Unambiguously Jew-Hate Motivated

"[It was a hate-motivated crime, Sean Ward had the] means, the motive and the mechanisms [to launch a larger attack]."

"The loss of life and the irreversible damage that could have been rippled through our community for generations cannot be overstated."

"[The attack was an] exclusive threat to our Jewish community." 

Belleville Police Service Chief Murray Rodd 

 

 

Belleville Ontario's chief of police recounted that the attacker of the Sons of Jacob Synagogue had shouted "You are going to die for the Jews", as he shot at the police constable who was seated on watch in an unmarked vehicle in front of the synagogue as a precautionary measure against violence being perpetrated on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. A day that represents the most sombre day of the Jewish religious calendar. A video had captured the sound of gunfire exchanges between 29-year-old Ward and two police officers.

 

In his intention to kill members of the Jewish community on Sunday evening, during the holiest day in Judaism, the attacker first attempted to put Constable Jeff Smith out of reactive commission by shooting him to death. He had earlier reconnoitered the street, driving by the vehicle that the constable sat within vigilantly. When Ward drove back onto the street and approached the unmarked vehicle he emerged and aimed at Constable Smith's neck. There were two shots, resulting in two injuries.

 

Ward, explained Chief Rodd, had a shotgun and a "significant amount" of ammunition. His reconnaissance around the synagogue reflected his intention to commit a violent crime that would result in mass bloodshed. His intention being to enter the synagogue unobstructed, after shooting Constable Smith, to use that shotgun on the 25 congregants assembled for prayer on that holiest of days. And while Constable Smith made note of the suspect, there was nothing initially suspicious that would alert him to the danger, that he was prey to an armed stalker.

 

"He was then ambushed on a second pass. That's when the shooting started", explained Chief Rodd. Constable Smith, although critically wounded, emerged from the vehicle to pursue the gunman. A second constable arrived moments later, Constable Mike McCurdy, who also opened fire on Ward, helping to incapacitate him and in the process denying him the opportunity to enter the synagogue and commit his planned mass atrocity. 

 

Officials with the Special Investigations Unit are seen exiting an SIU vehicle on Victoria Avenue on the morning of Monday, Sept 21, not far from the Sons of Jacob Synagogue in Belleville. Investigators are looking into a gunfire exchange on Sunday evening involving a Belleville Police officer and a man outside the synagogue. Both men were critically injured and transported to Kingston General Hospital. DEREK BALDWIN/Belleville Intelligencer 

 

Ward, shot and critically injured, died in hospital a day later.  Constable Smith taken to Kingston General Hospital in critical condition, had sustained "multiple gunshot wounds to his head and his body, and continues to receive treatment for significant injuries. He is expected to undergo multiple surgeries related to serious head trauma. While his recovery will be lengthy and challenging, he is making progress every day", advised Chief Rodd. Constable McCurdy was uninjured.

 

The Department of National Defence confirmed that a man with Ward's name had served for five years in an Alberta detachment of the Canadian Armed Forces. He was discharged on a code of conduct charge having refused to take a COVID-19 vaccine. COVID, he claimed on social media, was a plot to kill non-Jews through a Jewish conspiracy. Ward was a resident of Quinte West, 18 kilometres west of Belleville, where he lived with his mother. Confirmation that Ward had been radicalized while serving in the military was not available through the RCMP's integrated national enforcement team. 

"It's one thing to say hate has no place here in our province and in our country, but we already know that. We have to go further and faster."

"We have to have a clarion call that there must be consequences for people that behave in this manner, that do not subscribe to the values of who we are."

Ontario Solicitor General Michael Kerzner 

 

"[The Belleville Police Force has a lengthy relationship with the local Jewish community, providing security] whenever they considered it necessary."

"I guess one of the messages to my colleagues around the province and the country is, it is clearly time that we all be proactive."

Belleville Police Chief Murray Rodd 

Getty Images

The Vile Wave of violence, Hatred and Intimidation of Jews in Canada

"[The] fire-bombing of the synagogue is not a one-off event."

"[It is] part of a pattern of an exponential rise in hate crimes and incendiary hate speech incentivized by a culture of impunity as in the absence of accountability of the crime of willful promotion of hatred."

"What is so necessary now is strategic policy direction at the governmental and municipal level around the four Ps:

• Prevention of the crime to begin with;
• Protection of the target;
• Prosecution of the perpetrators; and
• Partnerships among federal, provincial and municipal authorities. 

Irwin Cotler, human rights lawyer, founder, Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights

"There is no question that Canada has become a more dangerous place for the Jewish people under the divisiveness of Justin Trudeau that has stoked it."

"Another day brings another brazen act of antisemitic hate, and it's well overdue that the government do something or anything to protect Canadians."

"These lawless mobs of lowlifes must be brought to justice."

Conservative Party deputy leader Melissa Lantsman

"These hate activities are overwhelmingly directed against the Jewish community, students and faculty, and ordinary citizens on our streets."

"They are also being directed against people living in quiet residential neighbourhoods in Westmount and merchants around them."

"As a result, most within the Jewish community and many other residents of the Montreal Island are feeling unsafe."

"We are asking you, as the Mayor and chief of staff to ensure, through policy direction, that there is zero tolerance for antisemitic crime activity in our city, and that as a matter of policy and strategic guidance, the police robustly use the criminal law tools and municipal bylaws available to them to protect the public."

Cote Saint-Luc Mayor Mitchell Brownstein, Westmount Mayor Christina Smith, Liberal MP Anthony Housefather

A damaged window is seen at Congregation Beth Tikvah in Montreal after its second arson attack in a little more than a year, Wednesday December 18, 2024. Photo by John Mahoney/Postmedia

For the second time since the October 7, 2023 massacre in southern Israel by Palestinian Hamas terrorists, a Montreal synagogue was firebombed. A fire had been reported at Congregation Beth Tikvah at 3:00 a.m. Wednesday morning. When police arrived they found remnants of a firebomb that had been thrown through a window of the building. In Toronto, several days later, a Jewish parochial school was shot at again, at the front doors. These events occur early in the pre-dawn hours, wreaking double damage; to the buildings themselves and to the security of mind and person of the targeted community.

 

On news of the fire-bombing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau let loose with his usual verbal reaction, that Service de Police de la ville de Montreal is investigating the "hateful act. This vile antisemitic attack against Montreal's Jewish community is cowardly and criminal", he responded. He speaks the language of responsible government, but has never yet -- in a year-and-a-half of street mobs shouting threats at Jewish Canadians, of stalking them in their communities to hurl invective at them, of calling for the destruction of Israel -- undertaken any direct action to put a stop to the unlawful events.

Anthony Housefather, Mount Royal Liberal MP, called on authorities to "make every effort to quick[ly] arrest anyone responsible" for the firebombing. He, along with others in municipal authorities co-wrote and addressed an open letter to Montreal Mayor Valerie Plante for stricter law enforcement to provide due protection to the city's Jewish community. She, like other municipal authorities, like their provincial counterparts, like the federal government itself, have verbally deplored these unlawful, hateful events, but have done nothing within the law to put a stop to them, nor instructed police to follow the law.

The errant, unforgivable failure to pursue hate speech criminal law, along with an "over-reliance on non-enforcement as a form of de-escalation", pointed out the letter co-signers "has emboldened protesters and demonstrators to engage in intimidating, violent acts and unequivocal hate speech, and thus, ultimately, has not successfully addressed the unsafe and toxic situation in our city". Toronto's mayor too, has done nothing to address the lack of safety and security for the public in that city; a permissive aura for tolerating intolerable Jew-hating marches and volatile speeches have marked her as a failure.

"Over the last 14 months, this is the seventh instance where a Jewish institution has been targeted in Montreal and the second time these specific institutions were targeted, chilling reminders of what happens when politicians fail to call out antisemitism and prevent the escalation of violence on our streets", wrote the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, along with Federation CJA, a Montreal-based Jewish organization.

After local Montreal police responded to the synagogue call, to find a flammable projectile had broken a window and ignited within the building, scorching nearby walls before first responders arrived, law enforcement later that morning discovered two windows destroyed at a nearby Federation CJA Jewish community building.

Both properties had been attacked in similar manner with a Molotov cocktail thrown at the synagogue and a fire started at the back exit of the Federal CJA building in November of 2023, a month following the Hamas invasion of southern Israel on October 7.

"The attack on the synagogue is] appalling, yet another example of the vile wave of violence, hatred and intimidation to which Jews in Canada -- and all over the world -- have been subjected in recent weeks and months."

"The world must wake up, words are not enough: synagogues burned, Jews attacked -- NEVER AGAIN IS NOW."

"Following this terrible attack especially, I call on the Canadian government to act decisively, and show that such hatred will not be tolerated."

Israeli President Isaac Herzog

 

Vile Islamist Agitation in Canada Unchecked

"I mean I am a Canadian citizen. I just don't think it's anyone's business."

"I spoke about the brave, heroic October 7 operation and the legitimacy of the Palestinian resistance, and why I want to get the resistance organizations off the so-called terror list."

"We stand with the Palestinian resistance and their heroic and brave action on October 7."

"Long Live October 7th!"

"The only security threat facing the world today is the Zionist genocide being carried out in Palestine against the Palestinian people that has slaughtered at least 40,000 Palestinians and that the Canadian government continues to support and that the United States continues to arm."

Charlotte Kates, coordinator, Samidoun Palestinian Solidarity Network

A video on social media shows Kates addressing a 'Pro-Palestinian' crowd in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery; the October 7 bloodbath was 'heroic' and 'brave'.

This woman, born in the United States, but having become a Canadian citizen, spouts her incendiary slander of the state of Israel and pernicious Jewish plans to rule the world that 'must be stopped', co-founded, along with her husband Palestinian-born Canadian terrorism supporter Khaled Barakat. Barakat once was contracted by the federal Heritage arm of the government to tutor civil servants on issues of human rights, until it was revealed that he was a flaming antisemite, regularly posting inflammatory hate speech against Jews and Israel.

They both had lived in Germany before coming to Canada after living in the United States for several years. German authorities, aware of their inflammatory antisemitism, deported Barakat, for his "political activities". They both have been named by B'nai Brith Canada in a petition calling for their deportation. Barakat spoke of the "racist, right-wing fascist group" attempting to have him escorted out of Canada as allies of the Israeli diplomatic mission in Ottawa, speaking for Zionist organizations.

"This woman gets on a plane and travels to Iran to receive a Human Rights Award that has been granted to some of the worst of [the] worst people within Iran, one of the worst torturers and violators of human rights."

"She herself is now tied into terrorism, but her words are incredibly dangerous and they're threatening to the Jewish community."

"...Canada has a radicalization problem that we're not clearly speaking about."

Ariella Kimmel, vice-president, strategic communications and development, Winston Wilmont

The Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is closely associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, recognized by Canada as a terrorist entity. The group is responsible, among other Palestinian groups and sympathizers in Canada, for organizing and funding anti-Israel protests that have roiled Canada since October 7.  

 

Despite this background and the destabilizing effect of the Samidoun group's activities, not only canonizing Hamas and its bloody savagery in Israel, but being recognized by the Islamic Republic of Iran for her outstanding Islamist convictions, it has been given charitable status in Canada.

Photo: Michael Y.C. Tseng

 

Kates has been up front and public in her praise of the Hamas 'uprising' against the 'imperialist' West, exemplified by the position Israel has in the Middle East, a Democratic Liberal outlier, and a Jewish state in a geographic area dedicated to Islam and governed by theocracies, dictatorships, monarchies and sheikhdoms. She recently flew to Tehran where she received recognition as an Islamist stalwart and agitator, awarded an Islamic Human Rights Award for "anti-Zionist activities".

Shortly afterward she was a guest on Iranian TV, wearing a hijab and blaming "Zionist organizations and political officials" for her arrest following her appearance at the Vancouver Art Gallery in April, praising the October 7 massacre where 1,200 Israelis were murdered, girls and women gang-raped and tortured, their bodies excruciatingly mutilated before death, Kibbutz families burned alive in their homes, in a sadistic melee of chaotic savagery, that Kates celebrated, sneering at the "lie of so-called western democracy and concern for human rights".

"Hamas is not a terrorist organization. Islamic Jihad is not a terrorist organization. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine is not a terrorist organization. Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization.These are resistance fighters. These are our heroes." Having stated which, it is beyond abhorrent that the government of Canada sees fit to allow this woman and her husband to continue roiling Canadian society with their outright lying slanders, even to the point of recognizing their group as a legitimate Canada-based charity.

Samidoun operates virtual seminars advocating violence perpetrated on Israel and Jews anywhere, it organizes antisemitic rallies, disseminates Hamas propaganda, and trains students in their occupation of universities. That the Islamic Republic of Iran pulls the puppet-strings of its associates, and Qatar is heavily involved in financing groups such as Samidoun has been revealed by intelligence investigations.

Image designed for Samidoun by an artist in Gaza ... Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Network