The Canadian Jewish Barometer

"[It is] ironic [that DEI programs are] often structurally incapable of even seeing antisemitism, let alone addressing it."

"If your DEI lens only recognizes race-based disadvantage, and cannot grapple with religious, cultural, economic and national dimensions, then Jews -- who are the most targeted group in the country -- are effectively rendered invisible."

"Some of the research shows an inherent tension between DEI frameworks, and the ability to understand antisemitism."

"When DEI is framed almost exclusively around systemic barriers defined by race, it cannot grapple with how antisemitism operates along religious, cultural, economic and national lines."

"The result is that antisemitism is frequently not mentioned at all in institutional DEI policies, or, when it is, the national dimension of Jewish identity is explicitly excluded."

Rhonda Lenton, former president, York University

 

"That 25 percent [one in four Jews seriously considering leaving Canada] is not people packing suitcases; it's a measure of lost trust. They are questioning whether Canada is still living up to its commitments on multiculturalism and minority rights."

"When that many members of a historically successful minority are thinking in those terms, it's not just a 'Jewish problem'. It's a warning light for every minority in this country."

"We're finding that strong negative attitudes toward Israel's very right to exist have bred a great deal of antisemitism in recent years. They're different focal points -- Jews on the one hand, Israel on the other -- but they have become closely linked forms of antipathy."

Sociologist Robert Brym, University of Toronto 

Israel’s Ambassador to Canada, Iddo Moed, looks at bullet holes fired at the Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto Synagogue in Vaughan, March 12, 2026. Photo by Peter J. Thompson /National Post

 

According to the Canadian Jewish Barometer 2026, representing a new national survey through a medium compiled by former president of York University Rhonda Lenton and University of Toronto sociologist Robert Brym, non-Jewish Canadians hold less favourable views of Jews at present than was the case two years earlier, while attitudes toward Israel have become far less favourable over the same time frame. The authors of this new national survey conclude that the greatest exacerbating factor is the diversity, inclusion and equity programs that have succeeded in eroding sensibilities. 

 

The web-based survey undertook to question 3,062 Canadian adults from mid-January to mid-February of 2026. Oversampling polls of Jews, Muslims and Quebecers drawn from a Leger Opinion Panel, made for detailed subgroup analysis. Positive sentiment toward Jews was found to have dropped in comparison to a similar 2024 survey; agreement with negatively-worded statements about Jews rose by roughly five percent on average, considered to be statistically significant.

 

Non-Jewish Canadians with the most favourable view of Jews fell by eight percentage points in the two- year period, while those with slightly positive views dropped by 15 points. Leading the authors to deduce  that the 'golden age' of Canadian Jewry -- from the 1960s to the early 2020s -- giving way to a hostile environment. The Barometer notes that Jews suffer more police-recorded hate crimes per capita than any other ethnic, racial or religious group in Canada, since the Israel-Hamas war.

 

Rising incidents of hostility have caused a psychological toll within the Jewish community In 2024, 63 percent of Jews felt less safe in Canada than they did five years earlier and by 2026 that figure leapt to 88 percent, where close to seven in ten Jewish parents are concerned over their children's safety in school. Fear, discomfort and discussions over emigration represent newly measurable trends, with one in four Jews seriously considering leaving Canada.

 

The prevailing atmosphere is that non-Jewish Canadians are markedly more critical of Israel; strong and moderate support declining, while weak support, outright opposition and uncertainty have all gained traction. More Canadians describe their view of Israel as unfavourable than favourable, with a majority stating their opinion that the Gaza campaign represents 'genocide'. 

 

Universities and other organizations must retool how DEI is operationalized to identify where anti-Jewish bias is being inadvertently baked into policy, according to Ms. Lenton. Perhaps the best, most effective place to start the process, is government itself with its 'progressive' dedication to DEI. The Barometer indicates that more hours of classroom teaching of the Holocaust correlates with slightly more positive attitudes toward Jews, but that effect is slight. Many non-Jewish respondents in Quebec particularly, under-estimate the number of Jews murdered in the Holocaust.   

"A program designed to be inclusive ends up being exclusive of the group that experiences the highest rate of hate crimes in the country. The only 'good Jew' in many DEI framings, is a Jew without any national ambitions for the Jewish people."

"That's includes revisiting definitions metrics and recommended strategies [to identify where anti-Jewish bias is baked into policy] and making sure that Jews are recognized as a vulnerable minority in all the dimensions in which they are targeted."

Robert Brym

  

"Whether justified based on available surveys or not, the perception itself is politically significant. For many Canadians, antisemitism is no longer viewed solely as a domestic prejudice inherited from Europe’s past, but increasingly as a problem linked to contemporary demographic and concomitant cultural change. In short, more immigration from Muslim countries. The constant and massive anti-Israel demonstrations that have rocked Toronto and Montreal have left a broad, distinctly visual impression."

"Perhaps the most revealing demographic pattern in the survey was the connection between antisemitic attitudes and dissatisfaction with Canada itself. Respondents who viewed Canada negatively were significantly more likely to feel negatively towards Jews than those who expressed confidence in the country and its institutions."

Sago, Public Square, The Hub  

 

 

 

The Firm Hand of Experienced Administration Back in Israel

"[We will set up a government that will] look after all the citizens of Israel, without exception, because the state is all of ours." 

"We'll restore security, we'll cut the cost of living, we'll widen the circle of peace even further, we'll restore Israel as a rising power among the nations."

"I will establish a nationalist government that will see to all Israeli citizens without any exceptions."

"[I shall form a] stable national government [to act responsibly avoid] unnecessary adventures [and] expand the circle of peace."

"[The people] want a Jewish state. A state that respects its citizens, but this is a Jewish state, our national state, that we dreamed of and fought for, and spilled seas of tears and blood to achieve."

Newly re-elected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu addresses supporters at the party’s campaign headquarters in Jerusalem early on November 2, 2022, with his wife Sara at his side. (AP Photo/Tsafrir Abayov)

"We want to make a total separation between those who are loyal to the state of Israel -- and we don't have any problem with them -- and those who undermine our dear country."

"[I will work on behalf of -- in an anticipated ministry appointment] everyone, including those who detest me.”

Itamar Ben-Gvir, Religious Zionism party 

The sweep of Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party, gaining 64 seats for a clear majority does not exclude the need for him to make accommodation with other winning parties for a ruling coalition. His choices are limited by necessity to other parties in the realm of considered right-wing ideology, among them Orthodox religious parties who tend to be right-wing in the sense of stout nationalism. A fact that makes some of Israel's strongest allies rather nervous.

 

Israel's most recent flirtation with its vocal left-wing factional parties gave ample \proof to the majority of Israeli voters that a less concessional, more assertive hand was required in dealing with Israel's opponents in the Arab world, most particularly its Palestinian neighbours, but hugely inclusive of Iran and its satellites: Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. By extension and seriously endangering the Jewish state, Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon with their more sophisticated rocketry stockpiles.

 

Israelis, living through more recent months of a serious uptick in attacks by Palestinians, through deadly knifings, car-rammings, shooting, rioting and rock-throwing, snipers and rockets have experienced unnerving times. The rhetoric that continues to damn Israel from the mouths of the Palestinian Authority which continues to incite violence against Jews and defiantly continues its 'pay-for-slay' program, extolling the virtues of killing Jews and paying handsomely for those acts proves there is no 'partner-for-peace' in that arena.

 

The fifth election in less than four years, controversial but determinizing, delivered a clear message; conciliatory overtures to Israel's legions of enemies hasn't worked, and will not work in a geographic region where civility is viewed as weakness and respect goes to those who demonstrate the strength of a firm authoritative response to violence. Israel's military has its role in maintaining security as does its internal and external intelligence and policing agencies.

 

In the shadow of the Religious Zionism party, third in seats in the new Knesset, its leader is known to chant "Death to terrorism", an alumnus of the old (Jewish Defence League) Kach Party, now outlawed in Israel. Its leader, ben Gvir, calls for a tougher reaction against Palestinians who respond to the PA's incitement to violence, and to Palestinian Israelis who choose, despite their Israeli citizenship, to mount attacks on the military and on Jewish Israelis.

 

And nor have many Palestinian Isrraelis, democratically voted into office as Members of the Knesset, proven themselves loyal to the nation of their citizenship, infamously supporting terrorist acts and Hamas terrorism against Israelis, some going so far as quietly collaborating with groups like Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Their sympathies and actions in sharp contrast to the many Israeli Palestinians who serve in the military, join the judiciary, are appointed to elite medical service and are loyal to Israel.

 

While the Palestinian Authority speaks of Israeli 'racism' and 'extremism' it is a reality that Israel has absorbed as citizens over a million Palestinian Arabs, while the PA has pledged that not one single Jew can become a citizen of a nascent 'Palestine'. And while among the religious zealots in the settlements there are youth who harass and commit violence against their Palestinian neighbours they are outliers in Israeli culture, whereas Palestinians who murder Jews are celebrated martyrs. 

Canada Is "Woke" Central

"We will hire the most qualified people based upon their skills and mutual interests. I've had two people say that was the kiss of death. I thought I was trying to be nice saying that if you were interested and able I'd hire you and that's all that mattered. I don't care about the colour of your skin. I'm interested in hiring someone who wants to work on the project and is good at it."

"I believe this is an important stand to make. I will not be silenced any more."

"I think what's happened is the woke and the social justice warriors have made a moralistic argument the way the religious right used to make moralistic arguments. And now people are afraid to challenge them. But I think it's okay to say I believe that equality is a morally valid position. I believe that meritocracy is a morally valid position."

"People do different things. They have different abilities. They have different interests. To me, the whole point is to treat people as individuals, so that's what I do in my life. My way of dealing with racism, or sexism, or any other 'ism' is to treat people as individuals.

"[As scientists] we don't believe in EDI [equality, diversity, inclusion]. We believe in merit, fairness and equality. You should be fair in your procedures and treat people as equals."

Patanjali Kambhampati, professor of chemistry, McGill University, Montreal

Patanjali Kambhampati, a scientist at Montreal's McGill University turned down twice for government grants related to inclusive, equity and diversity provision 'hoops;. John Kenney, National Post

 

As an award winning Canadian scientist Professor Kambhampati has decided to speak out after his request for funding of two projects a year apart were refused one after another, two years running. As a man of great integrity and an expert in his field of scientific research accustomed in the past to receiving federal government research grants, he was being punished for his lack of commitment to "diversity"; doublespeak for giving breaks to unqualified people simply on the basis of their colour or ethnicity.

It doesn't seem to matter to the funding authorities who decided to set his requests aside as not worth evaluating when he emphasized that it was expertise as a qualification that moved him to make his hiring choices, not the colour of an applicant's skin. As himself a man of colour, born in India, living in a 'white' society with ample experiences of his own in the past as a recipient of overt racist discrimination. It is the scientist in him, not the man of Indian origins who responded to pointed questions on his funding application that displeased the funding arbiters.

He committed himself to hiring on merit, nothing more, nothing less. Merit as in scientific qualifications, not the merit based on diversity and considerations of 'inclusiveness'. When his first research funding request was turned down on patently obvious rejection linked to the critical hiring questions, he put it down to new criteria he had no interest in and set it aside. When it happened for a second time, he decided to make it a public issue.

His field of scientific expertise explores super-fast laser science at its cutting edge, a field spanning every issue from telecom to medicine. He applied for a $450,000 grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada [NSERC]. NSERC responded that "the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion considerations in the application were deemed insufficient", and they rejected his application. His previous application went to the federally funded National Frontiers in Research Fund a year earlier "to support world-leading interdisciplinary, international, high-risk, high-reward, transformative and rapid-response Canadian research"; turned down on similar grounds.

 

This is the same government that refuses to give summer-student employment grants to any employee-applicant that refuses to sign a commitment to never support groups or are themselves involved in denying abortion rights to women. The result of which was that critical hiring in many areas of social services for summer student jobs for the past several years stumbled and failed when church groups, for example, could not affirm the demand.

It was at the first-stage bureaucratic level that both Professor Kambhampati's applications were stalled. Neither proceeded to the next step where other scientists would review the proposals for their scientific merit and immediacy. Then it came to light that at roughly the same time another arm of government, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, approved a grant to Dr.Lana Ray, professor at Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, of $1.2 million to study cancer prevention with the use of traditional Indigenous healing practices. 

 

Professor Ray commented when the award was announced: "We need to stop framing prevalent risk factors of cancer as such and start thinking about them as symptoms of colonialism."

Professor Kambhampati took up his position in Montreal in 2003 at McGill. Born in India, the now-50-year-old had lived in the United States since age four, working in Minnesota, Texas and California before taking up his Canadian professorship. "In childhood I used to get constant beatings and name calling. Two years ago, I had eight police officers break into my house because I was sitting on my porch while brown. That happened on Canada Day", he said in an interview.

He treats everyone equally and fairly, led by his own experiences. He now believes that woke ideology prevalent on campus has leached into government, creating two major problems: self-censorship and a resistance to asking meaningful questions. "There's a lot of self-censoring. And certainly you see it among young people in the university. So young people in the university self-censor a lot. Now they are afraid to talk. That's no way to advance our understanding of the world."

As a child, he said, his mentors were "old, white World War II vets" who taught him all about radio-controlled airplanes. "And that's what led me to build lasers 30 years later". As a mentor now, the Professor explained he has been of assistance to both men and women of different cultures and religions. "I've mentored minorities, I've mentored women. I myself am a Third World minority. And I have mentored people who have catastrophic illnesses. And I have mentored people who are LGBTQ, and not for any reason other than to treat people as equal."

Woke ideology, in his experience, has accelerated in the last several years. "And now it's the prevailing culture. It's 90 percent of the normal people against 10 percent of the vocal minority that has shamed everyone into self-censorship", he said. 

 

"As a scientist our job is to think about how nature works, ask questions, and find answers without prejudice. We cannot do that anymore. We cannot ask how humans work, and how science and nature work, because the woke are interfering with us and saying, 'You can't ask those questions. You're a racist. You're a sexist. You're a homophobe. You're a colonialist. You're a something'. There's some way in which the woke are trying to get people [so they're' no longer asking meaningful questions]."

The New Taliban, the Old Afghanistan

"Thousands of Afghan civilians are trying to enter the military section [of the Kabul airport] and troops are trying to prevent that."

"They just used a cargo plane to clear the runway and it was barely able to fly above the crowds."

Emir Sayit, passenger, Turkish Airlines 

"Every moment I am waiting to see the Taliban enter my house. They have destroyed everything, my work, my studies, my dreams."

"I feel as though I've lost everything. I'm terrified for my future. We cannot believe the Taliban's words. They talked about securing the city and made assurances that they wouldn't go into houses but this morning they started searching homes."

Marzia Panahi, owner, Namad art gallery, Kabul

"It's impossible [trying to arrange passports] because everything is closed [foreign missions]. Our plan is to go to Pakistan and go to Turkey from there, because a Turkish visa is now $8,000 just for one person. From Pakistan, it's easier."

"The situation is horrible, the Taliban are everywhere. Many of us believe we have just lost our achievements over the past 20 years, especially for women. Now we just have to sit and wait."

Nabi, Kabul

"Everyone is scared of the Taliban. This is the first day so we still don't know what to expect. In a few days, we will know better."

"The government just saved themselves. I fear for my three-year-old daughter's education but I don't think they are the same people as the last Taliban. We can hope."

Haji Timur Shah, 43, grocery owner, Shahr-e Naw, Afghanistan 

A man holds a certificate acknowledging his work for Americans as hundreds of people gather outside the international airport in Kabul, Tuesday, Aug. 17, 2021.  AP

 

Taliban spokesmen after all, did offer soothing words to the population of the country whose legitimate government they had just overturned in favour of returning themselves to that position, taking up where they left off under duress twenty years earlier. They are not the same people as the last Taliban, as Haji Timur Shah hoped; they are two decades older, there is a vast number of new recruits, the leadership has changed. But it is the same Taliban bringing a fundamentalist theocracy to Afghanistan.

In their previous incarnation the populace was oppressed and brutalized, punishment was swift and uncompromising. This new Taliban has amply demonstrated there is little difference from the past to the present; the atrocities they committed in the past months, the killing by suicide bombings and stealth ambushes of Afghan police and military, the attempts to do the same with foreign diplomats meant to send a message of no tolerance for the presence of either representative agents of the government or foreign entities spoke volumes.

It is a reputation the Taliban assiduously built, to ensure that they would be known as theistically intractable, prepared to go to any lengths to support their fundamental version of Islam and to impose strict sharia as the pillars of their governance. That, and the memory of past experience under their rule ensured that panic would ensue at their swift and violent occupation of the key cities which fell one after another into their hands. The Taliban celebrate their victory, Afghans mourn their loss of freedom.

 

Getty Images

 

The dense crowds of frantic Afghans anxious to leave the country, to be taken far away, anywhere else on the globe, to escape the Taliban speaks to the place of the Taliban in the hearts and minds of the people who fail to trust the 'new' Taliban's assurance that they will respect the rights of the population, and of women, as permitted under Islamic law. An assurance that failed to resonate so that calm would settle gently over the agitation that their entry to Kabul caused.

The drama of young men racing down a runway, trying to hold fast to a departing plane, of some among them attaching themselves to be airborne, then predictably plummeting to their death as the plane gained height also answers the assurances given by the Taliban. "If this is not Saigon 2.0, I don't know what is, is this how we thought we'd depart Afghanistan?" moaned Tobias Ellwood, chairman of the U.K. Commons defence committee. 

Outside of the airport in Kabul, the city streets were quiet, people remained indoors in a state of suspended animation and high suspense. All feared hearing a knock on the door. It was reported that thieves have advantaged themselves, posing as Taliban as they enter homes and ransack them for possessions. Rest assured, the Taliban say, they intend to reimpose law and order. Posing as Taliban? 

Rewards to the faithful? Shops remain closed.

Vehicles poured into the city filled with Taliban 'fighters' who greeted each other in celebratory mood. The city's Green Zone where foreign embassies operated under the illusion they were hugely protected and where from time to time the Taliban launched attacks causing death and destruction is a place of ghostly embassies, deserted, overrun with Taliban, setting up checkpoints.

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

Negotiating with Islamist Terrorists

"As I read history, when a nation's problems become this complex and they are not solved, that could result in violence and revolutions and other unwanted things."

"Water is very soft, but if you put it under pressure, it will explode."

Burhanuddin Rabbani,1990 President of the Afghan Islamic Republic, head, Afghan High Peace Council 

"If the army collapses, and the army is divided along ethnic lines, then I think Afghanistan will be facing a time like in Rwanda."

"You have millions of girls and women going to school and university, and it is impossible now to push them back."

Azis Royesh, Afghan education activist

The Taliban bombing in Pul-e-Alam on Friday killed at least 24 people   Reuters

 

Throughout its long history Afghanistan has been invaded and occupied countless times. The country has known conflict and bloodshed on a fairly continual basis. The occupation it now awaits is that of the Pashtun Taliban, resurgent and prepared to mount a full-scale war against the established government. That government is committed to an Afghan version of democracy, the Taliban view that as despicable surrender to Western values, and they are prepared to resume where they left off, governing Afghanistan before the U.S.-led invasion following 9/11, in pursuit of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laren.

Western nations led by the United States, NATO members under the auspices of the United Nations, routed the ruling Taliban that had kept the country in the iron grip of Islamist sharia law where anything resembling the values of the West was strictly proscribed, and women in particular were considered mere appendages of men, with no life of their own, relegated to home, kitchen and nursery. No education, no employment, total poverty of opportunity, total dependence on men.

The women of Afghanistan who prospered mightily with the presence of occupying Western troops stationed in the country to keep pushing back an ever-renascent Taliban, spring after spring, accessing education, joining professions, living as equal a life as possible in a Muslim society, now anticipate with dread the return of the Taliban. 

 

The U.S. and its allies have long wanted to depart Afghanistan, pulling out all troops, For years the international community and humanitarian NGOs helped modernize the country's civil infrastructure. Just as the foreign military committed to training the country's national police and military in best modern military practices with the intention of teaching them to fend for themselves and commit solidly to protect the embattled nation.

U.S. Black Hawk military helicopters fly over the city of Kabul, Afghanistan, on April 19. (Rahmat Gul/The Associated Press)

After the long weary years of preparing Afghanistan to look after its interests as a civil society and its military to respond to violent provocations, communication between the Taliban and the U.S. to arrange a ceasefire and agreement leading to shared governance of the country -- not to reward or to trust the Taliban but in acknowledgement of the fact that they remain strong and as lethal to accommodation as ever and in a last-gap effort to create some hope before leaving, entrust the future of the country to an accommodation between the government of Afghan President Ashraf Gani and the Taliban for a rapprochement. 

As a signal of what lies in wait, all the while these negotiations were being carried on -- between the U.S. and Taliban representatives, since the Taliban leaders refused to acknowledge the authority of the Afghan government, considering it a puppet of the U.S., violent attacks by the Taliban against foreign troops, against the country's government and the civilian population were ongoing. Scores of innocent people died in Taliban suicide attacks all over the country.

Now that foreign troops will depart entirely by September, the people of Afghanistan gird themselves psychologically for the horrendous scenario they know will  result, when the Taliban embark on a mission to destroy infrastructure tainted by Western design and purpose, target and murder those whom they consider to have been too warmly involved with the foreign presence, and settle scores with other ethnic groups before once again settling in as government and a dark mantle of Islamist tyranny settles in.

Afghan National Army soldiers search men at a road checkpoint on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, on Thursday. (Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images)

 

According to some knowledgeable estimates there will be an initial upheaval and bloodletting. Some Afghan intellectuals foresee the possibility of the country's partition, separating the majority Afghans from the Pashtuns dominated by the Taliban. Pakistan's dark presence over Afghanistan has, in effect, led to the formation of the mujahadeen, the terrorizing Taliban that were originally trained by the Pakistan Secret Intelligence Service in Pakistan's interests in retaining Afghanistan as a vassal state.

Throughout the 'peace' talks and the preparatons under way to see the foreign presence in Afghanistan depart, leaving the country and its government fully exposed to whatever the Taliban has in store, the slaughter and bloodshed that never stopped, occurring even in the protected capital Kabul, has more than adequately informed Afghans what the near future holds for them. Of the 39 million population, 40 percent are Pashtun who consider the ethnic Tajiks, Uzbeks, Almak, Turkmen and Hazaras inferior and unequal.

The month of Ramadan just concluded, 24 hours following the Eid holiday, the government of Afghanistan recorded 110 attacks in 23 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. Nothing has changed about the Taliban and their mission, nothing has changed for the Taliban; whatever methods they made use of a decade ago remain the methods used today. As head of the Afghan High Peace Council, Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated by an emissary of the Taliban whom he assumed had arrived to discuss a solution to the conflict but when the emissary detonated a bomb he wore in his turban in September 2011, that hope faded.

It has been kept in that condition ever since ... hope steadily fading ... and now with the departure of foreign troops and the assurances to the Afghan government that yes, most certainly, you'll reach an agreement, working things out between yourselves, share government and all will be well, assumes the proportions of a massive lie of face-saving. When nothing will now save the people of Afghanistan from a violent upheaval and ultimate tyranny in the living hell of full-blown terror ahead.

The withdrawal will be completed by 11 September   BBC

Prudently Tried-and-True

"These are bad, mad and uncertain times — for all of us humans. To stop a virus that scientists acknowledge they do not yet fully understand, all of human interaction is being remade."

"And as it happens, here in Israel, this rapidly, radically altering framework for our daily existence happens to coincide with an ongoing political crisis, in which our war on the coronavirus killer is being directed, and directed well we broadly think, by a deeply controversial politician. Netanyahu is a leader who has always been divisive, who the state legal hierarchy alleges is corrupt, and who has led an assault on core institutions of our democracy in the past two years as he faced off against police investigators and state prosecutors. Netanyahu is also a leader some of whose reasonable measures to thwart the spread of the disease — the closure of most court functions, for instance is not unique to Israel — just so happen to serve his narrow interests as well."

"When his carefully selected ministers and party allies send most of our judges home, when they introduce the monitoring of all our phones, and when they suspend the activities of the parliament that is meant to provide at least some oversight of his government, Israel finds itself in the midst of two crises."

"I think it’s the virus we should be more worried about."

David Horovitz, founding editor, The Times of Israel

In this Saturday, March 14, 2020 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives for a speech from his Jerusalem office amid the coronavirus crisis. (Gali Tibbon/Pool via AP, File)

This is a prime minister fighting for his political life and his legacy. As the longest-serving prime minister Israel has ever had in the short history of its re-emergence from the historical record, no one can deny that this is a man whose acumen and intelligence has served the country extremely well. That old adage warning about the dangers inherent in changing horses midstream certainly applies here, as Israel, accustomed to facing existential challenges on an ongoing basis, is now faced with a dread and sometimes deadly virus threatening to diminish lives, destroy the economy and compromise its already-complicated politics. 

The emergence of the noval coronavirus out of Wuhan, China, its spread throughout the east and in this world of interlocking globalization and communication, its swift contamination in Europe, Oceania, North America and the Middle East, fast approach in Africa, has spelled out unforeseen panic out of a situation that had been foreseen by science, but ignored by politics. Since mid-January, news of mass quarantines in China alerted Israeli political leaders, public institutions and other officials to an oncoming storm.

The focus was how to manage a crisis that would migrate globally and hit Israel just as it would most of the countries on Earth. Nothing quite fixes the mind, individual and collective, as does a threat to longevity. And it is not as though this country in particular hasn't faced many such events heralding doom, which resolve, skill and the will to endure allowed Israel to subdue those threats, time and again. Living on the cusp of threatening disaster has hardened its population against vulnerability and fear, made it more resolute and capable of surviving.

The response was rapid and rude to the very idea of a nation united in adversity, with some believing the reactions were too emphatic, and others that they failed to go far enough. As Israel's second largest trading partner after the U.S. with a flow of goods and people between the two countries significant, three weeks before the first case was diagnosed in Israel, direct flights between China and Israel were suspended. Then, a woman repatriated from the cruise shop off the coast of Japan brought the first case of COVID-19 to Israel.

Health officials re-directed passengers on a flight from South Korea, sending them home when it became evident that among the tourists were individuals who were coronavirus positive. Proactive responses to the anticipated arrival of the novel coronavirus were exercised, with each day new announcements, recommendations, even while Israelis were in the throes of a tense third election in a year. When the government understood that the virus was firmly established in the U.S., issues of the economy, security, family connections arose.

In stepped U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence managing the U.S. domestic coronavirus response, asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to impose a global ban on all travellers entering Israel; handing the administration an avoidance of singling out the United States. Leading to Israel's ban on entry of all foreign nationals; the first country to enact such a preventive step. Directives requiring all Israelis to remain at home with limited exceptions, and surveillance will ensure that they will. The measures taken by Singapore and Hong Kong, quite similar in nature, proved hugely successful.

Israel was intent on 'flattening the curve', the best scientific medical advice in getting a step ahead of the infectious novel coronavirus. "We want to be like South Korea, not Italy", said the prime minister, in defending his directives. The intention, to control the rate of contagion to ensure overload is avoided and with it the breakdown of the national health-care system. Community transmission prevention is a critical tool in flattening the curve, controlling the spread, not preventing something that cannot at this stage be 'prevented'.

"This is a war. We have to adapt to a new way of life", Mr. Netanyahu has informed his public. And wars are what Israelis are all too familiar with. This is a man who has many enemies, detractors whose deepest wish is for the prime minister to be convicted of the charges pending against him. This is also a man who had distinguished himself as a brilliant manager of crises, an eloquent public speaker. This man's intuition bolsters an impressive intelligence capable of assimilating complex detail, then to translate it into terms anyone can understand.

As a tactician he has few peers to manage diplomatic issues and the nation's security. So what a shock when in the aftermath of three inconclusive elections, President Reuven Rivlin tasked Benny Gantz, the Blue and White party leader, intent on unseating Mr. Netanyahu, to make an effort to form a governing coalition, effectively sidelining Benjamin Netanyahu and his 'right wing' bloc. In the intensity of the coronavirus crisis, Prime Minister Netanyahu has appealed to Mr.Gantz, to form a coalition government. The measure of the man will be seen in Mr. Gantz's response.

People wave Israeli flags, inverted Israeli flags and banners during a protest outside the Israeli parliament in Jerusalem, Thursday, March 19, 2020, accusing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government of exploiting the coronavirus crisis to cement his power and undermine Israel's democratic foundations. (AP Photo/Eyal Warshavsky)

Legitimizing China's Global Influence

"He told me about how the Confucius Institute had nothing at all to do with [the] Chinese government, then very strongly expressed concerns this might adversely impact trade relationships with China and the Chinese government."
"It also turned out his translator was someone who was a teacher for the Confucius Institute."
"I was concerned when I saw that same playbook being operated here in Canada, and our school system being used as a conduit for extending that influence."
"It gets to a point where we in Canada and in New Brunswick, we have to start playing hardball back. The world is getting to be a much rougher place and if we don't stand up in it, we get pushed over."
"In this case we stood up, and we're still standing."
Dominic Cardy, New Brunswick Education Minister

"We hope New Brunswick could grasp the opportunity of pragmatic cooperation with China instead of letting it slip from hands, meet each other half way and make joint efforts to promote the healthy development of the bilateral exchanges and cooperation in various fields."
"[New Brunswick could be imperilling the] rapid development [in trade and educational coooperation that New Brunswick and China have seen in recent years]."
Embassy of China, Ottawa

Musicians with the Confucius Institute play dulcimers during Global Confucius Institute Day at the Centre for Education in Edmonton on Sept. 27, 2014. The Edmonton school board recently renewed its Confucius contract for another five years.  Codie McLachlan/Postmedia/File

Dominic Cardy once was associated with the National Democratic Institute, a democracy-promotion agency based in the United States where, in the early 2000s, he was a close witness in Nepal and Cambodia to China's escalating influence. That experience echoed more recent events involving him as provincial minister of education in New Brunswick, where reports have been received from parents respecting the Confucius Institute currently installed in the provincial school system, ostensibly to deliver Chinese language lessons and cultural lessons in elementary and middle schools.

The province through its ministry of education was preparing itself not to renew the contract to permit the extra curricular Mandarin and Chinese cultural lessons after a decade of contract renewals. It is a commonplace contract subsidized by the Communist Party of China, installed in universities, colleges and other institutes of education throughout Canada -- and just incidentally throughout the world at large. Mr. Cardy was surprised when in his official capacity as his province's education minister he was confronted by a Chinese diplomat stationed in eastern Canada.

Without so much as a heads-up, his unannounced visitor, the Chinese consul-general in Montreal sought out Mr. Cardy to urge him in his capacity as education minister to refrain from releasing the Confucius Institute and its programs from the New Brunswick school system. With that urging came dire warning that should he chose to proceed with contract non-renewal he would be responsible for placing in peril the province's growing and remunerative trade with China.

Typically, a Liberal-appointed Canadian ambassador to Beijing forced to resign his position after he appeared to support Beijing's position in its outrage over the detention of Huawei's CFO last December by the RCMP at Vancouver's international airport -- on an extradition request from the U.S. State Department for interference in U.S. sanctions against Iran which led to the arrest of two Canadians under bogus charges of espionage, a death sentence imposed on another Canadian and an embargo of Canadian Canola products to China -- attempted to intervene, to no avail.

Singers from Meyonohk School perform during Global Confucius Institute Day at the Centre for Education in Edmonton on Sept. 27, 2014. Codie McLachlan/Postmedia/File

Neither the advice of the former ambassador nor the strenuously threatening lobbying of the Chinese diplomat served to change New Brunswick's position. The Liberal opposition in the province also criticized the decision but the announcement proceeded that the province is prepared to end the school system's contract with the Confucius Institute, cancelling cultural lessons in elementary and middle schools, while permitting the continuation of language courses in high school until the current contract runs out.

Reports from parents complain that the Institute restricts or distorts discussions of China; its teachers bar discussions about Tiananmen Square, and insist Taiwan is part of the People's Republic. Maps showing China includes Taiwan have also been used as Chinese propaganda. Now Mr. Cardy,  his government a progressive conservative one, faces ongoing criticism from the opposition Liberals claiming $137 million in export business has been endangered as a result of geopolitical dabbling.

It is no secret that the Confucius Institute has an agenda as an arm of the Chinese government, to strike partnerships with educational institutions abroad, offering funding to support extra-curricular Mandarin instruction and cultural courses to students. Establishing a base, in other words, among an emerging population demographic, sympathetic to and supportive of the government of China. In the final analysis seeking to buy recognition and support from the international community through outreach and indebtedness.

This stealth infiltration is a distant but distinct partner of the "one road, one belt" initiative where China invests hugely in countries abroad, lending out impressive sums for national building projects of roads, bridges and other communication infrastructures to benefit the loan nation and make it indebted to China whose benefit is control and command and enhanced trade opportunities. Chinese infiltration of other nations' business with establishing contacts at all levels of government, of persuading Chinese expatriates living abroad of their duty to support the government is devious.

Its expertise in subterfuge and espionage and its aggressive policies of embedding its communications industries' technologies in those of other countries gives it entry to state, military and industrial secrets meant to be shielded from unsanctioned eyes. While the Chinese Communist Party excels at portraying itself as a neutral, non-threatening bridge between societies, its assertive campaign for influence and command  has been well recognized globally.

In Canada, some agencies are beginning finally to respond; shutting out the Chinese overtures to protect themselves from undue influence and certain surveillance.

Failure of Lebanese Power-Sharing

"Is it reasonable that a country in the world cannot find a solution to its garbage crisis?"

"The crisis only exists in Lebanon, and the reason is that there is a crisis of splitting shares and the presence of greed and rottenness inside state institutions. The state is too weak to be able to address a garbage crisis."

"[Certain political parties in the government are asking the people to grant them] an authorization for deciding war and peace with the Israeli enemy."

"If you can’t resolve a waste crisis, how will you be able to resolve a war crisis or to confront the enemy that is backed by all countries in the world?"
MP Mohammad Raad, head, Hezbollah’s Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc

"We are ruled by corrupt losers. All of them -- warlords, legislators and ministers -- are working for their own interest and not those of the people"
"The will of the people will eventually succeed no matter how long it takes."
Nada Qadoura, Lebanese retiree, protester

A Lebanese protester holds a national flag during clashes with security forces following a demonstration against the ongoing trash crisis on August 25, 2015, in front of the seat of the government in Beirut (AFP Photo/)

The three major religious factions in Lebanon, Christian Lebanese, Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims, along with the minority Druze, Alawi and Ismaili have traditionally shared governing the country. That tradition continues, after the long civil war and invasion that shook the country to its core. The incursion of Palestinians and with them the PLO, bringing Israeli and Syrian troops into the country further divided loyalties.

The unsettled violence that permeated the country gave birth to Hezbollah, the militant terrorist Shiite group financed, trained and armed by the Iranian Republican Guard Corps. Since the 1980s chaos of violent destruction in the country, the uneasy government alliance protocol has picked up where it had left off, only the government is so corrupt and frozen in inaction that it hardly governs, not helped that Hezbollah is responsible for a third of the parliamentarians and its involvement in Syria's civil has further roiled Lebanon.

Lebanese have taken to the streets in protest demonstrations against their government's inability or disinterest in providing the most basic of municipal services to the population; garbage pickup. Garbage has been piling in the streets after the closure of the main Beirut garbage dump and no action has been taken to relieve the impasse of no garbage collection. "You Stink", an online protest group, has called rallies to revolt against political corruption.

A man throws out his garbage on piles of rubbish on the street in Beirut on July 28, 2015 (AFP Photo/Joseph Eid)

Police have responded by beating back protesters with clubs and water cannons, hurling stones at them, while protesters throw back rocks and water bottles at police. Protesters are demanding the resignation of the country's top-tier politicians as unfit to rule. The prime minister claimed that if a cabinet meeting scheduled for Thursday fails to produce a viable option "then there is no need for the council of ministers". 

Prime Minister Tammam Salam has gone so far as to give hints he may himself step away from government. The political system is clearly dysfunctional without a functioning cabinet or parliament, let alone a president. The organizers of the protest claimed that men they describe as political thugs began fighting with police, attempting to pull down a barbed wire fence separating the protesting crowds from the Lebanese government building, prompting them to recall their supporters.

Since May 2014, President Salam, a Sunni Muslim, has served as acting president of Lebanon. The political paralysis due to actions by Hezbollah and its allies, the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun, and the Shi'a Amal Party, has prevented the election of a new president, a post normally held by a Maronite Christian.

Lebanese politicians fear that Hezbollah has captured the protests over the lack of garbage pick-up  to use it "to create a power vacuum amid the [Lebanese] parliament's failure to elect a new president who is acceptable to everyone".

A Stalwart of High Principle in the Public Good

Honour Among Friends

"I am proud to be representing Desire2Learn before the Ontario government as well as all other governments and businesses around the world."
"I’m done with Harvard, I’m back in Ontario. I’m delighted to be back here. I’m pursuing a few opportunities and I’ll have the opportunity to speak to more about those in more detail in the future."

"One of the things that I’ve had a lot of opportunity to do is to take courses and do some teaching at Harvard. And one of the things we talked about is how we need to distinguish between reputation and character."

"Reputation is what people think you are and character is what you are truly. In this contact sport where there are no referees — and that distinguishes this contact sport from all the others — it can be very hard to protect reputation."

"But you can always protect your character. How do you do that? You do what you think is right and that’s what I always tried to do."

"It’s never too late to do the right thing."
Former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty

Former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty speaks at the gas plant cancellation hearings at Queen's Park in Toronto on June 25, 2013. Photo: Peter J. Thompson/Postmedia News/Files

How soon we don't forget. From the auditor-general's report into the scandalous waste of a billion dollars in Ontario's eHealth agency's fiasco in 2009 to the Ontario air ambulance service Ornge's corrupt, self-serving CEO Chris Mazza's entitlements, wink-wink, to nepotism at Ontario Power Generation (news: Premier Kathleen Wynne's brother-in-law interim CEO of eHealth), to the wasteful 'new-(clean)energy' sources and giveaways of excess electricity to New York while Ontarians get stiffed, Dalton McGuinty certainly made his mark.

His sloughing off of personal responsibility for his decision to cancel two gas plants to enable him to win another four years in office to continue ruining the Ontario economy and make a laughing stock of law and order when it comes to belligerent First Nations take-overs of private property, threatening people and laughing all the way to highway blockades, certainly gave the voters a chance to turn out the Liberals, but we muffed that one big-time.

But entitlements are entitlements and as long as they're not illegal, they're fair game, even if they amount to ethical black holes. So Dalton McGuinty has decided, as private citizen McGuinty to haul in all those IOUs and get himself a lobbying position with a former recipient of millions of taxfunds. He waited the obligatory year, to exercise his options to convince former colleagues whom he helped to reach public office that whatever he claims about the usefulness of his client to the Ontario taxpayer is right and proper.

As far as personal codes of conduct go, this man proved long ago that he is predatory and oblivious to the need of a public figure to present as unbesmirched by personal interests at the public trough. And so, Dalton McGuinty has launched himself on yet another principled journey to the future, burnishing his prospects on the way, personal morality be damned, because that, my friends, bespeaks his nature, not to be confused by his character which some may think describe one and the same thing.

His reputation was already tarnished, the legacy wanting. So what has he got to lose, after all?

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young   Ontario's Premier Kathleen Wynne greets former Premier Dalton McGuinty as she arrives with Lt.-Gov. David Onley for the Throne Speech at Queens Park in Toronto July 3.