist attacks, Jews suffer the most of those assaults against human rights and human dignity, in Canada.