Riling Russia

"It shows an increased involvement of the U.S. and other NATO countries in the conflict in Ukraine on the side of the Kyiv regime."

"Such flights significantly increase the probability of incidents involving Russian military aircraft, which increases the risk of direct confrontation between the alliance and the Russian Federation."

"NATO members will bear responsibility for that."

Russian Defence Ministry

Russia's President Vladimir Putin speaks with Russian media before his departure at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi on June 21, 2024. Russia has issued an ominous warning over U.S. spy drones in the Black Sea, vowing that its forces will adopt “rapid response measures” to prevent potential incidents in airspace.  AFP/Getty Images

 

Moscow's 'special military operation' has been extended long beyond the Kremlin's expectations. It is horribly inconvenient that Ukraine stubbornly hangs on to its territory, claiming its sovereign right to do so, as a human and international right recognized by the global community. At least that part of the global community not intimidated by Russian threats; Russia's neighbours in its near-abroad who shudder at the possibility of a 'special military operation' in their own sovereign landscape, and of course NATO-member countries in general who subscribe en masse to the concept of inviolability of state geography.

 

Come to think of it, Russia subscribes to the universal belief that a nation's borders are sacrosanct. At least its own. It also subscribes to peace. Just not when those preferred options interfere with its plans to extend its own sovereignty. Russian President Vladimir Putin feels a special obligation as Russian president-for-life to return to the times of the Soviet Union in his concern over the future of eastern Europe; one for all and most decidedly, all for one.

 

NATO's and most particularly, the United States' interference in Russian affairs is grating and galling. Russia's affairs are Russia's concerns, and Moscow brooks no interference by any outside agencies. In so doing, its expectations are no different than any other self-respecting nation concerned to rescue its neighbours from their flirtation with fascism. Ukrainians are just such ingrates; one would imagine they would express their sincere gratitude to Russia for rescuing them from the neo-Nazi talons of the Ukrainian government...!

 

But there we are -- American drone flights over the Black Sea -- spying, seeking out military intelligence advantages. A situation so obviously inimical to Russia's legitimate handling of the Ukraine situation as to be regarded as a backhanded declaration of war. Which would force Moscow to take 'forceful action' to put a stop to reconnaissance aircraft deployed by the United States. Causing the Russian Defence Ministry to protest the "increased intensity" obviously meant to "conduct intelligence and targeting for precision weapons supplied to the Ukrainian military by Western countries for strikes on Russian facilities." 

Nothing less than intolerable. This is by no means the first and only time that the Americans have transgressed the limits of Moscow's patience. In March of 2023, a Russian Su-27 fighter jet caused damage to an American MQ-9 Reaper drone, crashing it into the Black sea, as the first direct clash since the Cold War between Russian and U.S. forces. The Pentagon and U.S. European Command for their part revealed that two Russian Su-27 aircraft had dumped fuel on the MQ-9 conducting a routine surveillance mission in international air space.

Deliberately ignoring the fact that the U.S. drone had intruded within an area declared off-limits by Russian authorities. The infuriating arrogance of the American military knows no bounds.

A U.S. MQ-9 drone. (Massoud Hossaini / The Associated Press)

 

 

Actions and Demands and Law-Breaking have Consequences

"It's past time they're shut down."

"We hope this is a strong message for the other encampments on campuses across the country."

"Too often we've seen antisemitic harassment, discrimination, and hateful speech and actions connected with many of these encampments."

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) 

"Unfortunately the encampment remains in place in violation of Waterloo policies and the law."

 "We have said repeatedly, the right to protest does not mean people have the right to endlessly occupy a shared university space"

"The behaviour of encampment members has crossed the line to intimidation and harassment, making their ongoing presence untenable."

Vivek Goel, University of Waterloo president

"[It is] incredibly shameful [that the university administration decided] to sue their own student body that's protesting the university's complicity in a genocide that's almost nine months in and has claimed the lives of over 40,000".

"We remain undeterred and committed to our cause and people. History will absolve us. But you admin, how will you be remembered?"

Occupy UWaterloo statement

Photo by Ryan Remiorz /The Canadian Press

In its recently announced lawsuit against the group Occupy UWaterloo, the University of Waterloo is suing anti-Israel encampment protesters for $1.5 million in damages. According to a social media post by Occupy UWaterloo, the lawsuit brought against them is "incredibly shameful". They claim to be lawfully exercising their right to free expression. Even if it revolves around slandering the Jewish state, expressing their antisemitic sentiments, harassing Jewish students and faculty professors in the process, in their entitlement as protesters.

"History will absolve us" their post @Occupy UW states with complete assurance. The  university, on the other hand, wants its main campus back. Claiming that the protesters have occupied the university's private property illegally, beginning on May 13, reflecting a court document published on the university's website. The damages of $1,500 million is slated to represent trespass, damage to property, intimidation and ejectment.

 

Seven Occupy UWaterloo members are named in the lawsuit, citing their involvement in establishing an "indefinite encampment" adjacent to the Graduate House on the main campus of the University of Waterloo. Occupy UWaterloo is being requested by the university to remove encampment materials, including obstructions that have been erected, and to "remediate" the property to its original condition at the time of the encampment establishment.

 

 

Related issues included in the document are demands that members of the encampment are not to rebuild, and must agree to refrain from University Senate interference, including the board of governors and all activities related to teaching. Conditions are outlined in the document for the Waterloo Regional Police, and the Ontario Provincial Police, inclusive of any police service tasked with removing the encampment and arresting the participants.

A trespass notice was issued by the university on June 21. It was disseminated both in person and online to all participants in the encampment. According to the document, it was subsequently rejected. Ahmad Kamal, named as one of the defendants in the lawsuit, wrote "Again: I ain't reading all that. Free Palestine", on the posted trespass notice where it appeared on the encampment wall.

Encampment leaders had called on the university to divest from companies appearing on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions list. They also demanded an "academic and cultural boycott" of Israeli Companies and universities, demands which were published in the Waterloo Region Record. 

 

These 'human rights' supporting students feel complete entitlement, vindicating their mission while rejecting claims by the university. It is Israel, and Israel alone responsible for the death of Palestinians in Gaza, not the Gaza Hamas leaders that brought death and destruction to Israel, compelling it to embark on a mission to destroy the group whose purpose is its extermination and that of Jews everywhere...

The University of Waterloo and the members of a pro-Palestinian encampment on the campus are set to enter mediation talks. The members of the Occupy UWaterloo group held a press conference on Friday to share their reactions to being sued by the university for $1.5 million in collective damages. CBC

Slandering Israel of "Catastrophic Palestinian Starvation"

"The available evidence does not indicate that famine is currently occurring."

"The IPC [Integrated Food Security Phase Classification] acute food insecurity analysis conducted in February 2024 projected that famine would likely occur in the northern governorates [of Gaza] by the end of May, based on the assumption that conflict would persist with the same intensity and humanitarian access would remain very low."

"While the use of assumptions and inference is standard practice in IPC generally, the limitations of the available body of evidence and the extent of its convergence for northern Gaza in April leads to a very high level of uncertainty regarding the current food security and nutritional status of the population."

Integrated Food Security Phase Classification report

Bustling street markets filled with produce in the Deir al-Balah camp in central Gaza on June 21, 2024. Photo by Majdi Fathi/TPS-IL

The arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court naming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing both of leveraging the "starvation of civilians as a method of war", levied in May, based its warrants on the warnings issued by the IPC's early reports and those of the UN's World Food Program, both warning that northern Gaza was under a "full-blown famine" in May. Just as the IPC's and UN's warnings were without credibility, so too the ICC's warrants.

Aided and abetted by international media which themselves relied on IPC projections in reporting the conflict, the allegations of war crimes committed by Israel at war with Hamas, gave credence to the public relations campaigns vilifying Israel on behalf of the Hamas propaganda machinery, while selectively bypassing Israel's assurances of efforts during an intense time of conflict, of making every effort to alleviate the food insecurity of ordinary Palestinians.

 

Lorries with aid loads for delivery into Gaza arrive at Larnaca Port, Cyprus, June 26, 2024. REUTERS/Marinos Meletiou

 

While Israel opened corridors with the full knowledge that in so doing, it ran the risk of assisting Hamas leadership and operatives escaping the consequences of the atrocities they committed in southern Israel. In the same token, while Israel was doing its utmost to still international criticism holding Israel to standards never imposed upon other countries forced to defend themselves from gratuitously savage violence, the world looked the other way when evidence arose of Hamas looting humanitarian food and goods convoys meant to sustain Palestinian civilians.

After months of dire warnings of "famine is imminent" in the Gaza Strip, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification released a snapshot report published on June 25. Funded by a number of Western countries such as Canada, the European Union and he United States the new report explains that its revision was occasioned partially from earlier reliance on "assumptions and inference" to "address major gaps in publicly accessible evidence". 

The report's conclusions inspired David Adesnik of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to characterize the IPC's admission of errors as "one of the greatest slanders of the last eight months", obliquely referencing the beginning of conflict in October stemming from the Hamas invasion of Israel and revelations of the terrorist group's inhumane indulgence in sadistic savagery of horrific proportions that included group rape, mutilation and bloody mass slaughter.

A convoy carrying humanitarian aid for Gaza on its way to the Rafah crossing last month as looted. Photograph: Khaled Elfiqi/EPA

 

"After months of hearing that Israel was blocking the delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza we now see that Israeli authorities facilitated a massive increase in shipments of both aid and commercial goods, alleviating shortages in Gaza while Israeli forces continued to prosecute the war against Hamas."

"This is a decisive rebuke to malicious claims that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war against the people of Gaza."

David Adesnik, senior fellow, director of research, Foundation for Defense of Democracies

In Justin Trudeau's Canada, Muslim Fanatics Rule!

"We have become aware of potentially troubling statements attributed to Mr. Dattani as well as events he participated in wile he was a graduate student in London, England a decade ago."

"It is critical for the Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission to maintain the confidence of all Canadians and to be seen as an impartial and fair judge of matters before them."

"We are carefully reviewing these statements and discussing them with Mr. Dattani, as well as relevant stakeholders."

Chantalle Aubertin, spokesperson for Attorney General and Justice Minister Arif Virani

 

"[The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs is] deeply concerned [about Dattani's appointment in that he] has directly associated with individuals and groups affiliated with listed terror entities and has a  history of making highly troubling antisemitic statements."

"[This man's appointment to head the CHRC underscores] a crisis of confidence [with the institution that] undermines our confidence in the commission's ability to adjudicate issues of hate and discrimination."

"CIJA has been in discussions with the federal government not only about the revelations about Dattani but also about the failures in he vetting process The government has expressed concerns and has committed to continuing that consultation over the coming days."

Shimon Fogel, president, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

"Mr. Dattani was independently appointed by the Minister of Justice and the Commission is preparing to welcome him."

"We trust that Mr. Dattani's experience and expertise in human rights will serve him well when he assumes the role of chief commissioner."

Canadian Human Rights Commission statement

"I have never held the views put to me in your question. With respect to the panels you cited, I spoke on many panels as a graduate student with people holding a range of views This does not mean I shared or agreed with the views of other panellists."

"As an academic, I have discussed, often in great detail, the BDS movement. That being said, I have not personally or publicly endorsed the BDS movement. My current and previous roles require that I impartially defend the human rights of Canadians from all walks of life, backgrounds and lived experiences in line with Canadian law."

"It is not a question of 'still endorsing' these views as I never held nor endorsed these views. I do not think the views that I actually hold or my past activities ... are disqualifying or contrary to the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition on anti-Semitism. My tenure at both the Alberta and Yukon commissions included broad support for their anti-racism policies, which include the IHRA definition. I am wholly committed to combating anti-Semitism."

Birju Dattani 

Birju Dattani has been appointed chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Photo by LinkedIn/Handout

Mr. Dattani in 2012 took part in a protest outside the London Israeli embassy while crowds chanted "Zionism is terrorism" and "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free". Organized by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, he was not averse at that time to joining them for the purpose of ventilating his own sensibilities on antisemitism; not as a research project linked to his academic studies but as a studied belief he subscribed to. Three years following this shared protest he addressed the group during its Israel Apartheid Week.

A Marxist outlet that covered the 2012 protest reported Mr. Dattani as having said that the "recent act of aggression by the state of Israel in the occupied Palestinian territory is what brought me here tonight". Further, that he would be "interested in seeing the international community act upon the innumerable (United Nations) Security Council resolutions that Israel has trampled upon with impunity". The paper also quoted him as stating: "Workers should boycott Israel and Israeli goods".

While a teaching assistant at the School of Oriental and African Studies in the United Kingdom in 2015, he took part in a event hosted by the Muslim Students Association featuring Adnan Khan, a fellow panellist. The event description explained that: "The Middle East and the Muslim World have been the subject of political intrigue, having faced the downfall of the Caliphate followed by the imposition of Colonialism and Imperialism". Hizb Ut Tahrir, the "Party of Liberation" is a group advocating for the re-establishment of an Islamic caliphate, and Adnan is a member. 

A scheduled event meant to take place in Ontario with Hizb Ut Tahrir was cancelled when the group was designated in the U.K. as a terror group, the British government citing its "history of praising and celebrating attacks against Israel and attacks against Jews more widely".  Banned in Germany, Indonesia, China and Russia along with a number of Arab states, this is a group that Mr. Dattani aligns himself with; a peculiar coincidence with someone who respects human rights that includes the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition.

Birju Dattani, the man whose interest in BDS and Israeli relations is purely academic, lectured at several Israel Apartheid Week events during the 2014 and 2015 academic years, inclusive of Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. "Reality, Legality and Resistance" was the topic he addressed at the London School of Economics. At a Turkish university in 2014 Mr. Dattani spoke on a panel with a member of the Mavi Marmara flotilla, arrested for attempting to breach Israel's naval cordon of the Gaza Strip.

Canada's Attorney General and Minister of Justice felt that this man's background was tailor-made for a role fighting racism. An interesting read on this man's background, when considering that a Government of Canada fact sheet makes it clear that efforts to boycott and sanction Israel represents one of the six core examples of antisemitism recognized by the government of Canada. Is it merely ironic that this man began his legal career with the Syrian Legal Development Program under the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs?

"He brings a wealth of both professional and personal lived experience to this role."

"Our government remains committed to the protection of all human rights in Canada, including the right against racism, and to strengthening our country's role within the international human rights system."

Canada's Minister of Justice, Arif Virani

"The appointment of Birju Dattani as the Chief of the Canadian Human Rights Commission for a five year term places the spotlight on the risks associated with the Canada Human Rights Act reforms."

"As now widely reported, Dattani once went by the name Mujahid Dattani. The government’s due diligence apparently did not include searching under that name and Dattani did not disclose the need to do so."

"A simple Google search under his former active name would have revealed a deeply troubling record of posts and appearances that call into question the ability for Jewish or Zionist Canadians to get a fair, impartial hearing at the Commission."

Michael Geist,  Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-Commerce Law, University of Ottawa

At the SuperNova Festival on October 7

A still from footage showing the capture and abduction of Liri Albag, Karina Ariev, Agam Berger, Daniela Gilboa and Naama Levy at the Nahal Oz base on October 7, 2023. (The Hostages Families Forum)

"The harsh video is a serious indictment of the neglect that has been going on for 262 days."

"Hersh, Eliya and Or were kidnapped alive and so they have to return, today."

"Every day that passes endangers the abductees and may torpedo the ability to bring them home."

Hostages Forum statement

"[It] breaks all of our hearts, and once again emphasizes the cruelty of the enemy that we have pledged to eliminate."

"We will not stop the war until we bring all of our 120 loved ones home."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Screenshots of hostages Hersh Goldberg-Polin (left), Eliya Cohen (middle) and Or Levy (right) as they were taken hostage into Gaza by Hamas terrorists on October 7, 2023 (Courtesy Hostages and Missing Families Forum)

Early in the morning of October 7 two Israeli men desperately sought shelter while at the Supernova Music Festival in southern Israel, as a result of a dual episode unfolding; rockets inundating the area from Gaza, and a sudden appearance of Palestinian terrorists flooding the area. The rocket barrage and the unnerving presence of terrorists launching a gun and grenade attack prompted Hersh Goldberg-Polin and his friend Aner Shapira to race across a field to a shelter.

Built to allow ten people to fit within, the field shelter was already crowded with almost 30 Supernova attendees. And then the Hamas terrorists arrived on site and tossed in their grenades. Aner Shapira responded with heroic intent -- catching seven grenades and tossing them back at the terrorists. The eighth grenade killed him. And his companion, Goldberg-Polin had his right arm blown off from the elbow down.

In the same field shelter as Goldberg-Polin and Shapira, Eliya Cohen and Ziv Abud, his girlfriend, along with her niece and nephew's girlfriend were also hiding. The niece and girlfriend of Abud's nephew were killed. Abud and Cohen lay hidden under the dead bodies, holding hands, and whispering. Then Abud felt Cohen pulled away, and watched him being placed on a pickup truck which drove off. 

 

At the same field shelter were Or Levy and Eynav his wife, both of whom ran from the attack at the Supernova festival. At the shelter the terrorist attack killed Eynav, leaving her husband Or to be taken as a hostage to Gaza. Their son Almog's third birthday took place Tuesday in the absence of his parents. In April Hamas published a video of Goldberg-Polin, his right lower arm missing. He has had eight months in captivity to become accustomed to the loss of that arm. 

 

On October 7, 2023, Eliya Cohen, Hirsh Goldberg-Polin and Or Levy, bloodied and terrified were shoved onto a pickup truck's flatbed. Hamas operatives with AK-47s pointed straight to the sky shouted "Allahu akbar" as the truck barrelled into Gaza down a one-lane road. A Hamas video discovered by the Israel Defense Forces show images of that ride. The families of the three hostages shown in the video gave permission for the the video to be publicly shared.

 

Hostage families in fearful grieving, endlessly call out for a hostage agreement that would bring home the living captives and enable them to bury those hostages either killed in captivity or taken as corpses into Gaza. The video footage represents the third section of a Hamas video showing the chronology of events for the thee hostages the morning of October 7 where one section published months ago showed the terrorists throwing grenades at the field shelter. 

 

A screenshot of Hersh Goldberg-Polin (left) and his friend, Aner Shapira, in a field shelter early Saturday morning, October 7, 2023. Goldberg-Polin is missing, Shapira was later declared dead (Courtesy)

 

The second portion is where Goldberg-Polin is led by terrorists onto the flatbed of the truck, clutching his tourniquet-bound arm, just blown off below the elbow when the field shelter was grenaded, all 30 people inside, fruitlessly sheltering from the attack. The third portion, two minutes in length had been blurred in respect for the families that requested it be edited. A stitched-together entire video was released by The Hostages Forum, as well.

On that fateful day of indescribable agony for the 1,200 Israeli citizens who were butchered, the women and children who were mutilated and gang-raped before death, and the families burnt alive in their homes, while Hamas, Islamic Jihad and PLFP terrorists revelled in the sadistic pleasure they took from their savage attacks, proudly videoing everything from body cams to be uploaded to social media as an example of Palestinian courage in the face of an enemy citizenry, 364 people at the festival alone were slaughtered, 40 taken hostage amidst the orgy of brutality and sexual assaults in acts of human depravity shared by Palestinian citizens. 

Justin Trudeau's Acrid Hypocrisy

 

"[A moment of silence was agreed upon by] all parties in the House [before inviting MPs to rise] in memory of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, assassinated in Surrey, British Columbia, one year ago today."

Speaker of the House, Greg Fergus

"[The gesture's purpose was to recognize] the murder of a Canadian in Canada ... and that that is entirely unacceptable."

"I think all of us should feel safer and more secure knowing that [Trudeau] will stand for Canadians and against the killers of Canadians."

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland

"Canadian security agencies have been actively pursuing credible allegations of a potential link between agents of the government of India and the killing of a Canadian citizen, Hardeep Singh Nijjar."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

There was a moment of silence for Hardeep Singh Nijjar in the House of Commons on June 18. Photo by ParlVu

The separatist Khalistan movement in India itself is quiescent. Sikhs living in India appear to have adjusted their expectations from loudly and often violently advocating for a separate Sikh homeland in the Punjab, to the present time when the Indian Sikh community seems to have no interest in re-awakening a conflict that saw their Golden Temple at Amritsar used by militant Sikhs to launch a violent insurrection against India, leading to Indian troops invading the temple to rout the militants.

Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi trusted Sikhs to the extent that they formed her personal bodyguard. Yet it was from among that personal bodyguard that her assassination following the raid on the Golden Temple was carried out. The hostilities between Hindu India and Sikhs in India cost many lives during a period of distrust, rage and violence. That was then, this is now, when all live peacefully, the issue of a Khalistan sovereign state shelved.

It has been kept alive, however, not by Sikhs in India, but by the great numbers of diaspora Sikhs living in Great Britain and in Canada. A minority of Canadian Sikhs subscribe to violence in the name of a Khalistani state. They have perpetrated vicious crimes against other Canadian Sikhs who condemn their violence in the name of their Khalistan dream. And a cabal of Sikh terrorists were responsible for the single most deadly act of terrorism perpetrated from Canada. 

A plan to strike a blow for Khalistani independence was hatched in British Columbia within its large Sikh community by a handful of violence-addicted Sikhs. Air India Flight 182 became a target in 1985 when a bomb was placed aboard the passenger jet causing it to disintegrate over the Atlantic causing the immediate deaths of all 329 people aboard, 268 of whom were Canadian citizens. Those responsible were known, charged and tried for the crime. However, only one man pleaded guilty, the bombmaker. The other two who masterminded the plot went on trial decades after the event, and found not guilty.

To this day, celebrations of Sikh terrorist leaders are paraded in Canada, and the campaign for a Khalistani homeland continues One of those who was involved in a leadership role was assassinated in Surrey, British Columbia, a suburb of Vancouver, shot to death as a separatist figure. Hardeep Singh Nijjar was listed in India as a terrorist suspect involved in a 2007 bombing in a Punjab cinema. Indian intelligence identified him as the operator of a terrorist training camp in Mission, B.C.

A list of nine Indian terror operatives that included Nijjar was given to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on his 2018 visit to India. At the time of his death Nijjar's name appeared on a no-fly list, his bank accounts had been frozen by Canadian authorities. A breakdown in India-Canada relations occurred when Justin Trudeau accused the government of India of having staged Nijjar's assassination. The friendship and mutual support between India and Canada evaporated with that charge, to which no evidence was attached.

 

A person walks past signs showing Hardeep Singh Nijjar at the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara in Surrey, B.C., on Friday, May 3, 2024. Photo by ETHAN CAIRNS /THE CANADIAN PRESS

 

A week ago on the one-year anniversary of Nijjar's death, supporters of Khalistan massed outside the Indian consulate in Vancouver, with Khalistani flags, where they staged a mock trial and execution of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A distinct resemblance to the pro-Hamas crowds in Canada post-October 7's massacre of Israelis, where an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was hanged several weeks ago. 

A mere five days before the anniversary of the 1985 Air India bombing, the Parliamentary moment of silence was staged. The Air India anniversary, on the other hand, was not an occasion for a moment of silence in the House of commons. And then Parliament adjourned for its summer break. Before it did, Member of Parliament Chandra Arya warned that Canada failed to contain "the dark forces" that caused that terrorist attack. "Unfortunately, many Canadians are not aware that even today the ideology responsible for this terrorist attack is still alive among a few people in Canada."

 

 

Inverting Racism, the Victimizers Become the Victims

"[The report fails to address antisemitism at a time when there is a] significant rise of antisemitic and anti-Israeli incidents and hostility in our public schools, and throughout the community."

"It also adopts the narrative of 'anti-Palestinian racism,' which seeks to erase core aspects of Jewish identity and history, and redefine what constitutes antisemitism."

"It should prioritize addressing antisemitism and discrimination against Jews and Israeli Canadians, while avoiding the unnecessary politicization of our students, staff, and faculty due to imported international conflicts."

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA)

 

"Why are staff and the trustees hiding behind these walls, refusing to hear from the Jewish community? Why are they hiding?"

"Why are the personal stories of hate and racism experienced by Jewish students and teachers in the TDSB incompatible with the TDSB’s combating hate and racism strategy? I have personally lost confidence in the leadership of the TDSB."

Carly Cohen, concerned TDSB parent

Hundreds of people rallied outside of the Toronto District School Board during a Program and School Services Committee meeting that was voting on adopting the term 'anti-Palestinian racism' within the school board. (CBC)

"It seems apparent that the desire to include a definition on anti-Palestinian racism [and this urgently] is a virtue signalling move meant to further polarize and divide Israeli, Palestinian, Jewish and/or Arab students given that there is no indication that anti-Palestinian racism has occurred as a form of discrimination within the TDSB."

Jess Burke, director of diversity, inclusion and training, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

 

"The only definition of anti-Palestinian racism that I’ve seen, and it’s one that is frequently cited amongst advocates, says denying the Nakba or trying to silence or exclude Palestinian narratives is a form of anti-Palestinian racism."

"Adopting this definition of anti-Palestinian racism also means you’re going to have to adopt Nakba Day [denying the legitimacy of the State of Israel] because any resistance to the idea that it should be taught in schools is racist; is a form of anti-Palestinian racism. So they are linked in that way."

"Antisemitism has been a huge problem at the TDSB. Their own data says that last fall incidents of antisemitism tripled."

Aaron Kucharczuk, parent of 3 TDSB students, founding member of the Jewish Educators and Families Association

Occupants of a pro-Palestinian encampment on the main campus of the University of Toronto are pictured on May 24, 2024. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

It is a curious social phenomenon that has manifested in the past eight months, actually in the aftermath of a sadistically psychopathic group atrocity of truly savage dimensions committed by Palestinians in Gaza and primarily by the organization of Hamas governing Gaza -- an event horrific in the revelations of an ideology whose sole purpose is the destruction of a nation. Clearly stated in its charter that its reason for existence is the destruction of a reconstructed nation on its ancestral homeland and with it the Jews who call it their home and refuge, their haven from a world without that has proven time and again bare tolerance for a Jewish presence.

 

It took a genocide to finally persuade desperate Jewish leaders that Jews would be forever at the mercy of those who all too frequently showed no mercy toward the diaspora, worldwide Jewry forced into exile by a two-hundred-year occupation by the powerful Roman Empire. Assembled once again on the land of their heritage, those who shared the land were enraged at the formal resurrection invited by the United Nations apportioning the land equally between Jews and Arabs in an area the Romans had named their province of Palestine, then solely a Judean enclave.

 

This is a history well documented both by current historians and those historical coevals of the era. The Arab contingent of actual colonialists from Egypt took to calling themselves the authentic Palestinians, a declaration with no grounding in reality. Their leaders pledged to engage the nascent Jewish state in war. It was a conflict that was to be repeated and repeated by Arab nations' militaries and the reason for repeating was that each military confrontation failed. Those calling themselves Palestinians then relied on their own confrontations in guerrilla warfare, an asymmetric conflict targeting civilians. Which led to Israel being forced to defend itself by militarily policing the areas adjacent its borders, the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 

This is what 'Palestinians' refer to as the 'occupation', which they vow to 'resist'. Occupation that is self-defence, resistance that is code for terrorism against Israeli civilians. And although it is the Palestinians who threaten Jews and Israelis, they name themselves the victims and the State of Israel, their victimizer. Even as actual events are ample proof of the Palestinians' elaborate pretense at deprivation of their human rights, their appeal to the international community has resonated, leading, incredibly, to Israel's reputation suffering under Palestinian slander.

Claiming the rebirth of Israel as a recognized sovereign nation by the United Nations, propelled to that status under their 1947 Partition Plan which the Palestinians rejected for themselves, they now present the 1948 international recognition of Israel -- a sovereign state --  as a catastrophe for Palestinians who fled the area to become refugees. The resulting designation of mourning their loss, calling it the Nakba attempts to portray Israel's existence as illegitimate, and Jews as colonialists despite their ancestral heritage status' authenticity.

 

Apparently hidden from view is another reality, that over two million Arab Palestinians have legitimate Israeli citizenship with all the privileges that come with citizenship. As loyal Israelis they take part in the mechanics of the state as judges, lawmakers, diplomats; rising in the professions such as medicine and academia taking advantage of all opportunities available to distinguish themselves as Arab-Israelis in Israel where they freely exercise their right to freedom of religion. A small number among theme may chafe at the Jewish state but none among them seem prepared to live elsewhere than in Israel, preferring life there than under Palestinian rule.

The Palestinian re-invention of history is what the West in general and the Toronto and District School Board in particular among many others in the West has accepted. One cannot accept the Palestinian narrative without acknowledging that in doing so Israel is being slandered and delegitimized; in other words, playing the game of the Palestinians and by further extension approving the atrocities that took place October 7 in southern Israel when Palestinians embarked on a mission of rape, torture, slaughter and kidnapping Israelis because they are Jews. For their story of liberation against oppression also legitimizes rape, torture and slaughter as an acceptable means to reach their version of freedom.

Rally outside Toronto District School Board, June 18, 2024

Jews may be considered a race, but it's quite a stretch to recognize Palestinians as a 'race', although Arabs are. Palestinians are simply a group within the wider Arab community which has distinguished itself as 'different' by claiming inheritance of ancestral Judean land, by naming themselves for an ancient historical province originally meant to recognize a Judean presence, by claiming Jewish history is their history. The world of Western democracy is in the throes of a 'progressive' liberal ideology that has taken to celebrating the power of the underdog and which boasts its support of equality, diversity and inclusion -- aimed primarily at elevating the status within society of people of colour and Indigenous peoples.

Diversity, equality and inclusion is increasingly denied to Jews, their indigeneity of the land they occupy in the Middle East overlooked in favour of considering them colonialists and the Palestinians' claim of 'first rights' respected broadly. Israelis as white imperialists finds great favour among academics and unions and government authorities at all levels, devoted to the issues of Critical Race Theory. People of the Jewish faith and various ethnicities of Jewish derivation are not homogeneously white, nor is their culture, history and experience monolithic. 

Trustees at the Toronto & District School Board in their wisdom voted in favour of a TDSB staff report recommending amending its anti-hate and racism strategy to include anti-Palestinian racism. Jewish parents of children in the school board along with community members objected. For the fairly simple reason that it is Jewish students, not Muslim students, who are facing constant issues of racism; point-blank antisemitism, from both other students and from some teaching staff. Much of it has been generated by the atmosphere prevalent in Canada of pervasive Israel-bashing and Jew-hate expressed in pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel rallies.

A new working group is to be struck, tasked to develop a strategy to combat anti-Palestinian racism in public schools in Toronto. A task force to address a phenomenon that does not exist. Schools in the board's jurisdiction are encouraged to accommodate Palestinian Students Associations as creating "affinity space opportunities for diverse students", amid recommendations that educators attend extra-curricular professional training sessions to more fully comprehend anti-Palestinian racism. 

Formally instituting 'anti-Palestinian racism' runs the risk of claiming protection from such expressions of 'anti-Palestinianism' when Palestinian student groups indulge in antisemitic attacks on fellow students, situations that are now commonly experienced by Jewish students whose complaints fail to move school administrations to take any action whatsoever to restrain the burgeoning episodes of Jewish students being singled out for harassment and isolation. In other words, rather than addressing the problem of growing Jew-hate in their jurisdictions, the TDSB is encouraging by this step, a further increase in venomous attacks against Jewish students.

The protest began at Yonge and Bloor Streets and evolved into a march that went south on Yonge Street, west on College street, south on University Avenue and east on Dundas Street, ending at Yonge-Dundas Square. (Lorenda Reddekopp/CBC)

Outlawing the IRGC as Terrorists in Canada -- So Peremptorily?

"We will do everything we can to stand against the Iranian regime."

"Enough of the brutality. Enough of the repression. Enough of the violation of fundamental human rights."

"I will stand with you. I will march with you. I will hold hands with you."

PM Justin Trudeau, addressing Iranian Canadians

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a remembrance ceremony for Ukraine International Airlines flight PS752 in Richmond Hill, Ont., on Jan. 8, 2024. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

This is the man who as leader of the Liberal Party -- while the Conservatives and Prime Minister Stephen Harper took steps to neutralize the Islamic Republic of Iran's activities in Canada with the full understanding of its sinister Islamist agenda disrupting and interfering in Canadian matters, exerting influence over Iranian-Canadian affairs, tasking members of the IRGC to have a presence in Canada, interpreted by Iranian-Canadians as menacing to their rejection of the theocratic regime's agenda -- stated his intention to restore relations with Iran.

 

PM Harper invited Iranian diplomats to leave Canada. He ordered the Canadian embassy in Tehran shuttered, and all diplomatic activity to cease. He had Iranian assets seized, and made it clear that no representative of Iran had any business in Canada. Before Justin Trudeau became prime minister he stated his intention to reinstate relations with Iran as one of his more immediate goals. On taking government, the Trudeau regime lost no time overturning as many of the Conservative government's acts of governance as possible.

 

Negotiations to restore diplomatic relations with Iran failed to materialize, but not because Trudeau changed his mind, despite the regime's open and publicly-ventilated threats against Israel, despite its troubling manoeuvres as an unstable, threatening Middle Eastern country, despite its support for terrorism and its sponsorship, training and arming of Lebanon's Hezbollah acting as its proxy in committing international acts of terrorism against Jewish targets. An entire litany of reasons to sanction.

 

Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, seen here in an undated self-portrait, died in an Iranian jail in 2003

 

Trudeau's far more worthy predecessor, Stephen Harper, interpreting the death in Iran's notorious Evin Prison of Canadian-Iranian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, accused of espionage itself ample reason to shun and deplore the Islamist regime, as well as its former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressing the United Nations General Assembly in 2005, promising that Israel would be 'wiped off the map', along with the IRGC, in charge of Iran's nuclear and missile program, progressing in its advance of its uranium enrichment plans for its nuclear program.

When the IRGC four years ago shot two missiles at Ukraine International Airlines PS752 as it was departing Tehran for Ukraine en route to Canada, killing all 176 passengers and crew aboard, in the incredible belief that the passenger jet was an incoming U.S. ballistic missile, the resulting death of 50 Canadian-Iranians, another 30 permanent residents and more young Iranians studying at Canadian universities, along with nationals from other countries, the outrage on its very own should have been ample cause for Trudeau to recognize the IRGC as a terrorist group.

Parliamentarians representing all parties unanimously called for the government to place the IRGC on Canada's terrorist list six years ago -- and another motion passed much more recently in the House of Commons, to which the Liberal government assented, yet it made no move, despite the more than ample evidence that the Iranian Republic under its theistic regime was itself a terrorist entity, despite the desperate pleas by the Canadian-Iranians who were being tormented and threatened by the presence of IRGC agents in Canada -- yet Trudeau's government made no move to officially ban them in Canada.

Death threats issued against dissenting Iranian Canadians by IRGC agents moving about freely in Canada, the knowledge that money-laundering in the hundreds of millions to benefit Iran was occurring in a giant operation conducted in Canada, that Iranian spies had flooded the country and the Liberal government just stood by was irrational, puzzling and negligent to Canada's and its citizens best interests. When Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd was murdered by Iran's morality police for wearing her hijab too casually, Iran arrested thousands of protesters, and an estimated 550 were killed by the IRGC and the Basij militia.

Finally, after all that has happened, all that is yet to occur, orchestrated by the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Trudeau government has seen fit to outlaw and list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Now, the work of closing down the networks that launder $100 billion illegally for Iran in Canada must be shut down. Now, the malevolent presence of IRGC operatives in Canada must be rounded up and removed from a country they have no business intruding on. Now, the diplomatic assets of Iran in Canada should be fully dissolved.

During question period, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre pressed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on why the federal government didn't move sooner on listing Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity.  CBC

 

"One can equate it [Islamic Republican Guard Corps] to a large, corrupt mafia group comprising 150,000 members involved in money laundering, transnational terror, selling drugs on the black market, expropriation of property, extrajudicial killings, targeted assassinations, cyberwarfare and the spread of Islamist propaganda."

"Any time you have seen video footage of women in Iran being beaten and dragged screaming into police vans because of not properly wearing a hijab or of Christians arrested for worshipping in underground churches or Kurds being gassed or children being executed or peaceful protesters being intentionally shot at, blinded, raped or tortured, these are all the acts of the IRGC and its paramilitary subgroup, the Basij."

Nazanin Afshin-Jam, Iranian-Canadian human rights activist

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps    Getty Images

 

 

It's The Tunnels, The Tunnels, The Tunnels...

"Hamas took an approach here where it avoided fighting with terrorists at the front, but instead chose to booby-trap [buildings]. And it booby-trapped loads of buildings. I haven't seen this many booby-trapped buildings before."

"Our challenge is trying to locate them ahead of time."

"The centre of gravity is the tunnels. If we don't [dismantle] the tunnels, it is very hard to control the area. You can be above ground operating freely, but [Hamas] can surprise you from underground."

"In the end, if I want to hold the area properly, I need to reach underground, locate tunnel shafts, put explosives inside, destroy it, locate the next shaft, and demolish the whole network. This way, [Hamas] will have no choice but to either die inside [the tunnel] or to come outside. Above ground, I want them there, I have a major advantage there."

"Not everything was the way we thought it would be. We found places where new routes were [dug]."

Col. Liron Betito, commander, Givati Infantry Brigade 

Troops of the IDF’s Givati Brigade operate in the Yabna camp of southern Gaza’s Rafah, June 18, 2024. Photo by Emanuel Fabian /Times of Israel

In early May the Givati Infantry Brigade entered Rafah. With them were other troops from the 162nd Division. Betiti's brigade went forward to Gaza's key north-south road, Salah a-Din. The weeks that followed, the brigade made their way into the deeper reaches of Rafah in neighbourhoods where Hamas had its infrastructure built among the civilian population. A neighbourhood in central Rafah, Shaboura was slated for an offensive. Hamas appeared to have abandoned its posts. 

 

Engagement at close quarters with Israeli forces failed to appeal to the Hamas operatives installed there.

Hamas, according to Betito, booby-trapped a vast number of Rafah homes. Its operatives linger in tunnels for Israeli soldiers to arrive. Car backup cameras, difficult to identify, trigger when troops arrive at booby-trapped buildings, when the explosives are then detonated. A week earlier five soldiers of the reconnaissance unit were killed when a booby-trapped home exploded, the building collapsing on them.

The Rafah Brigade which the Israel Defense Forces consider the least effective of brigades for Hamas were augmented by terror operatives fleeing from northern Gaza and other areas in the Strip where the IDF first operated, so it was advantaged by their arrival. The added manpower allowing it to prepare for the Israeli offensive in southern Gaza whose eventual arrival was anticipated with its goal of eliminating the remaining four Hamas battalions to complete its sweep of Gaza to eliminate Hamas.

The IDF assessed, as it initiated its Rafah operation, that a mere 2,000 terror operatives remained in the city, with the understanding that thousands had hurriedly departed, intermingled with civilians when the estimated 1.2 million civilians had evacuated to an Israeli-designated 'humanitarian zone', further north in the Strip. Many Hamas operatives eschewed their military uniforms in favour of the blending effect of wearing civilian clothing. Of those who remained the IDF amid the fighting listed hundreds of armed operatives dead, more believed to have died in buildings and tunnels hit by airstrikes.

The IDF command believes that about half of the Hamas fighting force in Rafah has been dismantled. Of four battalions in the Rafah Brigade, two have been almost dismantled; the remaining two thought to be 'somewhat' degraded in IDF operations. The likeliest indicator of a battalion's dismantling, according to Col. Betiti, is its tunnel infrastructure destruction. Nearly all the operatives for Hamas his troops had located and dispatched in Rafah were in hiding in tunnels whose entrances were mostly hidden within the booby-trapped buildings forcing Israeli forces' inspection.

So far along the Philadelphi Route reaching to the border with Egypt, 25 major tunnels were discovered, some which cross into Sinai, used to smuggle weapons. The entire 14-kilometre axis of underground smuggling routes has seen IDF combat engineers sweeping through, digging along the border. Freshly dug tunnels were encountered through operations in Rafah, aside from the major underground networks built over the past 15 years.

Hamas operatives had even burrowed a tunnel beneath an IDF Rafah encampment using a newly dug shaft to attempt the placement of an explosive device next to an armoured vehicle, surprising them with the group's efficient capacity to swiftly build new infrastructure. Nearly every building visible along a newly constructed route close to the Israeli border has been flattened by the IDF in its plans for a kilometre-long buffer zone.

Troops of the IDF’s Givati Brigade operate in the Yabna camp of southern Gaza’s Rafah, June 18, 2024. Photo by Emanuel Fabian /Times of Israel

"I estimate that to [achieve] our next objective, which is to finish up Shaboura and Tel Sultan ... we want to demolish them entirely, it will take more or less a month, at this level of intensity."

"Naturally, the place you reach last [in Gaza], is more prepared. It doesn't matter an extra week or two or a month. [Hamas] doesn't have tanks, armoured personnel carriers, or an airforce It's the same terrorists with the same anti-tank projectiles, the same tunnels."

"We need to act smart, act with reason, protect our forces, but bring forth our power. It's only a matter of time."

Col. Liron Betito

The Degeneration of Canada's Social Order

 

"Children are scared to go to school. Families are scared to send their kids to school."

"They're being vilified because of their ethnic and religious identity, and to be quite frank, the response from the school board has been weak and in many cases non-existent."

"In an environment where children are not properly educated on what antisemitism is and how it can manifest in different ways, kids are not going to understand what that looks like, and they can fall victim to propaganda and hate."

"I think what was most concerning is hearing comments by teachers."

Sharon Aschaiek, York Region District School Board parent, family and community engagement advisory committee 

"A group of boys told [my daughter] she will be their Jewish sex slave one day as she is a terrorist and will be treated as such."

"She comes home from school crying every day."

Unidentified mother of York Region Jewish student responding to survey

A recent survey of dozens of Ontario schools suggests that huge majorities of parents worry about the safety and social isolation of Jewish students. Photo by Luke Hendry

 Jews in Canada have been surprised by a wave of viral antisemitism sweeping the country, following the October 7 terrorist attack in southern Israel by Hamas operatives and non-militant, ordinary Palestinians out of Gaza -- when 3,000 Palestinians poured over the border fence that had been breached in 30 places by explosives and tractors -- to flood through Israeli border farming communities pillaging, torching, gang-raping, torturing girls and women, in their zeal to exterminate Jews, destroy their state and claim the geography total Palestinian property.

The world's initial reaction to the horrors of sadistic savagery recorded by Hamas terrorists using body cams to post the resulting videos on social media, was swift in denouncing the terror group's atrocities. But in Canada, the very day of the bloodbath and days following, organized rallies celebrating the Hamas 'victory' over Israel ran rampant through the public sphere. The rallies were anti-Israel and pro-Hamas, calling for Palestine to be 'free, from the river to the sea', for a worldwide intefadeh, and a 'Final solution'. There was no reaction by governments at any level.

Jewish neighbourhoods became venues for 'pro-Palestinian' marches and protests where Jewish residents were harassed and threatened, and vandals defaced synagogues and Jewish-owned businesses. Criminal acts of arson and shots fired at Jewish parochial schools, community centres and synagogues failed to elicit anything beyond politicians at every level, tut-tutting the violence, claiming that 'there is no room for hate' in Canada, yet did nothing concrete to ensure that this remained true.

And in public schools, from elementary grades to the nation's academic institutions of higher learning, Jewish faculty and students were threatened while encampments were set up on campuses denying entry to Jews, whether faculty or students, teaching or attending classes. But it is the Jewish children attending elementary and high schools who are subjected to jeers, abuse, threats and pejorative language by their non-Jewish peers while teachers fail to react and on occasion themselves submit their students to their personal antisemitic values.

Dozens of Ontario schools were surveyed over the hostile environment that Jewish children now face at school. Parents of these children, concerned over safety and social isolation for their children, took part in an informal survey in mid-May. The report resulting from the informal survey was composed by Sharon Aschaiek, of the York Region District School Board parent, family and community engagement advisory committee. A total of 193 families were interviewed on their experience of antisemitism in classrooms.

The survey concluded that 82 percent of those who responded to the survey are either fearful or very fearful for Jewish students' safety at school. The area's 39 elementary schools and 12 high schools were represented by the 193 families that took part in the survey. Roughly eight percent of the 130,000 students covered by the board are Jewish. 77 percent of survey respondents were concerned that Jewish students would be socially isolated at school in reflection of their ethnic origins."My daughter is afraid to come to school by herself, she heard numerous times that 'Jews are the problem', and that they desire [a] Holocaust. She got food leftovers thrown onto her", an anonymous parent related to Aschaiek.

The tense, threatening school atmosphere has affected students to the extent that they attempt to hide their origins by no longer wearing identifying markers such as a symbolic Star of David necklace or other artefacts associated with their Jewish identity. 91 percent of respondents in the survey stated their concern over Jewish children being exposed to antisemitic graffiti at school such as swastikas. "A teacher in my daughter's English class made a comment to another student about his Jew nose. Sadly, she wasn't too affected because she just doesn't see this as shocking any more", averred one parent.

Students have been called "kikes", a traditional ethnic slur, or overheard other students giving praise to Hitler, and making the Nazi salute. The survey queried parents if they support mandatory antisemitism training for teachers, and 97 percent of respondents agreed this would be helpful. "This definition [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] makes it easier to identify and address all forms of antisemitism", parents agreed by a wide margin of 95 percent. The definition has been adopted by both the Ontario and federal governments. 

The recommendations on  how the York Region District School Board could address antisemitism included mandatory training on antisemitism for staff and the development of an anti-hate and oppression framework that includes antisemitism. Tellingly, the Toronto and District School Board passed a resolution a week ago to include the Palestinian 'Nakba' in their anti-racist school curriculum program, but turned down adding antisemitism as a counter-balance. 

Antisemitic incidents comprise 15 per cent of total incidents within the TDSB despite Jewish students making up just 3.5 per cent, according to one parent's calculations. Photo by Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press