The Long Reach of the Islamic Republic of Iran

"After October 7, my wife and I attended the March for Israel in Washington, D.C."

"When we flew back to Montreal, security asked us not to leave the airport."

"Security personnel spoke to me and informed me of what has been characterized as imminent and lethal threats, without going into further details."

Irwin Cotler, Human rights campaigner 

CBC News has confirmed that the RCMP has foiled a plot backed by Iran to kill former justice minister Irwin Cotler. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP)

 

The Iranian assassination plot targeting the Jewish former politician and internationally respected human rights advocate was prevented from being borne out by those assigned to assassinate a former federal justice minister and attorney general of Canada, by Canadian security forces' alert protective reaction. He had been advised that he was the target of an "imminent threat of assassination from Iranian agents within 48 hours."

The RCMP had given clear warning to Irwin Cotler, known as a defender of Israel and of human rights everywhere in the world. He serves at the present time as international chair of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights based in Canada, which he had founded in 2015. As a human rights lawyer of great renown, he had declared, as an international legal scholar, that "the community of democracies including Canada does not understand the threat of Iran".

 

The 84-year-old Cotler was placed  under 24 hour, seven-days-a-week RCMP protection following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led cross-border massacre in Israel. That protection included the use of bulletproof vehicles, armed bodyguards and other security measures reflecting the level of the threat involved. Finally, last week Mr. Cotler was informed that the threat level had been significantly reduced.

Authorities had identified two suspects in the assassination plot. Whether they were arrested or had left the country once their scheme had been identified and they were placed under surveillance, has not been divulged publicly.

His political activism brought him to the attention of the Islamic Republic of Iran for his work representing Iranian political prisoners. He continues to call out the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran as a terrorist entity. That he is a strong advocate for Israel, and that he had been appointed Canada's special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism did not escape the   Iranian Republic's notice, as well.

Irwin Cotler, former special envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism, speaks at the Antisemitism: Face It, Fight It conference in Ottawa Oct. 17, 2023. Photo by Justin Tang /The Canadian Press

The Inhumane Cost of Conflict

"Humanitarian aid to Gaza?"

"No electric switch will be turned on, no water tap will be opened, and no fuel truck will enter  until the Israeli abductees are returned home."

Israel Katz, Israeli Defense Minister 

Many Gaza residents are suffering from long-term respiratory and eye issues due to using wood for cooking instead of scarce gas and electricity.   Photo: Fadi Thabet, Nuseirat

 

War is an unkind enemy of humanity. In Gaza, Palestinians suffer the impact of a war that the governing Hamas terrorists provoked. The savagery of the invasion of southern Israel by thousands of terrorists linked to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, lead by Hamas operatives was an exercise in unspeakable sadistic atrocities in the mass rape of girls and women, the  anguish they suffered through torture, the massacre of children, parents, the elderly,  and the abduction of infants, ailing men and women, held in Gaza to be used as trade pawns for Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons.

Proof exists that civilian Palestinians followed the terrorists in their invasion to prey on civilians living in kibbutzim that had employed Palestinians from Gaza in farm labour. Trusted Palestinians who broke bread with their Israeli employers, and who in turn revealed to Hamas commanders planning the invasion, valuable details of the farming villages and their security protocols. Israeli hostages were held not only by Hamas terrorists, but by Palestinian civilians as well; mistreatment of the hostages was universal; humiliation, rape, deprivation of fresh air, of food and water.

Israeli children, women and men who were forced to live in tunnels, deprived of sunlight, of hygiene, of medicine for chronic health conditions, whom even the International Red Cross made no effort to make contact with. The threatened, abused and starved Israeli hostages served a purpose that the terrorists exploited; held in part by civilians working with Hamas, a significant number perished. Despite the Israel Defense Forces search for members of Hamas with the firm intention of permanently destroying the group's capacity to ever again prey on Israelis and Jews, missiles continue to rain down from Gaza to Israel.

 

Palestinians crowd around a bakery in Gaza. Photograph: Fatima Shbair/AP

 

How likely is it that any nation whose military is on the offensive would constrain their military targeting to protect civilians as Israel does? The civilian casualty rate in Gaza has been steep, as it has been in any conflict anywhere in the world. Hamas commanding elites made it clear in public fora that they have no intention of relenting in their goal of destroying Israel and murdering Jews; pledging to repeat the October 7, 2023 butchery over and over again until no Jews would be left. 

Gazans are now and have been for a year, living with major life inconveniences. Apart from the need to constantly move from one area in the Gaza Strip to another in advance of IDF planned attacks on Hamas infrastructure, their impermanence has necessitated that they live rough amongst destroyed and crumbling infrastructure  in many areas. There is a lack of potable running water, and no electricity. The lethal designs of Hamas created complete destruction, insecurity and the potential for death in the Gaza population, given the terrorist group's propensity to situate themselves and their weaponry in the midst of heavily populated areas.

 

Israel launched retaliatory strikes on Gaza after the attacks by Hamas  Reuters

 

"Every night is a struggle for us", 36-year-old Abu Amra says, living in Deir al Balah, central Gaza where she now cooks over a fire and laundry is done by hand. Israel, pre-Oct 7 attack supplied Gaza with electricity. In the immediate aftermath of the atrocities, the electricity to Gaza via Israel was shut down. The Palestinian population of Gaza which, in the vast majority favours Hamas rule and approves of the attack, whose result is the reason they now suffer may or may not now regret that choice. More likely they credit Israel alone with their suffering.

The electricity infrastructure of Gaza suffered over the years as a result of previous conflicts that Hamas had been responsible for initiating. The funding that Hamas has received from humanitarian groups, the European Union, the United Nations and Western democracies in general  has not gone into upgrading the civil infrastructure of the Strip, much less its electricity and water grids. It was used instead to create the massive, sometimes-sophisticated tunnel system that runs under the territory.

And while there are many civilians in Gaza for whom life has become a misery of scarcity of everything one depends upon in life in the modern era, there are those among them who view the current situation as a splendid opportunity to become wealthy over those scarcities and the misery of their fellow citizens. Like 23-year-old Mohammed Samra who bought solar panels for a new family business in central Gaza where he charges one shekel to charge a cellphone.

Police officers keep guard at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip [File: Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Risen Tide of Antisemitism in Canada

"[Samidoun, also known as Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network], claims to be campaigning for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails."

"Many Palestinian prisoners for which Samidoun advocates for release have ties to terrorism, assassinations and countless attacks against Israel."

"Samidoun's ideology revolves exclusively around the worldview that Israel and Zionism are the greatest danger to the Middle East and the world."

Public Safety Canada

"The Vancouver Police Major Crime Section, with assistance from the Vancouver Police Department Emergency Response Team, executed a search warrant yesterday at a residence in the 1800 block of East 1st Avenue, as part of an ongoing hate crime investigation under Section 319 of the Criminal Code."

"One person was initially taken into custody and has now been released pending completion of the investigation."

VPD media spokesperson Tania Visintin

Social media posts from pro-Palestinian activists supporting Kates and Samidoun expressed outrage and questioned the “excessive” police presence involved in the Nov. 14 raid (top left, via Global News) to execute a search warrant in a public incitement of hatred investigation. (Via Instagram)

"At times, the community [Vancouver and wider B.C. Jewish community] feels alone… Jewish businesses have been targeted, Jewish members of the community have been targeted in schools, at university, in the workplace."

"We have seen the glorification of terrorism at the hands of members of Samidoun [including at weekly protests on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery]."

"[The community is feeling] threatened and unsafe."

"We believe that it is crucial for civil society that Charlotte Kates be charged immediately. She’s now the leader of a terror organization."

"Let the courts decide."

Nico Slobinsky, vice-president, Pacific Region, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Since the Palestinian terrorists' attack on southern Israel led by Hamas in Gaza on October 7, 2023, Samidoun, along with other Palestinian agitprop group have been inciting to violent antisemitism in the guise of criticizing 'Zionism', and organizing ongoing weekly and sometimes daily marches, protests and groups harassing Jewish communities and Jewish-owned businesses. Crowds of Palestinian-flag-waving antisemites have gathered outside hospitals, old-age retirement homes, synagogues, Jewish schools and community centres to shout invectives and threats against Israel veiled with 'From the River to the sea".

Clearly antisocial verging on psychopathic activities like blocking streets and  highways with marchers shouting 'Intifada!' and 'Final Solution' have inspired no reaction by authorities at any level, anywhere across the country. Jews are left to fend for themselves against the risen tide of antisemitism, viral in its endless permutations of isolation and hate-messaging. The federal government, much less provincial or municipal authorities have been satisfied to sit back and 'not notice' that a cultural/ethnic/religious minority in Canada's equal society with its guarantees of security for all, have been besieged for over a year.

And then when it became obvious that Jews were the appetizer, and once that went down well, the main course would commence, when Palestinian, pro-Hamas groups and organizers turned on Canada itself as a purportedly racist, colonialist, imperialist country perched on land not their own, taken by force from its original denizens, and shouts of derogatory derision damning Canada along with the attempted burning of a Canadian flag by Samidoun supporters moved the government to finally outlaw Samidoun as a terrorist group, closely aligned with the already-designated Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. 

Despite Samidoun being listed as a terrorist organization in Canada last month, its co-founder and director Charlotte Kates has been proceeding with the group, continuing to organize marches that demonize Israel, calling for its destruction, and threatening Canadian Jews' security, with no moves by either the Federal government or law and order to step in and put a halt to those activities. Listing Samidoun as a terrorist entity was a first step, but it seemed that following through to stop its activities was a step too far.

Now, finally, the Vancouver home of Charlotte Kates, out of which the management of the Samidoun group and its many branches abroad is located, was raided by the Vancouver Police Department's Emergency Response Team. A search warrant was executed relating to a hate crime investigation. During the raid, a flash-bang grenade was used, resulting in windows of the house being broken. It was explained by a police spokesperson that the emergency response team is "often used in the execution of search warrants when we believe there could be a risk to the public or a risk to the officers".

 

Time for justice and the Canadian court system to work in tandem with the police departments of the nation, in coordination with government, serious about condemning racism and terrorism and putting a halt to its expansion within Canada. 

The Arab/Muslim/Palestinian Lobby in Canada

"While we stand firmly behind protections against discrimination for al communities, including Palestinians, [anti-Palestinian racism] crosses a line by targeting expressions of Jewish identity linked to Israel."

"Holding differing opinions is not a breach of human rights."

Richard Marceau, vice-president, external affairs, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

"[A meeting with the prime minister took place to] highlight how Islamophobia, and its intersections with anti-Palestinian and anti-Arab racism, continues to harm our social fabric, undermines pluralism and poses a direct threat to our democracy."

Amira Elghawaby, anti-Islamophobia representative

"Racism is an appropriate construct for describing the experiences of Palestinians."

"Israel's treatment of Palestinians is ... at its essence[,] predicated on the superiority and dominance of one group of people over another."

"A form of anti-Arab racism that silences, excludes, erases, stereotypes, defames or dehumanizes Palestinians or their narratives."

Arab Canadian Lawyers Association 2022 report

Amira Elghawaby, Canada's special representative on combating Islamophobia. Photo by Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press

 

The very height of unredeemable hypocrisy expressed by the Arab Lawyers slandering Israel's treatment of Palestinians, typical and predictable of Muslim interpretation of justice, when it is Palestinian violence meted out in constant death threats and active attempts and successes in random attacks killing Jews within Israel that is the real issue in the ongoing standoff between Israel and the Palestinians. Surpassed in inhumane savagery by the Palestinian terrorist attack led by Hamas on October 7 2023, when  thousands breached the border fence in southern Israel to slaughter 1,200 Jews and rape innumerable Israeli girls and women, mutilating many in sheer sadistic inhumanity.

Added to the fact that Arab, Muslim and Palestinian 'public relation' campaigns endlessly stereotype, defame and dehumanize Jews and the State of Israel, entirely reversing reality in pursuit of demonizing the Jewish State and Jews worldwide as oppressors of Palestinian victims of Jewish cruelty. Now, those who have celebrated the October 7, 2023 massacre of innocent Israeli civilians and who portray those rapes and murders as just desserts in punishment for those who victimize Palestinians -- which is to say a state that defends its citizens from mass psychopathy -- are lobbying Canada's government to make it a crime to slander Palestinians.

Irony upon irony; the very people who expend endless time and energy on slandering Jews insist the world is obliged to protect them from opinions garnered from their violent performance in mass murder, along with their anti-social machinations in never-ending loud and sometimes-violent, always-threatening marches and demonstrations calling for the destruction of the Jewish State and the ouster of Jews from Canada; to 'send them back to Europe' -- ostensibly to the Holocaust ovens of annihilation -- continue to portray themselves as victims, not the victimizers that they are.

The concern within the Jewish community is that accepting the thrust of the argument that Muslims deserve a law that would outlaw criticism of Palestinians and by extension Muslims who have, in the past year, broken myriad Canadian laws with impunity, it would become a criminal offence for Jews to criticize the mobs who threaten them on the streets, in their communities and their businesses. The issue of conflating pro-Israel declarations with racism, in the process insulating Palestinian interpretations of history and present performances from criticism is beyond incomprehensible to a logical, neutral mind.

 

Adil Charkaoui, speaking Arabic, denounced "Zionist aggressors" and called on Allah to "kill the enemies of the people of Gaza and to spare none of them."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)

 

At the very time that Canada's civil compact of community equality and plural social mores of acceptance and civil tolerance of others are being turned into a psycho-social morass of harassment, threats and unsubstantiated claims of Jewish supremacy plotting the genocide of Palestinians, the Palestinians, their defenders and allies are accusing Canadian Jews of plotting against them and turning society into a critical mass of Palestinian denigration. The classic of victimizer cloaking itself as victim.

"Denying the Nakba" will become grounds of prosecution should the Arab Canadian Lawyers group's definition of 'racism' against Palestinians -- a group that can hardly be claimed to be a race to begin with -- be agreed to by the Liberal government. The 'Nakba' is a term used to describe the displacement of Palestinians in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war when the nascent Jewish State declared itself and combined Arab armies marched on Israel to destroy it, and 750,000 Arabs calling themselves Palestinians fled, to become refugees while believing Israel would fall, and they could immediately return to claim the land their very own.

Balance that against the estimated 800,000 Arab Jews who were expelled, their properties taken, by the Arab countries where they had lived for centuries in the diaspora forced upon indigenous Jews by the Roman Empire in the 2nd century BC, dispersing Judeans from their ancestral lands. Jewish organizations are concerned that equating the Holocaust with the Palestinian 'Nakba' "risks opening the door to Holocaust minimization".

"These comparisons are problematic because they equate the Holocaust -- a systematic industrial-scale genocide in which six million Jews were targeted and exterminated solely for their identity -- with the displacement of approximately750,000 Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War."

"This framing not only undermines the historical uniqueness and gravity of the Holocaust but also fosters perceptions that Jews are committing atrocities similar to those they endured."

"By blurring these distinctions, anti-Palestinian racism diminishes the specific trauma of the Holocaust and undermines the educational impact of Holocaust memory."

Richard Marceau, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Canada had accepted the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism for the purpose of combating forms of anti-Zionism; a distinct form of antisemitism. The IHRA definition was added to Canada's anti-racism strategy in 2019. It states "manifestations [of antisemitism] might include the targeting of the state of Israel conceived as a Jewish collectivity". As an example, "denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour"; as well, "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis".

All of which, manifestly, the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel lobby in Canada has engaged in, fulsomely, loudly and in public demonstrations of noxious and society-disturbing magnitude. Justin Trudeau was the recipient of criticism for failing to mention anti-Palestinian racism in a strategy update of Canada's anti-racism to guide the federal anti-racism program. Liberal MP Salma Zahid faulted the Prime Minister for failing to mention anti-Palestinian racism in a strategy update this year. Now she purrs on the strength of the meeting held by Amira Elghawaby with Justin Trudeau.

Liberal member of Parliament Salma Zahid talks to reporters as she arrives to a caucus meeting in Ottawa on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick /The Canadian Press

"I welcome the prime minister's commitment to recognizing and adopting a definition of anti-Palestinian racism."

"In Canada in recent months, we have seen increasing levels of Islamophobia, anti-Palestinian racism and antisemitism."

"Before we can fight against such hatred, we need to be able to recognize what it is and what it looks like."

"I look forward to working with the government to move this forward."

Liberal MP Salma Zahid

Honouring a Mass Murderer

"I asked them to track down the anonymous notice for a vigil at City Hall. No organization exists. No vigil is planned."

"The city will not interfere with a peaceful vigil, as long as all laws and city bylaws are adhered to."

"I just want to point out -- and I'm not being facetious -- Nelson Mandela was declared a terrorist by the United States of America  until the year 2008. Your terrorist and somebody else's terrorist may be two different things."

Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish

"This attack on the mayor serves only to distract from the genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where thousands of civilians, including women and children, have lost their lives."

The Muslim Council of Peel

"By sharing a letter from the council that includes inflammatory language and falsehoods about Israel  she [the mayor] has only further divided our community."

"Since the troubling post about the November 26 vigil became public, only the Muslim Council of Peel was consulted -- excluding Jewish partners and constituents who are most directly impacted."

"The organizers of the vigil, Firas Al Najim and so-called "Canadian Defenders for Human Rights' have now confirmed it is authentic and is moving forward."

"This glorification of terrorists is completely unacceptable. Will you stop it from happening? Will you let an event celebrating killings, rapes, executions, hostage taking and death to take place on public property in our city?"

"Hamas is applauding what is happening in Mississauga."

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish on Nov. 13. Photo by Screengrab / City of Mississauga

The unthinkable, the celebration of the life of a major terrorist, the man who planned and saw to the execution of the 7 November 2023 mass invasion by thousands of Palestinian terrorists in groups led by Hamas is taking place in Canada. Where among other terrorist groups worldwide, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and likely some members of Fatah as well took part, groups listed on Canada's terrorist list. As such, they are criminally outlawed in Canada. Yet mosques in Canada, serving Muslim Canadians have held mourning services for Yahya Sinwar, master terrorist.

And now, a group called Canadian Defenders 4 Human Rights has organized a public event to take place near the end of the month, to honour Sinwar, the leader in Gaza of Hamas terrorism against Israel. A flyer advertising the event has been in circulation, and social media posts assure anyone in doubt that the Sinwar vigil is planned to continue on schedule. Jewish Canadian groups are aghast that the man responsible for the rapes and mutilations of hundreds of Jewish girls and women on that fateful October day, along with the death of 1,200 Israelis, is being honoured in Canada.

The flyer led off with the slogan "lest we forget our heroes", festooned with red poppies symbolic of military veterans' remembrance. Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish has been asked repeatedly to repeal permission for the memorial to a mass murderer of Jews to proceed. In response she took to posting on X her conclusion that the event is a hoax, despite the planners' insistence it is legitimate and it will proceed.

A video posted on social media by the group CD4HR featured a speech by its leader, FirasAl-Najim filmed outside a Royal Canadian Legion branch in Mississauga; he holds a printout of the flyer while speaking of Sinwar as a "great man", and defends the event. CD4HR  lauds "the great hero" and "Axis of resistance martyrs that sacrificed their honourable lives in support of the Palestinians & their struggle for liberation".

A poster advertising a Mississauga, Ont., vigil in honour of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. Photo by @cd4_hr /X

 

"We respect the right to peacefully assemble  under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms."

"Peel Regional Police will work closely with the City of Mississauga, our community partners and other stakeholders, to ensure that the event remains peaceful."

Peel Regional Police

Palestinian Terrorists Feeling Entitled to Control the Outcome of their Savagery

"I want to remind the citizens of Israel that every time you eat something or drink something, remember us, the hostages, who don’t have the opportunity to enjoy food or water."

"My fear for my life is daily. The military efforts to release me that [Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu is selling you is what will end up leading to my death."

"I can tell you I have become scared of the army. I am really afraid of the moment the army might get to me, or blow up the place I am located."

Alexander Troufanov

 

"[With winter approaching], these hostages, who have been subjected to horrific conditions of abuse, starvation and darkness for over a year, face an increasing risk of losing their lives."

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum 

"I am relieved to see my son alive, but I am very worried to hear what he is saying."

"I urge that every effort be made to secure his immediate release and that of all other hostages."

"They have no time left."  

Yelena Troufanov

Russian-Israeli captive Alexander “Sasha” Trufanov seen in an undated video released by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Source: Screenshot/X.

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There were originally 254 Israeli infants, girls, women, men civilians, IDF soldiers, migrant farm workers captured by Palestinian terrorists who invaded southern Israel from Gaza with the specific purpose of looting, mass rape, mutilations and murder on a grand scale. These terrified people were taken hostage for the purpose of being used as 'trades' for Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli prisons, found guilty of crimes of terror. The hostages have been deprived of liberty, daylight, hygiene, adequate food provisions and have experienced humiliation and torture, young women constantly raped. Many have died of privation, ill health and others have been murdered.

Those that are left, both dead and alive, are still viewed as prized caches of human trade. Palestinians know well the penchant of Israelis to try to move heaven and earth to secure the release of their people from the tender claws of their enemies. It is not enough for the Palestinians who in the greater majority  fully support their terrorist groups, and specifically Hamas that had governed Gaza in their exploits of murder, rape and abduction of innocent children, the elderly, vulnerable women and others to satisfy their own sense of implacable victimhood.

Those holding the Israeli hostages enjoy the psychological warfare they indulge in, a sadistic exercise in savagery outlawed by civilized people, but perpetrated by those whose seething hatred is unappeasable and do their utmost to cause suffering and anguish to the families, friends, colleagues of those helpless victims by staging scenarios where their prisoners read from scripts given them in an obvious ploy to manipulate those affected -- which to all effects, is every Israeli citizen -- to spur efforts to demand of their government the acceptance of Hamas's conditions for the release of the hostages.

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which along with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas and ordinary Palestinian civilians had taken part in the massacre of October 7, and the hostage-taking, released a video meant as proof that the hostage being featured is not yet dead. In the videos released by Hamas and PIJ, drawn and haggard victims plead with their families, with their government to use all means to secure their release. The terrorists hope that the end effect of these heartstring-pulling exercises in pain for Israel, it can turn the population against its government intent on destroying Palestinian terror groups.

This latest video featured Russian-Israeli hostage Alexander 'Sasha' Troufanov, abducted during the terrorist attack of 2023 from his family home, held captive for 404 days, in the Gaza Strip. This third video of Sasha Troufanov has him stating that he and the other captives remaining -- a hundred in number, but many no longer living -- and receiving inadequate food, much less basic hygiene products, pleading for the Israeli public to call for a hostage agreement. He expressed his fear of being accidentally killed by Israeli Defense Forces on cue; not very subtle, but quite effective.

The 29-year-old Troufanov was taken hostage from Kibbutz Nir Oz, as was his mother, Yelena Trouifanov; his grandmother Irena Tati, and his girlfriend, Sapir Cohen. His father, Vitaly Troufanov was murdered during the Nir Oz onslaught by Hamas as were 40 other residents of the Kibbutz. Since the abduction his mother and grandmother were freed in November of 2023, as requested by Russian President Vladimir Putin, while Sapir Cohen was released in a ceasefire agreement the same month.

Remembrance Day too Is Claimed by the Muslim/Palestinian Lobby

"It has come to my attention that the inclusion of the song "Haza Salam' in the program caused significant distress to some members of our school community. For this, I would like to offer my apologies."

"We acknowledge that Remembrance Day is a solemn occasion, where the focus should remain on honouring those who have sacrificed their lives for the freedoms we hold dear."

"The inclusion of a song that could be seen as politically charged was not in line with the values of respect and unity that we strive to uphold at this school." 

"We recognize that the song chosen -- while intended to highlight themes of peace -- also inadvertently caused offence and discomfort to some students, and for that, we regret our choice."

Sir Robert Borden school principal Aaron Hobbs, letter to parents

"It is hard to believe I'm hearing this at an assembly in Canada for Remembrance Day."

"It was weird. I was confused. What is this song saying?"

Unnamed student

"There was only one song. There were no other ethnic songs, or other songs, just one. It was played three times."

"They chose an Arabic song about peace for Gaza as the only song to play for a Remembrance Day service."

Unnamed parent

"I have a great uncle who was in the war, in the air force, and he was shot down over Italy and taken prisoner. This service took away from the events of the war, it took away for the sacrifices of my great uncle and others. I became very emotional."

"This day is supposed to be about remembrance. When I think of everything my uncle went through and still survived and went on to raise a family -- my child got none of that at school today."

"It [the school Remembrance Day ceremony] ignored my great uncle's memory. It is not inclusive when  you are excluding others."

Erica Phillips, mother of student enrolled in the school

 

The school principal, when first approached for an explanation, seemed fairly flippant, saying that the song had been recommended to him by one of his teaching staff, and that in the interests of inclusiveness he felt it was a good idea to give it air, to the exclusion of any other music to highlight the traditional Remembrance Day ceremony on November 11. It was, in fact, a Palestinian protest anthem, closely associated with the anti-Israel movement. On YouTube, recordings are accompanied by "Free Palestine" imagery. You can't get more exclusionary and political than that.

While defending the song's premier place on the school's program for Remembrance Day as a method of bringing "diversity and inclusion" to the ceremony, the resulting push-back from parents and local MPP Lisa MacLeod, and perhaps a bit of a talk-to from school board administrators who view this as  yet another headache in  the public eye, he reverted to an attitude that appears on the surface to be contrite. MPP MacLeod wrote on Facebook in condemnation of the situation: "To my Jewish constituents, I am sorry your kids are going through this."

 

The decision to use an Arabic-language Palestinian protest song for the Remembrance Day presentation soundtrack certainly did not sit well with Jewish students, nor their parents, and possibly other Canadian traditionalists who honour Canada's war dead and its veterans. A slide show of Canadian soldiers and expressions of peace had the song, Haza Salam (This is Peace) as the background music for different student age groups in three distinct ceremonies at the school. Some of the Jewish students complained to the principal following the event. 

But the principal chose to defend the selection, stating the purpose of diversity and inclusion to an annual event usually featuring "a white guy who has done something related to the military" was a prompt. A 'closed door' meeting soon afterward appeared to have influenced the man to send the school community an email of apology. A few students had made use of a phone app to find the song on music platforms with artwork of Palestinian protests.

 

The song by Mahim Ahmed was released shortly following the October 7, 2023 terrorist attacks on southern Israel, led by Hamas. It is identified with protests by Palestinians centering around Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza between the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian terrorist groups like Islamic Jihad, PLFP and Hamas. And by extension, Hezbollah in Lebanon. Versions of the song online featured in videos show montages of photographs of Gaza casualties, along with Palestinian protests. There is no one in Canada innocent of the knowledge of Palestinian victimhood protests.

"No one would allow a song in Hebrew to be played, even if it was called Shalom (Peace), at a Canadian Remembrance Day ceremony."

"It should have been a song in English or French or an Indigenous language."

"Something is wrong at the top."

Unnamed (Jewish) parent

When principal Hobbs was approached by Jewish students who reproached him for the inclusion of an Arab protest-against-Israel song at a Canadian war memorial event, he defended the choice by disagreeing that there was any problem with the song and its central place in the ceremony. The song, explained Lisa MacLeod MPP for the riding of Nepean, failed to agree with the Royal Canadian Legion protocols, besides being distressing to Jewish students.

 

She described speaking with the director of the school board where she "shared my anger, disappointment and, honestly, utter confusion on how Remembrance Day at a school whose namesake was prime minister in World War 1 could get this so wrong." And she took the further step of recommending disciplinary action against the principal. 

 

Hear, hear! Apology and dismissal would do nicely to begin with. MPP MacLeod describes the situation as a “politically charged” move that was “done at the most populated Jewish school in Ottawa”. Unfortunately, the Muslim Advisory Council of Canada and Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East do not agree.

"The selective outrage and swift backlash reveal a troubling double standard that unfairly targets Palestinian and Arabic cultural expression, framing it as inherently controversial or politically charged."

"[The song’s title translates to] This is Peace [and its selection] does not equate to endorsing a political stance."

Jamila Ewais, CJPME Foundation’s anti-racism program

The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board said it is conducting a 'thorough investigation' into the including of an Arabic song during a Remembrance Day ceremony at Sir Robert Borden High School earlier this week. (Google Maps)