(Pro-Palestinian) Free Speech Is a Human Right

Since the most recent outbreak of the Israel-Palestine Conflict on October 7^th, Canadian society has been inundated by a slew of pro-Palestinian protests and macabre anti-Israel demonstrations.

Moreover, the pro-Palestinian protestors and their advocates have constantly reiterated the fundamental import of their ‘right to free speech’ and have insisted that their demonstrations must remain at all times completely free and unrestricted.

For instance, Amira Elghawaby, Canada’s Special Representative on Combatting Islamophobia, has stated that pro-Palestinian protestors “…have a right to speak about their views on issues without fear of retribution…” and has claimed that “Thousands of Canadians…report being silenced and/or having faced repercussions for standing up in solidarity with the Palestinian people.”

And yet, despite the fact that the pro-Palestinian protestors have constantly insisted that the ‘right to free speech’ is of paramount import and fundamentally inviolable, pro-Palestinian protestors have happily precluded various people and communities in Canada their own respective ‘right to free speech’.

For example, pro-Palestinian protestors have emphatically violated the LGBTQ+ community’s ‘right to free speech’ and have violently disrupted numerous pro-LGTBQ+ events across Canada.

In Vancouver, “…masked [pro-Palestinian] protesters holding banners and Palestine flags…” swarmed the Vancouver Pride Parade and bullied the organizers of Vancouver Pride into cancelling the 2024 Pride Parade. In addition, a mob of pro-Palestinian demonstrators inundated Toronto Pride and forced its organizers to cancel the Toronto Pride Parade, despite widespread opposition from countless prominent members of the LGBTQ+ community.

Furthermore, pro-Palestinian protestors recently invaded Montreal’s Pride Parade and attempted to physically harass and intimidate the organizers of Montreal Pride into cancelling the Montreal Pride Parade until the Montreal City Police Service (SPVM) was ultimately forced to intervene, in order to safeguard LGBTQ+ paradegoers from the pro-Palestinian protestors and their naked hostility.

In fact, when Montreal Pride attempted to observe a ‘minute of silence’ in order to “…commemorate all those who died of HIV/AIDS and homophobic attacks.”, the pro-Palestinian protestors shamelessly “…used this time to blast the sound of fighter planes through loudspeakers and lie on the ground…” in protest.

Moreover, since October 7^th, pro-Palestinian protestors have violently attempted to preclude Canada’s Jewish community, as well as countless non-Jewish supporters of the state of Israel, from their own respective ‘right to free speech’ and from freely participating in political discourse in Canada.

Verily, on university and college campuses across Canada, such as McGill University, the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, and Concordia University, pro-Palestinian protestors have violently attacked and harassed Jewish students and staff, as well as any person or group that is even remotely pro-Israel.

As a result, countless Jewish students and faculty members, as well as innumerable people with no connection to the Jewish community at all outside of their own staunch support for democracy in the Middle East, have been terrorized into foregoing their own respective ‘right to free speech’ and intimidated into refusing to participate in any of the dialogue and discourse that surrounds the Israel-Palestine Conflict on campus out of fear for their own personal safety.

In addition, pro-Palestinian protestors have frequently attacked pro-Israel rallies and innocent Jewish people, in an explicit effort to intimidate the Jewish community and violently prevent Jews and supporters of the state of Israel from exercising their ‘right to free speech’.

For instance, in Montreal and Toronto, numerous pro-Israel rallies and individual Jewish people have been violently attacked by pro-Palestinian protestors and anti-Israel demonstrations. In fact, an 88 year old Jewish volunteer was thrown to the ground and beaten mercilessly when a car full of pro-Palestinian protestors attacked a pro-Israel rally in Toronto.

Furthermore, various members of Regina’s Jewish community were brutally assaulted and a young Jewish woman was savagely kicked in the head until she was rendered near comatose, when a frenzied mob of pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting “Death for Israel!” stumbled upon a pro-Israel rally at the Saskatchewan Legislative Building.

Within any democratic state or society, every citizen’s fundamental rights, such as the “right to property” or the “right to free speech”, are predicated upon the Lockean proviso that there must always be ‘as much and as good’ left for other citizens.

For instance, if a person decides to acquire property, then its acquisition must not somehow impede or prevent other people from being able to obtain their own property or from exercising their own respective ‘right to property’ freely and completely.

Similarly, if a citizen or a group of people elects to exercise their ‘right to free speech’, then they cannot thereby preclude any other citizens from exercising their own respective ‘right to free speech’ or participating freely within society.

Unfortunately, although the countless pro-Palestinian protests and demonstrators that have inundated the Canadian state since October 7^th have insisted that their own respective ‘right to free speech’ is fundamentally sacrosanct, it is clear that the pro-Palestinian protestors do not believe that every other Canadian is also endowed with a ‘right to free speech’ that is similarly inviolable.

Instead, it is readily apparent that the pro-Palestinian protestors earnestly believe that their own rights and freedoms easily supersede the fundamental human rights of all other Canadians and people.

In truth, the pro-Palestinian protestors have no interest in human rights or free speech.

Rather, the pro-Palestinian protestors pursue only their own selfish desires and the means to ensure that they have a platform for their own hellish brand of antisemitic hatred. In fact, the pro-Palestinian cause and its inane cohort will leverage any opportunity and inevitably sacrifice even the human rights of other innocent people, in order to achieve its own extremist objectives.

Therefore, although the pro-Palestinian protestors and their advocates have constantly reiterated the fundamental import of their ‘right to free speech’ and have insisted that their ‘right to free speech’ has come under threat and must be protected by the Canadian government, it is readily apparent that it is the pro-Palestinian protesters themselves who actually threaten free speech and human rights in Canada.

More importantly, it is clear that all levels of the Canadian government and police forces across Canada must begin to take immediate and effective action, in order to safeguard the fundamental human rights and free speech of vulnerable communities and populations in Canada against the pro-Palestinian protestors and their utter disregard for human rights and freedom.