A Town and a Country in Deep Mourning

"Police have attended that residence in the past, approximately a couple of years ago, where firearms were seized."

"I can say that at a later point in time the lawful owner of those firearms petitions for those firearms to be returned and they were."

"I can say with confidence that from the moment the suspect encountered police, there were no further injuries to any other students in the school."  

"In speaking with investigators, there was no specific targeting of any individuals [at the school],"

"This suspect was, for lack of a better term, hunting. They were prepared and engaging anybody and everybody they could come in contact with."

"We're trying to determine how our suspect got that firearm, and that investigation is continuing." 

RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald 

 

"Identifying individuals who are no longer eligible for a firearms licence as quickly as possible and ensuring they can no longer access firearms is an important public safety objective."

Canadian Firearms Advisory Committee 

A vigil in Tumbler Ridge. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

 

Canada remains in mourning yet incredulous that a young man of 18 living in a remote British Columbia town of some 2,300 residents where everyone is reputed to know everyone else, chose to enter the Tumbler Ridge Secondary school with two lethal weapons to begin firing at random, killing six students from ages 12 to 13, and a 39-year-old teacher before his rampage came to an end with the intervention of two members of the local RCMP detachment. 

 

That stunning attack with its consequent victims occurred just a short time after 18-year-old Jesse Van Rootselaar had killed his 36-year-old mother and 11-year-old stepbrother at the family home, located a short distance from the school.

 

The Tuesday killing represented one of Canada's worst mass murder events in recent history. A biological male who six years ago transitioned to female, the attacker had long brown hair and wore a dress as he rampaged through the school killing three 12-year-old girls, a 12 and a 13 year-old boy, and the teacher. Most of the deaths occurred in the school library. One of the boys was found dead in a stairwell. 

 

It took a mere two minutes for two RCMP officers to respond and arrive at the scene when they were alerted at 1:00 p.m. Tuesday. They drew fire from the killer; failing to respond, they bought time by distracting the killer from hunting down any more victims; instead he turned his weapon on himself, committing suicide. A short while later, a young neighbour who had gone to the family home of the killer, discovered the mother and brother dead and she contacted the RCMP.

 

Getty Images

 

The mother, as it happened, was a gun aficionado. Who presumably taught her son to appreciate weapons for target practice and hunting...and, as the mother noted on a social media posting for 'self-reliance'. She had a gun licence and owned a number of long guns herself and took pride in using them. Her son had mental issues, well known to the RCMP who had responded on a number of occasions at the family home to issues related to the boy's mental health.

 

In Canadian gun law firearms are to be removed from any home that houses an individual with mental illness. Police, according to RCMP Deputy Commissioner Dwayne McDonald had gone to the home a number of times. There was more than one time when the killer, under the terms of the Mental Health Act was taken into custody. Jennifer Strang, the killer's mother (now deceased) in an August 2024 Facebook post, showed an image of a safe with six long guns, with the caption: "think it's time to take them out for some target practice".

 

An earlier post in 2021 had Jennifer Strang promoting a YouTube channel by her son, stating it was where "He posts about hunting, self-reliance, guns and stuff he likes to do". Canadian law enforcement can legally seize legal firearms without a warrant should an officer believe that to do so is in the "interests of the safety of the person or any other person". The Possession and Acquisition Licence of legal gun owners can also be unilaterally suspended.

 

The federal government mere weeks ago kicked off its Assault-Style Firearms Compensation Program, a 'buy back' program for firearms covered by the 2020 ban under the government bans through a 'freeze' on the sale or transfer of legal handguns. The SKS, a Russian-produced semi-automatic rifle had been overlooked in the banned list even though it has the same function as banned rifles like the Ruger Mini-14.

 

As it happened, an SKS was among one of the long guns in the possession of the Tumbler Ridge killer's mother. It was shown among those demonstrated in her Facebook post of 2014. This was the same rifle that appeared with an avatar of the YouTube channel her son started. In the annals of preventable homicides, all details pulled together, this horrible event rates a number one. 

 

Tumbler Ridge, B.C., victims identified by police

 

 

 

Hush, Hush, Watch Your Phobic Language Over Islamist Terrorism

"Australia ... warns against any 'phobic' association of Islam with extremism. Indeed, in recent months, as the killers of Bondi were reportedly in the Philippines learning how to murder Jews, Aussie officials were poring over a new report titled 'A National Response to Islamophobia'."

"It proposes, among other things, challenging 'narratives that depict Islam as being 'intrinsically associated with ... extremism'."

"You couldn't ask for better proof of the moral corrosion and wilful blindness of the West than this vision of Australia's ruling class fretting over Islamophobia, as two men were plotting an apocalyptic act of Islamist violence."

"The fear of offending Muslims has had deadly consequences."

"Radical Islam directly benefits from this snivelling culture of cowardice. As we gag ourselves, it takes root and spreads. Our self-censorship creates the dark corners in which it can fester -- uncommented on,  uncriticized, even unnamed."

Brendan O'Neill, chief political writer, Spiked 

Candlelight vigil at Bondi Pavilion, December 16, Sydney, Australia,. Audrey Richardson, Getty Images

 

Naveed Akram made a brief video court appearance from the Sydney hospital while being treated for an abdominal injury. He has since been transferred to an unnamed prison. Australian police on Monday released documents outlining the two men, father and son, had recorded footage justifying the planned Bondi Beach attack that killed 15 people and wounded 40 others. Akram himself had been wounded on December 14 when the duo committed their mass atrocity while Australian Jews were celebrating the first day of Hanukkah, the Jewish Festival of Lights, at the popular beach.

 

The attack by the 24-year-old and his father began when they threw four improvised explosive devices at the crowd of families, children and friends bathed in a communal euphoria of remembrance that light dispels the darkness surrounding us. For the children it was the epitome of a joyous holiday, where sweets were in abundance, playgrounds beckoned, face-painting and animalia balloons were available and a general aura of peace and tranquility prevailed. The IED devices failed to explode. But the staccato of gunfire took their place, shocking the celebrants and killing some immediately.

 

The Bondi Beach shooting suspects seen leaving a rental in Campsie

New South Wales Police

 

The Islamist jihdists had rented a room in Campsie, a suburb of Sydney, for three weeks, refining their plans of attack. On the day of the attack they left for the short journey that would take them to the destination they had carefully chosen as their attack venue. CCTV revealed their arrival, bearing two shotguns, a rifle, five IEDs and two Islamic State flags wrapped in blankets. The IEDs were comprised of three aluminum pipe bobs and a tennis ball bomb filled with an explosive, gunpowder and steel ball bearings, described as 'viable' by police.

 

Images of the two killers shooting from a footbridge -- overlooking the beach below, which also provided them a raised vantage point, along with the protection of waist-high concrete walls -- were released by police. Akram was charged with 59 offences ranging from 15 counts of murder to 40 counts of causing harm with intent to murder and one count of committing a terrorist act.

 

Still from video

 

Draft laws were introduced by the New South Wales government to Parliament, promising to be the toughest in Australia, according to Premier Chris Minns. Among them new restrictions included a condition of qualifying for a firearms licence requiring Australian citizenship beforehand. Sajid Akram was an Indian citizen living in Australia on a permanent resident visa. He had purchased the six long guns in his possession legally. No word, however, of the Australian government's permissiveness of the years-long 'pro-Palestinian' marches to 'globalize the intifada'. 

 

The memorial that had quickly been mounted near the Bondi Pavilion as an expression of grief and mourning following the massacre, with thousands of mourners bringing flowers and cards as an expression of sorrow and solidarity, was no longer to be seen on Monday, removed as the beachfront returned to normal activities. The jarring vision of a memorial to murdered Jews no longer visible to shock the gaze of beachgoers. Part of the memorial is set to be installed at the Sydney Jewish Museum as a permanent exhibit. 

 

Birds fly over police cordons at the scene of the mass shooting at Bondi Beach on December 14, 2025 in Sydney, Australia.   George Chan/Getty Images

 

"[A video on Naveed Akram's phone shows him and his father expressing] their political and religious views and appears to summarize their justification for the Bondi terrorist attack."

"[The men are seen in the video] condemning the acts of Zionists [while they also] adhere to a religiously motivated ideology linked to Islamic State."

"[October video shows them] firing shotguns and moving in a tactical manner [on grassland surrounded by trees]."

"There is evidence that the Accused and his father meticulously planned this terrorist attack for many months."

New South Wales Police 

Bringing Them All Home

"It's urgent and every day that goes on is just more and more suffering and more and more possible death and psychological devastation."

"[He and others with whom he was initially held - including women and children - had been forced to adjust to life in the tunnels]. We were gasping for our breath."

"[There was constant abuse]: "I witnessed a young woman who was being tortured by the terrorist. I mean literal torture, not just in the figurative sense."

US-Israeli hostage Keith Siegel  

"I'm here because of Trump. I'm here only because of him. I think he's the only one who can stop this war again. He has to convince Netanyahu, he has to convince Hamas, I think he can do it."

"They [his two children, Ariel and Kfir,] were murdered in cold blood, bare hands."

"They [his Hamas captors] used to tell me: 'Ah, it doesn't matter, you'll get a new wife, you'll get new kids, better wife, better kids'."

"You don't know when it's going to happen and when it happens, you're afraid for your life. The whole earth would move like an earthquake, but underground."

Former hostage Yarden Bibas

The 24 hostages presumed to be alive who are still held by Hamas: Top row, from left: Elkana Bohbot, Matan Angrest, Edan Alexander, Avinatan Or, Yosef-Haim Ohana, Alon Ohel. Second row, from left: Evyatar David, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, Bipin Joshi, Rom Braslavski, Ziv Berman, Gali Berman. Third row, from left: Omri Miran, Eitan Mor, Segev Kalfon, Nimrod Cohen, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn. Bottom row, from left: Matan Zangauker, Bar Kupershtein, David Cunio, Ariel Cunio, Tamir Nimrodi, Pinta Nattapong. (Hostages Families Forum)

"Out of 59, you had 24 that were living, and now I understand that it's not even that number."

"Edan Alexander's parents are here today. He is the last known living American hostage."

"We don't know how he's doing, really. We think we know, and hopefully positive." 

U.S. President Donald Trump

 

"To date, we have returned 196 of our hostages, 147 alive."

"There are [currently] 24 alive. Up to 24 living, 59 in total. We want to bring back the living and the deceased as well. It's a very important goal."

"In the war, there is the ultimate goal, and that ultimate goal is the victory over our enemies, and that we will achieve." 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Israelis attend a rally calling for the release of hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv on March 1, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

President Trump stated during a National Day of Prayer event held at the White House on Thursday that he had just recently become aware that fewer than 24 Israeli hostages remain alive in captivity in Gaza, held by Hamas. Parents of U.S.-Israeli Eden Alexander still captive by Hamas had attended the event. The president was referring to the figure released by Israeli authorities and widely shared in recent months. 

These are men of all ages who had been taken hostage on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel on a barbaric rampage of murder, killing over 1,200 men, women and children.

Of the over 200 children, women and men taken hostage on that fateful day, a relative handful remain alive, living in the most inhumane conditions imaginable. Tortured, shackled, starving, in fading health and psychological distress, reaching a state of disequilibrium they may never, if and when released, recover from. 

Their 'home' for the past year and a half has been deep in airless, dank tunnels dug deep throughout Gaza. If their minds are still in working order, they pass the endless hours of torment, dreaming of returning home.

Relatives and supporters of those held hostage in the Gaza Strip during a rally calling on the government for a deal that would bring all the remaining captives back, outside the prime minister residence in Jerusalem on March 2, 2025. (Menahem KAHANA / AFP)

They are not forgotten. Their families, their friends and colleagues, all of Israel yearns for their return. Those who have died while in captivity will be forever remembered. They represent a national sacrifice too dear to fade into memory. Their names and the pain they endured will remain as a reminder to Israelis and Jews everywhere of the impossible sacrifice imposed on a civilian population whose state and whose military can never be disengaged from protecting their citizens from unceasing hatred and violence from neighbours whose dearest wish is to see them all dead.

Classified information relayed to Israeli cabinet ministers as reported by the Kan News public broadcaster in Israel casts into doubt the number of those still living. Loathe to surrender hope entirely, during the annual International Bible Contest in Jerusalem on Independence Day Thursday, Israel's prime minister reiterated his government's intention to have all its citizens, whether alive or dead, returned to their homes.

The ultimate goals for the war now continuing in the Gaza Strip is eradication of Hamas as a military threat and political adversarial body, and to ensure that all of the hostages return home. The Palestinian enclave must, above all, be prevented from re-emerging as a future and ongoing threat to the State of Israel and her people whose right to existence, to live in peace with their neighbours is a basic human right not denied any other nation, any other people whatever their origins.

People protest against the Israeli government and call for the immediate release of the Gaza hostages, Tel Aviv, March 22, 2025. (Gili Yaari /Flash90)

"Where Are Your Voices?"

"We who formed Rings of Peace around your churches and mosques when terror struck your communities must ask: Where are your voices?"

"Since Hamas claims to act in the name of Islam, we especially call upon leaders within the Muslim community to speak out publicly against these inhumane acts of terror."

"Distressingly [other faith leaders have mentioned] both sides [of the conflict], woefully failing to recognize the moral distinction between those who butcher and those who are butchered."

Group of Toronto rabbis 

"I would like to see a stranger moral voice from Canadian faith leaders. I'd like to see them wholeheartedly and unconditionally and unequivocally condemn Hamas and to recognize that their intentional slaughter of people, kidnapping and torture is absolutely wrong, full stop."

"The Middle East is a complicated place. Hamas is not a complicated organization. Their goal is to murder people."

"You cannot contextualize that, you cannot minimize that."

"The experience across the country, from all the rabbis I've spoken to, has been one of loneliness."

"Almost none of our colleagues of other religions have reached out and said 'How are you?'"

"The silence is sobering and clarifying."

Rabbi Adam Cutler, Adath Israel Congregation Toronto

This memorial for Ben Mizrachi, who was killed by Hamas militants at a music festival in Israel on Oct. 8, was set up at his former school, King David High School, in Vancouver. Mizrachi is one of six Canadians known to be killed or missing following the Palestinian militant group's attack on Israeli territory. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

"Over these last few days, the world has witnessed a rapid escalation of armed conflict in the Holy Land, with reports of a growing number of wounded or dead, including innocent civilians."

"I invite the Catholic faithful in Canada to join other people of good will, here and around the world, in imploring God to move the hearts of those leaders engaged in the present conflict in order to cease acts of terror, de-escalate violence and war, and resume constructive efforts that are aimed at establishing lasting peace and concord."

Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops

 

"The aggression has resulted in escalating violence and loss of innocent civilian lives in Israel and in Palestine."

"We lament all victims and pray for comfort for the families of those who mourn loved ones."

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada 

"The attacks on innocent Israeli civilians -- especially women and children -- are unjustifiable."

"As Muslims and as Canadians, we are horrified by images of Hamas targeting, killing and hostage-taking of civilians."

"We are terrified by the open calls for genocide by Israeli political and military leaders and the incessant bombing taking place right now that is carrying out those calls."

National Council of Canadian Muslims

Tiferet Lapidot, seen in an undated photo provided by a relative, called her parents as Hamas attacked a music festival on Oct. 8, part of a multifront assault on Israeli territory. Her family was able to track the location of her phone to Gaza after they lost contact with her, and believe the Palestinian militant group may be holding her hostage. (Submitted)

 

At no time, in no place, did Israel ever speak of any intention -- nor would the thought ever occur -- to embark on a campaign of genocide. The National Council of Canadian Muslims may have expressed its moral disgust with the actions of Hamas, acting in the name of Islam and slaughtering innocent Jewish civilians, raping, abducting children, killing men, women, children, entire families, but swerving to express fear of a country attempting to defend itself and its population from unending attacks by a terrorist group and planning to eliminate the terror group entirely cannot be construed as 'genocide'.

The Toronto rabbis appealing to the moral sense of justice in an expression of empathy and support from their colleagues of other faiths, are telling them that the world has become a lonely place and Jews are in dire need of comfort in expressed concern for their welfare and that of Jews and of Israel. An event as significant and odious as the terrorist Hamas sending its assigned terror groups into Israel for the sole purpose of terrorizing, slaughtering, mutilating, raping, burning to death, beheading babies would seem an event deserving of a rush of concern expressed by friends.

The statements that have been issued by a number of non-Jewish faith groups have lacked the commitment to fully expressing empathy, clearly naming the responsible group for profaning Islam by committing mass murder in a series of assaults defying human understanding in their barbaric brutality barely brushed the surface of compassion for the grievous loss suffered by their Jewish colleagues. An absolute failure of one faith to console another on its unspeakably dire loss of the gift of life.

 

Vivian Silver, a peace activist from Winnipeg who has lived in Israel for decades, volunteered with an organization called Road to Recovery and drove Palestinians from Gaza to Israeli hospitals. (Submitted by Yonatan Zeigen )

 

Choosing an equivocating condemnation of the vile atrocities hedged by the  unspoken but obvious expectation that Israel must exercise restraint in its response may have satisfied the barest minimum requirement of a sanctimonious statement satisfying to the moral values of the faith group issuing it, but it failed spectacularly to demonstrate communal inter-religious concerns for the sanctity of life taken by another faith group's adherents in the most base and vicious manner conceivable. Acts calling out for unequivocal condemnation.

The statement from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops missed entirely a direct mention of the Hamas atrocities. Piously self-engaged, no more, no less. As for The World Evangelical Alliance expressing its sympathy it was for the evangelicals, not the Jews that they are "deeply distressed by the Hamas attack on Israel and the Israeli people with its overt hints of lives that will be lost in Palestine", as though this too is not of deep concern to Israel itself as it grapples with the method it can employ to respond to Hamas which uses Palestinian civilians as a protective shield.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints failed to mention Hamas, while stating that "Violence of this nature is abhorrent to us and is not in harmony with the gospel of Jesus Christ". And nor is it in harmony with any sane, intelligent, civilized mind. 

 

No comment from the Canadian Council of Imams.

 

People attend a vigil outside a Berlin synagogue following the October 7 Hamas attacks in Israel, on October 13, 2023. "The Middle East is a complicated place. Hamas is not a complicated organization. Their goal is to murder people," says Canadian Rabbi Adam Cutler. Photo by JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP via Getty Images

"Their blood, the blood of Palestinians who are unfortunately going to die in this process of self-defence, their blood is in the hands of Hamas. And that needs to ... be made clear."

"[Israel is following international rules of war, and has no choice but to attack people's homes because that is where rocket fire is coming from, not from military bases. It is the reason the IDF instructs people to vacate those homes]."

"[Protests taking place in Canada and worldwide, purportedly in support of Palestinians] can only be understood as being supportive of Hamas."

"It is one thing to go out and intentionally brutalize and murder, and it's another thing, in a defensive mode, to go against those who are trying to kill  you, and unfortunately, both those who are trying to kill you and those who are innocent might die." 

"It’s almost unbelievable to think about it, that Hamas runs around killing everyone and Israel actually says I want to let you know this building is going to be destroyed in an hour, so you might want to leave. That’s that’s the difference we’re talking about here."

Rabbi Adam Cutler

The Unspeakable Carnage of a Hate-Fuelled Mass Shooting and Human Trauma

"It’s a witness [the Tree of Life Siddur with a bullet hole through it] to the horror of the day. One day when I’m not there, this book tells a story that needs to be told." 

"I thought about the history of my people, how we’ve been persecuted and hunted and slaughtered for centuries, and how all of them must have felt at the moments before their death."

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers,Tree of Life synagogue, Pittsburgh’s Squirrel Hill neighborhood

 

"None of us were talking [hiding in a closet]."

"At first [the noise] was coming from upstairs and then it got louder and that indicated to me that it was closer to me, closer to where I was."

"I saw a shadow of somebody as they entered just between the crack of the door and the jamb [assuming the shadow was the shooter]." 

"[Despite the terror, she remained calm.] If I remained calm, I would not give my position away."

Carol Black, 71, the sister of victim Richard Gottfried

 

"Tree of Life synagogue…shooting…man with an automatic weapon [in the whispered 911 call, which was played in court]. A man was just shot right outside the door, please get the police here immediately."

"My throat was closed, I was very quiet, I didn’t want anyone outside the room to hear me."

Barry Weber, 81, Tree of Life congregant 

"I reviewed my life. [Lying on the floor shot in the stomach] I thought about the wonder of it all, the beauty of life, the happiness I had experienced through my life … the joy of having two beautiful sons."

"I prayed for forgiveness for those who I had wronged through my life."

Daniel Leger, 75, seriously wounded in the deadly shooting

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers testified that a damaged prayer book "tells a story that needs to be told." United States District Court

When Rabbi Jonathan Perlman took the witness stand on Thursday the yarmulke he had worn when the gunman burst into his synagogue in Pittsburgh during Sabbath services -- which had fallen off his head and was retained by police as evidence for years, while they built their case, awaiting a trial date to be set for the October 27, 2018 attack on the Tree of Life synagogue, the deadliest antisemitic attack in American history -- was firmly back on his head. 

Three different congregations shared the Tree of Life synagogue building for their services, held on different floors. Rabbi Perlman, 59, was determined to explain to the jury, the judge and those in the courthouse a little bit of background about Judaism, that skullcaps were worn in God's presence and to remind the wearer that God is always present with them. That the siddur that had been desecrated would not be buried according to custom, but would be kept as a reminder of that dreadful day's happening.

The lettering in Hebrew characters on his yarmulke read "There is nothing aside from Him". And Rabbi Perlman said to the federal jury: "This is a God who is present to all aspects of creation." His words may also have been meant for the ears of the mass murderer for he too sat there; it was his trial, a 50-year-old truck driver from a Pittsburgh suburb facing 63 federal charges related to the murder of 11 worshippers from all three of the congregations. They were New Light, Dor Hadash and the Tree of Life.

The Tree of Life massacre in 2018 was the deadliest antisemitic attack in the nation’s history.  Credit...Hilary Swift for The New York Times

There are eleven counts of hate crimes resulting in death. Conviction could bring the death penalty for this man who expressed his hatred for Jews online as well as at the synagogue the day of the atrocity he perpetrated in a spiritual refuge, in a Judaic House of Prayer. Rabbi Perlman in his testimony described arriving at the basement sanctuary of the congregation just before worship was to begin.

One of the members, Melvin Wax, led an opening prayer where "we talk about how grateful we are to start a new day", recalled the rabbi. Immediately afterward the sound of gunfire was heard from elsewhere in the building. "I said, 'We're in danger, follow me'." He ushered Melvin Wax, 87 years of age, with diminished hearing, and two others into a storage room in the large building. "I said, 'Please don't. Stay inside'. He didn't listen to me", he explained of Mr. Wax who wanted to see what the noise was about.

The elderly man opened the door to peer out, and was immediately shot, and killed. The attack was underway on the main floor. New Light members in the basement were advised by Tree of Life member Stephen Weiss that they should not venture upstairs to where the attack was taking place. A "man of extraordinary courage", described Rabbi Perlman, to risk his life to warn others of impending danger. 

Stephen Weiss informed jurors he was one of a dozen worshippers at the start of Tree of Life's service, being held in a separate chapel. As a ritual leader of the congregation it was his duty to be certain a minyan of ten adult worshippers were present before the service could begin. Two of those with him exited the room after a loud crash to find out what was occurring. Mr. Weiss remained to maintain the minyan when he heard gunfire.

The synagogue door was unlocked routinely on the Sabbath. "We prided ourselves on having our doors open" to everyone, he explained. Minyans now are not so readily assembled since the attack. "We don't have the same attendance from those members who were very reliably there. Because they have been killed." Seven people, beyond the eleven murdered, were wounded in the attack, five of whom were police officers.

Officer Daniel Mead testified he had reported to duty when he heard the call of an active shooter at the synagogue which led to himself and his partner rushing to the scene. When Officer Mead cautiously turned a corner in front of a glass entrance, he was immediately met by gunfire. "When I stepped out, stuff hit the fan. I can remember plain as day. I can hear the shot. I can see the muzzle flash. This all happened so quick."

 

 

 

Speaking Reality to Power

"[As a permanent member of the UN Security Council Russia's veto power on resolutions brought to the Security Council effectively gives it a] right to kill."

"[Russia's indemnity on the Security Council has allowed it to commit the] most terrible war crimes we have seen since the Second World War; [enabling it to engage in] sowing death [as it behaves like a] colonizer from ancient times."

"It's clear that the world's key institution, that is supposed to force any aggressor into accepting peace, simply cannot effectively operate."

"[The actions of Russian troops were] no different from other terrorists [such as Islamic State.] Here it is done by a member of the United Nations Security Council. [Unless it is transformed], the UN can simply be closed."

"Ladies and gentlemen, are  you ready to close the UN? Do you think the time of international law is gone?"

"If your answer is no, you need to act immediately. The system must be reformed immediately so the veto is not the right to kill."

"We need peace. Ukraine needs peace. Europe needs peace. And the world needs peace." 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

 

In speaking remotely to the United Nations Security council, Ukraine's embattled president called for Kremlin leaders to face Nuremberg-type trials. First off, the way should be made clear for Russia to be taken off the Security Council; failing that the UN should take steps to admit its total lack of accountability to its mission to serve the international community by diplomatically guiding nations away from conflict, and in the current context, irenic Russia's display of inhumanity by invading and attempting to crush another nation resonates as a UN failure to act up to its mandate.

 

The Security Council session was called to consider Ukrainian allegations of mass murder of civilians in the town of Bucha by Russian soldiers.

 

President Zelenskyy's passion of cold anger with Russia and disgust with its continued position of responsibility to a core value of settling differences without resort to war, indicating the failure of  the UN to enforce its own dedication to world peace, in addressing the UN's Security Council was fuelled by the gruesome discovery of the Russian military having committed war crimes in the senseless mass murder of innocent civilians in areas of their occupation in Ukraine.

Where in the town of Bucha, a suburb of the Ukraine capital of Kyiv, hundreds of bodies were discovered in a mass grave. Where bodies of the dead were lying in the street. Victims of the Russian military who fired on people desperate to escape the town and the butchering brutality of Russian military control. Where civilian cars carrying families fleeing the violence were hit by artillery and sharpshooters; people on bicycles, on foot. People with their arms tied behind their backs, shot point-blank.

This is a country with a permanent seat on the Security Council alongside Britain, France, The United States and China. Where a divided Security Council sees the first three voting together and China and Russia often voting in opposition where their interests are involved. And that proved to be so when Russia blocked a resolution calling for an immediate end to its invasion of Ukraine.

A burnt and destroyed street in Bucha, Ukraine (Matthew Hatcher / SOPA / LightRocket / Getty)

 

In besieged Mariupol in Ukraine's east, people still attempt to flee on foot or by private car, risking being shot or hit by artillery fire. Moscow has consistently denied requests for temporary cease-fires and safe corridors for people to be able to evacuate the ruins of the city where bombs continue dropping and artillery fire never stops. Efforts to organize mass evacuations by bus to safer areas of Ukraine consistently fail.

Overtures by the International Committee of the Red Cross invariably have failed in negotiations with the Russian military to allow safe passage out of Mariupol of terrified citizens. Buses attempting to arrive in Mariupol to evacuate people are met by Russian blockades. The situation explained by Russia's defence ministry as Ukraine's fault since its forces had "cynically disrupted" evacuation efforts. Just as the Kremlin describes the massacres in Bucha as a ploy by the Ukrainian military to smear Russia's reputation.

Mariupol, Ukraine. Sergei Bobylev / TASS

The Derangement of an Estranged Mind

"It [the black pick-up truck] was damaged with blood."

"When they [police] got him [multiple-murder suspect] out of the vehicle, he was laughing." 

:He's really traumatized [the cabbie who had experienced seeing the accused in a mass murder atrocity in London, Ontario drive up to where his cab was parked]. It is terrifying. You're all to yourself."

Hassan Savehilaghi, president, Yellow Taxi London

Nathaniel Veltman, 20, in a sketch from his appearance via video from the Elgin Middlesex Detention Centre on Thursday. (Sketch by Pam Davies)

 

So traumatizing that the man hasn't returned to work yet, taking time off to collect himself. He had conveyed what he had seen and experienced to his supervisor at Yellow Taxi London. And asked Hassan Savehilaghi to speak on his behalf. He had been parked outside a mall, taking a coffee break on Sunday. The cabbie, seeing the front end of the pickup truck bloodied had the impression the vehicle was likely in a hit-and-run. He called 911. Still speaking with a police dispatcher, the cabbie saw a cruiser passing and ran to flag it down.

Almost simultaneous to this officer pulling into the parking lot, police reinforcements arrived expeditiously to make an arrest of the man who was seen to be wearing what looked like a bulletproof vest, topped by a headpiece resembling a military helmet. The cabbie felt certain he had seen swastikas on the helmet. And he definitely saw, he told his supervisor, that the man whom the police invited to exit the truck, laughed, asking the cabbie to record his arrest.

"Nate is not a radical terrorist. He is nothing like that. He is not an Islamophobe. That's not who this kid is."

"He wasn't an extreme Christian. He never seemed to hate people. He never said anything hateful. It seems completely out of his character."

"Nate was a very close friend and never said anything bad to me."

A friend, originally from the Middle East

"[Nate] never said anything 'hateful' about any groups."

"He's Christian and has a great relationship with God. He was always pretty calm toward other people."

"He seemed broken up over it [the death of a family member] on Friday. That's the last time I saw him."

"He's not a violent guy. He's a bit high-strung sometimes, but other than that, he's a good guy. He gets along with everybody at work."

Another friend and co-worker

"The management and staff of Grey Ridge Eggs were shocked and saddened to learn late Monday afternoon that Nathaniel Veltman ... has been arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one count of attempted murder."

"We join our community in expressing our condemnation of this violent attack and offer our heartfelt sympathy to the family and the Muslim community."

William Gray, chief executive, Gray Ridge Eggs

A memorial at the scene of the attack, at the intersection of Hyde Park Road and South Carriage Road in London, Ont., after a Muslim family was hit by a truck. Four of the five died. (Greg Bruce/CBC)

 

That a violently horrific event took place in London, Ontario on Sunday is indisputable. A family of five people, out on their regular daily evening walk on a balmy late-spring evening had stopped at an intersection for the traffic light to change so they could cross the street. As they stood there, 46-year-old Salman Afzaal, 44-year old Madiha Salman, 15-year-old Yumna, 74 year-old Talat Afzaal -- parents, daughter, grandmother, among whom walked 9-year-old Fayez, a black truck appeared as though out of nowhere, sped over the curb and directly hit the family. 

 

The little boy, Fayez, the only survivor, though seriously injured will be in hospital for quite some time.

 

The driver, a 20-year-old man known by his neighbours to be an introvert, living alone in his unit, a white man who played video games with the sound on loud, at all hours, sufficiently so to annoy another neighbour, mother of a young child, disturbed enough by the noise to repeatedly demand he be more considerate of others. Typical behaviour for a young man, actually. He is the man who was arrested and charged with four counts of murder, another of intent to murder. 

 

And because the family was Pakistani-Canadian, members of the London Muslim community. collective minds leaped forward to a targeted slaughter of those of the Islamic faith. Quite possibly they were a random choice because they just happened to be there at that unfortunate time. Victims-in-waiting for a a final chapter of their lives brought to them by a possibly diseased mind.

 

Everyone, from the police service, the city's mayor, news media, the provincial premier and the prime minister instantly condemned Islamophobia for another terrorist attack by a white supremacist. Condemnation was gravely asserted, communities across Ontario commiserated not only over an incomprehensible act of mass murder, but one that targeted Muslims. A horrible, inexplicable act of hatred by someone tainted with Islamophobia. 

 

 

Paranoia and fear and victimhood expressed from within the Muslim community. From representatives of the London mosque, Muslim community members, people interviewed in the street, trembling with apprehension and terror that Canada, and London where the Muslim community has long settled is no longer safe for people of the Islamic faith. Canada, a racist country. People spoke of having left Pakistan where their lives were endangered as Muslims, for haven in Canada, a free and equal country. 

Muslims fearful of life in Pakistan, a Muslim country? Finding that Canada, after all, is not the beacon of hope they had sought and gained? In Pakistan Christians are sentenced to death should they defame Islam or Prophet Mohammad. There are minor Muslim sects which the dominant Sunni Muslim majority view with contempt and hatred and who are persecuted in Muslim-majority countries like Pakistan. Perhaps this is what drove those who spoke of emigrating from Pakistan for personal safety.

They did find the right country to offer them a new life. Canada is not a racist country. It was just that, at one time, but it is no longert. There are among Canadians as there are everywhere in the world people who are bigoted racists, people who hate those not like themselves -- people of colour, people of different backgrounds, religions, cultures, heritage. But by and large Canadians are tolerant and accepting of others. Much of that lies in the very fact that Canada is basically a country of immigrants; first, second, third generation.

There exists in all societies, sociopaths, psychopaths, people with severe mental illness, some of whom act on unpleasant impulses, some of whom become dangerous to themselves and to others. This man responsible for the death of four good people, talented, highly educated, a credit to their values and religion appears not to have been a hater, merely an introvert and possibly a severely troubled one. No one saw in him a potential killer. Reality is that somehow he became one.

What is passing strange is the leap to judgement over instantly assessing the carnage that ensued as the work of an Islamophobe. Strange, in that whenever an Islamist act of carnage, a terrorist atrocity takes place, authorities go to great pains to warn not to attribute such acts as reflective of Islam; fair enough, nor to characterize it as an act of Islamist terrorism, until that it indeed is, can no longer be denied. Yet here, in this dreadful instance, the leap to condemn an Islamophobic act of terror was instant.

One of Nathaniel Veltman's friends who found it incomprehensible that he could be capable of such violence, who attested to his never having expressed contempt or hatred for any identifiable group on religious, ethnic or cultural grounds, spoke of having been in his new Dodge Ram with him, when the steering seemed off. He was experiencing difficulties with the steering of his vehicle. "I actually drove with him on Thursday", his friend and co-worker said. 

There is much yet to know about this miserable event that deprived four people of their lives, that deprived a little boy of his sister, mother, father and grandmother. As for the military-style 'helmet' and the 'armoured' vest the man was wearing when he was arrested -- earlier on Sunday during a day shift when he showed up for work before the fatal attack that would take place that night, Veltman was involved in a competitive shooting game somewhat like paintball, using soft pellets.

A line of police officers look for evidence at the scene of a car crash in London, Ontario on Monday, June 7, 2021. Police in London, Ont., say four people have died after several pedestrians were struck by a car Sunday night. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Geoff Robins

Not an Islamist Terrorist But a Paranoid Social Deviant

Alissa’s own writings reveal he is a sharia adherent muslim. His numerous writings on Facebook and elsewhere reveal he is committed to Islam and its doctrinal teachings. On December 18, 2018 Alissa posted the following on his Facebook page: “Muslims might not be perfect but Islam is.” On May 7, 2019, Alissa posted “So Mary wears a hijab and Jesus doesn’t eat pork and prays on his knees and hands. There (sic) both Muslims it’s obvious.”  

The Islamic Center of Boulder works with known hostile jihadi organizations including the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and its affiliates. Evidence in the largest terrorism financing trial ever successfully prosecuted in American history – US v Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (“HLF”), Northern District of Texas, 2008 – identifies ICNA as a member of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s network, whose stated goal is the overthrow of the U.S. government and the implementation of an Islamic State under Islamic Law/sharia.

A snapshot of Colorado reveals there is a significant jihadi (terrorist) network across the state which has been present for decades with little interference from state/local officials or law enforcement. The following organizations primarily present themselves as non-violent community organizations, when in fact they are at the core of the U.S. jihadi Movement:

• The Muslim Students Association (MSA), the first national Islamic organization established in America, is a Muslim Brotherhood organization whose goal is identical to that of Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (formerly ISIS). MSA chapters are present on every major college/university campus in Colorado.
• Hamas, doing business as the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), has at least one office in Colorado.
• The Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), and their affiliates including Islamic Relief, have offices in Colorado.
• Numerous properties across Colorado are owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the bank for the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood, which has directly funded Hamas terrorist organizations and leaders.
• The Muslim Brotherhood’s Muslim American Society (MAS) has at least one office in Colorado.
• The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), identified in the US v HLF trial as a Muslim Brotherhood organization which funds the terrorist group Hamas and its subsidiaries have chapters across Colorado, including the Islamic Society of Colorado Springs and the Denver Islamic Society.
• Anwar al Awlaki, the leader of Al Qaeda in Yemen, who was killed in a U.S. missile strike in 2011, was the President of the Muslim Students Association at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, one hour north of Boulder.

  John D. Guandolo, former FBI agent, Jihad Watch

A mourner leaves a bouquet of flowers Tuesday along a fence put up around the parking lot where a mass shooting took place in a King Soopers grocery store Monday in Boulder, Colo. (David Zalubowski/The Associated Press)

 

Although the link is plainly there, it is unspoken. A delicate dance of avoidance. No mainstream news reports suggest anything as controversial as a Muslim terrorist, doubtlessly locally radicalized in an area mosque as another successful recruit to Islamism, set out -- well weaponized, to hunt down Jews in a place where he assumed Jews would be available -- to terrorize and shoot to kill with little interference before he would be able to take a sizeable toll. The supermarket he chose, catering to Jews as a 'kosher' market was certainly crowded on Monday when a man by the name of Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa stormed in shooting to kill. But those within weren't all Jews.

That Jews were the target is an unassailable argument. The connection is blatant. A man posting his questionable views on social media. A man whom his brother identified as socially averse and 'paranoid'. A man whose sister-in-law informed police that she had seen him toying with an assault rifle in the home the family shared. Born in Syria, raised in the United States where he attended school during his formative years. He had amassed a little collection of weapons, discovered in the family home. No one there in his family questioned him?

The three pieces of a readily-solved puzzle; young radicalized Muslim, assault weapons, kosher supermarket equalling Jews there for the harvesting where martyrdom and notoriety/celebrity status beckoned. No authorities have so much as murmured the word 'terrorism' in public though unavoidably he is spoken of as the 'suspect', and nor have any news outlets spoken of an antisemitic assault leading to the murder of ten innocent people. Yes, the suspect has been charged with ten murders, but authorities claim to see no 'reason' for the atrocity.

And perhaps that being the case, during his prosecution, his defence will claim not guilty by reason of mental imbalance, which has already been alluded to by his family who evidently seem to feel that mental delicacy and assault weapons pose no risk to anyone. Witnesses describe the man shooting wildly before he even exited his vehicle parked in front of the supermarket. Then he repeatedly shot an  elderly man standing outside the supermarket, before entering.

 

Among the dead ...Denny Stong, 20; Neven Stanisic, 23; Rikki Olds, 25; Tralona Bartkowiak, 49; Suzanne Fountain, 59; Teri Leiker, 51; Kevin Mahoney, 61; Lynn Murray, 62; and Jody Waters, 65.

 

Once in the crowded supermarket, shots rang out repeatedly, people panicked, streaming out of the store. A 911 call earlier had reached police, and Eric Talley, a 51-year-old, father of seven, ten-year veteran of the Boulder police force was the first to respond. In a gunfire exchange with the terrorist, he lost his life. He and nine other people, including the store manager; victims from age 20 to 65. Boulder, Colorado is now ten people poorer, and well and truly traumatized.

"My heart aches today."

"Flags had barely been raised back to full-mast after the tragic shooting in Atlanta that claimed eight lives, and now a tragedy here close to home at a grocery store that could be any of our neighbourhood grocery stores."

Colorado Governor Jared Polis

But it wasn't just any neighbourhood grocery store. The King Soopers outlet in Boulder was a kosher supermarket, deliberately chosen for the assumption that there would be within Jews, perhaps only Jews and the hunt was on. In Atlanta days earlier it had been Asian-Americans who were the target, when eight people were shot, six of them Koreans. Racists in general have been targeting those they think are Chinese, linking them, though they are as American as any others, to the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 which originated in Wuhan, China.

"It would be premature for us to draw any conclusions at this time", advised the agent in charge of the FBI's field office in Denver at a news briefing. Authorities claim to have no idea what might have motivated the killer to open fire on helpless shoppers at the King Soopers supermarket. Just as in the Atlanta shooting spree at the massage parlours, there is a denial that the killings were racist-motivated but rather stemmed from the murderer's sex-overdrive mental state.

People are led out of the King Soopers grocery store after the shooting on Monday. (Hart Van Denburg/Colorado Public Radio/The Associated Press)

How Soon Forgotten! Justice Delayed is Justice Denied

The regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad has committed crimes against humanity and war crimes by subjecting cities to unlawful sieges that gave civilians no choice but to give up or die.

"[The] ICC has not opened an investigation in relation to Syria."

"Syria is not a state party to the Rome Statute and has not accepted the ICC [International Criminal Court] jurisdiction."

"Thus, crimes committed by its citizens on its own territories do not fall under the ICC jurisdiction, unless the [United Nations Security Council] would refer the situation to the ICC, which has not happened to date."

ICC spokesperson, Fadi el-Abdallah 

"The most heinous of violations of international humanitarian and human rights law perpetrated against the civilian population in Syria since March 2011."

"Such acts are likely to constitute crimes against humanity, war crimes and other international crimes, including genocide."

Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic report

"This matter has not been referred to the ICC, despite the several calls by the commission of inquiry, and numerous recommendations by the Human Rights council for the UN Security council to do so."

"[The Commission is exploring other] areas of criminal justice] to address the matter of Syrian war crimes]."

Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights

"There were rivers of blood and maggots [exuding from the bodies], once, I couldn’t eat anything for days."

"[Some corpses were totally rotten and their faces] unrecognizable [as if they had been deliberately disfigured with a chemical. It is the stench of the rotting corpses that most disturbed him and continues to date.] The smell stayed in my nose, even after I showered at home."

Syrian undertaker,witness Z 30/07/19

 

"Someone gives evidence that mass graves were still being dug until at least 2017. This is the kind of government, the kind of regime, that you don’t establish relations with."

"[The revelations made in such testimonies and the evidence laid out] will facilitate future trials against regime officials if they were caught traveling to Europe."

"The individual acts of torture only constitute a crime against humanity if they are being committed within a specific context, that being a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population. Z’s testimony establishes the crimes were systematic."

Patrick Kroker, senior legal advisor on Syria, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights

Millions of Syrians have been displaced in a decade of fighting    Getty Images

Syrian war planes strafing civilian Sunni Syrians in bread lines, hospitals and medical clinics bombed, barrel bombs targeting Sunni Syrian neighbourhoods, Syrian towns suffering the agonies of prohibited gas attacks. Children arrested, tortured, murdered. Women raped, imprisoned, murdered. Syrian citizens disappeared, never to be seen again alive or dead. Millions of Syrians internally displaced, fleeing bombardment. Millions more becoming  refugees, flooding neighbouring countries for haven, migrating desperately toward Europe.

Most leaders of countries conceive of legacy projects through which their administrations and their names will be respected and held in gratitude by their public. But not necessarily those in the Middle East, and certainly not the Assad family dynasty with their Alawite tribal affiliations and deadly sectarian hatred; a regime well known to have committed atrocities against its own people in the past and committed to carrying on that tradition. Syria and Iraq, both politically Baathist from opposite ends of the spectrum, both preying on their majority population, Sunni and Shia respectively.

The world watched, transfixed with revulsion at television screens, seeing children in agony from chlorine gas bombs hitting their night-time villages courtesy of their president, Bashar al-Assad, whose military was dispatched to clear Syria of the presence of Sunni Muslim 'terrorists', Syrian civilians who had agitated for equal status and treatment with their Alawite Syrian counterparts. They were rewarded by barrel bombs that wrenched their limbs from their torsos; a regime solution for terrorist activity.

Blood covers the hands of an injured boy following airstrikes believed to have been carried out by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, February 2015.   (Mohammed Badra/REUTERS)

An estimated 350,000 to 500,000 Syrian civilians were slaughtered by their own government, innocent civilians whom their president characterized as terrorists to justify his lethal responses to their pleas for equality as Syrian citizens. The bloody war against Sunni Muslim Syrians created 11 million refugees. A few years in to the civil war that proceeded, the regime battling Syrian Sunni militias attempting to overthrow the government that had systematically destroyed their human rights; the instability attracting actual terrorist groups seeing opportunities to advance their own agendas, among them the notorious Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

ISIL terrorists brought horror to the minds of those looking in at the Middle East, with their expanding capture of territory in Iraq and Syria, and their delight in torturing and murdering captured Europeans and Americans alongside their preoccupation with terrorizing and murdering and enslaving Yazidis, and their threats against Christians. Yet despite the terror they inspired in persuading those loyal to ISIL living abroad to launch attacks against Westerners in Europe and the United States, Islamic State could never match the kill rate of an established government that excelled in war crimes against civilians.

When "60 Minutes" documented the extent of the Assad regime's war crimes, activist Mouar Moustafa was the featured personality, a man who was determined to bring the full extent of the blighted criminality of al-Assad to public view through revealing his cache of documents signed by Assad authorizing depraved mass murder alongside thousands of photographs of civilians tortured to death in an accountability mission against his former president.

With the help of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the participation of Iran's proxy terror group Hezbollah and an assortment of Iran-controlled Shi'ite militias, augmented by the aerial bombardments of Russian warplanes, al-Assad finally had the upper hand, and with the dissolution of the Islamic State 'caliphate' the Syrian regime was enabled to restore its territory, mopping up the remainder of the Syrian resistance. The dreadful crimes committed by the Assad regime against its own people cries out for justice. Logically that should come with a trial against Assad himself and his advisers and military commanders.

But the International Criminal Court is disinterested in opening an investigation of Syria, just as the United Nations General Assembly has little interest in holding Syria to account for its paroxysms of mass murder, and the Security Council was never able to launch a condemnation of the regime with two of its permanent members, China and Russia, refusing to give assent. Finally, an accounting of sorts has arisen with a court in Germany having prosecuted and convicted a former Syrian regime officer for crimes against humanity.

 

A court in the German city of Koblenz sentenced former intelligence officer Eyad al-Gharib, 44, to four-and-a-half years in prison for aiding crimes against humanity. Convicted of accompanying 30 detained demonstrators being transported to prison, while fully aware of the systematic torture that awaited them in the prison. al-Gharib, a junior officer, had been arrested in 2019 along with senior regime officer Col.Anwar Raslan, under the principle of universal jurisdiction whereby a national court jurisdiction is given authority in issues of grave crimes against international law, irrespective of where the crimes take place.

Presiding judge Anne Kerber stands before pronouncing her verdict in the court in Koblenz, Germany, on February 24.

While it's a start on seeking justice, much, much more must be accomplished. Justice will only be served when Bashar al-Assad faces the full extent of international law and faces a penalty commensurate with his unspeakable crimes, and along with him, other members of his administration and the Syrian military which destroyed so many lives. President Vladimir Putin also has much to answer for in establishing support for the Syrian regime enabling it with that support to regain Syria while helping to slaughter Syrian civilians in the process.

There is no question the world is weary of these totalitarian governments persecuting innocent people, destroying countless lives, producing innumerable refugees and displaced populations facing miserable living conditions in lives of  traumatized horror. It is just so much easier to feel the horror, dread the outcomes, wish it would all go away, and turn away from it all, if only to maintain one's own sanity, sense of proportion and comfort in living normal lives in countries that sustain the rule of law and security and equality for all.

"This is a historic verdict. Not only because it is the first to convict a Syrian regime official for crimes against humanity, but also because it recognizes his crimes were part of a widespread and systematic attack orchestrated by the highest bodies of Assad's regime."

"This is only the first of many other trials and investigations we are supporting. It is almost ten years since the crimes Eyad A. [al-Gharib] was convicted for were committed in those early days of the uprising as the regime cracked down on bare-armed protesters." 

Nerma Jelacic, director, Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA)