Canadian Security Needs Review of Anti-Israel NDP
As a matter of national and international security, I would like to contest the recent NDP petition campaign attempting to smear the reputations of law abiding Canadians who have served in the Israel Defense Forces. See the story below from the National Post on the recent petition campaign of NDP leadership candidate Heather McPherson of Edmonton, Alberta.
https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/jewish-groups-condemn-petition-canadians-idf
A preliminary RCMP structural review of IDF veterans in Canada has found NO violation of international or criminal law. This NDP petition campaign is nothing more than a witch hunt designed to marginalize Israeli Canadians and those in support of Israel and to normalize anti-Israel sentiment. NDP leadership candidate and MP Heather McPherson has been one of Israel’s most vehement critics and is a frequent sponsor of anti-Israel petitions.
Another NDP Member of Parliament, Sumeer Zuberi of Montreal, has demanded that Canada’s Border Security Agency officials scrutinize Israeli-Canadian citizens returning from service in the IDF. Canadian Border Security authorities have confirmed that their scrutiny is not based on national origin, and have found no wrongdoing to date among IDF veterans returning to Canada.
These trends are especially concerning with an anticipated NDP Leadership Debate on Palestine scheduled for January 21, sponsored by notoriously anti-Israel organization Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME). Those with strong stomachs might like to register and tune into the debate here. See links below.
https://www.cjpme.org/federal_election_2025_accomplishments
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/ndp-leadership-debate-on-palestine-registration-1979999119667
Most worrisome from a Canadian national security standpoint aside from the normalization of anti-Israel and anti-Zionist pro-terrorist discourse and related hate crimes and harassment of Jewish Canadians, are these continued attempts on the far left and among Muslim Members of Parliament to smear the reputations of law abiding Canadians who have served in the Israel Defense Forces. There are tens of thousands of Canadians who hold joint Israeli-Canadian citizenship, and hundreds of thousands of Jewish Canadians who support Israel proudly and lawfully. Israel remains Canada’s ally. Someone should tell the NDP. And Hamas. And the PA.
Jewish Canadians served lawfully and with distinction in our Canadian Armed Forces in World War II in numbers far above their proportions in the population. Some legendary Jewish Canadian WWII war heroes such as Ben Dunkelman went on to serve in Israel’s nascent army in the war of 1948, as have many other law abiding Jewish Canadian veterans.
The far left in Canada has also engaged in false smear campaigns suggesting that IDF veterans visiting Jewish Canadian university groups to talk about their experiences in the Gaza war after the Hamas terror attacks of October 2023 are improperly seeking to recruit Jewish Canadians to the Israeli armed forces, contrary to Canadian law.
A recent visit to an off campus event in Toronto by an IDF veteran speaking to Jewish students in a private residence led to multiple criminal charges against the pro-Palestinian protesters who invaded and sought to disrupt the event.
Canadian law is very clear on prohibiting recruitment or support for another country’s military. While Jewish Canadians may offer charitable support to Israel, direct donations in support of the IDF are NOT tax deductible in Canada.
I do personally support Zionist non-profit groups in support of Israeli soldiers, but their receipts are clearly noted as non-tax deductible in Canada. My donations have supported recreation and rehab centers for Israeli IDF veterans and food parcels, but not military equipment.
The HESEG Foundation to support Lone Soldiers in Israel with academic scholarships, founded by Indigo CEO Heather Reisman and her husband Gerald Schwartz of Onex Corporation remains LEGAL in Canada. This has led to threatening criminal attacks on Indigo bookstores in Canada including anarchist attempts to disrupt their businesses in multiple Canadian locations, as well as related attacks on other Jewish-owned or Israeli owned businesses and Toronto’s Israeli Embassy.
Israel remains our ally and continues to have a free trade and security agreement with Canada. Charitable donations to Israel (other than to the IDF directly) remain tax deductible in Canada and are needed more than ever.
Even our Canadian Department of Defense continues to purchase leading edge Israeli military technology, to the consternation of increasingly volatile and potentially criminal BDS activists on campus and in the community. A related recent wildcat anti-Israel BDS protest against an Israeli company by keffiyeh wearing radicals invaded Toronto’s Eaton Centre Mall on Boxing Day (Dec. 26), disrupting shoppers and businesses, and abusing police officers.
The Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels knew that repeating a lie often enough makes it true for all political purposes. Israel is NOT an apartheid state. Israel did not ratify the Rome Statute, is not under the jurisdiction of the ICC and has not been convicted of war crimes or genocide no matter how many people (including the UN’s Special Rapporteur) say it’s true. That’s foreign influence and misinformation and propaganda.
Such arguments are regularly amplified in media and on campus, and increasingly normalized in Canada to marginalize Jewish Canadians and Israel, especially by our notoriously biased public funded national TV and radio broadcaster and online news outlet, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), which continues to refer to Hamas and other terrorist entities operating in Gaza and the PA and Mideast as ‘militants’ rather than as the terrorists they are.
The CBC has just received an increase in its operating budget and is expanding its tax funded coverage. We can only expect more anti-Israel coverage to follow, at the expense of responsible private funded media.
Some radical left publications such as The Maple published by radical left and vehement anti-Israel activists, who have advocated publicly for the support of Hamas, and have presented presentations on Israeli military technology companies are now mining public data, including that from Jewish newspapers to list potential targets, including Canadians who have served in the IDF. This is a recipe for criminal malfeasance if not terrorism. See this link: https://www.readthemaple.com/tag/find-idf-soldiers/
They are compiling lists of Canadians who have served in the IDF with names of their schools, synagogues, summer camps, Jewish organizations and family members, gleaned from public media sources such as the National Post, Jewish newspapers and Jewish school alumni magazines. Radical left anarchist groups and NDP and labor union members are choosing to hound and ‘dox’ and harass lawful Jewish Canadians. I have personally referred this information to law enforcement and to our Jewish community leaders in the interest of our community safety.
Anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate crimes and related harassment have increased exponentially since October 7, 2023, as reported by B’nai Brith Canada. Toronto’s North York neighborhood near Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue (the center of one of Canada’s largest Jewish communities) has been regularly victimized by mobs of anti-Israel keffiyeh wearing radicals who have broken off from their police-sanctioned ‘protest space’ opposite supporters of Israel and Israeli hostages to hound and harass local residents and intimidate them from their lawful purposes with little to no effective police response, despite the regular advocacy of Toronto’s Jewish city council members and members of Parliament for the district.
Wildcat anti-Israel protest mobs have regularly invaded and disrupted city streets, civic celebrations, holiday shoppers, and blocked highway overpasses near Bathurst and Wilson Avenues near Jewish synagogues in predominantly Jewish neighborhoods to harass and intimidate residents, with the assistance of Toronto Police officers who have been documented celebrating the Hamas attacks on Israel of October 2023 and who have served coffee and joked with these anti-Israel protesters, enabling their disruptive and unlawful intimidating activities. This has been widely documented by the Toronto Sun newspaper and social media activists such as Meir Weinstein of Israel Now and Protest Mania blogger and lawyer Caryma Sa’d. (Look them up on X/Twitter).
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw has repeatedly claimed in recent media interviews in the Toronto Sun and CFRB 1010 news radio that his police officers have operated within their limits of the law, and have spent $42 million policing over 800 anti-Israel protests since the Hamas terror attacks of October 2023. He has attempted to gain the support of Jewish citizens by claiming his hands are tied by Crown Attorneys (court prosecutors) who often drop or dismiss charges laid by police officers.
However, as with any police force, police priorities and policy are set by their political overseers, who have so far endorsed Toronto Police practices justifying any and all lawless pro Palestinian activity as constitutionally protected ‘free speech and right to protest’. Those supervising Toronto Police include the Mayor of Toronto, City of Toronto Police Services Board, the Ontario Government (the Premier of Ontario, Ministry of the Attorney General and Ministry of the Solicitor General) as well as the federal government (Prime Minister, Attorney General of Canada, and Solicitor General of Canada).
Jewish community and political representatives and advocates have urged Toronto Police to prosecute rising anti-Jewish and anti-Israel harassment, hate crimes and wildcat protests in the interest of community safety. These are often excused as ‘free speech and right to protest’ guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Canadian Constitution.
This is not so. Our Criminal Code is very clear about prohibiting uttering threats, criminal harassment (stalking/doxing), criminal intimidation from lawful purpose, unlawful assembly, incitement to mischief, inciting riots, inciting hatred or violence against identifiable groups, and vandalism or mischief to private property. Our public funded Canadian institutions from unions to universities to political parties and now including Canadian law enforcement and criminal justice system bureaucrats, prosecutors and judges are now effectively permitting and rewarding anti-Semitic criminality and pro-terrorist rhetoric.
Our police are regularly instructed to ‘catch and release’ repeat offenders, many of whom are automatically granted bail, and re-offend shortly after release, often with catastrophic effects. Recently Toronto Police and RCMP have arrested three terror suspects linked to ISIS threatening to abduct and sexually assault Jewish women. They were released on bail. We are right to worry.
The vast majority of anti-Semitic hate crimes include simple assaults and vandalism / mischief to private property, which receive minimal sentences at best. Most hate crimes are never reported to police.
Citizens who have grown up watching TV crime dramas and Jewish Canadians who are rightfully concerned about the rise in pro-terrorist and anti-Semitic rhetoric and related criminality are increasingly disappointed by their lack of access to real justice and accountability.
Many are increasingly afraid to be visibly Jewish and are increasingly anxious about their life prospects in Canada, and those of their children and university students, especially in Toronto, despite the fact that our Canadian and human rights law protects our rights to freedom from crime and harassment and discrimination on grounds of ethnicity, religion, creed, conscience, and national origin. That includes most Jewish Canadians and Israeli Canadians and Zionists.
Our RCMP should be monitoring the NDP and labour unions and radical left anti-Israel groups such as SPHR and Muslim Student Associations for threats not just to Jewish Canadians but to Canada as a whole, if they are not actually inciting them against Jewish Canadians. Such incitement to the detriment and danger of Jewish Canadians has happened before, as in the case of a double-dealing CSIS agent who simultaneously incited the neo-Nazi Heritage Front while seeking to infiltrate Jewish organizations. (See Warren Kinsella, Web of Hate.)
There is a long history of RCMP ‘dirty tricks’ infiltration and subversion of activist communities and incitement against the Jewish community as well as a long history of institutional and increasingly normalized antisemitism in Canada. The escalation of anti-Jewish harassment and hate crimes with little to no effective criminal prosecution and law enforcement begs the question. Who is ordering this? Are they inciting Muslim undercover RCMP officers against Jewish communities? Why is this acceptable? Why does Canadian ‘intelligence’ often seem to be a contradiction in terms?
Some may regard Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and construction of settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as violations of ‘international law’ but many scholars regard these as legitimate pending a lasting peace agreement with the Palestinian people, who have yet to renounce terrorism and admit to Israel’s right to exist in peace and security with its neighbors, as well as its right to self defense, as is the right of any sovereign nation.
Our Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister and their respective bureaucrats are widely viewed as having capitulated to a large and growing and often radical and lawless anti-Israel Muslim-Canadian voter community far outnumbering law abiding Jewish Canadians.
Our government’s decisions to one-sidedly demand ceasefires or concessions from Israel threatening to Israeli security, to support biased anti-Israel resolutions at the UN and UNWRA, to participate in the proposed Gaza Peace Board, to cultivate relations with Qatar (the funder of Hamas), and to recognize a Palestinian State in the absence of any security guarantees for our ally Israel is nothing more than a capitulation to Permanent Postmodern Global Islamist Terrorism. (Look it up!)
The RCMP has already concluded a structural investigation of Canadians who have served in the IDF and found that none have conducted anything remotely consisting of core violations of international or criminal law, so this NDP petition against Jewish Canadians who have served in the IDF is nothing more than a sinister witch hunt and attempt to besmirch the good reputations of Canadian-Israeli citizens who have served in their national armies as have many immigrants to Canada.
We know that the NDP and Canadian labor unions have been populated by some of Israel’s most vehement critics, whose disproportionate attempts to demonize Israel and its supporters and convenient double standards have crossed the boundary into clear violations of Canadian criminal law, including support for banned terrorist groups.
Why not do a full scale audit of the current members of the NDP (which would likely include most labor unionists in Canada) and scan for any criminal records and history of international war crimes and support for terrorism there? The results would improve Canadian national security immediately. Many terrorists and their supporters have entered Canada illegally or by manipulating lax Canadian immigration standards.
It is deeply concerning in a time of unprecedented threats to our public safety and continued mass intimidation and lawless protests by pro-terrorist mobs in Toronto and Montreal and on our campuses (known to be linked to terrorist groups operating in Gaza and the PA and Middle East) that our RCMP and MPs and political parties have chosen to demonize our ally Israel and its lawful supporters in the Jewish community rather than do the hard work of securing Canada’s public safety in the interest of all Canadians.
Most recently a delegation of pro-Palestinian Muslim NDP and Liberal MPs was denied entry to Israel and the West Bank for their ties to an alleged pro-terrorist Muslim charity. Canadian Jewish advocacy groups such as B’nai Brith are now urging the inclusion of the Muslim Brotherhood on Canada’s list of banned terrorist entities, as well as a full Royal Commission On Anti-Semitism and reinstatement of Canada’s Envoy On Antisemitism in the wake of the Bondi Beach Massacre and related developments.
As an experienced pro-Israel advocate and politicized Jewish Canadian, I find that many of these initiatives are little more than window dressing. I have never felt more unsafe as a Jewish Canadian, and I am seriously considering moving to Israel or any educated community that does not regard pro-terrorist criminality and rhetoric endangering law abiding Canadians as ‘free speech and right to protest’.
I am buying Israel Bonds still eligible for Canadian investment portfolios and brushing up on my Hebrew. I might need to use them in Israel one day. I am sick of our second class citizenship and continuing harassment and security threats impeding our lives in Canada. Regards to my friends in Israel. Hope to see you soon. Am Yisrael Chai.