Cluttering Canada with Terrorists

"Khaled Barakat has been barred from the United States, he's been barred from Germany, yet the Trudeau government still allows this individual to remain in Canada, despite Canadian laws that forbid any individual with connections to terrorist organizations from entering our country or receiving Canadian citizenship."

"Allowing this man to remain in Canada not only flouts Canadian law but is a complete slap in the face to every Jewish-Canadian."

Senator Leo Housakos

 

"[Khaled Barakat -- a man described by Israeli intelligence services as an] active and senior member' of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine [PFLP], radical left, Marxist-Leninist militants and the second-largest constituent arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization [PLO]."

Journalist Terry Glavin, National Post

Khaled Barakat speaks at a Brussels rally in 2015. Israeli intelligence services call Barakat an "active and senior member" of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Photo by samidoun.net

Toronto-born, Rabbi Howie Rothman in the midst of prayer, was attacked from behind with a meat cleaver, and died after a year in a coma. He was praying in a Jerusalem synagogue in 2014 when an attack believed to be orchestrated and carried out by the PFLP left six worshippers dead, including Rabbi Rothman. The Canadian intelligence service knows of the background of Barakat, a Palestinian rights advocate, age 55, whom an organization he is linked to claims he is the target of disinformation by Israel claiming him to be a terrorist.

Not only have Canadian Jewish groups called on the government of Canada to remove this man from residence in the country, but Israeli intelligence officials themselves met with Canadian intelligence counterparts to fully apprise them of the man's background and activities, all of which are inimical to Canadian Jews, much less Jews in Israel. Despite lobbying cabinet ministers and the office of the Prime Minister nothing has been accomplished.

When the government was asked to provide a response to questions over the legitimacy of this man's residency in Canada, the enquiries were forwarded from one government department to another to respond to, and there have been no responses from any of them, let alone the Office of the Prime Minister. The official government position is that Canada will not tolerate antisemitism. The reality is that antisemitic acts far exceed in number and virulence attacks against any other religious or ethnic minority in Canada.

The government speaks those soothing words of condemnation against acts of virulent racism, but the truth is, it prefers to overlook them and do nothing. Senate Government Representative Liberal Marc Gold was grilled with questions over why it is that Barakat is permitted to remain in Canada. The response was that those who face deportation are entitled to freedoms and rights-of-appeal, similar to the entitlements anyone else can call upon, under Canadian law.

There is a precedent; in 1988 PFLP member Mahmoud Mohammad Issa Mohammad was deported to Lebanon after waging a 25 year battle against a Canadian deportation order. Canadian officials had become aware that he was one of two PFLP terrorists who sprayed an El Al airliner in 1968 in Athens, Greece, with grenades and machine-guns, killing one passenger and injuring two others.

The PFLP became adept since its founding in 1957, in aircraft  hijackings, bus bombings and suicide attacks targeting Jews and citizens of Israel. The organization is on Canada's terrorist list making it illegal for anyone as a member of the group to be permitted into Canada. Some urgent house-cleaning is obviously in order at this point to sweep out the unwelcome dross of a terrorist group.