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