‘Allah will burn them’: What pro-Palestinian students and allies say when they think no one is watching

2025/09/12 Leave a comment

Deplorable posts and comments. But discussion of university response interesting and the administrators try to navigate an extremely divisive issue and student behaviour:

…Before bringing their trove of information to the Post, the Jewish students tried to go through university channels to address the concerning rhetoric shared in the group chats.

On Aug. 9, 2024, one of their lawyers, Jonathan Rosenthal, filed on their behalf a 17-page complaint to the university, distilling the nature of the comments on the group chat.

Yet there was never a formal investigation because the Jewish students were unwilling to identify themselves as complainants.

Western’s associate vice president of human resources, Jane O’Brien, confirmed receipt of the complaint. In a response several days days later she requested Rosenthal “identify the students involved” and outline any incident alleged to be “a breach of the Code of Student Conduct,” according to an email thread shared with the Post.

O’Brien also informed Rosenthal that concerns about the Palestinian student club’s campus status should be directed to the student union, the University Students’ Council.

“I will NOT be disclosing the names of the complainants,” Rosenthal replied Sept. 3, citing “safety concerns.” The lawyer said providing their names “is simply irrelevant” and requested the university investigate the matter promptly. Rosenthal emailed O’Brien the following week, but didn’t hear back until Sept. 13.

“Though your email indicates that the complaint provides student names and phone numbers, no such information appears to be included. Furthermore, the supporting documentation is comprised solely of what appears to be copied text, the origins of which are not demonstrated,” Foster continued.

Foster underscored that the university prioritizes the safety of complainants and “until such time as you provide the requested information, Western will not be able to proceed with your complaint.”

Rosenthal tried to meet Foster in the middle.

He shared a dossier with a trove of time-stamped data — WhatsApp messages, pictures, videos, phone numbers, screenshots and names — from the group chat but reaffirmed his clients would not publicly identify themselves.

“The chats speak for themselves,” Rosenthal answered Foster on Sept. 17.

Despite trading emails with the university for more than a month, Western wouldn’t budge.

The university defended its handling of the situation in a written statement to the Post. Western spokesman Stephen Ledgley said the complaint, “lacked sufficient information to proceed with an  investigation, such as identifying any student connected to the alleged conduct.”

He added that the “complaint and supporting documentation submitted were reviewed in detail to determine if an investigation could be pursued based on the information provided alone,” however, “there was insufficient information to proceed.”

Rosenthal’s dealings with the University Students’ Council, the student union, followed a similar pattern. His unwillingness to name the complainants remained the key sticking point. In his email exchanges with both groups, each pointed him to the other, rather than deal with the substance of the complaint.

He eventually shared the same dossier of information with Shari Bumpus, the union manager overseeing the student community, outlining several specific alleged violations of union policy dealing with fostering “an inclusive and welcoming environment” and anti-discrimination, but did not hear back.

It’s a response the union defends.

“The USC and Western University are two distinct entities with distinct jurisdictions,” spokeswoman Rebecca Rebeiro wrote the Post in a statement. “The USC was made aware of the anonymous complaint and conducted an investigation to determine if it fell within its jurisdiction. When it was determined this complaint was outside its scope, the USC referred the complaint over to Western University’s Student Code of Conduct Office.”

It’s an approach one Jewish advocacy group says is unconscionable.

“The content of the chats was shown to us. Based on what we’ve seen, we believe that the content is dangerous,” Richard Marceau, general counsel for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), wrote to the Post.

“The individuals involved shared violent threats, antisemitic slurs, and grotesque conspiracy theories, all while joking about how to evade university accountability using disappearing messages,” he added, imploring Western to investigate the matter.

Source: ‘Allah will burn them’: What pro-Palestinian students and allies say when they think no one is watching

Filed under Antisemitism, Multiculturalism Tagged with , ,

Globe editorial: Tweets and platitudes will not defeat antisemitism

2025/09/04 Leave a comment

Good points:

…It bears repeating: Whatever your view on Israel’s actions in Gaza, Jewish Canadians are not responsible for the actions of the Netanyahu government, any more than Muslim Canadians are responsible for the actions of Hamas and Hezbollah, or Russian Canadians are culpable for Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression.

That simple fact seems to elude the protesters who target the places that Jewish Canadians gather, including near the Ottawa grocery store where last week’s attack took place. Those protesters have a constitutional right to express their anger. But they also have moral responsibilities, namely to ask themselves whether the manner of their protest is fostering an atmosphere of hate….

Source: Tweets and platitudes will not defeat antisemitism

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Coren | Gaza has me thinking about my Christian and Jewish heritage and the urgent need to learn, listen and love

2025/08/21 Leave a comment

Amen:

…The founder of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, was a deeply secular man who once believed that assimilation would defeat antisemitism. He changed his view when exposed to the Jew-hatred of the Dreyfuss trial, when a blameless Jewish French army officer was arrested and imprisoned, with the Roman Catholic Church at the forefront of the campaign.

It took until the 20th century for systemic change, especially when churches were exposed to the horrors of the Holocaust. Today, I almost always experience sensitivity and understanding. Yet, just last month at a major gathering of Christians there was a large banner calling for solidarity with the “crucified Palestinian people.” Of all the words that could have been used to describe the appalling state of the Palestinians and their treatment by Israel, why the ugly accusation that has been thrown at Jews for centuries?

All of us have to learn, listen, and ultimately love. It’s the only chance peace and justice have.

Source: Opinion | Gaza has me thinking about my Christian and Jewish heritage and the urgent need to learn, listen and love

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Ian Cooper: The real reason to be upset by the Toronto International Film Festival scandal 

2025/08/19 Leave a comment

More on the TIFF decision and reversal with broader implications. But presumably, for Cooper, there would be some cases where art and art organizations may wish to draw the line:

…Art, like education, is not a TikTok algorithm. It’s not there to cheerlead your pre-existing biases. If you don’t like something, nobody’s forcing you to watch it. If you find yourself groping for an excuse to silence opposing voices, you should probably find some other line of work.

A partially publicly funded arts organization ought to apply principles of institutional neutrality, and its staff ought to prioritize ideological diversity at least as much as visual diversity. The film festival offers a platform. It should not pick a side. Just as academic institutions have been forced to reinvent themselves along these lines or else descend into endless shouting matches, so too will artistic ones.

It’s hard to know whether TIFF CEO Cameron Bailey, or the festival’s board, donors, and government funders, are willing to deliver that kind of blunt message. To do so would require the kind of restraint that seems to be in short supply in our polarized culture.

If they can’t do that, they should give up their public funding altogether. Canadian taxpayers should not have to pay for anybody’s political soapbox.

Ian Cooper is a Toronto-based lawyer.

Source: Ian Cooper: The real reason to be upset by the Toronto International Film Festival scandal

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Anti-Palestinian racism report calls for Canada to recognize May 15 as Nakba Day

2025/08/09 Leave a comment

Well, this will provoke some interesting discussions within the government.

Reading through the report, there appears little recognition that some of the actions, symbols and language in various pro-Palestinian protests have contributed to the rise in anti-Palestinian incidents. The description of the Hamas attack of October 7 is antiseptic and is silent on the rapes and other atrocities, also suggesting an element of denial at play “Hamas launched an attack on Israel on this date, actions which included taking 250 people hostage, some of whom remain in captivity in July 2025:”

There also appears little recognition that public and private bodies can make decisions based on public activity and statements, if these create controversy and impact communities. After all, “actions have consequences.”

Perhaps my experience in government where the line between being publicly silent despite any misgivings informs this view (post-government, of course, many public servants share their personal views fairly widely with considerable diversity of opinions.)

The existing definitions of ethnicity (Arab) and religion (Muslim and Christian) are the preferred way to assess discrimination and hate crimes against Palestinians as they bring the issues into the broader context that affect all groups. In other words, focus more on the universal rather than a plethora of individual definitions based upon individual groups (e.g. anti-Tibet, anti-Khalistan, anti-Tamil etc).

Hate crimes against Muslims increased by 8.5 percent compared to last year, against West Asian/Arab by 18.3 percent, higher than most other groups:

A new report from the Islamophobia Research Hub at York University calls on governments across Canada to increase oversight on how universities, schools, police forces and Parliament deal with the recent spike in instances of anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism.

The report also calls on all levels of government in Canada to officially recognize May 15 as Nakba Day. Palestinians mark the day after Israel declared independence in 1948 as the beginning of the destruction of their homeland.

“Provincial governments should develop curriculum, train staff and educate students on Palestinian culture, identity and history, including the history of the Nakba,” the report published Wednesday said.

It also wants all levels of government to “recognize and adopt” a definition of anti-Palestinian racism (APR) “as a distinct and detrimental form of racism that operates at multiple levels of state and society.”

The director of the research hub, Nadia Hasan, an assistant professor in the School of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies at York University, said recognizing both Nakba Day and an official definition for APR would set Canada apart from other countries.

“These are important things for Canada to take very seriously,” Hasan said. “I think it would be a first and an important step for Canada to lead on.”

The report examines the increase in Islamophobic verbal and physical attacks directed at Arab and Palestinian Canadians since the beginning of the conflict between Hamas and Israel.

The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants attacked Israeli communities and military bases near Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people, including more than 700 civilians, and taking 251 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel’s military response has devastated the tiny, crowded enclave, killing more than 61,000 people — mostly civilians — according to Palestinian health authorities.

The report says its findings are based on interviews conducted virtually with 16 Canadian community-based organizations that focus on addressing Islamophobia, APR and anti-Arab racism. Media reports were also used. The report does not include any first-hand accounts from victims or injured parties.

Recommendations and calling out the CBC

The report calls for greater oversight of post-secondary institutions by striking “advisory tables” made up of students and faculty to develop strategies for colleges and universities to use in combatting discrimination on campus.

The authors of the report also call for those institutions to undergo third-party reviews of how they responded to incidents of Islamophobia and campus protests against the war in Gaza.

They say school boards across Canada should also face province-wide reviews to determine how schools have dealt with incidents of anti-Palestinian racism and examine “cases that were insufficiently or never investigated.”

Aside from the increased scrutiny on universities, colleges and school boards across the county, the report wants to establish provincial and territorial “hate crime accountability units.”

The units would allow people alleging they have been the victims of discrimination to “report directly about law enforcement agencies’ mishandling of hate-motivated crime cases.”

The report also calls for Canada’s public broadcaster to be “reviewed to ensure fair and balanced coverage of Palestinian perspectives.”

This external review, the report says, should probe the possibility that CBC is disproportionately “rejecting Palestinian guest commentators” leading to biased media coverage.

The report provides two reasons for its focus on CBC.

The first is a report by a former employee who alleged she faced backlash for pitching “stories that would bring a balanced perspective” to the war in Gaza.

The second reason is a letter sent to CBC signed by more than 500 members of the Racial Equity Media Collective asking the public broadcaster to “address an apparent pattern of anti-Palestinian bias, Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism within the corporation’s news and documentary culture.”

CBC’s head of public affairs, Chuck Thompson, said an external review is not necessary because CBC is already accountable to the independent CBC Ombudsman, Maxime Bertrand, who regularly reviews complaints about the corporation’s journalism.

“CBC News has amplified countless Palestinian voices in our ongoing coverage of the conflict in Gaza,” he said. “There are now thousands of stories we’ve published and broadcast about Israel and Gaza since 2023, all archived here … we think the work speaks for itself.”

The York University report references CBC News journalism covering dozens of instances of anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian racism.

A policy for MPs

The report is also calling on Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein, who administers the Conflict of Interest Act and the code of conduct for MPs, to be given increased responsibilities.

The commissioner, the report says, “should develop a clear and enforceable policy on how parliamentarians are to be held accountable when they disseminate disinformation, especially … when such acts target marginalized communities.”

It provides only one example of an MP allegedly spreading disinformation, a post on X by Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman.

The post includes the line: “Stickers with ❤️s glorifying terror on campus popped up today at UBC.”

The report notes the stickers were falsely associated with the UBC Social Justice Centre.

CBC News has reached out to the Official Opposition for reaction to the allegation but has yet to receive a response.

The 15 recommendations contained in the report also call on the federal government to address issues with the temporary resident visa program for refugees fleeing Gaza and probe alleged Israeli foreign interference in Canada.

A Senate report released November 2023 found Islamophobia remains a persistent problem in Canada and concrete action is required to reverse the growing tide of hate across the country.

The report, the first of its kind in Canada, took a year and involved 21 public meetings and 138 witnesses. It said incidents of Islamophobia are a daily reality for many Muslims and that one in four Canadians do not trust Muslims.

Police and advocacy organizations have also reported increases in antisemitic incidents. In the spring, B’nai Brith Canada reported that in 2024 the total number of reported cases of acts of hatred targeting Jews had reached a record high of 6,219 incidents.

Source: Anti-Palestinian racism report calls for Canada to recognize May 15 as Nakba Day

Report link: Documenting the ‘Palestine Exception’: An Overview of Trends in Islamophobia, Anti-Palestinian, and Anti-Arab Racism in Canada in the Aftermath of October 7, 2023

Filed under Antisemitism, Islamophobia, Multiculturalism Tagged with , , ,

Lederman: What the Israeli flag debacle at Auschwitz really says about this moment

2025/08/09 Leave a comment

Good observation:

…Mr. Bartyzel did not answer my question about whether this has happened before. Have unauthorized Israeli flags entered the site previously by people marching in? Has anyone been forced to return their flags to their vehicles and then enter without them? Has such an order been given before Israel became the global pariah it is now? If so, I missed the global outrage.

Today, the Jewish community is on high alert, frightened that antisemitism is lurking around every corner. Here in Canada, B’nai Brith reports that antisemitism has reached “perilous, record-setting heights.” The same thing is happening in the U.S., the U.K., around the world. 

In the midst of this, it is easy for Jews to assume antisemitic intent. While this is often true, it is not always the case. We need to be thoughtful in each circumstance. 

That said, if there is a spot where the consequences of antisemitism can be felt viscerally, it is at Auschwitz-Birkenau, where the absolute worst happened.

I visited the site in 1998 during the March of the Living, with family members including my mother, who survived Birkenau. It was a difficult day for her, but she drew comfort from not just her own descendants, but from seeing so many young Jews from around the world – and the sea of Israeli flags. They were a symbol of what rose from all she had lost: her parents, her little brother, her home, every single possession, her freedom, her youth, her education, her health, her life as she had known it.

Nobody should have to experience such staggering losses. Nobody.

Source: What the Israeli flag debacle at Auschwitz really says about this moment

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Yakabuski: Montreal Pride finally stands up to the pro-Palestinian bullies 

2025/08/08 2 Comments

Of note:

…The statement did not name any banned groups, but Ga’ava and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) revealed that they had been suddenly disinvited from the event. In a Facebook post, Ga’ava said the explanation given by Fierté Montréal for its exclusion was related to Ga’ava’s description of certain groups that had previously demanded the organization’s banishment from the parade. Ga’ava’s and CIJA officials had said the groups were “pro-terror” and “pro-Hamas” in a Jewish newspaper article. Ga’ava president Carlos Godoy denied those terms constituted hate speech.

On Tuesday, Fierté Montréal reversed itself and lifted the ban on Ga’ava and the CIJA. It apologized to the Jewish community, and particularly Jewish members of Quebec’s LGBTQ community, who felt it had sought to exclude them. What exactly transpired remains unclear, but it is a safe bet that government and corporate sponsors – which account for about 80 per cent of Fierté Montréal’s budget – had something to do with the move. The chairman of Fierté Montréal’s board of directors also resigned on Monday. 

Fierté Montréal’s reversal angered the pro-Palestinian groups that had called for Ga’ava’s exclusion. But it was the correct move. There are legitimate grievances to be aired about the Israeli army’s increasingly disgraceful conduct in Gaza. Yet, attacking Ga’ava appears to have more to do with the role such groups play in underscoring Israel’s protection of LGBTQ rights, in contrast to the oppression LGBTQ persons face in most Arab jurisdictions. That is not a contrast pro-Palestinian activists want to emphasize, perhaps because it exposes their own cognitive dissonance, if not hypocrisy.

These pro-Palestinian LGBTQ activists accuse Israel of “pinkwashing,” or playing up gay rights in Israel to distract attention from its treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. But what they are really seeking to do is to silence anyone who suggests otherwise.

Source: Montreal Pride finally stands up to the pro-Palestinian bullies

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Khan: We shouldn’t turn a blind eye to assaults on Muslim women 

2025/08/07 Leave a comment

Agree:

…The scourge of hate is corrosive. It cannot be effectively addressed in a siloed fashion, where each affected group stands alone. Here’s an idea: next time when there’s a hateful incident against one group, let’s have a few representatives of all affected groups stand together to condemn the hate. There are fundamental disagreements between affected groups, but all agree that no member of our Canadian family should be subject to intimidation, threats or violence.

Source: We shouldn’t turn a blind eye to assaults on Muslim women

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Lederman: There is an abundance of shame – and rightly so – over the calamity in Gaza

2025/08/02 Leave a comment

Indeed:

…As more than 170 former Canadian diplomats, including former ambassador to Israel Jon Allen, wrote in an open letter this week: “If Israel continues on this path, it will lose its standing with the world community, placing the security and the future of the Israeli people in jeopardy.”

This isn’t the most important reason to speak out about the suffering of so many people, of course. That would be the killings, the starvation, the inhumanity.

“Food and health are basic rights,” Dorit Nitzan, director of the School of Public Health at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, told Haaretz. “When we turned them into a bargaining chip, we harmed ourselves, not just our values and morals.” 

Former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak has issued an “emergency call” for “massive nonviolent civil disobedience” to bring a total shutdown of Israel until there is a change in government. “The Israel of the Declaration of Independence and the Zionist vision is collapsing,” he wrote.

The Union for Reform Judaism also issued a statement this week: “Blocking food, water, medicine, and power—especially for children – is indefensible. Let us not allow our grief to harden into indifference, nor our love for Israel to blind us to the cries of the vulnerable. Let us rise to the moral challenge of this moment.”

Yes. Let us. The moral tragedy of this moment is abundantly clear. 

Source: There is an abundance of shame – and rightly so – over the calamity in Gaza

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Islamophobia envoy says Mideast war is bringing back anti-Muslim tropes from 9/11

2025/08/01 Leave a comment

Hard not to disagree but she is silent on whether the nature of some of the demonstrations, their locations and the carrying Hamas related symbols likely also has played a role in reinforcing anti-Muslim tropes:

…Elghawaby spoke to The Canadian Press after the sudden retirement this month of Deborah Lyons, Canada’s special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism.

Lyons left her post early, saying she felt “despair” over of a growing gulf in Canadian society related to violence in the Middle East, and the failure of many Canadians to find common ground against hate.

Elghawaby said that she and Lyons worked to reinforce “the soul of Canada — a Canada where all of us, with all of our diversities, can belong and fulfil our fullest potential and feel safe to do so.”

Elghawaby said she shares Lyons’s fear that Canadians have “a sense of concern about appearing to be, for example, favouring one community over another.”

She said fighting hate means advancing the shared principle that everyone in Canada should feel safe to express their faith or political views without retribution.

“We do have rules and policies, and we have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and we have human-rights codes that should help be our North Star on how we navigate a time of deep social challenge, when it comes to the rise of hate toward any community,” she said.

But Elghawaby pushed back on Lyons’s claim that some Muslims have been uneasy with seeing her work to combat anti-Jewish hate.

Lyons told the Canadian Jewish News that she and Elghawaby tried to work together to counter hate, and had plans to visit provincial education ministers together.

“Neither my community, nor her community, were happy all the time to see us in pictures together,” Lyons said of Elghawaby.

Elghawaby said she’s not aware of Muslims opposing any of her work against anti-Jewish hate.

“I have had no pushback on condemning antisemitism. I have had very good conversations with members of Canadian Jewish communities,” she said.

Elghawaby said many Canadians’ discomfort with confronting the reality on the ground in Gaza is making it impossible to engage in “good faith” dialogue about a path forward.

“Many Canadians of all backgrounds do believe that there is terrible oppression happening in Palestine, that there’s an occupation,” she said. “It’s been described by human rights organizations as apartheid. Genocide scholars, and organizations have called what’s happening now a genocide.

“If we are to have true dialogue, not being able to actually name the situation as it’s being described … by human-rights organizations and experts, it means that it’s a discussion that can’t be had in in fully good faith, because of the effort to almost make invisible or erase what various Canadians are seeing or describing for themselves.”

While Elghawaby said she has no plans to quit before her term ends in February 2027, she acknowledged it’s been “very, very sad and difficult” to see the rise in hate….

Source: Islamophobia envoy says Mideast war is bringing back anti-Muslim tropes from 9/11

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