Quebec: Antisemitism Capital of Canada?

"One ... 'problematic panellist -- who regularly spews racist antisemitic and homophobic remarks -- is Houria Bouteldja, a former spokesperson for Indigenes de la Republique, a ... France-based organization with ties to groups linked to the Muslim Brotherhood."

"She openly supports religious sexism and categorizes Jewish self-determination as European colonialism while denying antisemitism exists beyond Europe. She does not stop at targeting the Jewish community; having also made controversial statements against LGBTQ+ rights, describing the cause as 'Homonationalism'."

Ela Yudin, vice-president (Quebec) Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Yair Szlak, president, CE of Federation CJA 

 

"Another speaker at the conference, Columbia University professor Joseph Massad, described the terrorist attacks on October 7 as 'awesome'."

"The widely denounced professor is notorious for categorizing the barbaric terrorist attacks targeting civilians, including women and children, as a 'battle against their cruel colonizers'."

"He refers to Israelis within Israel proper, as 'settlers', while portraying terrorism against civilians as acts of 'resistance'."

Ela Yudin, vice-president (Quebec) Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Yair Szlak, president, CE of Federation CJA 

UQAM should not allow itself to be a venue for hate-mongers  The Suburban

 

Chants heard at anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian (pro-Hamas) rallies that take place in Quebec, calling to "blow up the heads of Zionists", coupled with shootings at schools, fire-bombings of Jewish community centres and synagogues, protests in front of Jewish-owned businesses, harassment and intimidation on university campuses have alarmed Jewish groups in the province who demand that governments at the provincial and local level take steps to counter these hateful displays of antisemitism.

Speakers with dismal and socially backward hostilities from a background of homophobic, antisemitic and racist sentiments expressed in public, among them violent criminals, terrorists and well known extremists who advocate for divisive and hateful ideological agitation are not shunned in academic circles in the province, but rather given platforms from which to spout their racist and anti-social psychopathic agendas; essentially giving these rancid disrupters of the social weal legitimacy.

 

In the past few days the Bandung du Nord conference was hosted at the Universite de Quebec a Montreal. An event that caused outrage in the francophone media, and where in Europe it has a notorious reputation. At a previous such conference that took place in Paris, one of the speakers expressed views that "slide towards antisemitism and Holocaust denial", according to media reports. That same speaker is associated with an advocate for the establishment of a Belgium Islamic state. 

 

Presumably if the meeting had taken place in Brussels, the call would have been for a French Islamic state; they're both well on their way to achieving just that.

The university (UQAM) failed to heed a broad public outcry and that of the Jewish community's objections and insisted on proceeding with the conference on its property. The university lays claim to reserving the right to have cancelled the event should it so wish, but its final decision to give a platform for the extremist gathering implicitly lends credibility to such hateful ideologies.

Omar Barghouti, founder of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement condemned by a motion passed by the Canadian House of Commons in 2016, appeared at the conference. This is a man dedicated to oppose the presence of a Jewish state anywhere within the Middle East, much less on Israel's own ancestral soil. The ancestral indigeneity of Judaism in the Middle East is entirely rejected by this man for whom the very idea of  two-state solution is anathema.

McGill University's Muslim Alumni Society is also hosting an event guaranteed to further anti-Israel sentiments. An event to be headlined by Sana Saeed, an Al-Jazeera personality with a notorious background of sentiments expressed in support of terrorism, including praise for the October 7, 2023 mass atrocity in southern Israel as "incredible", is scheduled to speak to an appreciative audience, inciting them to further demonization of Israel and Jews within Canada.

Months after playing host to an anti-Israel encampment on its campus, UQAM was the site of a conference featuring terrorism supporters and glorifying murderers. Photo by Pierre Obendrauf/MONTREAL GAZETTE

The Martyrs of Hamas

"Join us as we march to honour the martyrs of the past year -- and the past 76 years -- who gave everything for their land, their dignity, and their liberation."

"For Liberation. For our martyrs. For our people. For our land. For Palestine."

Palestinian Youth Movement

The Palestinian Youth Movement is planning a rally outside the Israeli consulate in Montreal on Oct. 7, the anniversary of Hamas' attack on Israel. Photo by Palestinian Youth Movement / Instagram

"It is beyond disgusting that anyone would celebrate the events of October 7 and diminish the murders and injuries that happened that day and the hostages taken, some of whom are still in captivity."

Anthony Housefather, Liberal MP, Montreal Mount Royal riding

"Yet again, pro-Hamas groups are planning to celebrate the brutal massacre and terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, this time on the anniversary of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust."

"They aim to fill the streets with hate. This is not just a celebration of terror or antisemitism; it is an attack on democracy and our Canadian values."

"This should serve as yet another warning that the unchecked hate and incitement in our streets have gone too far. On October 7, these same groups distributed candies to celebrate murder and rape."

Eta Yudin, vice-president, Quebec chapter, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

"On October 8, 2023, students saw their peers celebrating Hamas as 'resistance fighters'."

"A year later, our community cannot even have October 7 to peacefully mourn. With protests and 'days of action' planned for October 7, 2024, students are wary of the threats posed by these agitators."

"Despite these circumstances, our community will come together in unity."

Hillel Montreal

As the time draws ever closer to the one-year mark of the horrendous events of October 7 of last year --when thousands of Palestinian terrorists flooded across the border from Gaza into Israel, led by Hamas on a mission to terrorize, threaten, pillage, destroy, rape, mutilate and slaughter Israeli citizens in a sadistic savagery unimaginable to normal decent humanity -- a time to reflect, to mourn and to find comfort in each other's sorrow within the Jewish community is once again confronted by the presence of the same maleficent hatred from a source in Canada.

Palestinians and other Muslims who have made a place for themselves in Canada -- bringing with them the venomous hatred for Jews that permeates the Middle East where Israel is a tiny enclave of Jewish life on the very ancestral geography that ancient Judea sat upon, surrounded by hostile majority-Muslim countries -- have contaminated Canada with their brand of vicious threats and intimidation. Normal human beings would blanch at the level of savagery revealed by the October 7 atrocities. Within the Muslim community in Canada it is interpreted as 'noble resistance'.

Resistance to the presence of a Jewish state sitting upon its heritage geography on land the Islamic majority feels has been consecrated to Islam through the impact of violent upheaval in the history of Islam's religiously-inspired conquest. In Montreal, a group of terrorist-supporting 'activists' have planned to honour the 'martyrs' of Hamas on the anniversary of the very day that Hamas butchered 1,200 Jews and took 250 infants, elderly, women and men hostage to Gaza.

On an Instagram post their planned triumphalist march in honour of the Hamas terrorists whose exploits in causing human suffering is quite unequalled in the annals of human depravity, calls on like-thinkers and their supporters to join them. The rally is meant to celebrate the medievalism of a culture, society, heritage and religion that calls for the faithful to engage in jihad against the enemy, encompassing all those who fail to submit to Islam.

Montreal has experienced more than its share of antisemitic events in the past year, with Jewish businesses vandalized, Jewish community centers, synagogues and parochial schools being shot at and fire-bombed. Where university students were intimidated by antisemitic mobs of pro-Hamas champions on local campuses. Jewish community leaders have appealed to provincial and federal leaders for steps to be taken to protect Canadian Jews ... and most often to no avail.

 

The Palestinian Youth Movement distinguished itself following the October 7 atrocities by organizing public 'protests' in support of Palestinians and Palestinian terror, crowding city streets across Canada with support for Hamas terrorism, a group on Canada's official terror list, calling for Intifada, chanting "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!", shouting for Jews to return to Europe, and recommending a 'Final Solution', displaying their fascist sympathies.

From Montreal to Edmonton, Calgary to Vancouver, the group that calls itself "a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide", that supports the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, another banned terror group in Canada, has organized loud, threatening marches, harassing Jewish neighbourhoods, planning 'protests' outside synagogues and Jewish museums, even Mount Sinai Hospital.

Their presence in Canada is that of a hostile, disruptive, threatening, racist mob of psychological terrorists, more suited to the confines of Islamic-majority countries than free Democracies like Canada. Yet the reality is that most Islamic countries have no wish to host these hate-dominated inciters to violence, even as the West tolerates their presence as a symbol of its wide acceptance of all manner of people from different backgrounds, ethnicities, religions and cultures.

Their objective is that of the Islamic Republic of Iran, of its proxy terrorist militias, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis and the many Iran-loyal Shia militias in Syria and Iraq whose goal is the eradication of Israel and the death of Jews worldwide. Their very presence as a group force of lethal hostile intentions is a direct assault on civilizational mores. Their countries of origin will not tolerate their presence, but the generous, civilized West will, and does, and the greater their numbers gather in the West, the greater the danger to the oblivious West.

"Canada has seen far too many displays of hate, violence, and intimidation."

"This is why the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs has called for amendments to Canada's anti-terror legislation to include the glorification of terrorism."

"It is time to stop the spread of hate and antisemitism."

Eta Yudin, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Israel Roaring in the Lion's Den

"Israel has every right to remove this threat and return our citizens to their home safely. And that's exactly what we're doing ... we'll continue degrading Hezbollah until all our objectives are met."

"Just imagine if terrorists turned El Paso and San Diego into ghost towns ... How long would the American government tolerate that?"

"Yet Israel has been tolerating this intolerable situation for almost a year."

"Well, I've come here today to say: Enough is enough."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pushed back at critics of his campaigns against Hamas and Hezbollah in a speech at the UN General Assembly, justifying his military operations as necessary. Still from video

 

A 'precise strike' was the message conveyed by the Israeli military on Hezbollah central headquarters in Beirut. A set of buildings in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh were levelled after a precision strike by the Israeli Air Force, acting in conjunction with the Israeli Secret Intelligence Service. In service of yet another deadly strike against high-profile terrorist leaders, from Gaza to Lebanon to Iran. Intelligence comes in many forms, and it is worth pondering on the kind of humint that offers insider secret information enabling Israel to produce its pinpoint precision strikes where it knows its targets will be located.

Those with entree to the inner circles of Israel's terrorist enemies are obviously no loyal allies of those they betray; their betrayals owe to the fact that insiders privy to security secrets they may be, but their loyalties are to their countries which have been throttled by force, threat, intimidation and violence by the death-to-Israel-groups curried by the Islamic Republic of Iran. Betrayals of the mullahs of Iran holding their own people in thrall to a deadly ideology, along with those of their proxies stifling the lives of people whose countries they have control over.

Following Prime Minister Netanyahu's address to the United Nations where he stressed that nothing would deter Israel from its campaign against Hezbollah, just as it is engaged in destroying Hamas, both of which terrorist groups threaten Jewish lives and the State of Israel with annihilation in coordination with the Islamic Republic, assent was given for the IAF to strike Hezbollah's central headquarters.

The ultimate target of the strikes was Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The size and timing of the destructive blast ensured the presence of a high-value target necessitating the attack. Israeli military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Haggari announced that the main Hezbollah headquarters, positioned  under residential buildings was the target. Four buildings, as a result, were reduced to rubble by the powerful blast that rattled windows and shook houses up to 30 kilometres north of Beirut. 

Israel had good reason after enduring thousands of rockets striking northern Israel for almost a year, displacing 60,000 Israelis internally, unable to return to their homes under constant bombardment. Forests, farms and towns under constant fire leading to ravaging wildfires destroying both environment and infrastructure and the hopes of returnees. There is a planned ground invasion for the purpose of installing a wide berth on the border of southern Lebanon and northern Israel clear of Hezbollah terrorists.

During his speech, President Netanyahu, a formidably skilled communicator, gave his audience a lesson on what a determined nation is capable of doing to a relentless enemy intent on destroying a country dedicated to the preservation of world Jewry. Visual aids skilfully deployed enabled him to defend Israel's response to the horrendous October 7 atrocities perpetrated on unarmed Israeli civilians that resulted in Israel's military operation to destroy the threat represented by Hamas.

Israel, he emphasized, desired peace, and he delivered a special message to Iran: "If you strike us, we will strike you." Placing ultimate responsibility where it belongs. For its part, Lebanon has fair reason to fear a repeat of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict of 2006, the cause of massive destruction in areas of the country which harbours and submits to the direly destructive presence of the 'Party of God'.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Sept. 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

Poland's Holocaust Distortion

"Unfortunately, the politics of memory pursued and enforced in Poland are nowadays best described as Holocaust distortion."

"Unlike Holocaust deniers of yesteryear, states, institutions and people engaged in Holocaust distortions do not deny the factuality of the Jewish catastrophe. They freely admit that the Germans murdered six million European Jews."

"What they refuse to acknowledge, however, is that their people, their nation, had something to do with the vent. That their ancestors took part in the German genocidal project."

"They're using them [Auschwitz and Treblinka] as platforms of Polish martyrdom. And I find that obscene."

Jan Grabowski, professor of Holocaust history, University of Ottawa

A group of Jewish Poles surrender to German soldiers after the collapse of resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in April 1943. Photograph: anonymous/AP

 

"Whitewash: Poland and the Jews", published in The Jewish Quarterly publication recently, authored by Professor Grabowski, is a strong argument for replacing the government of Poland as curator of the Auschwitz site as a memorial to the Holocaust, to avoid further "distortion" through Polish nationalism of the site and the history it reflects. The complicity of individual Poles in the slaughter of Jews during the Holocaust has seen the light of day through Professor Grabowski's previous publications.

His focus is the complicity of many Poles during the Holocaust in the mass killing of Jews. Of the six million Jews that perished during the Second World War in the Nazis' diabolical plot to destroy world Jewry, the vast majority of the deaths happened to have taken place in Poland. The government of Poland a few years back ferociously fought against the commonplace linking of Poland with the death camps of Nazi Germany. To call them 'Polish death camps', the Polish government raged, defied  history and reality; they were 'German death camps located in Poland'.

Guilty Germany, innocent Poland. The world has since acquiesced largely, although Israel's government was not comfortable with that distinction. It was Poland's way to clear itself completely of any hint of complicity in the Nazi Germany death machinery. Although, like France's Vichy period, official Poland under like German occupation, reacted similarly, since Polish officials, like those in France, found it expedient and perhaps not entirely fully foreign to their own beliefs and traditions that Jews were expendable.

Six extermination camps were established by the Nazi SS in Poland; they were -- Auschwitz, Treblinka, Chelmno, Sobibor, Majdanek and Belzec -- five of the six million European Jews murdered during the Holocaust years met their death in those six camps. All but a fraction of Poland's prewar Jewish community perished; just over three million. Infamously, when some Polish survivors attempted to return to their post-war villages to reclaim their property, they were met with violent hostility, threatened and some were killed.

Professor Grabowski is of the considered opinion that the very fact of Poland having hosted those death camps, the site of the vast majority of Jewish annihilation, imposes on the country "a unique obligation of memory"; a duty to care for those places commemorating the Holocaust. Unfortunately Auschwitz and Treblinka, he charges, are being used by Holocaust distortionists in valorizing Polish gentiles who did help Jews, at the same time preferring to be oblivious of those who were helpful in assisting the Germans to wipe out Poland's Jewish population.

Blame has been shifted in its entirety to Nazi Germany. Those same distortionists conflate Polish prisoners of war and those Poles used for slave labour, as equal in number and outcome with those of the Jewish internees slated for immediate death. The extermination camps were exclusive to Jews in Auschwitz II and Treblinka II. The slave labour camps were primarily the destination of Poles who had the opportunity of outliving their onerous labour conditions and confinement.

According to Professor Grabowski's historical investigations and reckoning, about 200,000 Jews were killed as a result of direct or indirect actions of their Polish, gentile neighbours. Polish nationalists loathe this historian of the Holocaust. The Polish League Against Defamation views him as their favourite target. Airing the complicity of some Poles in the slaughter of Jews insults Poland and diminishes its gallant wartime history and its people's suffering.

The good professor was introduced to his professional life's work as a Holocaust historian entirely by chance, following his unrelated search of Polish archives, discovering a cache of German wartime records revealing new issues on the Jewish experience in Poland. Yad Vashem awarded the professor its International Book Prize for his 2014 book, Hunt for Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland.

As a co-editor of the publication Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in Selected Counties of Occupied Poland, he and his co-author Barbara Engelking were ordered by a Warsaw court ruling to apologize for writing that a Polish villager gave up the village's Jews to the Nazis. That was a decision that failed to withstand the test of time; overturned on appeal.

Getty Images

"Nowhere else in Europe was the Holocaust so complete, so total; nowhere else did the destruction of the Jewish people proceed with such nightmarish perfection."

"Given the apparent unwillingness of the Polish authorities to act as honest custodians of the memory of the Holocaust, perhaps the time has come to place these sites under European, United Nations or other international jurisdictions."

"Auschwitz and Treblinka could become places in which humanity can reflect unhindered on one of the greatest catastrophes in history, on its own tragic heritage, and its own moral condition, past and present."

Jan Grabowski

Canada's 'Two State Solution' For Thee, Not For Me

 

"[The Foreign Affairs Committee is called upon to] immediately study the issue of how the Government of Canada can advance the recognition of the State of Palestine within a two-state solution."

"[The motion] supports the recognition of a viable and independent State of Palestine."

Motion before the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Canadian Parliament

 

"[Trudeau] has said that the recognition of the state of Palestine will happen, not necessarily at the end of the process, but sometime during the process where the timing and conditions will be such that it will foster lasting peace."

"We need to know what that timing is, what the issues are and what the conditions should be, because we want a two-state solution."

Rob Oliphant, Toronto Liberal MP

 

"To veer from [Canada's traditional] path would reward violence and authoritarianism as a path to achieving statehood."

"[The committee adopted] a radical position [that parts-way from Canada's long-standing agreement that recognition can be achieved only as part of a negotiated agreement."

Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong 

"Canada's foreign policy should hold Hamas accountable, not legitimize them with status as a governing power."

"Put bluntly, they are the terrorists who murdered 1,200 Israelis, eight Canadians, continue to hold and executive hostages, and want to eradicate the Jewish people."

Liberal MP Marco Mendicino

"I can't pre-empt what the government will respond to. What I can tell you is our position is a two-state solution to this longstanding conflict."

"We believe that a two-state solution is the best path forward for lasting peace in the Middle East -- that's our position."

"How we end up getting there is something that obviously, is something (sic) that the government will continuously look at based on the situation on the ground."

Liberal MP Omar Alghabra introduced the motion. (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

A motion tabled in the House of Commons presented by Liberal Member of Parliament Omar Alghabra called for Canada to recognize a Palestinian state, upending the past 75 years of tradition calling for the establishment of a Palestinian state, but only as a component of a two-state solution. Four Conservative votes were against but the motion passed by eight votes of members of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in agreement representing the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois.

 

That the committee motion to fully recognize a 'Palestinian State' arrives mere weeks before the one-year anniversary of the October 7 savagery that rent apart farming communities in southern Israel when the Gaza-governing terrorist group Hamas led thousands of terrorists from Gaza across the border into Israel in a planned orgy of pillage, rape, torture, murder and hostage-taking, speaks volumes about the current government of Canada led by Justin Trudeau and the sensibilities of his Muslim-Canadian caucus members.

 

One can only wonder whether the Liberal party that forms Canada's current government is comprised of a majority of legislators under the illusion that their opinion on world matters has any merit, and in particular their decision that a two-state solution be achieved seeing Israel and the Arab Palestinians living in harmony is a true reflection of their mind processes, or that they are deliberately obtuse to the realities on the ground. 

 

That being primarily that the Hamas rulers of Gaza reject a two-state solution in their overt commitment to the destruction of Israel. As opposed to the covert commitment by the Fatah-led West Bank government of the Palestinian Authority under Mahmoud Abbas which also envisions and nurtures the prospect of destroying Israel, leaving the entire geography 'from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean sea' in Palestinian hands, giving them their desired one-state solution.

For almost a year now, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel crowds have been marching through the streets of Canadian towns and cities shouting 'long live the Intifadeh!' and 'From the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free!', the obvious message of a one-state solution, the reality of which appears to have eluded the government of Justin Trudeau which prefers to see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. A caution it lifts from time to time, to criticize Israel and its leadership and to charge Israel, not Hamas, with war crimes.

Canada has no wish for a two-state solution for itself. The Bloc Quebecois in the House of Commons still opts for separation for Quebec from Canada. The province is the only one in Confederation that bills itself as a 'national' entity. It has extracted special powers given no other province in Canada, as its just due as one of the two founding 'nations' of the country. But its true agenda is to achieve full sovereignty, something that the government of Canada will never countenance.

Yet this Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has worked out a winning formula for Israel; to accept a two-state 'solution' despite since its founding in 1948, Fatah and later Hamas and other terrorist Palestinian groups have always violently challenged Israel's right to exist. Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas pays out handsome rewards to the families of suicide bombers or those ending up in Israeli prisons for crimes against Israel. 

Palestinian school curricula teach the younger generations of Palestinians to hate Israel and Jews, viewing them as their oppressors living on land rightfully belonging to Arab Palestinians who claim sole possession of ancient Judean ancestral lands -- as well as their traditions and history. According to the PA even that world-renown Jewish pacifist-scholar Yeshua, was actually 'Palestinian'. But only in the sense that during the Roman Empire Judean lands were named a Roman province called 'Palestine'.

Yet Justin Trudeau's government has arrived at the solution to the Arab Palestinians' aggrieved victimhood which considers the rebirth of Israel a 'disaster'. A day celebrated by Jews the world over as having finally, after millennia of a far-reaching, forced diaspora, Jews finally had a homeland of their own returned to their possession. That day one of mourning as the 'Nakba', memorializing the loss of Arab Palestinians' aspirations of their own state. 

The Palestinians created their Nakba when they rejected the Partition Plan offered by the United Nations to both Jews and Arabs, when the Jews were ecstatic about their return to Zion, and the Arabs awaited the onslaught of the combined Arab armies to vanquish and destroy the newborn state of Israel. They have never stopped trying. While most surrounding Arab/Muslim states have finally surrendered to the reality of Israel's presence, the 'Palestinians' forge on in their aspiration to kill Jews and destroy their state.

“Palestine will remain ours. And if anyone were to leave, it will be the occupying usurpers,” he declared.

UN Photo/Loey Felipe

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the State of Palestine, addresses the general debate of the General Assembly’s seventy-ninth session.

Operation Northern Arrows : From Israel to Hezbollah

"You can hear the planes here; we are attacking all day, both to prepare the ground for the possibility of your entry, but also to continue striking Hezbollah."

"We are not stopping. We will keep attacking and harming them everywhere,."

"To do this, we are preparing for the course of the manoeuvre, and the sense is that your military boots, your manoeuvre boots, will enter enemy territory."

"Your entry there with force… will show (Hezbollah) what it is like to meet a professional combat force."

"You are coming in much stronger than them, much more experienced than them; go in, destroy the enemy there, and go destroy the infrastructure."

"These are the things that will allow us to safely repatriate the residents of the north later."

Troop briefing: Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi

Israeli Merkava tanks are positioned in the north of Israel near the border with Lebanon on October 15, 2023. Photo: AFP

 

A second precision strike in as many days was carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in Beirut. This one eliminated Ibrahim Qubaisi, head of Hezbollah's missile and rocket array. The day before, the earlier strike attempted the assassination of the third-ranking Hezbollah commander, Ali Karaki in the very same region.  Qubaisi, according to the IDF, held a number of key positions within Hezbollah.

 

He "was responsible for the planning and execution of many terrorist actions against the Israel Defense Forces and Israeli citizens", declared an IDF statement. He had planned the kidnapping of three IDF soldiers in October of 2000, killed during or after their abduction. Four years later, as part of a terrorist release deal with Hezbollah, their remains were returned to Israel. 

 

When the attack was launched targeting Qubaisi, he was with other Hezbollah operatives, five of whom were killed, others injured in the airstrike. In a 24-hour period the Israeli Air Fore struck over 1,500 Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley; part of "Operation Northern Arrows". This operation has been long in coming. Hezbollah has been sending hundreds of rockets into northern Israel for close to a year, necessitating the evacuation of over 60,000 Israelis. 

 

Hezbollah could not be persuaded, even by return Israeli fire into Lebanon over that period of time, that it should stop bombing across the border into Israel. A year is a long time to wait out a period of constant shelling for people displaced and anxious to return to their homes. Now, when the current operation has been concluded and Hezbollah's rocketry has been stilled, Israelis will be able to return home. 

 

It won't seem the same; vast acreages of forest and fields have been burned as a result of the Hezbollah rockets.

 

A cloud of smoke erupts during an Israeli airstrike on the village of Sujud in southern Lebanon on Sept. 25, 2024. — RABIH DAHER/AFP via Getty Images

 

In turn, thousands of Lebanese have evacuated from the south, following instructions from the IDF to Lebanese civilians to move from their homes where Hezbollah has munitions stored. Like its sister terrorist group Hamas, Hezbollah too excels in putting ordinary Lebanese in harm's way to protect themselves against instant repercussions from Israel returning fire from where it has been launched. 

 

Hezbollah targets deep inside Lebanese territory in the Bekaa Valley have also been struck, when more than 100 rockets were fired by Hezbollah into northern Israel.  

"[Israel does not want to send troops in to Lebanon but is prepared o do] whatever necessary [to halt the Hezbollah rocket fire that has driven tens of thousands of Israelis from northern Israel]."

"Israel is] not eager to start any ground invasion anywhere."

"We prefer a diplomatic solution. But if it's not working, we are  using other methods to show the other side that we mean business."

Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations Danny Danon

Forced Into a Conflict on Two Fronts

 

"Take this warning seriously."

"Please get out of harm's way now."

"Once our operation is finished, you an come back safely to your homes."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

 

"IAF strikes will continue."

"Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah stands guilty of] dragging Lebanon and the entire region into escalation." 

"We will do whatever is necessary to return residents [of northern Israel] to their homes. We have detailed plans, which we have presented to the political leadership."

Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, IDF spokesperson

Missiles intercepted over Israel as airstrikes in Lebanon continue – still from video

 

The infamous, murderous pogrom of October 7 when thousands of Palestinian terrorists breached the border wall separating Gaza and Israel in a Hamas-led savage assault on Israeli civilians living in farming kibbutzim close to the Gaza border, leaving 1,200 children, women and men and IDF border patrol soldiers dead, another 240 captured and taken hostage into Gaza, led to the Israel Defense Forces some days later entering Gaza in a ground and aerial sweep to destroy the Hamas terrorist group governing Gaza.

Even before the IDF had entered Gaza on its southern border, Hezbollah forces in Lebanon began bombarding northern Israel with rocketry and drones, setting hilltops and forest and farms ablaze and with its day after day bombing forcing the relocation of 60,000 Israelis seeking safety deeper inside Israel from the constant bombardment. Hezbollah's actions also served of necessity for Israel to deploy its military on two fronts; south and north.

Anywhere in the world bombs shot off by one neighbour at another is recognized as a declaration of war, one requiring a defensive/offensive response for self-preservation. The civilians across borders are recipients of the fallout of conflicts, and it has ever been thus. All the more so when Palestinian terrorists specialize in using civilians among them as living human shields. By establishing their headquarters, weapons depots and barracks among dense population bases, they deliberately endanger innocents while banking on their opponent to take more care to avoid harm to their civilians than they do themselves.

Hezbollah's incessant bombing of northern Israel, despite the return fire of the IDF has driven Israel finally to conduct massive airstrikes on Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, with the intention of preventing the Iranian proxy in its deadly war against Israel, in a continuation of its of firing cross-border rockets.  In the first day of the heavy barrage with the Israeli Air Force fighter jets' massive airstrikes, the IAF had attacked over 800 Hezbollah targets, primarily weapons sites.

Thousands of Lebanese civilians have now fled the south of the country, the major highway leading out of the southern port city of Sidon jammed with vehicles streaming toward Beirut. Hezbollah had attempted to launch a cruise missile from a civilian residence, successfully thwarted. A DR-3 model with a flight range of 20 km, the cruise missile carried a warhead of up to 300 kg. Hezbollah claimed to have fired dozens of rockets toward Israel, including military bases, as well as targeting the facilities of the Rafael defence firm in Haifa.

Rocket alarms sound in Israel as explosions occurr and dozens of interceptions were reported. Close to a year of steadily escalating conflict punctuated with a heavy exchange of fire has led to Hezbollah launching 150 rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel, retaliating for IAF strikes that hit a top commander and dozens of fighters. Hezbollah pledged its strikes in solidarity with Hamas would continue, while Israel is focused on its commitment to return all its citizens to its northern border, to return to their homes.

Israel's military has identified entire communities in south Lebanon that have been converted into bases, with hidden rocket launchers and other allied military infrastructure. The situation has seen the United States declaring its intention to dispatch additional troops to the region, responding to the spike in violence. No details were released with respect to numbers or the assigned tasks associated with an increase of the 40,000 U.S. troops currently in the region.

"In light of increased tension in the Middle East and out of an abundance of caution, we are sending a small number of additional US. military personnel forward to augment our forces that are already in the region."

"But for operational security reasons, I'm not going to comment on or provide specifics."

Major General Pat Ryder, U.S. military press secretary

"They are dragging us to a point where we do not wish to go."

"There is no winner in warfare. We are only fooling ourselves [if we believe that]."

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian

That declaration of war-unwillingness, and wish for peace and security to prevail, from the very source of terrorism throughout the Middle East and beyond, the foremost threatening terrorist theocracy whose sponsorship, arming, training and collaborative direction of its many terrorist proxies, from Yemen to Iraq, Lebanon to Gaza, states, portraying itself as an innocent victim of circumstances beyond its control. 

The Israeli military said a strike in Beirut on Tuesday killed the head of Hezbollah’s rocket forces  Reuters

Eradicating Israel, One Palestinian Lie After Another

"This curriculum has been widely condemned for spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and hate, rejecting a two-state solution, and inserting examples of violence into subjects like science and math."

"Supporting newcomers and refugees is an integral part of Canadian values -- but allowing hateful curriculum to be taught on Canadian soil is blatantly inappropriate."

Shimon Koffler Fogel, president, CEO, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

"It is a curriculum that, in almost every subject, tends to emphasize concepts that are all about negating the right of the Jewish people to a sovereign state of the land. It's about negating the history of the Jewish people in the land."

"It's about indoctrinating students to this idea of return, which is basically another Palestinian code word for no space for the Jewish people anywhere between the river to the sea."

Einat Wilf, author, former member of Israeli Knesset

"When there is no idea of peacemaking in these textbooks, when they talk about jihad and martyrdom as the most important meanings of life, that is what we saw, that kind of incitement, day after day in school, and an official school surrounding is obviously going to be disastrous in relation to the education of people and the incitement of them to commit these terrible acts."

"That is a curriculum which cannot possibly be continued to be taught, particularly to people who are from Gaza, a place that, as a result of this education, were the people who started this terrible situation by the October 7 massacre."

"The curriculum which emerged was more radical than the previous curriculum. It wasn't a reform, it was a radicalization of textbooks, so that any ideas of peacemaking were entirely removed, any possibility of living peacefully with Israel or with Jews was removed."

Marcus Sheff, CEO, Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se

 

"[The European Union Parliament's document] condemns  the problematic and hateful contents encouraging violence, spreading antisemitism and inciting hatred in Palestinian school textbooks, drafted by [European] Union-funded civil servants as well as in supplementary educational materials developed by UNRWA staff and taught in its schools."

European Union April statement

TDSB students walking in a rally as demonstrators are heard chanting “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime.”

An alert went out in the Canadian Jewish community with the discovery of an offer from the Palestinian Authority to teach its curriculum to children recently arrived in Canada from Gaza. The offer was characterized as "unacceptable" and "blatantly inappropriate". The announcement was seen on the Palestinian General Delegation to Canada website. Representing the interests of the Palestinian Authority, the West Bank governing body which has seen fit to invite people to sign up for the program through a Google form.

Originally posted in Arabic, the message was translated with the use of Google, urging Gazan students in Canada to "register their data as soon as possible". The Palestinian ambassador to Canada, Mona Abuamara, responded with the explanation that the Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education has made the offer of its online curriculum for all Gazan students worldwide, unable to attend school in countries where education may not be free. Under Canada's special temporary residency program launched by the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, some 200 Gazans arrived in Canada.

Under the program 1,000 visas were initially offered, then expanded to 5,000 but arrivals have been slow, with Gazan Palestinians experiencing difficulty in leaving the country. Many, according to Abuamara, may simply enter the Canadian education system without need of the PA curriculum. And why would they not, since the 'pro-Palestinian' infiltration in the Canadian school system at all levels has seen the Toronto and District School Board allowing its students to attend events where anti-Israel placards and memes are in full display, encouraging Canadian students exposed to such events to echo the chants disparaging Jews and Israel.

Moreover a recent discovery of a child's story book that appears on the curriculum has been shown to represent yet another manoeuvre to discredit Israel, Zionism and Jews in the pretext of exposing Canadian children to different cultures, introducing them to words in Arabic used by Palestinians to expand their knowledge of world affairs, where Zionism is described as an evil Jewish plot to wrest 'Palestine' from the possession of Palestinians through the presence of the Jewish State.

Textbooks used by the PA prominently feature the glorification of terrorism, antisemitism and violence. Where Jihad "for the liberation of Palestine" is taught as a "private obligation for every Muslim". One Islamic education chapter teaches that Jews are corrupt, doomed to destruction as their "corruption of the land was and will be the cause of their annihilation". Over 200 maps used in the textbooks are absent of the presence of Israel. Modern Jewish Israeli cities are erased and Arab cities, regions and topography in Israel are given as Palestinian, under Palestinian sovereignty.

"This is one network for all the Gazan kids who have been dismissed from their home and are unable to continue taking their courses. So, we are starting with gathering the information."

"Basically, the ministry then would be able to know how to provide help for them, so they won't lose any more time or years of education."

"We did not receive any responses, still, and we doubt that in Canada there would be a big number, because we don't think that there is a number from Gaza that have kids arrive here, and would fit in this situation, to take online courses, to continue education."

"The curriculum is not what it's portrayed to be. I've seen the tests and I studied the curriculum in Palestine."

"I can assure you that the myth that is provided on that is wrong. Our kids are just resisting, in their own way, not being provided what any child has the right to get -- which is education."

Mona Abuamara, Palestinian 'Ambassador' to Canada

 

 

Enforcing Neutrality In Countering Antisemitism

"Today's targeting of Hezbollah operatives was brilliant. It struck a major blow against a terror group that has fired thousands of rockets against civilians all while the useless UN mission in Lebanon stands by. There is a price to pay #Hezbollah #FAFO."

"There has been significant misunderstanding of my use of the word 'brilliant'. The loss of innocent lives in any conflict is abhorrent & must be avoided. As a retired national security & intel leader, my use of that word was about the complexity & sophistication of an operation."

"With the rise in hate, prejudice and exclusion, we need to address the specific challenges Jewish students, faculty and staff face."

Artur Wilczynsky, University of Ottawa special adviser on antisemitism

 

"His mandate includes studying antisemitism and advising the university's senior leadership on strategies to combat it and other forms of racism, discrimination and harassment to promote a safer campus for all."

"The special adviser's role includes serving as a liaison between members of the Jewish community and the university administration, and providing his vast expertise as a resource to faculty, students and staff."

University of Ottawa President Jacques Fremont

Artur Wilczynski was appointed antisemitism adviser at the University of Ottawa June 25, 2024, and resigned from the position on Sept. 19, 2024. Photo by University of Ottawa/Handout

 

In response to the news on Tuesday that thousands of communications devices in the use of the terrorist group Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon and into Syria, wounding thousands and killing a handful of Hezbollah operatives, along with a few unfortunate civilians, the University of Ottawa's appointed antisemitism adviser spoke of his personal reaction to the event, informed by his professional identity as a man involved for years in national intelligence. A reaction which alluded to the technical achievement of pagers suddenly morphing into surprise IEDs. With subsequent results.

 

Posting on X in the immediacy of the news of exploding pagers reducing the numbers of terrorist operatives that Hezbollah could count upon in its war against Israeli civilians forced to relocate in their tens of thousands as a result of hundreds of rockets raining down on Northern Israel in a concerted effort to aid another Canada-listed terror group, Hamas in Gaza, which was reaping the consequences of its deadly savage pogrom in southern Israel, his admiration at the technical initiative proficiency of Israelis was expressed as "brilliant".

That comment on the exploding pagers: "Today's targeting of Hezbollah operatives was brilliant. It struck a major blow against a terror group that has fired thousands of rockets against civilians all while the useless UN mission Lebanon stands by" triggered a predicable backlash. An observation that is in and of itself a reflection of reality. But one that sat poorly in the estimation of those who find it in themselves to have a special place reserved in their hearts for terrorist murderers as long as it is Jews/Israelis that are in their sights. A social-media backlash was ignited.

And thus, the perfect antisemitism adviser to the university came under the death-of-a-thousand-cuts lashing of public criticism, emanating from very specific sources reeking with antisemitism and from those whose progressive-woke sensibilities were tweaked in outrage. Leading this longtime public servant, former ambassador to Norway, with his unique background in foreign policy, intelligence, security and defence, to apologize gracefully, and to resign from his advisory position with the University of Ottawa. 

"I believe in accountability."

"My posts on the Hezbollah/Israel war caused harm & affected my ability to help combat antisemitism at U[university] of Ottawa."

"My intent in sharing is irrelevant when it is clear many were hurt by them. I apologize." 

"Because unlike you people [his critics], I don't believe in re-writing history [by removing the offending post]. I did write it and it should be part of the record. It's called transparency."

Artur Wilczynsky

With his master's degree in international relations and conflict studies, Wilczynski became the first federal government-wide executive champion for the Jewish Public Servants Network. His family had arrived in Canada in 1969 as refugees from Communist Poland. According to the Centre for Holocaust Education and Scholarship, Mr. Wilczynski is the son and grandson of Holocaust survivors. As a federal public servant in  Canada he was director general of international affairs and order policy at Public Safety Canada.

He was, as well, assistant deputy minister for equity diversity and inclusion at the Communications Security Establishment. And it is the equity, diversity and inclusion component that is partly responsible for the avalanche of criticism his post on the 'brilliance' of the Israeli plot to neutralize the terrorist effectiveness of a death cult-group in the Middle East occasioned. 

His more latterly role from which he has now removed himself was to advise senior university authorities on strategies to combat antisemitism and other forms of racism at the university. A position for which his experience, studies, and professionalism made him the perfect candidate. During which time he overlooked the necessity/expectation that he understand spontaneous utterances readily construed as condemnation of terrorists and admiration for spectacular successes in eliminating their threats could not be countenanced.

 

He will surely be missed.

"In his short time in the role, Artur Wilczynski made a large impact, and we're thankful for his service to the Jewish and university communities."

"Unfortunately, reflecting the problem, there is a large cohort who will attack and smear anyone who defends the Jewish community, and journalists and politicians across Canada are beginning to experience this themselves."

"The role of adviser on antisemitism is critical to fighting hate at the university. Our message to the university is, find a replacement as soon as possible."

David Sachs, community relations and antisemitism specialist, Jewish Federation of Ottawa

Canadian Arctic -- Defend It Or Lose it

"I look forward to seeing those actions [Canadian Liberal government promises of new fighter jets and submarines] but there's not a history of [Canada] taking those actions."

"There is no sense of urgency, for the most part, from the leadership of the government of Canada. It is easy to say we're going to buy F-35 [fighter jets], we're going to buy submarines. But with that comes a lot of requirements to build infrastructure, set up logistics pipelines, set up training pipelines."

"And my question is, is Canada ready to do that?"

U.S. (ret) General Glen Vanherck, former commander NORAD

 

"[Alliances like NORAD and NATO are particularly important with authoritarian leaders like Russia's Vladimir Putin] on the prowl [but Canada's part in those groups is] sorely lacking."

"You have to contribute your fair share and, quite frankly, Canada, over the last nine to ten years has not done so."

"There's one issue that seems to galvanize and unify [U.S.] Republicans and Democrats, both in the House of Representatives and the Senate. That is their concern and dismay over Canada's paltry contributions to international peace and security and the unacceptable -- and I'll use that word again, unacceptable -- levels of money spent on defence capabilities."

"[The Army is short 16,000 personnel, while] 70 percent of the army's vehicles don't work because they're either waiting for spare parts or they don't have the mechanics to fix them."

"Half our Navy's fleet, their ships can't actually set sail because they don't have the sailors or the spare parts to get them out of port."

Retired Canadian General Andrew Leslie, former Liberal MP

 

"[The U.S. Defense Department] is focused on fighting the away game, hamstringing the commander of NORAD, U.S. Northern Command [USNORTHCOM], and belying the vulnerability of our homeland."

"As the Middle East missions evolved -- ISIS, al Qaeda, the Taliban, whatever it was -- Russia began flexing its muscles with each and every incursion into the air defence identification zones of Canada and the United States."

"They approach our coastlines from all sides. They still do. And the most recent incursions -- include Chinese aircraft along with them."

"I have long said, where you see the intersection of Russian and Chinese interests, especially in military cooperation, we should be worried."

Retired Major General Scott Clancy, formerly NORAD director of operations

A Canadian part-time military volunteer drives over the frozen sea past an abandoned landing craft off Cornwallis Island, Nunavut on April 9, 2006. (David Ljunggren/Reuters)

 

A Mackenzie Institute forum on security in the Arctic taking place in Toronto brought together speakers all of whom contended Canada has a requirement to expeditiously increase lagging investment in defence, or risk seeing its control slip away of the Canadian Far North, leaving it in the hands of foreign adversaries. The Canadian Arctic comprises about 40 percent of Canada's geography. A military presence along with transportation infrastructure and resource development benefiting local Indigenous populations would counter increasing incursions by Russia and China. 

Alison LeClaire, one-time Canadian ambassador to Moscow, and before that one of the country's recognized Arctic officials, feels that Russian interest is primarily an ambition to exploit the Arctic for economic gain, to take command of its natural resources. While Canada derives less than one percent of its GDP from its Arctic, Russia counts upon 20 percent of the GDP from its part of the Arctic: "The reality is that everybody wants into the Arctic, and it's ours to protect. We need to stand up for ourselves and be present."

If there was one thing that all present agreed upon, it was that the current Liberal government under Justin Trudeau as prime minister will commit to nothing more than lip service. Stating that in its spring defence policy the government would acquire new fighter jets and submarines, yet no one has any expectation that these are any more than vague promises. 

Leona Alleslev, a former air force officer, former MP, felt that Canadian citizens, companies and think tanks have an obligation to strenuously support "nation building" in the country's north to protect it. Concerns that as climate change makes the Arctic more navigable for ships move countries like Russia with its recently rebuilt Arctic bases, and China, which represents itself as a "near-arctic" nation, albeit thousands of kilometres' distance, send military vessels and aircraft into the region. Incursions meant to deliver a message provocative challenging North America.

American airspace in Alaska can be reached within a half-hour by Russian planes, while in reverse the closest F-22 Raptor American fighter jet, would take two hours to arrive full-speed, at the same spot. The idea that Russia is a "paper tiger" given its long attrition-type conflict with Ukraine is misguided, according to General Vanherck. "In my three and a half years in command of NORAD and NORTHCOM, what I saw was exactly the opposite."

"Strategically, they deplored more, they deployed more bombers, they deployed more submarines.  They're still very capable, with the world's largest nuclear arsenal and hypersonic weapons." Others argued that Russia or China would actually attempt to invade the Canadian Arctic or otherwise attack North America, to be unlikely. Given that their goal is canted toward imposing themselves in the region with resource development and infrastructure such as ports and roads. 

Narratives from Indigenous organizations and other authorities in the North, report being offered major funding from Chinese interests, commented Mackenzie president Brian Hay.

 

A Finnish icebreaker sails through sea ice floating on the Victoria Strait along the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, July 21, 2017. The U.S., Canada and Finland on July 11, 2024, announced they will build up their icebreaker fleets.

 

"The actions that are ongoing are for influence -- Russian influence, Chinese influence."

"They're seeking to change international haw norms, get after resources through claims that put them in a better position globally, economically, diplomatically, than they are today."

"This is about influence and changing the world order."

General Glen Vanherck

In this photo taken from video released by the Russian Defense Ministry on September 16, Russian Borei-class ballistic missile submarine Imperator Aleksandr III sails toward the Rybachiy submarine base on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Russian defense ministry