Hamas Consolidating its Role in Ongoing Rule of Gaza and Threat of Further October 7s

"[A deal to bring peace to Gaza represents a] great breakthrough [despite signs from both Hamas and Israel that significant hurdles remained before a deal can be implemented]."

"It's a big step for the Middle East, and people are really impressed by it, and they're surprised by it."  

"[Israel is] very happy [about the deal]."

"Israel helped us, and they've been very good."

"Will it go through its ups and downs? It's a very complex situation over there."

U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

 

"Israel has conveyed its comments and concerns on the proposed framework to our American counterparts."

"The version that has been made public does not reflect Israel's positions."

Doron Spielman, spokesman, office of Israeli Prime Minister 

President Donald Trump gestures during a family photo during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, as Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Egypt’s President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani watch. In back are the Emir of Kuwait Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmad Al Sabah, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and Netherland’s Prime Minister Dick Schoof (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, Pool)

 

"[Hamas will not change its mentality and] resisting the occupation is its holy mission."

"This is an exceptional phase in Palestinian history. Because of forced necessity, the hard circumstances in Gaza, we accept this agreement."

"But I think that as Hamas, I can confirm that we didn't change our mentality, our goal to end the occupation, to continue to end the occupation with the Palestinian factions, because this is our holy mission."

Hamas's Ghazi Hamad 

Ghazi Hamad, member of Hamas Political Office, speaks during a protest in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Beirut, Lebanon, October 29, 2023; illustrative. (credit: REUTERS/AMR ALFIKY)

 

U.S. President Donald Trump may make his triumphant 'peace' statements to burnish his efforts to be recognized as a global peacemaker, in the process leaving the most affected party to continue to cope with the fallout, but that doesn't mean that the nation whose existential future is impacted by such decisions must accept them. And Israel did not, voicing its objections over the plan promoted by Mr. Trump to bring an end to the Gaza war. 

 

Demanding "verifiable" disarmament by the terrorist group Hamas, which had declared for Western consumption that it was prepared to surrender its weapons under a plan supported by the American president, to a Palestinian governing committee yet to be established, Israel knows what the U.S. president prefers not to acknowledge. Any seeming cooperation on the part of Hamas to appear to be on board with that peace plan simply buys it more time to get on with its goal.

 

That time fruitfully used in restoring what it has lost, post October 7, 2023; weaponry, territory, trust of Palestinians in Gaza, and Hamas operatives lost to the Israel Defense Forces huntdown of Hamas members, hiding behind the civilian population in Gaza. The latest document the Board of Peace released calling for Israel to cease its military operations "without delay", for "phased withdrawal" from Gaza is a losing proposition.

 

In control of 60 percent of Gaza, Israel "will not retreat" -- stated an Israeli politician -- from its position in the Gaza Strip. Which essentially protects Israeli citizens --from a repeat of October 7, promised time and again by members of the Hamas politboro. Yet the Board of Peace insists: "We have provided a pragmatic path forward to transform Gaza by removing Hamas from power and seeing it hand over its weapons" said one of the Board's officials. The plan is meant to result in "improvement of life in Gaza and enhancement of security in Israel".

 

The 20-point plan focused on ending Hamas rule along with its stockpile of weapons to be replaced with a Palestinian government and police to enable reconstruction and reconciliation with Israel. Reconciliation means what...a recognition of Israel's right to exist, a fundamental issue the Palestinian Authority has never agreed to? 

 

Hamas to shed its heavy weaponry as part of a bridging proposal reviving the peace process following months of mediated negotiations in Cairo. Heavy weaponry...rockets and other violent propulsion systems, but arms so beloved by the Hamas rank-and-file, an issue set aside for the present... Pointing out that actions by Hamas since both signed that plan, signify unmistakably that preparations for "further October 7-type massacres", went nowhere.

 

Hamas has agreed to a disarmament plan, according to the Gaza Board of Peace, but only if Israel withdraws from the territory. Former Canadian ambassador to Israel Jon Allen is 'highly skeptical' about the deal announced by U.S. President Donald Trump, saying the president has made many promises, but significant controversy remains over the outcome.  CBC News

 

 

 

 

Standing United Against Antisemitism...Heartwarming...And, Then?

"Antisemitism in Canada has risen sharply in recent years, as demonstrated in hate crime statistics and the lived experiences of Jews across the country. These experiences are traumatic in themselves, while often reopening deep wounds rooted in the collective memory of the Holocaust and other historical forms of oppression."

"This pernicious form of hate has existed throughout Canada’s history, from exclusionary immigration policies and formal professional restrictions in the past, to contemporary forms of hate on Canadian streets, communities and online, often driven by conspiracy theories and disinformation campaigns from around the world."

"In the 1960s, a special committee on hate propaganda recognized the then relatively small and uncoordinated dissemination of hateful materials as a clear and present danger to the functioning of a democratic society. In response, Parliament enacted criminal prohibitions on hate propaganda that remain in place to this day."

"While these prohibitions remain a critical guardrail against rising hate, the means by which hatred is spread has evolved, and Canada faces new challenges that demand new solutions."

"The committee believes that hate cannot simply be legislated away and that education is the main tool to combat hate. General awareness-raising for Canadians and educating Canada’s youth about past and present forms of antisemitism are essential to our social cohesion."

"Online spaces are saturated with hate and misinformation that fuel radicalization. Antisemitism in these spaces ranges from shockingly explicit hate material to insidious and subtle forms of manipulation. These flawed media and information systems are pervasive, and too often play a critical role in shaping the minds of young people."

"At the same time, the committee heard that antisemitism is growing in various workplaces, with many witnesses highlighting medical professions and academia with particular concern. While Jewish communities share commonalities, they are not all the same, and antisemitism is experienced differently by different people, including based on how antisemitism intersects with other forms of prejudice, such as sexism."

"Antisemitism remains a clear and present danger to Canada’s free and democratic society. As several witnesses noted, historically antisemitism has often served as the prelude to other forms of hate. The committee is keenly aware of the similarities between antisemitism, sexism, anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate, as well as the ways in which individuals can face intersectional discrimination. These prejudices undermine the social fabric of our democracy. Moreover, the possibility that these divisions can be amplified and exploited by foreign adversaries is a threat that Canada must take seriously."

Senate of Canada, Standing United Against Antisemitism 

 

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Canadian Human Rights Commission joins people across Canada and around the world in honouring the six million Jewish lives taken during the Holocaust. Today marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, which alone claimed the lives of over one million Jewish people.

We call on everyone in Canada, to stand united today — and every day — against antisemitism.

We also remember the many others targeted by Nazi persecution, including ethnic Poles, Roma and Sinti communities, Soviet civilians, 2SLGBTQI+ people, people with disabilities, and political and religious dissidents.

We must never forget or deny the scale of the Holocaust, or how these horrors were allowed to happen. They were the result of deliberate state actions that normalized dehumanization, exclusion, violence and hateful rhetoric.

Canadian Human Rights Commission  

 

While conflating hate-phobias newly skyrocketing in Canada, none of which are comparable to the rate of antisemitism newly reborn out of the ashes of the Canadian past, its embers re-ignited by the last several decades of immigration, migrants and refugee intake of people from North Africa and the Middle East, bringing with them their cultural/religious traditions of Jew-hate, the Senate investigation into Canadian antisemitism on steroids fails to make a connection between the rise of Jew-hate and the presence of Muslims cultivating it. The very same committee that feels it logical to lump anti-LGBTQ attitudes and 'Islamophobia' together with antisemitism.

 

In so doing the Senate has been singing from the hymnal of the governing Liberal party, which is functionally incapable of expressing its 'regret' at the rise of antisemitism in Canada, without pairing it with a revulsion against 'Islamophobia'. Islam has earned the kind of phobia it claims is expressed against its 'religion of peace' by distinguishing itself as the single most prevalent source of terrorism worldwide. A terrorism that has stalked communities and countries as organized jihadi groups whose names, such as the Islamic State in its many guises, taking over from al-Qaeda taught the world what human butchery in the name of  'peace' through conquest is.

 

It took over17 months for fifteen members of the Senate to interview 44 witnesses respecting Canadian incidents of Jew hate that have spiked in Canada as they have elsewhere since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel of 7 October, 2023 when thousands of Palestinians, including members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Fatah, and Hamas, accompanied by ordinary Palestinian civilians flooded into Israel on an organized, planned and pre-practised barbaric splurge of mass rape, bestiality and slaughter. 

 

Palestinian student groups have been in the forefront of organizing mass anti-Israel rallies throughout Canadian cities, of organizing university pro-Palestinian camps, of organizing marches through Jewish communities to shout 'Final Solution', 'From the River to the Sea', 'Go back to Poland!', and 'Globalize the Intifada', yet the clever minds of the Senators have been unable to put two-and-two together, unless it's the 2+2 that links antisemitism with 'Islamophobia'. In so doing, they echo the very sentiments of the federal government, and from there most provincial and municipal authorities and police services taking their cue from above. 

"The committee is keenly aware of the similarities between antisemitism, sexism, anti-Black racism, Islamophobia, and other forms of hate, as well as the ways in which individuals can face intersectional discrimination."  

The 73-page report does go so far as to mention 'young Canadians' radicalized by 'social media', implicating 'malicious foreign actors'. But never do they outright use the revelatory words 'Muslims' or 'Islam'. To do so would be to invite condemnation as 'Islamophobes', and we cannot have that, now can we? Canada, they recommend, must "develop and support digital literacy and social media education initiatives". To change the indoctrinated minds of those nursed on the stereotypes of those accursed Jews who have assaulted the rights of Palestinians by resurrecting their Jewish state on Judean ancestral geography.

 

They could have studied a special report out in 2025 by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism for an accurate and realistic analysis that they themselves shirked at examining, lest they arrive at a similar conclusion: "For decades, organizations affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, of which Hamas is also an adherent, have managed to embed themselves at all levels of Canadian society. These organizations and their radical ideologies have significant carryover effects, most notably within the academic space."  

"They [Muslim Brotherhood] basically aim to be the gatekeepers to the Muslim communities, that whenever politicians, governments or the media try to get the Muslim voice ... they would go through them."

Lorenzo Vidino, expert on Muslim Brotherhood, 2015 report to the Senate  

Adil Charkaoui's speech has drawn broad condemnation from politicians like Premier François Legault and groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. (Adil Charkaoui/X)

 

 

 

Demanding Enforcement of Provincial Laws Against Hate-Mongering

"Recent incidents, including mob intimidation and harassment at the Eaton Centre just last week, as well as ongoing intimidating marches through residential neighbourhoods near Bathurst and Sheppard, are completely unacceptable."

"When such incidents occur repeatedly and without visible consequences, it substantially undermines public confidence in the rule of law and in the institutions responsible for upholding it."

"The responsibility now rests with police leadership to ensure that existing authorities to act are used promptly and decisively when criminal acts of hate and intimidation are taking place."

"Strong action is required to prevent further escalation and hold offenders to account." 

"These incidents have left many residents living in a state of heightened fear and anxiety, concerned about a lack of visible response and feeling unable to move freely and safely in public spaces."

Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner        

 

"This is into its third year now, of these mobs on the streets of Toronto."

"De-escalation has not worked, strategic ambivalence has not worked, constructive engagement has not worked."

"So the time has come where you really need to push."

Coun. James Pasternak (York Centre)   

Pro-Palestine protesters took to Toronto's Eaton Centre to demonstrate on Boxing Day. Friday, Dec. 27 (Courtesy: Instagram/@pymtoronto)

 

Finally, one level of provincial authority has responded to the never-ending harassment of Canadians by groups such as those representing Palestinians in Canada or their sympathizers who hold all Jews responsible for the plight of Palestinians in Gaza under fire manipulated by the terrorist government in the Territory for which they voted, Hamas. Palestinian terrorists in the thousands led by Hamas operatives streamed across the border into southern Israel on October 7, 2023, for the express purpose of mounting a mass atrocity. They succeeded with their goal to an excruciating extent, raping, torturing, looting, murdering in jubilation at their courageous enterprise against a civilian population.

 

These are the barbaric monsters that Palestinians hail as 'liberators' battling an 'occupation', which they define as the existence of the State of Israel on its own ancestral land which Palestinians insist is theirs and theirs alone. Arabs from Syria and Egypt who had migrated to the parcel of land named by Roman occupiers as 'Palestine', to expunge its true name of Judea (and Samaria) claim that the Jewish presence is that of an occupying force, when it is in fact those Arabs which have coopted the name of 'Palestinians' as their identity which comprise the true 'occupiers' of land not their own. 

 

Since the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 and Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza, Toronto police say officers have attended more than 800 demonstrations related to the conflict. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

 

For well over two years, Muslims who have immigrated, migrated, and been accepted through refugee programs into Canada in the past two decades now constitute a considerable number in Canada, five times greater than the Jewish presence which dates back over a hundred years. That presence has been  weaponized against the .9 percent of the Canadian population that is Jewish by the 4.9 percent of the Canadian population now Muslim. Canadian multiculturalism was not meant to pit one ethnic/religious/cultural/historical group against another, but to celebrate a mix of backgrounds living amenably among themselves. The presence of Muslims has changed that to an extent never anticipated.

 

Weekly demonstrations of  hordes of anti-Israel, pro-Hamas/Palestinian supporters have blocked city streets in Canada, disrupted public events, disturbed the civil ambience of a civilized society, preyed on an ethnic minority unceasingly, interrupted municipal meetings and federal conferences, intruded into private property, taunted and threatened Canadian Jews, boycotted and slandered Jewish businesses, vandalized synagogues, conducted mass public prayers while closing off ingress and egress, disturbed the public peace, and no government at any level has intervened, much less police forces. 

 

Finally, Ontario's solicitor-general has spoken, instructing the Toronto Police Service to step up enforcement of "hate, intimidation and harassment-motivated offences". A letter was forwarded by the solicitor general's office to Chief Myron Dimkew of the Toronto Police, a copy to the chair of the civilian oversight board, instructing them that remedial action must be taken. Evidently spurred by the Boxing Day anti-Israel protest mob occupying Toronto's downtown shopping centre.

 

The constant harassment of the Jewish community located around Bathurst and Sheppard where a large percentage of the city's Jewish community call their home, should have been enough to have elicited a rebuke to the police for their inaction in the face of ongoing events to shatter the peace of a community. Michael Kerzner is the MPP for York Centre riding, and is himself the highest ranking Jewish member of the government led by Premier Doug Ford.

 

He reminded the police force that the provincial government has equipped, trained and empowered Toronto police to respond to these and other such incidents to enforce provincial laws, broken with stunning regularity by such marches bombarding  the air with shouts to 'globalize the Intifada', and urging 'Final Solution', along with 'Palestine will be free from the river to the sea'. 

 

His intervention is not the only one recently undertaken by a concerned civic authority. Chief Demkiw and Mayor Olivia chow had received correspondence of a similar vein a month earlier, from York Centre Conservative Member of Provincial Parliament Roman Barber. 

 

 

  

The 'Peacemaker-in-Chief'

"This was the granddaddy of them all. And frankly, I thought this was probably going to be the toughest, and maybe in many ways, it was."

"The prayers of millions have finally been answered. At long last, we have peace in the Middle East." 

"I've been involved in a lot of success. I have never seen anything like what's going on today." 

"Today, for the first time anyone can remember, we have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to put the old feuds and bitter hatreds behind us -- and to declare that our future will not be ruled by the fights of generations past." 

"Israel, with our  help, has won all that they can by force of arms. You've won. I mean, you've won. Now it's time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East." 

"The total focus of Gazans must be on restoring the fundamentals of stability safety dignity, and economic development so they can finally have the better life that their children really do deserve after all these decades of  horror."

"I intend to be a partner in this effort." 

U.S. President Donald Trump 

U.S. President Donald Trump greets Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as he arrives at Ben Gurion International Airport, near Tel Aviv, on Monday. (Evan Vucci/The Associated Press)

 

The final release of the remaining Israeli hostages from Hamas hands in Gaza is indisputably a diplomatic tour de force, and no one can take that credit away from Donald Trump, the self-lauded master of the deal. From the unitary height of his position as the most powerful, influential man on this planet he exerted the weight he wields to convince all those involved in this ageless saga of suspicion and hatred, sectarian and tribal, to agree that terrorism cannot be permitted to destabilize an entire region, the tremblors of which may threaten the very peace of the entire globe.

 

That accomplished, the equally large challenge of future prospects in that tiny segment of the Middle East was addressed on the surface with the attendance of world leaders from Europe and the Middle East attending the global summit on the future of Gaza, in Sharm el Shiekh. In the absence of  Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who declined to attend on a Jewish holiday, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Emir Shiekh Tamim bin Hamad al Thani of Qatar, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged their commitment to a future Gaza. 

 

Twenty living Israeli hostages, young men to middle-aged men, captured by Hamas terrorists marauding through southern Israel on October 7, 2023, from kibbutzim and from the Nova Music Festival, were finally freed from the shackles of captivity after two years of starvation, shackles, privation and torture. The exchange price for their release was steep, the freeing of 1,700 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, among whom were murderers of Israelis. The disparity in numbers represents the usual fare paid by Israel for the release from captivity of their nationals from the hands of Palestinian terrorists. Experience has proven that the vast bulk of Palestinians released from Israeli prisons return to the very lethal predations that saw them imprisoned to begin with.

 

Nimrod Cohen, an Israeli hostage released from the Gaza Strip holds an Israeli flag after coming off a helicopter at the Ichilov Hospital, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

 

Now the issues at hand relate to the future of Gaza, to the vital  necessity of having Hamas disarm and surrender their weaponry, which they adamantly refuse to do, much less to vacate the Strip where they have over their years of governing it, transformed the land underground to a labyrinthine maze of tunnels for haven/escape from retaliatory attacks by the IDF following rocket strikes into Israel. Tunnels under hospitals, schools, private homes, apartment blocks, and mosques, where command posts, headquarters, weapons depots, communication stations and more were located. And more recently, subterranean dungeons for Israeli hostages.

 

There are pledges from Middle East nations and Western nations to help fund civic infrastructure, from the West, along with the ME nations to send peacekeepers to Gaza. No one has any solution how best to force Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine to depart Gaza, to disarm, to disown their death charters for the destruction of Israel, for the deadly elimination of Jews everywhere. For his part, President Trump is 'confident' that the ceasefire he personally oversaw would be permanent. Skepticism abounds, however, among those with the experience of decades of conflict. 

 

It took no time at all for the realization to sink in that although the living hostages were restored to Israel and to their own lives as free men with a future ahead of them, Hamas failed in its signed obligation to transfer the 28 bodies of those whom they had murdered while in their custody; one woman and the rest Israeli men with the misfortune not to have been able to endure the hardships and psychological deadening of their inhumane incarcerations. The agreement was for the wholesale restoration of all Israelis, alive and dead. That old adage 'time will tell', certainly will. 

 

A crowd gathers around a bus carrying Palestinian prisoners who were released from an Israeli prison as part of a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, upon his arrival in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Monday, Oct. 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Majdi Mohammed)

 

 

 

Canada, France, Britain -- Incentivizing Terrorism

Prime Minister of Canada

"We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza. The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable. Yesterday’s announcement that Israel will allow a basic quantity of food into Gaza is wholly inadequate. We call on the Israeli Government to stop its military operations in Gaza and immediately allow humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. This must include engaging with the UN to ensure a return to delivery of aid in line with humanitarian principles. We call on Hamas to release immediately the remaining hostages they have so cruelly held since 7 October 2023."

"The Israeli Government’s denial of essential humanitarian assistance to the civilian population is unacceptable and risks breaching International Humanitarian Law. We condemn the abhorrent language used recently by members of the Israeli Government, threatening that, in their despair at the destruction of Gaza, civilians will start to relocate. Permanent forced displacement is a breach of international humanitarian law."

"Israel suffered a heinous attack on October 7. We have always supported Israel’s right to defend Israelis against terrorism. But this escalation is wholly disproportionate."

"We will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response."

"We oppose any attempt to expand settlements in the West Bank. Israel must halt settlements which are illegal and undermine the viability of a Palestinian state and the security of both Israelis and Palestinians.  We will not hesitate to take further action, including targeted sanctions."

Joint statement from the leaders of Canada, the United Kingdom and France on the situation in Gaza and the West Bank

Israel has blocked the entry of medical, food and fuel supplies into Gaza since the start of March to try to pressure Hamas into freeing hostages.  PHOTO: REUTERS

Now it is abundantly clear and out in the open: Canada's 'new' government is merely a retread of the 'old' Liberal government, but bolder and more to the point. Yes, expressions of sympathy for Israel's plight in being the target of a death-cult terror group whose constant attacks are merely an expression of their intention to annihilate Jews while destroying their state. And the October 7 attack in southern Israel on mostly Israeli civilians was certainly unfortunate so it is understandable that Israel would respond. But the offensive that transpired is beyond what Canada, France and Britain will accept. Israel, they thunder, is killing Palestinian civilians; the Hamas Health Authority says so, in huge numbers. 

Therefore, Israel's intention to counter Hamas's charter pledge of its destruction is simply unacceptable, and if continued, there will be consequences, promises the trio of nations whose populations are now swelled with the presence of sullen, antagonistic and often violently threatening Islamists, citizens with voting rights whose numbers have become impressively entitled to produce volatile and violent exhibitions of Islamist disaffection with Western democracies and the presence within them of Jewish populations long prior established as loyal citizens, now left in casual disregard by the nations for whom Jewish defence/offence is quite simply offensive.

 

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators waves Palestinian flags and burn flares during a demonstration against Israel outside the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest's grand final in Basel on May 17, 2025. Photo- AFP

The streets and highways of Canada, Britain and France are regularly suffused by overwhelming numbers of Hamas-supporting demonstrators stopping traffic, rallying before federal buildings, praying en masse, protesting in front of synagogues and Jewish neighbourhoods shouting prescriptions for a new range of Final Solutions to an age-old problem of a Jewish presence anywhere in the world, as Intifadas to be universalized, and campaigns to be finalized 'From the river to the sea', urging Jews to return to 'Poland' where the unfinished work of the Holocaust can be resumed.

 

The statement of condemnation released today by Canada, jointly with France and England is a start, one that the Hamas authority -- whatever is left of it after Israel's dedicated military campaign to eradicate them all -- busily persuading Palestinians not yet completely in their orbit to join them in replacing those that have been lost, to rebuild their military might for ongoing attacks that the group and others among them relentlessly pursue in their dedicated mission of death-dealing. Perhaps Hamas could persuade the three to begin providing it with weaponry with which to defend itself from Israeli malevolent reprisals?

 

There is no indication that the three leaders have taken into account the fact that were the Israeli  hostages to be released, the siege of Gaza would be over. Nor do they recognize publicly that Hamas operatives have taken possession of huge volumes of humanitarian relief supplies meant to be apportioned out to Palestinian civilians, not the terrorists who have warehoused it all for their own use. And no acknowledgement of the fact that Hamas and its partners Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Yemeni Houthis continue sending rockets into Israel. Let alone that West Bank Palestinians under the Palestinian Authority that incites them to violence, continue to attack Israelis.

 

For the Palestinians, however, the good news story is the West, not only its politicians, but its academic faculties, its unions, and many individuals within the populations of all three nations who revel in antisemitic expressions, take great pride in standing alongside Palestinians in their organized rallies to pressure governments at every level in these countries who refuse to take any security and law-enforcing steps to protect their Jewish populations and defuse the constant social-disturbing eruptions of anti-Israel rallies, preferring to protect instead the rally organizers and their followers.

 

Little wonder that Hamas was moved to acknowledge its satisfaction and appreciation toward the leadership of Canada, France and Britain, taking time out of its busy schedule of rearming, reorganizing, recruiting, to congratulate the leaders of the three Western countries for standing in solidarity with Palestinian 'liberation'. 

 

"By asking Israel to end a defensive war for our survival before Hamas terrorists on our border are destroyed and by demanding a Palestinian state, the leaders in London, Ottawa and Paris are offering a huge prize for the genocidal attack on Israel on October 7 while inviting more such atrocities." 

"The war can end tomorrow if the remaining hostages are released, Hamas lays down its arms, its murderous leaders are exiled and Gaza is demilitarized. No nation can be expected to accept anything less and Israel certainly won't."  

"This is a war of civilization over barbarism. Israel will continue to defend itself by just means until total victory is achieved."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's response

We Will Dance Again

 

A timer keeps track of how long Israeli hostages have been held by Hamas, as part of the Nova Music Festival Exhibition in Toronto, Tuesday April 22, 2025. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

"This may be one of the most unique exhibits and experiences that you might find."

"The Nova Music Festival was the tip of the spear on October 7. Peace-loving people who came to dance from many nationalities, from many religions."

"It was not about being Jewish. It was not about the country of Israel."

Evan Zelikovitz, Canadian installation representative

 

"This is a journey from the light to the darkness and then light again."

"You can touch things. Everything that you'll see inside is real, from the toilets to the tents to the signs and the bar."

"People [were] murdered literally inside. It's a very important thing that the world must know that this cannot happen again."

"As we say, 'We will dance again'. It's not just a sentence or a slogan. It's our way of life."

Shani Ivgi, festival survivor

 

"The exhibit starts from the light to the darkness and to the light again."

"We are here  to show the healing. This is my healing; to share my story, my way."

"It was the best festival that I was at."

"I [am] just waiting there. Bleeding. I called my mom and said, 'I love you, but I think I'm going to die."

Michal Ohana, Nova Festival survivor

The Nova Music Festival Exhibition is in Toronto until June 8. Photo by HANDOUT /NOVA EXHIBITION HANDOUT

 Opened today in Toronto, an installation produced to honour victims and survivors of the October 7, 2023 terrorist attack on the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel, will remain in place for a six-week period. It can be seen at 1381 Castlefield Avenue until June 8. The exhibition recreates the landscape of a music concert that Hamas terrorists attacked, raping, mutilating, hunting people down and mercilessly killing them, while taking a smaller number hostage into Gaza, to be used as pawns in demands for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.

 

Of the 3000 men and women in attendance at the festival, close to 400 individuals were murdered that day, while another 44 were abducted, to be taken into the tunnel system in Gaza as prisoners to be shackled, abused and starved. The exhibition's first appearance was last year, in Tel Aviv. It is now appearing in international venues to ensure that what happened that day is fully understood as "the largest massacre in music history".

 

Items taken from the ruins of the Nova Music Festival are featured at the installation. Ordinary things that people take with them to be useful when they travel to such events in anticipation of meeting with other young people to enjoy comradeship and the music that entrances the hearer and romanticizes life. There are hammocks, shoes, water bottles, cellphone cases, cigarettes and a wide array of personal belongings of people who had gone to the festival with light hearts and the anticipation of a happy reunion with friends.

 

Screens placed throughout the installation replay defining moments of the atrocities carried out on that fateful day. Among them the kidnapping of Noa Argamani as she called out desperately for help, and the unforgettable savagery on display with the parading through Gaza on the back of a truck of the dead body of Shani Louk, to the loud acclaim of ordinary Palestinians who took pleasure in abusing her corpse.

 

Conservatives honour their memories by standing with the Jewish people in saying Never Again and calling for the release of all hostages taken by Hamas and the return of the remains of Judith Weinstein to Canada. Am Yisrael Chai.  Pierre Poilievre

 

Shani Ivgi was a festival worker and like everyone else at the event, was surprised when rocket sirens sounded in the early morning hours of October 7, to warn of incoming rocket fire. Along with others she fled to a nearby bomb shelter. A sense of impending danger and fear of close spaces led her to leave the shelter. Minutes later, Hamas terrorists arrived and slaughtered all those who sought haven in the bomb shelter. Ivgi was able to return to her car and drove back to central Israel,but not quite without incident since her car was hit by a barrage of rifle fire from the terrorists. 

She was present at the exhibition installations in Miami, Los Angeles and Buenos Aires. Another festival survivor said the installation mirrors the emotions of that fateful day. Living in Portugal, Michal Ohana was invited by Israeli friends to attend the Nova Music Festival. She recalls partying through the night before the Hamas attack. She wound up hiding under an Israeli tank for several hours in the wake of the terrorist attack. She had been shot in the leg. She was eventually rescued by Israeli soldiers and taken to a hospital where her older sister happened to be giving birth. "For me, this day is like two miracles. I stayed alive, and I have a new nephew", she said.

 

Nova Music Festival survivor Michal Ohana signs a wall and photo of her friend and hostage Elkana Bohbot at the Nova Music Festival Exhibition in Toronto, Tuesday April 22, 2025. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

 

"We are not just a tragic story."

"I have a lot of friends who were murdered. I have one family member who was murdered, and still, life is stronger."

"I know that we've been through so much darkness and we saw so much darkness in our eyes ... "

"Only light can win the darkness. And this is our values."

Shani Ivgi

The Nova Exhibition in Toronto remembers one of the most depraved atrocities committed against the Jewish people on October 7, 2023. 378 festival attendees were brutally murdered at the hands of the genocidal death cult Hamas.  Pierre Poilievre, X

 

UNRWA, Facilitator of Palestinian Terrorism

"UNRWA has taken steps to address allegations regarding individual employees' support for terrorist organizations and demonstrated its willingness to pursue and implement reform of internal processes."

Co-signed (Canada, Australia, France, Germany Japan South Korea, U.K.) statement

"[The new laws in Israel] would de facto render UNRWA's vital operations in Gaza impossible, and seriously hamper its provision of services in the West Bank."

"[The laws stand] in stark contradiction to international law and the fundamental principle of humanity."

Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy

 

"UNRWA workers involved in terrorist activities against Israel must be held accountable. Since avoiding a humanitarian crisis is also essential, sustained humanitarian aid must remain available in Gaza now and in the future."

"In the 90 days before this legislation takes effect – and after – we stand ready to work with our international partners to ensure Israel continues to facilitate humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza in a way that does not threaten Israel’s security."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Security personnel work at the UNRWA headquarters, in Jerusalem, May 10, 2024. REUTERS/Ammar Awad/File Photo

 

Israel  has moved to make it illegal for the United Nations' Relief and Works Agency(UNRWA) to continue its operations in Israeli territory. State officials in Israel may no longer, under the law, co-operate with the UN aid agency. A large majority of the Knesset passed the two laws in the wake of ongoing revelations of UNRWA staff complicity in the Hamas October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel.

According to an unnamed U.S. State Department official, the Biden Administration is "deeply concerned" over this turn of affairs. Despite which had the United States been the subject of such barbarian savagery, there would be no question of the ferocity of its retaliation against the perpetrators of the inhuman nature of such barbarism against its civilian population by a conscienceless aggressor. Think back to September 11, 2001. For Israel, September 11 and October 7 are interchangeable.

Afghanistan facilitated and nurtured the al-Qaeda conspiracy that resulted in 9/11 which led to a long and ultimately fruitless pursuit of both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The latter's mastermind was eliminated but the state of mind that he expressed lives on. UNRWA has, since its inception as a permanent crutch for the interminable victimhood of Palestinians aided and abetted and incited its spirit of malevolent intentions against the Jewish state in the interests of destroying Israel.

According to UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini,the legislation "opposes the UN charter and violates the State of Israel's obligations under international law". When in fact, UNRWA's actions over the past 70 years have deliberately nurtured Palestinian Arab resentment, victimhood and hatred against Jews living in their ancestral homeland with the rebirth of Israel on a slender tract of land that represents a small portion of its original homeland. Another portion of which Palestinians rejected outright for their future state in preference to claiming the entire geography as their entitled due.

Accusations of malfeasance against UNRWA are not new; most Palestinians are taught at UNRWA schools throughout the Palestinian territories and in 'refugee camps' in the Arab world, using tainted curricula that fosters hate and terrorism. 30,000 staff are employed by UNRWA, mostly Palestinians. It operates in Jordan and Lebanon as well. The UN agency has long been known to provide cover and income to Palestinian terrorists and actively undermining attempts at peace negotiations.

 

Ayelet Samerano reacts as she screens the video of her son's body being kidnapped to Gaza by an UNRWA social worker, during a UN Watch summit in Geneva, February 26, 2024. (Screenshot: Hostages Families Forum)

 

Evidence surfaced in the wake of October 7 massacres when 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis, men, women, children, the elderly were murdered, another 250 abducted from their homes to be taken as prisoner-hostages back to Gaza to be maltreated, tortured, raped, starved and murdered while being used as barter by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. The atrocities were participated in by UNRWA employees who also happened to be members of Hamas.

"A social worker for a so-called humanitarian organization kidnapped my son. How can someone working for an organization that claims to do good in this world do something so cruel and inhumane?" "How can the UN pay this man who dragged my son’s limp body along the ground and then picked him up as if he was a prize into Gaza."

"How many more lives have been ruined by this person, hauling my son like he isn’t even a human being into an UNRWA car?"

Ayelet Samerano, mother of man killed and taken hostage by UNRWA employee to Gaza

Of the over 1,000 Gazans employed by UNRWA, an estimated 450 are members of terrorist organizations located in Gaza, mostly members of Hamas. UNRWA experts dispute that the legislation newly enacted in Israel is in contradiction to international law. Simply put, Israel is not party to treaties compelling it to engage with a group such as UNRWA that actively agitates against the Jewish State. To permit UNRWA to continue its ongoing actions deleterious to Israel's survival would represent a nonsensical act of self-destruction on Israel's part.

The Pride and Admiration of Palestinian Civilians

"In recent negotiations, Haniyeh had played a big role in trying to convince Sinwar to accept a ceasefire proposal with Israel."

"Israel's elimination of senior Hamas leaders who cannot easily be replaced has likely had a qualitative impact on the movement."

"More fundamentally, though, the killing of senior figures such as Arouri and Haniyeh appears to have tipped the movement in a more hardline direction."

Hugh Lovatt, expert on Israeli-Palestinian conflict, European Council on Foreign Relations 

"The killing of Haniyeh already brought negotiations back to the drawing board."

"This next chess move by Hamas makes negotiations even trickier."

Lina Khatib, expert on conflict, Chatham House, London

Hamas leader in the Gaza Strip Yahya Sinwar speaks during a rally marking Al-Quds (Jerusalem) Day, in Gaza City, April 14, 2023. (Mohammed Abed/AFP)

 

So much for the considered opinions of 'experts' in the field of caustic, violent relations among Palestinian terrorist groups with the Jewish State they pledge to annihilate. The newly-named Hamas leader, Yahya Sinwar, who planned in exquisite detail a broad-scale bloody atrocity that effectively broke an existing  ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, insists as a bargaining tool to permit the return of the still-living Israeli hostages he holds in Gaza, that a permanent ceasefire be implemented.

 

A terrorist group, on its backfoot, that had willingly and deliberately for public relations purposes with the West in mind, submitted its own civilian population to retaliatory harm by installing itself within said population, using it as a shield to protect its command centres, weapons depots and terrorist operatives, feels entitled to dictate to the state military conducting defensive raids in Gaza and with the intention of destroying the terror group's capacity for further atrocities against Israeli civilians, how it will agree to end the conflict.

 

Formally inducted as the Hamas supreme leader following the assassination of once-Palestinian prime minister with the Palestinian Authority, and latterly as the head of its rival Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar now undertakes to unravel the chaos he elected to sow on October 7. He effectively owns the bloodiest event in the long-standing Israeli-Hamas conflict having masterminded it. Now it becomes his job and his alone, to somehow extract Hamas from the noose he hanged it with.

 

A more ruthless, committed terror-commander would be hard to come across. He remains deeply hidden in Gaza, in an as-yet-undiscovered tunnels, no doubt, where the remaining Israeli hostages are likely also being held. Having once boasted to interrogators that he had twelve suspected Palestinian collaborators killed, his deep streak of brutality is legendary. Israel has more than ample reason to regret having included this wretched excuse for a human being in a prisoner exchange, after he had spent several decades in Israeli prisons.

He had collaborated deeply with Mohammed Deif -- another assassinated figure devoted to the destruction of Israel -- building the Hamas military, and both are thought to have collaborated on the details of the October 7 invasion of southern Israel that saw thousands of Palestinian terrorists flood into Israel from Gaza for the express purpose of slaughtering as many Israeli civilians as they could, while committing mass rapes and horrendous mutilations of helpless women. Nor did they hesitate in immolating infants along with their parents and siblings in their kibbutz homes.

 

David and Varda Goldstein hold photos of their 3 grandchildren, Gal, Tal and Agam, and their mother, Chen, kidnapped on Oct 7th deadly Hamas attack.  Amir Levy/Getty Images

With Yahya Sinwar as senior commanding leader of Hamas, demands for the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli incarceration for crimes against humanity; full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza; and a permanent ceasefire will represent the Hamas position before they will consider releasing the remaining hostages they hold, as well as the bodies of Israeli civilians and soldiers killed by Hamas, for a barter-exchange.

Saleh Arouri, another elite Hamas leader was also eliminated in a targeted Israeli airstrike in Beirut at the turn of the year. The number of high-placed leaders that Israel has successfully eliminated speaks to those that are left as a dire need to limit movements and contacts to preserve their miserable lives. Lives, however, whose exploits in killing Jews through a series of raids have become the pride of ordinary Palestinian civilians who give Hamas and its sister terror-groups their full admiration and trust.

Video showing an UNRWA worker driving a white UN jeep, and abducting the body of Jonathan Samerano, who was killed by Hamas terrorists on October 7. (Screenshot)

Making the Desert Bloom

"[They spent less than 40 days on their mission, but their work radically changed the course of history for the Jewish nation and for the Jewish and Arab inhabitants of Palestine."

"He [Judge Ivan C. Rand] deeply felt the plight of the Jewish. Rand signed on to the entire Zionist narrative." 

"The committee arrived in Palestine evenly split between supporters of the Zionists and the Palestinians, giving each side] equal potential for tipping the committee in their direction."

"[Rand was an] intolerant bigot [about French-Canadians, Catholics, Jews and other non-Anglos]."

Elad Ben-Dror, Israeli historian

"He went there as a fiercely independent judge of the Supreme Court of Canada to find a solution to this intractable problem."

Willian Kaplan, lawyer, author of Canadian Maverick, biography

David Ben Gurion, State of Israel

When Britain left Palestine in May of 1948, Israel declared its independence. A day afterward, Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Iraq launched a joint attack on the Jewish state; the first of no fewer than three Arab-Israeli wars to take place over the following 25 years. Hundreds of thousands of Arabs living in the area called Palestine were displaced by the fighting in 1948, either voluntarily, planning on a swift return once the conflict was concluded and the Jewish state was no more, or claiming that they were pushed out, their properties taken by Jews. 

When a committee appointed by the United Nations, named UNSCOP, comprised of Canada, Czechoslovakia, Guatemala, Holland, India, Iran, Peru, Sweden, Uruguay and Yugoslavia, each of which appointed a representative to sit on the special committee struck to investigate how to solve the problem of both Jewish and Arab claims to the contested area of Palestine, it was with the expectation that once the decision and its formula were declared it would be to the satisfaction of both parties

In the event, after deliberations, the committee comprised of nine European countries whose representatives travelled throughout the area to assess the claims of both the Jews and the Arabs, they took their impressions back with them to Geneva with a month to formulate recommendations. A consensus seemed elusive. Iran, India and Yugoslavia issued a minority report with their proposal being for a single federal state partitioned with part Arab, part Jewish enclaves.

The resulting majority report however, was spearheaded by a Canadian jurist and another from Sweden, calling for Palestine to be split into two states; one Jewish, one Arab. The Jewish state was to be the larger piece of the territory with an economic link between both. In their formula, Jerusalem would fall under international control. While at that time the Jewish population was half that of the Arab community, the report reasoned that room was needed in the Jewish state to accommodate Holocaust survivors, at the time anxiously awaiting release from refugee camps.

The man recognized as the most influential and determined among the assigned committee members who made their recommendations in 1947 for the United Nations to follow, was a Canadian, Justice Ivan Rand, an Anglo-Saxon protestant who as dean of the law school at Western University rejected a candidate for the faculty on the basis that London, Ontario had no use for "too many Jews". Yet his rulings in the 1940s and 50s defended the rights of Japanese-Canadians who had been interned during the Second World War; he refuted Quebec's persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses, and supported the right of Communists in Canada to free speech.

After study, the 11-man investigative group led by Justice Rand called for the partition of the contested territory into Jewish and Arab states, viewed as a victory for Zionism and still reflecting the sentiments of a number of countries including the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. But the salient point is that the UN General Assembly of the time adopted the advice of the panel. Never imagining, one suspects, that what would follow would be one of the world's bloodiest, most intractable conflicts.

 

Jubilant Jews celebrating the re-emerged State of Israel

 

According to Uri Milstein, an Israeli historian, Justice Rand was by most accounts key to the two-state solution that was recommended to the United Nations: "The one who tipped the scales was the Canadian representative", he wrote. Opponents of Israel, however, have never stopped questioning the wisdom and the justice behind the UN's Partition plan, and that questioning has now been renewed in the wake of the Hamas bloody incursion into Israel, and the Israeli response, hammering Gaza to destroy the terrorist group.

The British government was disenchanted with its role, overseeing Palestine under the awarded "mandate" following the First World War. It approached the fledgling United Nations that had emerged from the old League of Nations to arrive at an alternate solution. The promise of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine with the 1917 Balfour Declaration. specified it must be accomplished without impinging on the rights of existing occupants, endorsed in 1922 by the League of Nations.

After which hundreds of thousands of Jews anxious to escape European persecution migrated to the region, linked to the Zionist movement. By the end of the Second World War, British forces severely limited Jewish immigration acceding to the Arabs whose anger opposed any further entrance of Jews to Palestine. The UNSCOP special commission was created at that juncture, to weigh the merits of two discordant points of view.

 

1948 Palestinian expulsion and flight

 

Jews considered Palestine in the context of their ancient ancestral heritage, where a renewed homeland was urgently required  to settle Holocaust survivors languishing in miserable conditions in displaced persons camps in Europe. Many countries including Canada and the United States, driven by antisemitism refused to accept Jewish refugees and a solution was seen to be elusive. The mass murder of six million Jews by the Nazis certianly played a role in the final determination of the issue in offering a state to the Jews alongside one for the Arabs.

Justice Rand, as the committee travelled across Palestine grew to admire Jewish development of an arid land, often referred to as "making the desert bloom", and empathized with Holocaust survivors. On the other hand, he was less than impressed by the  underdeveloped, less-progressive Arab communities visited by the committee. In a 1921 paper, Queen's University law professor Ardi Imseis argues that the domination of the committee by nine European, "settler-colonial" countries made it friendly toward the Jewish cause; a sign of a "lingering imperialism".

The same source and line of thought along with an alternate heritage shared by millions of Muslims who have since the war years immigrated to Canada, been accepted in huge numbers as refugees, have become a Jew-unfriendly demographic in Canada whose collective venom has been unleashed in the wake of the Israeli response to the Hamas terrorism perpetrated on October 7 in southern Israel. The atrocities deeply shocking in the depth of their sadistic brutality.

 

Despite which the hatred of Jews and of Israel within the Arab/Muslim diaspora across the world of the West has erupted in a show of unity and strength with antisemitism coming to the fore in a manner both shocking and terrorizing in and of itself. Accusations of ongoing victimization on the part of the Arab/Muslim world which continues to attack Jews in Israel and abroad, yet referring to themselves as the victims, and the Jews as the aggressors abound. A tired old tale of rancid hatred that refuses to die.

 

New Voices Magazine