Canadian Election Interference for a Sinister Cause

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

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

Demands:

D1 - Two-way arms embargo on Israel

D2 - Ending Canadian support for settlements

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

D4 - Recognizing the state of Palestine

D5 - Funding Gaza relief efforts, including UNRWA

Palestinian Youth Movement

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

 

"This is how foreign interference  happens."

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

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

Tristan Hopper, journalist, National Post 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

The Islamist Mainstreaming of Antisemitism Across Canada

"There's been a long history of concern about Al-Quds Day, which is an annual hateful protest, an event that calls for the elimination and eradication of the State of Israel." 

"That often ends up bringing out folks who are glorifying terrorists and waving Hamas flags and calling for the death of Jews, and I think in a country like Canada, that is morally objectionable."

Toronto city councillor Brad Bradford

 

"Many people who grew up there do not recognize the city anymore."

"They are shocked and disheartened by the hate and threats that's taken over in many aspects of day-to-day life, particularly targeting the Jewish community."

"The rallies are nothing more than hate gatherings."

James Pasternak, Toronto city councillor 

"Sights like these [Hamas-supporting mobs], are no longer uncommon because Canada's Liberal government has refused to stand against even the most vile behaviour happening in plain view."

"Our Canadian values are under attack right before our eyes -- pretending not to see it is simply shameful."

Deputy Conservative party leader Melissa Lantsman

 

"In the past, Al-Quds Day rallies, particularly in Toronto, have crossed the line into promotion of hate, antisemitism and support for designated terrorist organizations."

"I will be asking the Mayor of Montreal and police to ensure that all federal and provincial laws and municipal bylaws are strictly enforced and that police have a clear plan to do this and will immediately step in the second the line into illegality is crossed."

Mount Royal MP Anthony Housefather 

 

Another annual Al-Quds Day across the country is planned for Sunday. Like all such previous events, it is anticipated the rallies will be rife with antisemitic chants that glorify terrorism. Politicians and community leaders, given the number and frequency of similar rallies that have taken place across Canada for the past year and a half following the October 7, 2023, rampage of deadly violence against Israeli civilians in farming communities in southern Israel that killed 1,200 children, women and men, saw organized 'protests' in support not of the victims of the deadly attack, but the Palestinians responsible for the savagery who portray themselves as the victims.

 

Those familiar with the events and who deplore them for their celebration and support of deadly violence are warning civil society and taking measures to ensure that law enforcement be prepared to protect the Jewish Canadian community which has been ceaselessly targeted by antisemitism through organized marches and demonstrations, many of which take place deliberately in Jewish-majority enclaves of Canadian cities. 

 

Typically, the events take place toward the end of the Islamic holiday of Ramadan. They materialized in 1979 following the Iranian Revolution when Iran's Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini -- whose Islamist ideology has created Shiite terrorist groups like Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis, arming, training and focusing them on the destruction of Israel -- adopted the idea of the "liberation" of Jerusalem [Al-Quds in Arabic]. The demonstrations that take place globally call for "Death to Israel", "Death to America", while effigies and flags are burned. 

"Al-Quds Day is not just another protest or demonstration."

"It is a state-sponsored, anti-Israel event, orchestrated annually by the Iranian regime to support the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] -- a Canadian-listed terrorist organization -- in its efforts to destabilize the Middle East and spread hatred against Israel, Jews, and Western democratic values around the world."

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Large rallies for the Al-Quds Day marches have been planned across Canada, in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and Montreal. Astonishingly, in the past decade, immigration, refugee intake and illegal migration has given Canada large populations of Muslims from the Middle East and North Africa. The Palestinian Youth Movement is featured in posters for the Toronto and Montreal rallies, a group that supports the October 7 terror attacks. Samidoun, a group designated as a terror entity by the federal government is still permitted to organize events such as these in Canada without demur from the Federal Liberal government.

 

Toronto city councillors James Pasternak and Brad Bradford have demanded that the city and Toronto police enforce the Hate Rallies policy to protect the Jewish community and ensure 'every necessary precaution is taken'. There is frustration with the mainstreaming of antisemitism across the Greater Toronto Area since the invasion by Hamas of Israel on October 7, 2023. 

An Al-Quds Day rally in Toronto, 2014. Photo by YouTube/Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center

 

"As with all demonstrations and large gatherings, police will be there to ensure public safety."

"In addition to a visible frontline officer presence, we will also have officers from our specialized Hate Crime Unit on the ground, to immediately gather evidence and investigate any suspected hate crimes, or hate speech, or signage."

Toronto Police Service spokeswoman Stephanie Sayer