Antisemitism in Canada digest #97

The longest one to date

Every time I publish another antisemitism digest, I ask myself – maybe it’s time to take a break. However, if I’ve learned something in these past years, it’s best not to ask existential questions but rather just focus on the task at hand. In this case, it’s documenting antisemitic incidents. This digest is so long that substack barely lets me add any images.

1. As shocking as targeting Jewish schools and hospitals is, every shock eventually becomes routine. This time, guys with keffiyehs, Palestinian flags, and a megaphone screamed at Jewish seniors home in Toronto. The police were observing.

Attacks on synagogues no longer come as a surprise either: this time in Montreal it was arson, and the police arrested the suspect shortly after. A few days later, on a Friday night, an object was thrown through a window of a synagogue in Toronto. Nobody was injured, and no suspects have been identified to date.

A female rabbi from the Montreal synagogue who self-describes as a “pro-Palestinian Zionist” was interviewed after the arson attempt. “People who attack us don’t care whether we want peace and a two-state solution, whether we like the current (Israeli) government or not,” she complained. This sounded as if according to her, throwing a Molotov cocktail at a synagogue that supports Netanyahu would have been understandable. To confirm my suspicions, she explained that their synagogue has strong connections with members of other faiths and NCCM reached out to express support.

2. NCCM, National Council of Canadian Muslims, is an openly pro-Hamas lobbying group. Recently they issued a statement naming Canada the most Islamophobic country in the G7, where Muslims are most likely to be murdered, and where the hatred targeting the Muslim community “continues to intensify across the country.”

3. Omar Alghabra is a fascinating character. On one hand, he defended the NCCM against the accusations of their ties with Hamas. On the other hand, he advocated removing Hamas and Hezbollah from Canada’s list of designated terrorist organizations. To make his biography even more impressive, he was placed on the newly formed council for combating antisemitism that Mark Carney announced during his recent visit to a synagogue.

4. Sadly but predictably, Carney’s Liberal Attorney General refused to prosecute Samidoun Director Charlotte Kates. According to Sean Fraser, being a director of a terrorist entity, glorifying terrorism, calling for terrorism, and organizing events where brochures with instructions on how to commit mass terror attacks are distributed does not reach the prosecutorial threshold.

5. Predictably, yet still sadly, none of the legacy Jewish organizations like CIJA or Jewish Federation bothered making a statement about this refusal to prosecute. After all, calling out the Liberal government might get in the way of doing photo ops and having “excellent conversations” over fancy breakfasts or dinners. Instead, CIJA’s VP Nico Slobinsky thanked the Provincial BC NDP AG, Niki Sharma, for launching “the province’s Anti-Racism Action Plan.” Quick reminder: Niki Sharma also refused to prosecute Charlotte Kates when the Vancouver Police recommended charges that required a Provincial AG approval. Slobinsky never brings this up. With friends like this, who needs enemies?

6. Mark Carney and the Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand always rush to issue condemnations of Israel or threats to arrest the Israeli PM. They are suspiciously silent on the UN report about Hamas executing and maiming dozens of Palestinians in Gaza, or the suspension of ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan over sexual misconduct.

Instead, Anand announced an additional $100 million to the Palestinian Authority and Hamas in Gaza. In the announcement, the Canadian government also insinuated that Israel is impeding humanitarian assistance and declared sanctions against “Jewish settlers.” The demonization of Jews living in Judea by the media and Western governments is appalling. Islamists routinely murdering hundreds and hundreds of Christians in Africa don’t get even a tiny share of this outrage directed at them.

Since October 7, diplomatically labeled as “the beginning of the conflict” in the announcement, Canada has sent half a billion dollars to Hamas and the PA. This sounds like a Canadian variant of the pay-for-slay policy.

The Canadian government also joined the UK, Australia and New Zealand in announcing an International Peace Fund for Israelis and Palestinians to support peacebuilding efforts. “The Peace Fund will invest in programmes that advance a two-state solution, help reduce division, strengthen civil society, and support dialogue and cooperation within and between Israeli and Palestinian communities, building the foundations for peace.” These pretend-peace initiatives always consist exclusively of criticism of Israel and complete disregard of Palestinian terrorism and the avowed intent to destroy Israel publicly declared by both the Palestinian leadership and Palestinian society.

7. A two-state solution is still the official policy of the Conservative Party of Canada too. Recently, Pierre Poilievre gave a very weak answer to the question of whether anti-Zionism is antisemitic. He blabbed something vague about how Liberals make society divisive. The correct answer is: yes, anti-Zionism is antisemitic.

8. The Walk with Israel in Toronto this year on June 7 was the biggest to date – 60,000 attendees. Pro-Hamas activists harassed attendees and yelled “baby killers“ at Jewish kids. To my surprise, the Toronto Police arrested a woman with the Islamic regime flag and a sign that said “death to Israel“ in Persian. A total of six arrests were made during the walk.

9. Toronto Police were busy at work lately. They arrested five people for promotion and incitement of hatred targeting the Jewish community at demonstrations at Bathurst and Sheppard in April and May 2026. The five are Hosaam Hemdan, 19, Omer Turcan, 43, Syed Hussaini, 43, Hasan Aydin, 48, and Yasaf Shaikh, 46, in addition to the earlier arrest of Muhammad Anas Sial, 33. Demography is destiny or am I being Islamophobic again?

The Toronto police Counter Terrorism Security Unit also arrested an additional four people – two adult men, one male youth, and one female youth – involved in several incidents where members of the Jewish community were shot at with an imitation firearm. The investigators are still seeking two additional suspects, a male and a female.

10. Often the seemingly random attacks against Jewish institutions and individuals are not so random. Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi – an alleged commander linked to Kataib Hezbollah and Iran’s IRGC network, who allegedly coordinated such attacks in various countries including Canada, was arrested and charged in the US last month.

Al-Ahrar Palestinian Prisoner Support organization issued a statement calling for his release. Al-Ahrar is a part of Masar Badil – Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path. Masar Badil, in turn, was founded by Charlotte Kates’s husband Khaled Barakat, who is the leader of Samidoun and PFLP, both designated terrorist organizations. Should I make a diagram of the whole network for AG Sean Fraser?

Last week, the Toronto police announced that they are investigating a “gun-for-hire” system in which teens and young adults were allegedly recruited through encrypted messaging apps to carry out shootings at targets including the U.S. consulate and Jewish institutions.

Two firearms were seized by the TPS during the investigation, one linked to at least six different shootings across the GTA and another to at least twenty-one shootings. Tragically, the latter is also the firearm that was used to murder Const. Marc Pinizzotto while he was executing a search warrant connected to this investigation. May his memory be a blessing.
Const. Pinizzotto’s murderer was apprehended and is expected to be charged with first-degree murder.

11. The Quebec police also made an arrest – of a brave man who stood up to the noisy, road-blocking pro-Hamas demonstration in a residential neighborhood. It was weird: first, they told him to leave, and as he was leaving, they chased him, threw him on the ground, and beat him up. This unreasonable and unjustified brutality is shocking and I hoped the Quebec police would just declare it a mistake and a misunderstanding and apologize. But they haven’t.

12. Thirty years ago, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) warned about Islamic fundamentalists exploiting the Canadian refugee claims system to bypass security screening and establish local cells in Canada.

Fast forward to today, Canada has a disproportionately strong presence of Brotherhood-linked organizations. The Muslim Brotherhood is a transnational extremist Islamist movement. The MB’s global strategy is “civilizational jihad,” meaning gradual institutional and cultural takeover. It’s described in Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s book “The Infidel.” Hamas is its offspring and the same pattern is described by Mosab Hassan Yousef in Ramallah. The MB starts as social support, schools, daycare, community centers, support for the poor,… mosques. Many MB-linked organizations operate as non-profits and charities. Before you know it, the population is dependent and the youth are radicalized. Moderate Muslim countries ban Muslim Brotherhood. The tolerant West, not least of all Canada, is too scared of being labeled Islamophobic to deal with the threat.

13. The UK should be a warning to us all. They already have many Islamist city councillors and even mayors whose platform is Shariah law and the liberation of Palestine. There are still fewer in Canada, but there will be more if we don’t wake up. Take Toronto mayoral candidate Bahira Abdusalam, for example. Who could have thought there could possibly be a worse candidate than Olivia Chow?

The East Coast is a lot more Islamized than the West Coast, but nowhere is safe. Last week, for the first time ever in Regina’s downtown, the Muslim call to prayer was broadcast over outdoor loudspeakers. This was a broadcast test and it lasted for just over three minutes. For now, it is planned to only be sounded once a week, but Islam is known to take a mile after being given an inch – and then another mile, and some more. Listen to the sound and imagine hearing it five times a day, every day. A childcare centre, an Islamic school and a masjid will be opened in the same building within the next year. Rings a bell?

Calgary isn’t immune either. A public school encouraged teachers to attend a mosque and a gurdwara to learn about Islam and Sikhism as part of cultural competency training. At the mosque, female teachers had to cover their hair or stay outside. Notably, a visit to a church wasn’t included in the training. On the contrary, in the name of cultural inclusion, the teachers were instructed to avoid “Merry Christmas” in favor of “Happy Holidays.”

14. Canada is hosting FIFA these days and accompanying incidents are a microcosm of everything that’s wrong in the world:

a) Decolonization activists protest against FIFA chanting “No FIFA on stolen land” and waving Palestinian flags.

b) It’s a common narrative: Israel, like Canada, is a colonial state, and both should be destroyed. In Victoria, BC, an activist declares in front of the Legislature: “Once we decolonize Turtle Island, naturally there will no longer be any Canadian complicity in genocide.” Even some Jews have already forgotten that we should believe when people promise to destroy us. Most Canadians are still oblivious to this concept.

c) Israel’s team is not participating in this tournament, but obviously it didn’t stop the anti-Israel activists from putting up “Kick Israel out of FIFA” banners along a highway in Toronto. FIFA banned the Iranian Sun and Lion flag, but it allows Palestinian flags. FIFA didn’t ban the keffiyeh, and several terrorism-supporting performers wore keffiyehs on stage. The keffiyeh used to be a traditional Middle Eastern garb, but Yasser Arafat made it the symbol of Palestinian terrorism, and this is the only way to interpret keffiyehs in the West.

d) A Somali referee, Omar Abdulkadir Artan, was denied entry to the US because of his alleged ties to Al-Shabab, the Somali variant of Al-Qaeda. Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow denounced this decision by the US and said that he is welcome in Toronto instead because Toronto believes in fairness and inclusion. British Columbia’s Premier David Eby rose to the occasion and said that in B.C. the Al-Shabab-linked referee will be treated “like gold.”

15. It’s graduation time. At McGill, a keffiyeh-wearing activist disrupted the ceremony and chanted, “We are interrupting our own graduation, McGill continues to fund genocide.” At Concordia, an activist who paraded a Palestinian flag on stage was, to my surprise, escorted out of the ceremony – not until she walked across the entire stage, but hopefully it discouraged a few others from repeating her performance.

16. A Canadian professor complains about over 100 “exceptional Gazan students” who are awaiting their visas. According to him, Canadian academia is in grave danger if the delay persists. But don’t worry – Canada has promised to fast-track visa processing for Gazan students stranded abroad. Of course, a separate complaint is that the arriving Gazan students are interrogated too harshly at the border. Why would border security question young people from an area where the majority of the population supports Hamas, while others likely support Palestinian Islamic Jihad?

17. Another scandal is unfolding around a Nakba exhibit at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg. It was found that Palestinian Authority representatives took part in the development of the exhibit. Some people question the appropriateness of foreign terrorist propaganda in the Canadian Human Rights Museum. Others, for example, Hanna Kawas, the chairman of the Canada Palestine Association, who celebrates October 7, has been promoting Nakba lies in Vancouver for nearly three decades. Let me save you a trip to Winnipeg – what is the Nakba? (1) Arabs start a war and evacuate from the war zone; (2) Arabs lose a war and cannot go back.

18. I never thought this day would come, but today I want to thank the Toronto District School Board. I don’t know what their motivation was, but they canceled an Anti-Palestinian Racism educational session, despite complaints from Toronto Palestinian Families — a group tied to the Palestinian Youth Movement and to CCP’s Code Pink.

The Toronto Public Library, on the other hand, did not surprise me in any way. They are holding “A night of solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Gaza,” featuring prominent antisemitic speakers, including Sabreena Ghaffar-Siddiqui, who famously tweeted that “...a military force to protect Palestinians from being genocided already exists. It’s called Hamas.” The event is sponsored by Oxfam, an international confederation of NGOs advocating for BDS and arms embargo.

19. To wrap this up, the exodus of Jews out of Canada is ongoing: Gad Saad left temporarily last year and is now leaving for good, mostly because it is unsafe for him to be on Concordia campus. Montreal’s chief heart surgeon, Dr. Emmanuel Moss, is leaving too. We could still console ourselves that Montreal is worse than the rest of Canada. This could still be true, but unless something dramatically changes, the rest of Canada will quickly follow.