Canadian Election Interference for a Sinister Cause

"Vote Palestine is a non-partisan platform calling on candidates to commit to five demands: a two-way arms embargo; the end of Canadian involvement in Israeli settlements; addressing anti-Palestinian racism and protecting free expression on Palestine; recognizing the State of Palestine; and properly funding relief efforts in Gaza, including UNRWA."

"The thousands of people who have taken the Vote Palestine pledge are not only committing to consider a candidate’s position on Palestine, but are joining a movement of people organizing in their neighbourhoods to make Palestine unavoidable this election." 

Demands:

D1 - Two-way arms embargo on Israel

D2 - Ending Canadian support for settlements

D3 - Combat anti-Palestinian racism and protect pro-Palestine speech

D4 - Recognizing the state of Palestine

D5 - Funding Gaza relief efforts, including UNRWA

Palestinian Youth Movement

Members of the Palestinian Youth Movement hold a rally in Toronto in November 2023. Photo by Jack Boland/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

The Palestinian Youth Movement has been busy in Canada creating a network of political support for its agenda of demonizing Israel, isolating the Jewish nation, and demanding of Canadian politicians that they stand firmly in support of Palestinian nationhood. Of course, that means the annihilation of Israel so that Palestinians can achieve their goal of 'From the river to the sea', claiming the entirety of the ancestral homeland of Judaism, the people who 'colonized' Judea in the 2nd millenium BCE, and who are now perched on Judean heritage geography that Arab 'Palestinians' claim as their own. 

Vote Palestine, a political movement by the Palestinian Youth Movement that emanated from the Palestinian BDS project, lauds its five-point Vote Palestine platform demanding among other issues a two-way arms embargo against Israel, a boycott of Israel-controlled territories and above all, recognition of Palestine as a state. Why bother with the unnecessary ritual of Palestinian leaders committing to a real effort at discussing with their Israeli counterparts critical issues such as recognition of Israel in exchange for recognition of 'Palestine'?

 

Successfully persuasive lobbying by PYM resulted in just about the entire caucus of the NDP, including their leader Jagmeet Singh, signing on in agreement with PYM's Vote Palestine, and with them members of the Green Party. Both parties did not fare particularly well in the April 28 general election, both losing official party status and Singh losing his own seat in Parliament. Their sacrifice was the Liberals' gain over the Conservative Party which foreign interference by President Trump brought to another 4-year mandate to govern.

"Islamists have been working overtime [to see] their favoured party [the Liberals, re-elected] so that the good times keep rolling for them for at least another four years."

Joe Adam George, researcher, Islamist Threats in Canada, Middle East Forum

 

"This is how foreign interference  happens."

"If a literal pro-terror group can get an MP's signature without difficulty, you think they're standing guard for thee against Iran or China?"

"Palestinian Youth Movement celebrated the October 7 massacres in Canadian streets while they were still underway. They've said Samidoun, Canada's newest terrorist group, did nothing wrong. And 19 Liberals just signed on with their "Vote Palestine" platform."

Tristan Hopper, journalist, National Post 

During the election campaign the Palestinian Youth Movement succeeded in persuading 28 Liberal candidates (19 of whom were elected) to sign their five-point, anti-Israel Vote Palestine platform. The candidates, through their endorsement served to help legitimize the demands of anti-Israel groups, totally ignoring their threatening values and actions, including their celebration of the Hamas October 7 pogrom, their championing of both terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and organizing student encampments at North American universities where Jewish students were terrorized by their threats.

 

The People's Conference for Palestine, featuring speakers linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both given terrorist designations in Canada, and both involved along with Hamas in the October 7 massacre of Israelis in southern Israel was organized in May 2024 by the PYM group. Islamist terrorism is feature by PYM as a courageous response to Israeli 'colonization' of Judean heritage lands.

 

The promotion by Palestinian Youth Movement that Zionism is a racist ideology while glorifying the martyrdom of Hamas and calling for the elimination of Israel appears to have found favour in some sectors of Canada, and among some elected politicians who appear to find no fault with the reasoning of fervent Palestinians belabouring the West for its (past) support of Israel, a fellow democracy. 

 

Vote Palestine's agenda to "force Palestine onto the debate stage trough nationwide visibility" and in the process shame those political individuals who fail to endorse its platform, does not appear to give second thought to those who have signed on as supporters. According to one of its lead activists, "pressure is applied" by PYM operatives on non-endorsing candidates to "make it impossible to organize fundraising events ... impossible for those MPs to canvass without being met by someone from within the community asking, Why are you not supporting an arms embargo?"

 

PYM, this activists notes, has manoeuvered the Canadian political scene to "create a kind of crisis within the Canadian electoral system", succeeding in signing up 362 candidates to their cause. And while they swept the NDP and Green parties' candidates into their fold, and made some inroads with the Liberals, they failed abysmally to persuade a single Conservative candidate to uphold their pledge. 

 

Muslims in Canada now constitute some five percent of the population, at 1.8 million, with prospects for further growth ongoing. According to the Canadian Muslim Vote, Muslims hold significant influence in between 60 to 80 of Canada's 343 ridings. Politicians without scruples view the potential of drawing Muslim votes a greater good for their political ambitions than concern for Canada's traditional moral values, much less sinister interference in a fair election. 

A keffiyeh'ed demonstrator lights off a smoke bomb during a rally in Vancouver celebrating the one-year anniversary of the October 7 massacres. Photo by Ethan Cairns /The Canadian Press

 

 

Not-So-Strange Bedfellows : Liberal Party of Canada, Venomous Israel-Bashers

 

"This is a very strange mix the Greens have going, just two intense concerns: Polar bears and Palestine. No mention, incidentally, of Hamas and its pledge to wipe Israel off the map. But leaving that aside, just what is it that yokes so strongly two issues that are a whole planet, if not a whole cosmos, apart?"

"A few of her choice thoughts may be read on Twitter: 'I stand with Palestine! There are no two sides to this conflict, only human rights abuses! #EndApartheid."

"One day, it's all the 'world is going to end', and the next, with the same intensity, a whole swath of Greens are grinding their teeth over Israel, and only Israel. China can purge the Uyghurs. North Korea can maintain its slave state. Massacres of Christians can occur by the day. Yet the planet-cuddling Greens are mute. With the Greens, it's always Israel and only Israel that's a pariah state."

Rex Murphy, National Post

Canada's Green Party is wedged tight into its fledgling state. It just cannot seem to get into flight mode. Its focus, as its name suggests, is the environment and its fight over Climate Change. Its purpose is to invest Canadians with the outrage they feel over its lack of purpose and promise in fighting what they claim is the inevitable breakdown of the environment resulting from environmental degradation owing to our dependence on fossil fuel energy sources. Somehow, they still have time to glare with the most jaundiced of vision at one tiny world state: Israel.

 

They're not entirely alone in Canada with that focus. The older, larger, more influential and still lagging New Democratic Party is subject also to the malady of anti-Semitism which they cloak as criticism of Israel. The NDP is a party disgruntled with everything and everyone, decrying Canada's lax attitude toward social justice, urging a total social-political overhaul in super-funding the universal health care system, offering no-tuition-charge university education, a universal minimum wage, and land settlement claims for First Nations.

 

The latter will leave the rest of Canada tenants on Indigenous lands since, needless to repeat, they were here first. But since Canada is a 'racist' country where visible minorities, religious minorities, ethnic groups' needs are all neglected, the people persecuted, kept in obscure poverty from lack of opportunities available only to privileged whites, the NDP continue to do their best in Parliament to hold successive governments (Liberal/Conservative) to account. In this racist country, the leader of the NDP is a Canadian Sikh.

 

The governing Liberals who view themselves on the record and on the basis of voter reality as the country's 'natural' governing party missed a majority this last voting session that brought Prime Minister Justin Trudeau back to minority status, so they're planning another, early election to ramp up to a majority government. This, despite a litany of executive administrative failures, broken promises, corruption, scandalous democratic failures in governance, superficial claims of governing success and total arrogance.

 

They will do just about anything to curry favour with the electorate, and have in fact, done just about everything, including buying votes by handing out government cheques at every opportunity in the guise of 'helping' Canadians during the pandemic who have lost employment, and doing the same for Canadian corporations who have moaned about lost business. 

 

Those corporations in turn, used the funding given them in compensation for lost business to give hefty bonuses to their executives. The hundreds of thousands of Canadians who  were not qualified to register for monthly cheques enabling them to bank money they didn't need, need not pay back what they were given, thanks to this government spirit of largess.  

So the next election in the offing is pretty well guaranteed to return the Liberals and Justin Trudeau to power, even as the taxpayers of succeeding generations will be left with an insuperable burden of debt. 

 

Last week, one of the three elected Green Party Members of Parliament crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join the Liberals. She had declared her moral, principled inability to remain within the Green Party because its new leader had failed to sufficiently to her satisfaction, state on behalf of the party, a firm condemnation of the State of Israel over its conflict with Hamas.

"I stand with Palestine and condemn the unthinkable airstrikes in Gaza. End Apartheid!", tweeted Green Party MP Jenica Atwin, as she castigated the party leader Annamie Paul who had simply called for de-escalation between Israel and Hamas. Ms.Paul herself in calling for 'de-escalation' as good as gave equivalence to both parties in the conflict. Hamas terrorists (which is what they are deemed to be on Canada's own terror list) had lobbed over 4,000 rockets and other missiles into Israel, leaving the IDF little option but to protect the country by responding in measured strikes to 'de-escalate' the barrage.

And the Liberal Party of Canada, with full knowledge of Ms.Atwin's sentiments -- fully anti-Semitic in flaming colours -- happily welcomed her defection from the Greens to the Liberals. (They had, in fact, been courting her transition for some time.) In a later interview Ms.Atwin modestly said that it was too precipitate to have any discussions with respect to being offered a cabinet position. "In the past month I've been at a crossroads. It's been, in a word, distracting. And so I'm going where I can do my best work on behalf of my community and for the people that I care so deeply about", she declaimed.

Dominic LeBlanc and Jenica Atwin arrive at a news conference in Fredericton, Thursday, June 10, 2021. Atwin's aisle crossing marks a small win for a Liberal party looking to tout its environmental credentials and shore up the ranks of its minority government, but marks a much bigger blow for a Green caucus already struggling to stay afloat. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kevin Bissett

"I am profoundly disappointed that she decided her only option was to cross the floor, after the voters of Fredericton and Oromocto had elected her as a Green, to be the kind of strong and independent voice in Ottawa that the Green Party encourages."

"She will discover that her principles will not find a home with the Liberals."

David Coon, leader of the New Brunswick Greens

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a brief statement when the news of the Liberal welcome of the former Green Party member became public, noting Atwin's "tireless and effective advocacy on priorities like climate action, mental health, reconciliation, and making life more affordable for families." No acknowledgement in any form of her controversial, adversarial stand on Israel defending itself from Hamas as an atrocity committed against Palestinians.

Resolved to Remain Bigoted

"If we hold strong, we will be leaders amongst Canadian political parties."
"Let's stand up for social justice [by supporting Palestinians affected by Israeli occupation]."
Lisa Barrett, Green Party of Canada foreign affairs critic

"[The] party will allow these discussions to come and we will respect the decision of the membership. We;'re committed to democracy."
"We're more worried about staying true to our principles [as opposed to being concerned about being elected]."
Ken Melamed, Green Party president

"It [adopting controversial resolutions targeting Israel at the Green biennial convention] may attract people to us to know that we're the only political party that doesn't shut down debate and doesn't run top-down. Clearly."
Elizabeth May, MP, leader, Green Party of Canada

Photo: Canada Israel Friendship Association

"Greens have chosen to embrace the policy position of shills for 9/11 conspiracy theories and terror apologists rather than side with the democratic and environmentally friendly state of Israel."
"This clearly reflects how out of touch the Green party has become with Canadian culture and values and it has made itself less relevant after its convention this weekend by voting for the politics of division and demonization."
"[By] unfairly singling out the world's only Jewish state for contempt, it has firmly entrenched itself beyond the fringe of mainstream Canadian politics."
Michael Mostyn, chief executive, B'nai Brith Canada

"A vote for BDS is a vote by those who seek for the de-legitimization of Israel, and ultimately seeks to have it, and its population, wiped off the map, preying on Israel's ability to defend itself."
Paul Estrin (former) president, Green Party of Canada

During its conference, a majority of Green Party members decided to vote to adopt the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement into their own party platform. The BDS movement which was initiated by Palestinians and spread through student and union and academic groups throughout Europe and North America on campuses with boisterously noisy condemnation of Israel has, over the years, attempted to achieve the complete ostracism of the state.

The now-global campaign lobbies corporations, artists and academic institutions to convince them to sever all business, academic and artistic ties with Israel. Their purpose, claim the boycott supporters is to advance the independence and human rights of Palestinians. The Israeli Ambassador to Canada's response was that Rafael Barak "deeply regret(s)" the decision. It "prejudicially singles out Israel, and is totally unhelpful to those who support the pursuit of a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians."

There is emotion and passion on both sides, understandably. And loathing hatred lurks deep within the consciousness of those who take up the BDS embrace with such gusto. Without taking note of all circumstances involved in the issue, making oneself familiar with the complexity of the ongoing conflict, none of these 'progressive' who pursue justice have any idea of what justice represents. But they are useful foils for the cause seeking to degrade and slander the Jewish state, mostly because it is a Jewish state.

According to a United Nations report, the BDS movement has expressed an impact on Israel where foreign direct investment was seen to have dropped 46 percent between 2013 and 2014, clearly a worrying sign for Israel. Yet its total impact eludes, particularly since the 25th World Investment Report concluded the decline was due to the fragility of the global economy which has led to "political uncertainty for investors and elevated geopolitical risks".

And then again, there is the quite salient examination of foreign capital flow into Israel undertaken by Bloomberg and published in June, which highlighted a completely contrary trend. A record high investment was hit in 2015 with a near-tripling from 2005 when the BDS campaign was launched. According to Bloomberg, foreign investments in Israeli assets amounted to $285.12 billion last year.

BE IT RESOLVED that the GPC supports the use of divestment, boycott and sanctions (“BDS”) that are targeted to those sectors of Israel’s economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation of the OPT;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the GPC will support such a form of BDS until such time as Israel implements a permanent ban on further settlement construction in the OPT, and enters into good faith negotiations with representatives of the Palestinian people for the purpose of establishing a viable, contiguous and truly sovereign Palestinian state.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the GPC opposes all efforts to prohibit, punish or otherwise deter expressions of support for BDS. 

Stung by Unfair Accusations

"I want to make it very clear that the Green party and I personally do not support the BDS movement [though she did not vote in support of the House of Commons motion to “reject the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which promotes the demonization and delegitimization of the State of Israel]."
"There is a Green party in Israel, which is consulted with frequently, and its view is that it would prefer that Green parties around the world do not support calls for boycotting Israel."
"Our convention next weekend will be the first time in decades that any Canadian political party has permitted a discussion on Israel's foreign policy. This is not a sign that we are anti-Israel Rather, it is proof that we have faith in respectful democratic discourse and free speech."
Elizabeth May, leader, Green Party of Canada, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands

Freestock.photos

Why a Canadian political party would engage itself in a discussion on the foreign policy of a country half a world away from Canada during its annual conference is a question that has perhaps not been put to Ms. May, but it is a puzzle, nonetheless. If the Green Party is so concerned over the rights of Palestinians that it considers the State of Israel to be oppressive of those rights, how strange it is that the focus is on Israel and Israel alone, in the matter of states and human rights.

That Israel comes first to mind as a nation that is said to be derelict in democratic fundamentals is passing strange.

If exotic geographic areas are of such concern to Green Party members, some of whom have been busy demonstrating their bona fides as anti-Semites, why not focus on the terrifyingly egregious human rights offences taking place, for example, in China, North Korea, Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic - oh, a veritable Satan's choice of practised deviants of human rights entitlements evasion? Why Israel?

The sanctimonious tripe that comes tripping off the tongue and pen of Elizabeth May in her role as leader of a basically environmental political group which has deviated from its traditional role as stewards of the environment in the political realm to select a nation to criticize, one whose focus has been scientifically and administratively focused on supporting the environment, seeking out natural solutions to unnatural and man-made environmental disruptions to find workable solutions to share with other nations through the inventive genius of applied science fools no one but the deliberately gullible.

Ms. May points out ingenuously that her party is only doing what Israeli insiders themselves do; questioning Israel's role in a variety of measures it uses to support internal security for its population, not quite entirely inured to the constant violent deadly attacks directed against Jews, requiring constant vigilance that some construe as limiting the human rights entitlements of a people taught that Jews and Israel are ensconced on land consecrated to Islam and therefore the Palestinians' by right.

Wouldn't she be amazed if the Knesset set aside time and energy for one of its parties to discuss the obstructionist policies of the Green Party within the Parliament of Canada; that a political party with but one seat in the House of Commons, with merely one elected Green parliamentarian could be so disruptive, yet given unequal opportunity by the other parties during pre-election debates to appear on television to make itself visible to the electorate?

The finger-wagging nonsense quote that 'it is dangerous to conflate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism' smacks of patronizing smugness. It is all the more offensive because in too many instances, particularly through auspices such as her party's it is indeed obvious that anti-Semitism is at play in the Greens' criticism of Israel. She speaks of the plight of the Palestinian people, and the right of her party to discuss Israel's role in that plight. It would never occur to discuss the Palestinian Authority's role in that plight.

In her complaint against the Jewish National Fund's executive's distress over the two resolutions to be discussed at the Green conference relating to "Israeli foreign policy that will be debated", she quotes a line from the late Golda Meir as Israel's prime minister when she said that you cannot shake hands with a clenched first, referring to the JNF and its CEO Josh Cooper as opposed to the Greens' open hand of discussion, Mrs. Meir's 'closed fist' reference related to the unwillingness of the Palestinians to sit down with Israel to arrive at peaceful solutions.

Instead, one offer after another with Israel submitting to Palestinian demands have, over the years, elicited one closed fist after another rather than a peace agreement. Ms. May and those like her misconstrue the cause-and-effect to deliberately view Israel as the doorstop on the entry to peace when in fact it is the violent 'resistance' of militant Palestinian groups to the reality of a Jewish presence in the Middle East that is the cause of war.

The "peace harmony and security" she calls for for Palestinians and Israelis alike, rings hollow and speaks of her clenched mind, refusing to acknowledge reality as it is lived in Israel by Jews, willing to live side by side with Arabs without fear of attack, impossible as long as their leadership continues to incite the young to view their future as potential martyrs in the cause to restore the land upon which heritaged Israel sits, which was once that of Jewish Palestinians, and which now late-coming Arab Palestinians claim.