Canada's Liberal Government Sanctioning Palestinian History Inversion

"Despite numerous pleas over many, many months by many different people there has been a very careful effort to provide no context for the Palestinian displacement whatsoever."

"From what I’ve seen from the website, it is a very one-sided, biased narrative that is not befitting a national federal museum." 

Gail Asper whose father Israel Asper founded the Museum of Human Rights

 

"It is difficult to understand how telling the story of Palestinian displacement in 1948 while omitting the simultaneous expulsion of 850,000 Jews from the Arab states can be viewed as anything other than politically motivated."

"In response, the museum has only made a vague commitment to exploring that story as part of a broader exhibit on displacement at some time in the unknown future."

"But the stories are not severable — they occurred at the same historical moment."

Letter of Resignation from CMHR Board, Mark Berlin, McGill law professor, human rights lawyer

Protesters rally outside the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, June 26, 2026. (Credit: Izzie Helenchilde)

 

In 1948 when Arab armies joined forces to attack the nascent Jewish state following the UN's 1947 Partition Plan for Palestine declaration, offering an opportunity for both Jews and Arabs to declare their sovereign state intentions, Jews moved directly to form their sovereign nation as a reborn-from-antiquity Israel. Palestinians had chosen to reject the opportunity, in the process refusing Israel's right of existence.

An estimated 750,000 Arab Palestinians fled the fledgling Israel, persuaded by surrounding Arab states to leave, planning to return once the combined Arab militaries had destroyed the Jewish state-that-would-be.

 

When the motley collection of Jewish kibbutz farmers, Holocaust survivors, former refugees and members of the Jewish resistance, hurriedly formed into a new army for a new state somehow, miraculously foiled the Arab League's plan of extinction, leaving the Arab armies to themselves flee, the unexpected debacle was declared by the defeated Arabs to represent a catastrophe, a "Nakba". That word was immediately adopted by the self-exiled Arabs now calling themselves Palestinians to describe the advent of Israel's existence, on Judean ancestral land, that the 'Palestinians' claimed as their very own.

 

While some of the 750,000 Arabs who fled Israel may have been propelled by fear of Jewish threats, most were convinced by Arab leaders they would return triumphant to take possession of the entire geography once Israel was destroyed. At the same time, there were hundreds of thousands of Arabs who made no move to leave, and remained where they were, becoming citizens of Israel, while still calling themselves Palestinians. During that period, Arab countries where Jews had lived throughout the diaspora for millennia were exiled, their properties confiscated, some 850,000 Arabized Jews from Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Libya.

 

While Palestinians, aided and abetted by the United Nations, became permanent 'refugees', demanding a right of return and the dissolution of Israel, their Jewish counterparts from Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere, found refuge in Israel and other destinations around the world. Their loss has never been internationally acknowledged, while that of the Palestinian Arabs became a legendary injustice to be used as a cudgel against Israel. That Palestinian Arabs today make up over 20% of the Israeli population does not stop the compassionate left from labelling Israel an apartheid state, happy to chorus Palestinian propaganda.

 

And it is Palestinian propaganda and the functioning aggressive ill-will of its slanderous campaign to delegitimize Israel and convince the global community that Israel is committing 'genocide' against the Palestinians when it is the Palestinian leadership that has for 70 years incited their population to 'resist the occupation', an 'occupation' necessitated by the patterning of the leadership toward martyrdom in convincing their youth, both male and female of their duty to kill Jews, to destroy the Jewish state, to reclaim 'Palestine', 'from the river to the sea'.

 

That is the packaged message weaponized in the Nakba exhibition at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights which was originally dedicated to educating the public about the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust. The very genocide that President Mahmoud Abbas mocked and minimized in his doctoral thesis at the Patrice Lamumba University in Russia. The leader of the West Bank whose martyrs' fund pays the families of Palestinian murderers of Jews as rewards, along with those imprisoned in Israeli jails for crimes against Israel in its 'Pay for Slay' program.

 

Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present’ exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, June 26, 2026. (Credit: Izzie Helenchilde).

 

What the public visiting the exhibit, Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present will see is the juxtaposition of the exhibit against that of the original Holocaust memorialization of a historic tragedy of intense proportions that ended in the death of almost half of the world's Jewish population; most of the Jewish-European diaspora. That is the meaning of genocide. The Nakba exhibit pretends to equate Palestinian trials and tribulations caused by their insistence that murdering Jews will restore the land they claim to be theirs, not that of the Jews of Israel, with the immeasurable loss of Jewish lives through the state channels of an ancient hatred. 

 

"Around 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced during the creation of the State of Israel", the displays proclaim in a perspective that suits the purpose of damning Israel for victimizing Arab Palestinians. That historically, the term Palestinian was always interpreted as Jews living in that area of the Middle East, later shared by others who had migrated to the area by Arabs from Egypt, Syria and Lebanon looking for opportunities, and devout Christians wanting to live where their faith resonated, that designation was totally co-opted by Arabs now claiming the title of Palestinians.

 

Jewish prophets, their burial grounds in memoriam, place names, histories, cultural traditions, history, have all in turn been co-opted by Arab Palestinians claiming all to be theirs. The refusal to recognize and acknowledge Israel's right of existence, the never-ending plaints of victimhood, the inversion of truth and reality, somehow seem to resonate with an international community seasoned by latent leftist 'compassion' for a people whose uncompromising fealty to violence as a solution to all their problems never seems to be recognized by 'progressives'.

 

A memory box containing artifacts and recorded personal stories at the ‘Nakba Past and Present’ exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, June 26, 2026. (Credit: Izzie Helenchilde)

 

In Canada, the Liberal-led government that equates 'Islamophobia' with Antisemitism despite that it is largely the former that commits the latter, and enjoys intoning that immigration groups while adding to Canada's vaunted multiculturalism -- certainly not homogeneity -- must leave their heritage animosities behind when they become Canadian, simply chooses to overlook fact, preferring fiction. That same government has enabled over the past decade and more, the immigration, refugee acceptance and migrant haven claims to people Canada, with groups whose cultures and values are averse to Canada's. Yet their numbers are such that to offend them represents ballot box suicide.

 

That same government has willingly surrendered its obligation under the law to ensure equality and security for all its demographic population groups, in favour of abandoning the human rights of a smaller minority group for the encouragement of a larger minority group, irrespective of outcome. The result being that the Canadian Jewish population now finds itself under constant threat by the venomous actions of some segments of a vocal threatening, Jew-hating Muslim population, guided by Palestinian students on study visas in Canada.

 

When the Nakba exhibit can publish such incendiary statements as "Following the Hamas attack that killed about 1,200 people on October 7, 2023, Israel launched a large-scale military campaign in Gaza. Today, more than 240,000 people have been killed or injured, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health and UN agencies", without the realization that these figures, the omission of the fact that a terrorist group on Canada's own terror list, Hamas, is being quoted, leaving a public to digest these misconstrued statements as fact, Canada's government itself is complicit in furthering the agenda of Palestinian public relations. 

 

The situation is agonizingly blasphemous, taking place at the very institution in Winnipeg meant to ensure that the world not forget history as it was, the most dreadful human  tragedy enabled by lack of interest or any method of intervention to interrupt a Fascist death-cult from its Final Solution to destroy the lives of world Jewry by a dominant threat to world peace that almost succeeded in installing itself as a world-leading totalitarian presence of ubermensch in command of human rights everywhere. 

 

Gail Asper protested the exhibit ‘Nakba Past and Present” at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights, June 26, 2026. (Credit: Izzie Helenchilde)

 

Canada Transformed Under Its Liberal Government

"I remind the Muslims: Do you ever think that the Jewish community can also retaliate? You know, have they gone and burned halal meat stores? Look at all the Muslim businesses. Have they targeted them?"

"They don't retaliate. And this is the big difference. While it's hate on one side, the other side is just so busy defending themselves and looking for ways to make peace."

"[The protesters are] not so much pro-Palestine, as much as they hate [Israel]. [If] these people were saying, let's have peace, let's have a ceasefire, it would make sense [but that's not what they're saying]."

Raheel Raza, president, Council of Muslims Against Antisemitism 

 

"Islamist extremist groups exploited [Hamas's October 7 massacre in Israel and the ensuing way in Gaza to] organize, mobilize support, take part in demonstrations [and] engage in agitation on social media."

"This was orchestrated by domestic interests -- including followers of Salafism, which is described as] the Islamist extremist movement with the largest number of adherents in Germany [and foreign terrorist groups such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and Vancouver-based Samidoon]."

"[Some of these groups began working together for the first timer after October 7, with their] antisemitic ideas [forming the] common denominator in the ideology of the entire Islamist extremist spectrum."

"[In Germany and neighbouring countries, numerous attacks were planned or carried out by] lone actors with Islamist extremist motives [proving that] Islamist terrorism continues to pose a threat."

Report on the Protection of the Constitution, German government 

 

"I suspect Canadian police forces consider such information potentially inflammatory."

"Just as crime statistics categorized by race of perpetrator have been used to identify biases in the criminal justice system, information on the religious and ethnic identity of perpetrators of hate crime can be used to provide certain categories of the population with educational support, thus helping to ameliorate the problem."

Robert Brym, professor emeritus, University of Toronto 

Prime Minister Mark Carney is flanked by members of his security detail as he delivers remarks at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto on Monday, June 1 2026. Chris Young/The Canadian Press.

 

Under the latest iteration in a succession of Liberal governments in Canada it has become clear that a government that once never hesitated to state its friendship and support for a sister democracy recognized in Israel has taken great pains in the last decade to distance itself from the Jewish state and at the same time alienate Jewish Canadians by its deliberate oblivious attitude to the groundswell of antisemitism that has washed ashore along with the welcome of immigrants, refugees, illegal migrants and foreign students studying at Canadian academic institutions hailing from the Middle East and North Africa.

 

A Canadian government at present that has blinkered itself from its constitutional obligations to ensure the security of all sectors of its population base. The rising tide of violence against Jewish institutions that has seen synagogues and Jewish schools firebombed and shot at, Jewish-owned businesses vandalized, university campuses housing anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian camps harassing the Jewish professoriate and students, issuing threats and slurs, intimating another Holocaust, with crowds of protesters thronging the streets chanting 'final solution' and 'from the river to the sea', roiling the social order, elicits a mild condemnation of antisemitism, invariably coupled with rejection of 'Islamophobia' from government leaders.

 

A person holds a sign while marching during a pro-Palestine rally marking the anniversary of a Hamas attack on Israel, in Vancouver, on Monday, October 7, 2024. Ethan Cairns/The Canadian Press.

 

Canada has become a hotbed of Islamist extremism, with a loud and hateful (hopefully) minority of its two million Muslim citizens and  residents of the country seething with Jew-hate and openly demonstrating their contempt for Judaism in the guise of anti-Zionism, a hundred-year-old modern movement to reclaim Judean ancestral land as a reborn heritage homeland for the world's Jewish diaspora, ceaselessly threatened throughout the millennia. Zionism has become fundamental to Jewish thought for it speaks of memory and longing and a fervent wish for a geographic place that is Jewish, where the pogroms that haunted Jewish life for an eternity could be safeguarded against.

 

Even that hope  has been dashed time and again by the incandescent hate emanating from Israel's neighbours in the Middle East; now reduced to a  degree from neghbouring states, but taken up with a murderous vengeance by the fundamentalist Islamist groups that are funded, armed and protected by states such as Iran, Qatar and Turkey and their non-state terror groups whose sole function is to achieve the destruction of the Jewish state. Arabs identifying themselves as Palestinians, aided and abetted by the powerful global institution of the United Nations have endlessly attacked Israel, culminating in a bloody massacre on 7 October 2023 which led to Israel's invasion of the Gaza Strip to rout out Hamas which led that savage incursion into southern Israel.

 

Jews in Israel and worldwide, soon seeing the evidence of sadistic torture of innocent Israeli civilians, with girls and women mutilated then mass-raped and murdered, families set afire in their community homes as a mass atrocity of unthinkable brutality took place, might have felt that the world would be moved by their tragedy, but such was not the case. The viral antipathy of Israel defending itself and its people, responding to the mass atrocity with a determination to seek justice by military means of defence and counteroffensive, soon realized that even the evidence produced by the terrorists filming their own predatory obscenities made little difference.

 

Palestinians have been forgiven their descent into feral barbarism; Jews are condemned for their response in defence of their existence. The slanderous blood libels of Israeli 'genocide' against Palestinians have won the public relations gold cup. Few are prepared to outright state that the virulently threatening antisemitism now common on the streets of Canadian cities are the result of permitting people with a culture of Jew-hate and an ideological-religious inability to honour the values and laws of a democratic Western government are being perpetrated by bigoted, hate-mongering Islamists.  

 

A bullet hole is seen in a front door at Temple Emanu-El in Toronto on March 3, 2026. The temple was one of three Toronto-area Jewish sites targeted by gunfire in less than a week. Photo by Peter J. Thompson / National Post

 

Should such accusations of source emanate from Jews themselves, despite that those who are attacked clearly identify their attackers as Muslim, and when law enforcement does step in in response to egregious attacks, names of the transgressors are clearly identifiable as Muslim, charges of racism and Islamophobia ring forth. The firm reluctance of Canadian governments at all levels to admit that the presence of unregenerated racists whose first and only loyalty is to Islam and its Koranic passages of anti-Jewish denigration and loathing links directly to the politics of voter loyalty at the ballot box.  

"I call it the new antisemitism. All those Islamist organizations who don't get along with each other come together with one cause -- the hate for Israel and the Jewish community. So they justify it."
"It's quite clear that the major funders of these rallies while the head of the snake of course, is Iran, and through its proxies, through its organizations, through its mosques they channel the funding." 

"This is not something that just happened on October 8; this is something that has been in the works and been planned for years before October 7."

"As far as vandalism and shootings that target Jewish businesses and synagogues, there generally isn't enough publicly available information to draw a straight through-line between such incidents and [the] protest circuit."

"It's all happening in an atmosphere of increased animosity toward Jewish people and groups with 'Jewish' effectively being a stand-in for 'Zionist'."

Raheel Raza 

 

 

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)

 

 

 

Islamophobia Reigns!

"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."

"[The Muslim Brotherhood that has declared] jihad against the Jews [established a vast network of charities and fundraising across Canada]."

Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP)

 

"This report is a wake-up call for all Canadians."

"[The federal government should] designate the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and] immediately freeze public funding to suspect organizations."

"Our report exposes how federal agencies have become complicit in sustaining and legitimizing networks that promote antisemitic and anti-Israel ideologies under the guise of charity and social welfare."

"These entities are exploiting the very values of tolerance and pluralism that Canada holds dear, weaponizing public institutions against Jewish communities and undermining Canadian democracy itself."

ISGAP board adviser Dr. Charles Asher Small 

Haras Rafiq, left, a director at Secure Canada, is with the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy speaks at an event in Toronto. Photo by Rob Roberts/National Post

 

"We stand on Guard for Thee? The Growing Influence of the Muslim Brotherhood on Politics, Academia, and Civil Society in America", published this week by the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy on whose board of directors sits Canada's former justice minister Irwin Cotler. The report sounds a long-overdue warning of the prominent presence in Canada of an organization established in Egypt almost a century ago. The Muslim Brotherhood's primary focus is the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. Antisemitic conspiracies is an integral feature of their ideology.  

 

Tellingly, while the Muslim Brotherhood has experienced no measure of suspicion by the Western governments they have inveigled their way into, establishing themselves as a respected group speaking for Islam and the welfare of Muslims in the global umma, they are recognized as a terrorist group and outlawed in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. That enlightened view in recognition of what the Brotherhood represents is not shared by Western democracies, a puzzling lack of awareness.

 

Ignorance of the fact that Hamas is a Palestinian offshoot of the Brotherhood prevails. A Florida-based research group, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, identified a number of Canadian charities with extensive links to the Muslim Brotherhood, pointing out their exploitation of Canadian law to enable them to raise funds for Muslim Brotherhood factions in the Middle East. Samidoun, based in Vancouver is one of them, recently declared a terrorist group by the federal government, but permitted to continue their Islamist agitation within Canada, along with fundraising.

 

NGO Monitor presents information about Samidoun in the European Union Parliament (March 2023)

 

The Muslim Association of Canada which boasts of being the "largest Muslim grassroots Canadian charitable organization", has been concerning in their influence in Canada on government and its agencies. A 2021 Canada Revenue Agency audit found "the concept of the Muslim Brotherhood appeared" in the charity's "governing documents". According to the Muslim Association of Canada, a "systematic Islamophobia" bias is in play, appealing the CRA audit that found sufficient grounds to revoke its charitable status, though it remains a registered charity on the federal government's database.

  

"This report is nothing more than recycled Islamophobic tropes dressed up as 'research' when in reality it's a biased, unsubstantiated hit piece that relies solely on discredited allegations -- allegations that were questioned by the Ontario Superior Court for their apparent bias and ultimately abandoned by the CRA in concluding its audit and reaching a resolution with MAC". Muslim Association of Canada rebuttal.

 

As it happens, the federal investigation revealed "most prominent members, directors and officials" of MAC were involved with either International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy (IRFAN-Canada) "or a network of charities that appear to have been used to propagate and fundraise for Hamas in Canada". Designated a terror entity in 2014, IRFAN-Canada transferred almost $15 million to Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group in Gaza. 

"I think all Western countries have come to an understanding that the Brotherhood is a problematic group and I think the findings of all other countries apply also to Canada."

"The Brotherhood has an ability to push within Muslim communities narratives that are highly divisive, that are polarizing. It promotes values that are antithetical to those of Western constitutions when it comes to democracy, while it comes to women's rights, when it comes to gay rights, when it comes to freedom of religion, when it comes to antisemitism."

"[While the Islamist group itself] might not be directly engaged in terrorist activities, it promotes a narrative -- it mainstreams a narrative -- that lays the groundwork for jihadist groups to recruit. It creates this narrative of victimization: the narrative that Muslims are constantly under attack by the West with widespread Islamophobia."

Lorenzo Vidino, terror finance researcher, George Washington University Program on Extremism 

The leading Canadian Muslim advocacy group, the ISGAP report points out, the National Council of Canadian Muslims, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, Originally known as the Council on American-Islamic Relations Canada (CAIR-CAN), it was an outgrowth of the U.S. CAIR group, "a self-described Muslim Brotherhood front organization".  

"This report does not serve Canadian interests. It amplifies foreign narratives designed to fuel Islamophobia and division within our society."

"Canadians should be concerned about foreign influence, particularly the foreign-funded industry of anti-Muslim hate that fuels reports like this."

"These authors should be ashamed of themselves for trafficking in Islamophobic tropes that endanger Canadian Muslims and undermine social cohesion."

Muslim Association of Canada 

Islamophobia is the trigger-word whose purpose is to invoke the non-Muslim conscience against bigotry against Muslims. It is the ultimate victimhood word, designed and designated to prick empathy for a beleaguered religious group. A group, in actual fact, that has made it a vital part of their purpose in life, faithful to the injunctions of the Koran, to vilify and reproach non-Muslims for their ungodly ways. To target Jews and kuffars as enemies of Islam.

 

It is the Muslim community following the example of the committed jihadists among them that have trafficked in antisemitism, harassing the Canadian Jewish population, excoriating and damning Israel, lauding the courage of Islamist terrorists as freedom fighters, suggesting that Jews deserved the rapine, torture, mass murder perpetrated on peaceful Israeli farming communities. And while vehemently and violently violating Canadian population cohesion by their divisive and unlawful actions, portraying themselves as victims. 

Protesters gather for the Sit-In for Gaza outside the Alberta Legislature on October 18, 2023 in Edmonton, Canada. (Stringer/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Digital Analysis Situation Room and Rapid Response Programming for Israel/Gaza-related Extremism, Hate and Mis/Disinformation in Canada

"Among the top performing tweets about the conflict that were shared among right-wing extremists in Canada in the month after October 7 2023 were posts claiming that Justin Trudeau had directly funded the Hamas attacks through contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees." 

"Several Telegram channels associated with extreme right-wing content creators both hosted antisemitic material and amplified posts from international right-wing extremists and antisemites."

Institute for Strategic Dialogue, London, England

 

"Israel gets attacked, they kill women. children, innocent people, torture them, burning babies and more."

"Israel starts retaliating and Palestinians fill the streets of Toronto with Anti-Jew slogans."

"Canada will soon be unrecognizable and filled with these religious extremists." 

Facebook: Turdeau/Liberals Are Destroying Canada

Muslims pray outside McGill University's Roddick Gate during celebrations marking the first anniversary of the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel. Photo by John Mahoney / MONTREAL GAZETTE

 

Blacklock's Reporter made public a program funded by the Digital Citizen Contribution Program,  a Liberal fund described as a means toward "countering online disinformation". As part of its presumed mandate the Program contracted with the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, for the U.K. company to monitor pro-Israel social media accounts in Canada. And its eventual report went on to frame those pro-Israel accounts as "right-wing extremists", whose motivation was led by "anti-Muslim hatred". 

The viral 'protests' that overtook the streets of Canadian cities and set up encampments on the grounds of Canadian universities, paraded their numbers and keffiyeh-clad members shouting invective at Canadian Jews and the State of Israel, recommending a global 'Intifada', a 'Final Solution', and 'From the River to the Sea', condemning Israel as genocidal, with an intent to annihilate Palestinians from land rightfully belonging to them, and not to Jews as their ancestral heritage geography, denigrating the presence of Jews in Canada. Yet these protests are characterized as peaceful events.

 

The targets of the pro-Palestinian -- Hamas-supporting-and-admiring Palestinian student groups in Canada who faced intimidation and threats in their very neighbourhoods with municipal police agents doing nothing to subdue the situation, or offer protection to Jews, while offering assistance to the civic-disturbing and obviously antisemitic throngs of anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian groups engaging in mass prayer sessions, shutting down highway access in a show of conquest -- were continually warned not to confront their tormentors. And it was the Jews who were ushered away, not those who threatened them.

 

Yet the Jews were the designated 'right-wing' threats to society by the U.K. contractor, and not the illegal actions of their indefatigable persecutors whose threats and implied violence clearly identified them as uncivilized malefactors. A few months following the October 7 massacres of Israelis in southern Israel by Hamas terrorists who rushed across the border in their thousands to wreak bloody havoc, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau hired the London firm at a cost of $128,258.

 

The project was titled Digital Analysis Situation Room and Rapid Response Programming for Israel/Gaza-related Extremism, Hate and Mis/Disinformation in Canada. What resulted was a series of reports with the claims the Israel-Hamas conflict had caused an inflammation of "extremism, hate and disinformation" among Canadian 'right-wing extremists', exacerbating "online harms" in Canada. "Several influential accounts, particularly on X, have taken a staunch pro-Israeli position since the attacks on October 7", one report warned.

 

The post that was excerpted in one of the reports, posted by Facebook's Turdeau/Liberals Are Destroying Canada, was included as an example of an 'extremist' post that spread disinformation that "policing of protests related to the Israel-Hamas conflict has been inconsistent". Pro-Palestinian 'protest' demonstrations featured calls of "death to Israel", with banners praising "armed resistance". A recognizable pattern of demonstrators celebrating the October 7 massacres in the immediate aftermath and the first anniversary of attacks go unremarked and undenounced; presumably innocent in nature and definitely not 'extreme right-wing'.

 

Palestinian Youth Movement, one of Canada's most prominently active anti-Israel groups held a rally of celebration in "honour [of] the martyrs of the past year". In reference to which the Institute for Strategic Dialogue pointed out the extremist nature of any statement that the demonstrations were "protesting for the death of Jews and Jewish state"; an obviously unforgivable surrender to Islamophobia on the part of Jewish 'extreme right-wing' trouble-makers within society.

 

The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau, renewed Canada's funding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, after it was suspended by the previous Conservative government. That funding of UNRWA was renewed again by the Liberal government, irrespective of the proven fact that the agency was forced to dismiss nine staffers on the evidence, for taking part in the October 7 attacks in Israel. That UNRWA confirmed a top Hamas commander killed in Lebanon was one of its employees seemed irrelevant to the Trudeau government.

 

According to the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, online posts that sought to link Canada's UNRWA funding with the October 7 attacks represented trafficking in right-wing extremism. "Disinformation" or "misinformation" in the public arena is profoundly disturbing to the Liberal government in Canada. The Online Harms Act, legislation to broaden police powers to punish online speech and preliminary detention of Canadians suspected of posting hateful speech may yet be the future, since Prime Minister Mark Carney appears willing to reconsider its passing.  

"Large American online platforms have become seas of racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia and hate in all its forms."

"My government will act."

Prime Minister Mark Carney

Liberal.ca

Iqra Khalid, Here's a Cause Awaiting Your Devotion

"The Islamic Republic of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws present a continuous threat to religious minorities. In particular, section 295-C of the Pakistani Penal Code (PPC) states: “Whoever by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representation or by any imputation, innuendo, or insinuation, directly or indirectly, defiles the sacred name of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) shall be punished with death, or imprisonment for life, and shall also be liable to fine”."

"In 1991, the death penalty became the mandatory punishment for blaspheming the Prophet Muhammad’s name. Since the enactment of these laws, over one thousand cases of blasphemy have been registered, over fifty people have been extra-judicially killed by Muslim mobs or individuals, and at least forty people are currently on death row or serving life sentences. Hundreds more have served or are serving prison terms ranging from three to ten years. Yes, most blasphemy charges are false."

"One prominent case is that of Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five who was convicted of blasphemy for offering her co-workers water from her cup. The coworkers told Asia that she had made the cup ceremonially unclean by drinking from it. They ordered her to convert to Islam, but Asia refused and expressed her faith in Jesus Christ. She was charged with blasphemy, convicted, and sentenced to death. She has been in prison for the last nine years, waiting for the Supreme Court of Pakistan to hear her appeal. In spite of this clear injustice, the Pakistani government has generally remained indifferent to Asia Bibi’s harsh and unjust situation and to others similarly situated within Pakistan’s borders."

European Centre for Law & Justice

"Asia Bibi shar[ed] a bowl of water with fellow workers in a field, about 30 miles (48km) from Lahore, where they were working as farm labourers. It's alleged that an argument erupted after some of the women felt it was sacrilegious for Muslims to share the cup with a Christian. Within weeks, the allegations had escalated to the charge of blasphemy, with some fellow workers accusing her of insulting the Prophet Muhammad. She was arrested and imprisoned."

BBC

"I think it is not a very  high priority case for the [Pakistani Supreme] court."
"The last time I met the Supreme Court registrar, he told me that over two thousand appeals against death sentences were pending before the court."
Saif-ul-Malook, lawyer for Asia Bibi, Christian-Pakistani

Asia Bibi is a a minority Christian in a Muslim-majority country that takes its religion seriously. Religious minorities live in Pakistan under sufferance, they are discriminated against and their lives fraught with the danger of being accused of blasphemy against Islam. Bibi, a mother of young children, has been in prison for eight years, awaiting execution, although she has appealed to the Pakistan Supreme Court, against the judgement of the Lahore High Court which upheld her death sentence, imposed because the charge of blasphemy carries the death penalty in Pakistan.

In Canada, a Muslim woman was given legal permission by the Supreme Court of Canada to wear a niqab, the full face covering effected by some Muslim women of Pakistani origin, when she swore her oath of allegiance to Canada at a citizenship ceremony so she could be presented with her citizenship papers. She had originally been denied participation in the ceremony, requested to bare her face, but she refused. In so doing, giving ample indication that her values and her loyalties do not align with that of Canadian society in general.

A Liberal Member of Parliament, Iqra Khalid, saw fit to change Canadian social and cultural values by tabling an anti-Islamophobia motion, M-103, that in essence declares anyone who criticizes Islam for any reason -- be it its goal of achieving a supreme global caliphate by converting the international community to Islam and Sharia law, or striving to accomplish that same goal by terrorism, or inflicting carnage on women and girls through the cultural imperative of female circumcision, or belittling and slandering other religions -- as Islamphobic and to be condemned in a breathtaking display of sanctimonious hypocrisy.

This woman who achieved her goal because of a majority Liberal government led by a prime minister whose pandering support of elements within society who roil the common weal but who present as appreciative voting blocs when their foreign-nationalist tendencies, contriving to wreak unrest within Canada and violent mischief outside the country in their former countries of birth, has been enabled like the Pakistani-Canadian who insisted on her charter-right to shield her facial identity from public view at a ceremony meant to award citizenship on the deserving, undermines Canadian values.

While striving to change Canada to more closely resemble the country they left where strictures on personal freedom are rife, they have no interest whatever in coming to the defence of a woman whose 'crime' was to defend her own religious belief while refusing to convert to Islam. The notion of justice and fairness and human rights is not in these peoples' lexicon of values. Pakistan formally denies recognition to Ahmadi Muslims as Muslim, making it a crime for that Islamic sect to declare themselves Muslim.

Other Pakistanis did come to the defence of Asia Bibi, the Christian governor of Punjab state Salman Taseer who visited Asia Bibi in her jail cell then went on to publicly state his opinion on the erroneous judgment and the dangerous laws that support that judgment. He was rewarded by being murdered by his trusted bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. And Mumtaz Qadri received his reward by the support and adulation he received from joyful Pakistanis, commending him for his religious devotion. The Federal Minister for Minorities Affairs, Shahbaz Bhatti also spoke out against the blasphemy laws and for his trouble was assassinated. 

"My Jesus died for me. What did your Muhammad ever do for you?", Asia Bibi demanded to know, scandalizing the other women she was with, all Muslim, who had complained that in offering them water from her bowl on a  hot day after working in the fields, she had desecrated the bowl and the water, as a Christian, demanding she convert to Islam. Her response failed to please them, so they accused her of blasphemy and she was held to be guilty of the charge and condemned to death.

Aasiya Noreen before her 2009 arrest. She is widely known as Asia Bibi. (Photo: World Watch Monitor)

Islamist Exceptionalism and Privileges of Victimhood

"Islamophobia refers to fear, prejudice, hatred or dislike directed against Islam or Muslims, or towards Islamic politics or culture."
Toronto District School Board definition of Islamophobia.

"The debate about “Canadian values” — started by Kellie Leitch, one of the candidates for the leadership of the Conservative Party — erupted into the predictable insinuation that she was racist, xenophobic and guilty of the ultimate offence of the times: Islamophobia."
"Fortunately, for her, it did not take long for the question of Canadian values clashing head on with medieval beliefs to erupt when the Globe and Mail on Tuesday reported on how a number of Muslim families in Toronto had taken their children out of music classes, insisting they 'cannot allow their children to be in the same room where musical instruments are being played'."
"The story revolved around Mohammad Nouman Dasu, a Quran teacher at Scarborough’s Jame Abu Bakr Siddique mosque, who led the campaign to ban Muslim students from being exposed to music.
It wasn’t just him. The senior imam of the mosque, Kasim Ingar, told the Globe and Mail: 'We [Muslims] here believe that music is haram [forbiddenl]. We can neither listen to it, nor can we play a role in it."
"Imam Ingar, who also heads the Scarborough Muslim Association, added: 'We do not compromise with anyone on the clear-cut orders and principles conveyed by the Prophet [Muhammad]'."
Tarek Fatah, Journalist, The Toronto Sun

Dear Prime Minister:
Re: Designating January 29th as the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia
On behalf of the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), I am writing to you about the upcoming first anniversary of the Quebec City mosque attack that will take place on January 29, 2018.
One year on, Canadian Muslim communities are still reeling from the devastating terrorist attack that claimed the lives of six Muslim men worshipping in their mosque – fathers, husbands and sons – and gravely injured many others. For the first time in Canadian history, a place of worship was targeted by a horrific act of violence solely because the victims were Muslims.
The question on so many minds is how do we prevent such a violent hate-motivated attack targeting Canadian Muslims, or any other religious community, from ever occurring again?
With the rise of far-right extremist groups that continue to threaten the safety of Canadian Muslim institutions and congregations, it is critical that our elected leaders stand firmly against Islamophobia and the agents of bigotry who aim to foment hateful division between Canadians and their fellow Muslim citizens. We must not allow voices of hate, even ones that may initially appear to be on the margins, to permeate our public discourse and damage our social fabric.
As you have eloquently stated, in these difficult times we must always remember the bonds of unity as Canadians and protect the diverse and open nature of our society.
To that end, we call on your government to designate, by order-in-council or by proclamation, January 29th as a National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia, on or before the first anniversary. This call is supported by a host of other Canadian Muslim organizations and community partners, listed below.
Such a designation will enable Canadians to collectively remember the victims of the attack and to enhance public education about the perils of hate, bigotry and Islamophobia.
We look forward to your response to this important issue. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Ihsaan Gardee
Executive Director
National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM)

Azzedine Najd and his wife Fadwa Achmaoui look at the memorial near the site of a fatal shooting at the Quebec Islamic Cultural Centre in Quebec City on January 31, 2017. Reuters/Mathieu Belanger

One thing invariably leads to another ... give them an inch and they'll ask for a mile ... these old adages in observation of human nature and group identity agendas have never rung more true than with Islamic organizations and groups within non-Muslim societies agitating for exceptional recognition reflecting the very reality which they set conveniently aside, that Muslims following strict Koranic codas are never amenable to living under secular laws that prevail in most non-Muslim countries. 

Groups that argue they speak in the name of national Muslim communities such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims (CAIR Canada) which once urged for Sharia law to be recognized and given equal status to Canadian law, and which later orchestrated a motion brought by Liberal MP Iqra Khalid to parliament to "condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination", and to follow up by mounting a government study to document hate crimes against Muslims in Canada, now have another goal.

The NCCM or as it was once known before a name change, as CAIRCan, has written a request to the prime minister to have the federal government declare January 29 to be the first anniversary of an attack on a Quebec City mosque that killed six worshippers and injured others, naming it a "National Day of Remembrance and Action on Islamophobia". This is the same group that obligingly gave the 'appropriate' wording to a definition of Islamophobia for the Toronto District School Board's guidebook to Islamic Heritage Month.

You might ask why the Toronto District School Board would even have a guidebook to Islamic Heritage, much less recognize a month set aside for that purpose. But doing so would reveal your ignorance about the power of lobbying, and the overwhelming aura of political correctness that has assailed all educational institutions in Canada, from elementary schools up to post-secondary institutions, identifying any who question Islamic precepts and Muslim behaviour as "racist".

In the Muslim community anywhere in the world there are notable instances of 'honour' bullying and sometimes killing of girls and women who have disobeyed the injunction to be 'modest', to cover their hair with a hijab, not to associate with boys or men other than family, for to do so is seen as dissolute, dishonourable, injurious to the reputation of the family, the tribe, the religion and the culture. But the Muslim community takes umbrage at mention of any such atrocities.

Just as it gathers itself indignantly into victimhood when the connection is made as it must be, between Islam and injunctions to jihad leading to terrorist attacks both within the Islamic community when sectarian brutalities and killings occur, and without the Islamic community targeting the West, its culture, its politics its values, its very existence in martyrdom attacks. To mention any connection between Islam and terrorism is tantamount to Islamophobia, racism, discriminatory hatred writ large.

Why it has been so relatively simple a task for groups such as the NCCM to guilt Western societies into silence over Islamist excesses and violent attacks is one of those mysterious episodes of human nature gone awry, that those who have much to answer for insist that others do the answering. Canada acknowledges with sincere empathetic sorrow that a sole individual acted on a psychotic impulse to enter a mosque and kill worshippers.

This horrific event represents a one-off; not a terrorist attack, but an attack by someone clearly unhinged for reasons unknown to the public. And this man will stand trial for his dreadful misdeed, but the entire population of the country has no need to do penance, at the behest of the NCCM. Remembrance of the event will be sharp within the Muslim community, and it will fade within the rest of society as other wretched events move in to take its place in our consciousness.

The NCCM is Islamic-centric and it is understandable they wish to keep their memory alive. Due to their agenda to make inroads into the Canadian consciousness, politics, society at large to view Islam as exceptional, a memory fog would be well suited to make Islamist crimes against society opaque and forgotten, while the view of Islam as a martyr to non-Muslim misunderstanding of it as a religion of peace requires the rectification of highlighting the Muslim community as persecuted.

It is not, necessarily, any more than the gay community, the Jewish community, the Black community and the Asian community. The latest figures released by Statistics Canada register a diminished number of anti-Muslim events in Canada, while anti-Semitic incidences have risen. In no small part due to the venom expressed by the increasing number of Muslims who migrate to Canada bringing with them their tradition of anti-Semitism bolstered by passages in the Koran, refreshed at Friday mosque sermons.

Heeeere's Canada!

In the opinion of the House of Commons, the government should:
(a) recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear; (b) condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination and take note of House of Commons’ petition e-411 and the issues raised by it; and (c) request that the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage undertake a study on how the government could
(i) develop a whole-of-government approach to reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia, in Canada, while ensuring a community-centered focus with a holistic response through evidence-based policy-making,
(ii) collect data to contextualize hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities, and that the Committee should present its findings and recommendations to the House no later than 240 calendar days from the adoption of this motion, provided that in its report, the Committee should make recommendations that the government may use to better reflect the enshrined rights and freedoms in the Constitution Acts, including the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Iqra Khan, MP, Private Members’ Business M-103

The government that gave the world the wonderful news that "Canada is Back!" -- ostensibly from wherever it was when it was hiding its light unto the world under a Conservative barrel when the government of the day under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's predecessor viewed the United Nations as an unfortunately failed enterprise, championed Israel, was leery of Islamist groups portraying themselves as misunderstood, and viewed Russia and China's penchant for practising abuse of human rights -- has turned Canada's back on those moral issues that Stephen Harper's government distinguished itself by.

This is a government that endlessly praises itself for being pluralist to the extreme, elevating immigrant rookies to cabinet posts, priding itself on its unbending degree of 'feminism', led by a prime minister and a minister of finance whose family fortunes helped vault them to power, while they promise to tax the 'rich' to benefit the middle class -- not, mind, the impoverished. A government for whom no amount of immigration and embrace of refugees is too much, with or without appropriate security clearances.

This government approves of political correctness, in fact invented it and happily scatters its excesses as far abroad as it can toss them to the winds of inexorable change, kissing each wisp as it floats off, with a sunny smile. The latest iteration of political correctness, that of cultural appropriation, has become an institutionally-approved lesson in 'tolerance' for Indigenous and LGBTQ empowerment. In perfect accord with academia where the intolerance of 'progessives' has altered the acquisition of knowledge to a fountain spewing political correctness ad nauseum.

There are exceptions in stark evidence, however. As when, for example, the long-delayed national Holocaust memorial was finally erected and formally opened in Ottawa, closing the gap represented by Canada being the only Western Allied country without such a memorial to World War Two's Nazi plan of extermination of world Jewry. The plaque installed to explain the purpose of the memorial somehow failed to mention Jews at all at it happens, lingering on the unfortunate deaths of 'men, women and children' who happened to be Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses, political adversaries and Gays -- oh and assuredly Jews as well.

On the other hand, much attention to detail and 'getting it right' has been exhausted on the introduction of Motion 103, condemning "Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination". The very word Islamophobia is an Islamic invention meant to paste 'racist' on the forehead of anyone incautious enough to take from the prevailing news of ongoing terrorism invoked in the name of Islamic jihad, to quell suspicion of Islam as a religion promoting violence to achieve dominance.

Liberal MP Iqra Khalid, who brought forward the motion to combat Islamophobia  (PATRICK DOYLE / THE CANADIAN PRESS file photo)

How strange that the Member of Parliament who proposed the principles and moral sanctimony behind M-103, Iqra Khalid, is a Muslim Pakistani-Canadian. Enabled by her position as an activist, female, Muslim, Parliamentarian, to effect in Canada what the Organization of Islamic Cooperation has been attempting to persuade the United Nations to accommodate for years. To formally introduce the concept of any criticism of Islam as being tantamount to an illegal act of blasphemy.

The Toronto District School Board's Islamic Heritage Month Guidebook defines Islamophobia as "fear, prejudice, hatred or dislike directed against Islam or Muslims, or towards Islamic politics or culture", a designation of denigration most pleasing to some, but not all of Canada's Muslims, for there are groups of Muslims in Canadian society, aghast at this turn of events. By no means are Muslims foremost among religions experiencing episodes of clear racism, since police reports point to anti-Semitism by a wide margin.

This motion should have included anti-Islam prejudice as among many other bigoted public displays of racism, but the focus was meant to be Islam, a religion whose practitioners are in the news on a daily basis, relentlessly pointing to the slaughter of tens of thousands of their own adherents by their religious brethren in Syria and Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. The call to the faithful from mosques around the world to battle the unbelievers is near-unanimous.

"Why are only Muslims mentioned by name? It's not the government's responsibility to babysit just one community", offers Raheel Raza, president of Muslims Facing Tomorrow. Instead -- she offered the Heritage committee tasked to examine the issue -- of the bogus attention to 'Islamophobia' meant to take attention away from honour killings and polygamy, she recommends Canada encourage the "free thinking" once-normal model of Islam.

Tarek Fatah, a Muslim accustomed to receiving death threats resulting from his rejection of Islamist fundamentalism, testified before the committee that secular, free-thinking Muslims who arrived in Canada for the privilege the freedoms offered of speaking their mind to Islamic authority figures denied them in their home countries, would be harmed by discouraging criticism of Islam. "You cannot define [Islamophobia], because the word is a fraud", he observed.

For his troubles, he was subjected to "intimidation and bullying" by members of the committee themselves. Retired Major Russ Cooper, a decorated combat veteran of the first Gulf War launched a M-103 pushback campaign through an anti-M-103 petition drive, which garnered 200,000 signatures. Peter Bhatti, chair of International Christian Voices, spoke of Pakistan's blasphemy laws that victimizes perceived critics of Islam.

It is becoming a criminal offence to link Islam with violence and conflict, sectarian medievalism, of being in any way supportive of terrorism. As for its being a backward, barbaric, sexist and primitive religion of conquest ... perish the thought.

The Phantom Phobia: Islamophobia

"There's No Such Thing as Islamophobia. Critique of religion is a fundamental western right, not an illness."
"Nothing is more western than hatred of the West. All of modern thought can be reduced to mechanical denunciations of the West, emphasizing the latter's hypocrisy, violence, and abomination."
Pascal Bruckner, French philosopher

Canada's Parliament passed a controversial bill condemning "Islamophobia", and requiring that an investigation take place into the incidence of Islamophobia within Canada. The majority of Canadians were not in favour of the bill introduced by a Muslim Member of Parliament, Liberal MP Iqra Khalid. Its passage was supported by the New Democratic Party, and opposed by the opposition Conservative Party of Canada which had proposed rewording the bill to remove "Islamophobia" and replace it with all manner of discrimination, omitting the focus on Islam.

If the concept and the meaning of Islamophobia is not defined and is left to anyone to interpret it to suit their impressions, it hardly represents a social ill that can be addressed if it cannot even be adequately explained. The reaction of the general public not of the Muslim faith when they recoil in horror at the many transgressions against human rights committed by the faithful in Islam? That virtually all acts of terrorism taking place in the world today have their genesis in Islam, with the perpetrators proudly proclaiming 'Allahu Akbar!' as they engage in slaughter?

If people feel wary and uncomfortable about Islam which its followers insist is a religion of peace, while the Koran and the Hadiths (sayings of the Prophet Mohammad) describe the world outside Islam as being places of "conflict", whereas "peace" only resides where Islam is paramount, it is little wonder. We would be blind, deaf and spectacularly oblivious to the carnage wrought throughout the world in the name of Islam if no links were made with terrorist groups and Islam, leading to suspicion of that world religion. But that awareness is identified by Muslims lashing back, as "Islamophobia".


Khalid's motion, known as Bill-103, calls on the government to do three things:

• Condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.
• Quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear.
• Compel the Commons heritage committee to develop a government-wide approach for reducing or eliminating systemic racism and religious discrimination, including Islamophobia.

Liberal MP Iqra Khalid says she's relieved motion M-103 passed in the House of Commons. The vote passed by a margin of 201-91. Still from video, Global News

The word in very fact has weaponized language, not a new thing, but an effective bludgeon with which to silence critics of Islam. The word is associated with racism, although there's nothing racist about religion; that particular religion is practised throughout the world in disparate countries from the Middle East to South-East Asia to North Africa, North America, Europe, Australia and beyond. Its faithful are in fact legion, the 'umma' represent about a billion people, a bit fewer than practise Christianity. The fervency of Christianity has been muted of late, but not that of Islam.

And Muslims have a tendency to become fanatically infuriated at any suggestion of criticism of their religion, much less their hallowed figure of the Prophet Mohammad. Perceived disrespect of the Prophet or of the Koran can result in murderous onslaughts, rampages, fury and destruction, mutilation and slaughter. This resonates in peoples' minds and memories; that of non-Muslims, while Muslims continue to insist that theirs is a religion of peace, a misunderstood religion that no one has the right to defame.

So "Islamophobia" is a silencing tool, and an effective one at that, since particularly in the West, people are sensitive to slights they are perceived to wield against others, and detest being singled out as being socially deficient, even if the claims are so obviously contrived, purposed to shame and to silence. Making the assumption that the good people living among us who are faithful to Islam feel shame at the intolerance and violence perpetrated by those practising their religion based on the scriptures held sacred to that religion, can be both right and wrong.

Right, because among all populations there are people who perceive clearly and wish nothing to do with hatred and violence. Wrong, because in those same populations reside a considerable percentage who feel that whatever is written in the Koran is right and positive because it is the word of god and anything done in god's name, not any god, but Allah, has a defined and special purpose that has been prophesied for a reason. That purpose, defining the very core of the religion, is to bring peace to the world by curing it of its warring status as a non-Muslim reality.

The faithful feel, because they have been taught since childhood, steeped in the core values and issues of Islam and the Koran, that only when the world has accepted Islam and rejected all other 'false' religions hateful to Allah, will humankind be saved. From itself, presumably. Slight Islam? Only if one is prepared to pay the consequences. Not by being named an Islamophobe, but by bringing the wrath of Allah down on oneself in the guise of an avenging jihadi.

European states whose populations have been suffused by immigration and migrants and refugees cannot afford to be too critical of the fact that those immigrants, migrants and  refugees who are Muslim are unwilling to integrate, to accept Western values, to cede to the culture and laws that preceded them. They risk much by confronting Islam, for the fury of its believers will not tolerate any suggestion that Islam and its values is any less than perfect, for it is god's will.

Canada has rejected Islamophobia, how very fitting and uplifting.