My latest: Global Affairs is a disgrace

Is Canada’s foreign policy dominated by Jew-hating bigots?

Good question. Listen to what one of our most senior diplomats had to say:

“Israelis exercise an unhealthy influence over North America. There is no other influence on government which remotely approaches the influence of the Israeli lobby. They have infiltrated government, there’s no question about it.”

He pauses.

“When I offended ZOG, it was obviously no problem whatever to have me dismissed.”

The speaker is Ian Verner Macdonald, Canada’s second-most powerful diplomat in the Middle East for many years. The ZOG he is referring to is the “Zionist Occupied Government.” ZOG is the acronym that is popular among neo-Nazis and Jew-haters to describe the democratically-elected governments of the West.

Among Macdonald’s friends – among those he’d given support to, and a place to meet and sleep – was the Grand Wizard of the Canadian Knights in the Ku Klux Klan. All while Macdonald was a senior Canadian diplomat, one who received promotion after promotion for years. One who was described by his superiors as “exceptional” and “brilliant.”

Macdonald is dead now, occupying a spot in Hell alongside his fellow Hitler freaks and cross-burners. But, when one looks at yesterday’s photo of Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly smiling and gripping the hand of Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, one has to wonder:

Are people like Ian Verner Macdonald still running the place? Does Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs still have an anti-Semitism problem?

Because it sure looks like it.

This writer has long held the view that Joly is one of the the worst cabinet ministers in the country’s history. But, even for her, clutching Abbas’ hand like a child on a school trip was going way too far. The uncontradicted evidence is that Abbas is a corrupt, venal Holocaust denier who has applauded Hitler and regularly likens Jews to Nazis.

There was Joly, cheerfully clutching Abbas’ claw – Abbas, the aging Jew-hating racketeer, one who even Hamas will not give the time of day. But perhaps it makes sense.

After all, Joly is the minister who, in just the past week or so, has reinstated funding to a United Nations organization whose employees participated in the barbarity of October 7; moved to choke off the legal sale of non-lethal military exports to Israel; and whose government is trying to prevent Jews from keeping kosher religious dietary laws.

Scratch the surface in her department, and one will see there seems to be a problem within Foreign Affairs. Here’s just a few examples:

  • Middle East Relations desk officer Jessica Yassine has posted on her social media platforms statements to the effect that Israel is “massacring” people, and has attacked the Ontario government for “crushing Palestinian activism”
  • Women, Peace and Security Ambassador senior advisor Panthea Pourmalek, who has promoted statements that the Jewish state is in “moral decay”
  • Middle Eastern Relations specialist Lamya Hussain, who has written essays for “Electronic Intifada” suggesting that Hamas-era “fallen soldiers” are “martyrs”
  • Senior Gulf States Desk Officer Omar Alihashi, who once wrote that “channels should be opened between Canadian diplomats and…Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Media representatives at Global Affairs were asked if any of the above were considered acceptable by their department – and, if so, why? And, if not acceptable, what steps would be taken to discipline or remove those people from senior roles representing Canada?

Department spokesman John Babcock responded: “Global Affairs Canada (GAC) takes these types of comments very seriously. When using social media or other electronic media to network for professional, personal, or official use, employees must abide by the Code of Values and Ethics…The department is taking appropriate actions to verify and manage the situations accordingly.”

This writer authored a book about all of this in 1992, called Unholy Alliances. Ian Verner Macdonald was interviewed for it. Macdonald, who died two years ago, was always slippery about how someone like him could survive, and even prosper, within Canada’s Foreign Affairs ministry. A man who would write memos about “Negro excesses” and was investigated by the RCMP’s Security Service for passing trade secrets to rogue Arab states.

A man who even wrote that Jews exercised “inordinate and dangerous influence [in Canada’s] national and international affairs,” and who are “an alien master” who “control us through a network of agents, collaborators and sympathizers and some outright mercenaries.”

How could someone like Ian Verner Macdonald be allowed to write, and do, such things for so long at Foreign Affairs? How is that even possible?

We could ask the same question about Melanie Joly and her underlings.


Michael Bercier: don’t hire him. Don’t go near him.

Here’s what he sent to my friend, MPP Lisa MacLeod:

So, I wrote the organization that employed him. I said I was considering doing a story about it. Here’s what they sent back:

Dear Mr. Kinsella,
Thank you for bringing this to our attention.
Michael Bercier is no longer a member of the board of Apt613 and has no role in our organization. He has not been involved in the organization for quite some time. We regret that we had neglected to update our website in this respect and have since taken action to do so.
I would like to express in the strongest possible terms that the comments Mr. Bercier posted on X (Twitter) that you shared with us are wholly inconsistent with the values and principles upheld by our organization. The content of the post, which was both misogynistic and threatening, is completely unacceptable and reprehensible. We condemn such language and behavior unequivocally.
Apt613 is committed to fostering an environment of respect, equality, and inclusion, and any actions or statements to the contrary constitute a violation of Apt613’s Code of Conduct and Anti-Discrimination and Anti-Harassment Policy. I can assure you that should any board member, staff member, or volunteer make comments of a nature similar to those that you provided to us, our action to address them will be swift and decisive.
As an organization, we remain dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and dignity for all. We will continue to uphold these values and work tirelessly to create a safe and respectful environment for our members, stakeholders, and the community at large.
Once again, we would like to thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.
Sincerely,
Jason Wood
Chair
Apt613 Board of Directors

I thought that was a pretty good response, and so did Lisa. So we’ll leave it there for now.

But fair warning: men who go after the women I respect? I’m coming after you.


B’nai Brith panel: check it out!

 

Fabric Unravelling? A Dialogue on Society’s Shift: A Fireside Chat with Warren Kinsella and Stephanie Smyth

Join B’nai Brith Canada’s Special Advisory Council to the League for Human Rights (SAC-LHR) on Thursday, March 21 at 7pm EST for a riveting virtual event. The evening will include two powerhouses, @kinsellawarren, Canadian lawyer, author, political consultant, and commentator, hosted by award winning broadcast journalist and media expert, @stephaniesmyth.

Warren Kinsella is the strategic mastermind behind countless successful political campaigns and is the president of the Daisy Group. Previously Special Assistant to the Rt. Hon. Jean Chrétien, he has guided the Ontario Liberal Party to victory and played a pivotal role in the Biden-Harris campaign. Kinsella has been one of the country’s most vocal supporters of Jewish Canadians and his captivating insights are not to be missed!

Stephanie Smyth, is an award-winning broadcast journalist who has been at the heart of some of Canada’s most critical news moments. As the former Managing Editor of CP24, Smyth has been the guiding force behind ground-breaking news coverage, earning accolades and respect across the nation.

Expect a night of lively discussion, deep insights, and compelling conversations that will leave you inspired and informed. Whether you’re passionate about politics, media, or the shifting dynamics of our society, this is one fireside chat you won’t want to miss!
Click here to save the event to your calendar or to register: bnaibrith.ca/eventssa/march…


My latest: charge them now

What’s it going to take?

To charge someone with a hate crime, that is. It’s been less than a week since a mob descended on a Toronto Jewish synagogue, and the perpetrators are still walking the streets. How is that possible?

Because, make no mistake, what took place at the Beth Avraham Yoseph synagogue in Thornhill on Thursday certainly looked like hate. It looked like a hate crime, in fact.

Up till this point, Ontario’s Jew-haters have gone after Jewish symbols – bookstores, delicatessens, restaurants, and even hospitals – but not actual places of worship. In Quebec, synagogues have been firebombed. But in Ontario, the anti-Israel mob hasn’t gone after a place of worship.

On Thursday, they did. Beth Avraham Yoseph is a modern Orthodox synagogue, meaning members are supposed to engage fully with the modern, outside world. They are expected to promote love and justice in their own community, and outside their community. They’re supposed to care for people who are less fortunate, and they do.

As one of their rabbis has put it, the modern Orthodox Jew is expected “to transform the world to benefit all humanity.”

It’s hard to see how anyone could object to that. But several hundred Israel-haters did on Thursday, and showed up allegedly to protest a real estate fair taking place at the synagogue, one that has been showing up in Toronto for two decades. It’s for people who want to make aliyah – that is, move to Israel.

Lawyer Caryma Sa’d was there. Sa’d has become well-known for the gutsy eyewitness videos shot by her and her team – at everything from political protests to political events. Her videos are raw and objective and have become invaluable to the news media.

Remember the footage of Toronto police officers carrying doughnuts to anti-Israel protestors who had targeted a Jewish neighborhood? That was Caryma Sa’d’s work. She was there.

And, on Thursday, she was at the Beth Avraham Yoseph synagogue, as well.

“Objectively, I think there were individuals whose language crossed the threshold for hate,” says Sa’d, noting that many of the protestors were chanting about “Zionists,” quote unquote. Which she also sees as problematic: “The word Zionist has undergone a similar treatment to fascist or Nazi…where it has been stripped of its actual meaning, and can be used as a stand-in for something hateful.

“Which is unfortunate.”

Also unfortunate, to say the least, are some of the other statements made on Thursday. ”The whole world hates you!” one anti-Israel protestor screamed.  Another: “F**k these Jews!” And: “They are demons!” And: ”Go back to Europe!” some chanted.

They grabbed Israeli flags and spat on them and kicked them into the dirt. There was pushing and shoving. There were fights. There were arrests.

Meir Weinstein, who runs the Never Again Live Podcast, was present. Recalls Weinstein: “I witnessed pro-Hamas supporters outside the synagogue chanting that [we are all] terrorists and racists. Some had a sign that said: ‘This is not a synagogue, this is a SINagogue.'”

Most media reports – with Sun colleague Joe Warmington being the notable exception – missed the most outrageous thing of all. Namely, that the “protestors” had targeted a synagogue. A place of worship.

And that is clearly against Canada’s Criminal Code. Here’s what section 319 says:

“Every one who, by communicating statements in any public place, incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace is guilty of an indictable offence and is liable to imprisonment.”

All the elements are there: hateful statements were communicated about Jews, at a Jewish holy place, to clearly incite hatred. There wasn’t just the possibility of a breach of the peace – the peace had already been breached, necessitating the presence of dozens of armed police.

Calling a synagogue a place of “sin” eliminates any doubt. What happened on Thursday wasn’t about Israel’s government, or Israeli policy. It was explicitly an attack on a religion and the people who belong to that religion – at a “SINagogue.”

The sin, then, is committed here by the police, prosecutors and politicians who see that, and shrug.

The real sin is in doing nothing, and letting things get worse.


My latest: the propagandist’s useful idiots

GENOCIDE IS NOT KOSHER.

That is what the sign said, all-caps.  If not for who was holding it, and if not for where it was being held up, the sign would have been the sort of casual anti-Semitism that is seemingly everywhere, these days.

And this needs to be said: the sign was objectionable not because it was critical of the government of Israel. Every single Jew this writer has spoken to, in recent months, is critical of the ultra-conservative government led by Benjamin Netanyahu.

All of them, publicly or privately, blame Netanyahu for permitting Hamas to flourish, and for being unprepared for Hamas’ barbaric assault on October 7.  Every one of them looks forward to Netanyahu being gone after the war. Polling in Israel overwhelmingly shows the same thing.

No, the sign was bad because it explicitly associated genocide (the most serious crime extant) with an important religious precept (the kashrut dietary laws of the Jewish faith).

And what made the sign even worse was this: it was being held up by a child, perhaps six or seven years old, a few feet from a cenotaph in Picton, Ont., this past Saturday. A cenotaph dedicated to those Canadians who gave their lives fighting Naziism.

Who does that? Who gives a child a sign like that – knowing full well that the child does not understand what is either genocidal or kosher – and tells them to stand in a scared place, in a driving cold rain on the Jewish sabbath, to act as a propaganda tool? Who does that?

And what about the actors who showed up at the Oscars, on the very same weekend, wearing pins with the bloody red hand? For them, that question would be different.  We know who decided to wear the pins: Billie Eilish, Jessica Chastain, Richard Gere,Cate Blanchett and Mahershala Ali. Others, too.

They are (arguably) adults, and they made the decision to wear lapel pins bearing the bloody red hand.  Being big stars, being paid obscene amounts of money to pretend to be someone else, we presume they were the ones who decided to display a hand covered in blood for all the cameras to see.

But did they all know what it means?  For those of us in the Irish diaspora, we know very well what it means: it is the symbol of a warrior, covered in the blood of the warrior’s vanquished enemy.  In Ireland’s North, the Red Hand is capitalized, and has been appropriated by both sides in serial campaigns of murder, for decades.

In the Israel-Gaza context, the red hand is an explicit reference to a photo from a lynching and bloody dismemberment of Israeli soldiers by Palestinians during the intifada in 2000. It is a celebration of murder.

Was that what Billie Eilish and others were celebrating? Did they – like the little kid with the anti-Semitic sign in far-away Picton, Ontario – know what they were saying?  Maybe, maybe not.  But the corrosive effect remains the same.

It is propaganda, yes.  But it is inarguably worse than that: it is holding something up to signal that someone else – in this case, Jews – are inferior.  Are bad.  Are worthy of detestation.

The holding up of awful signs, the wearing of awful pins, is happening a lot, these days.  And that is important.  Because, through repetition, hate is made routine.

In Sander van der Linden’s remarkable 2023 book, Foolproof: How Misinformation Infects Our Minds and How to Build Immunity, that sad truth – how evil, per Hannah Arendt, is made banal – is discussed.  Writes van den Linden, a Cambridge social psychology professor:

“Belief in the truth of a claim goes up as a function of repetition.  In others words, the more often you hear a statement, the more ‘true’ it sounds.  This has become known as the illusory truth effect.”

So, real journalism gets dismissed, over and over, as “fake news.” Crowds chant “stop the steal” about elections that were free and fair.  Jewish civilians, wherever they are, however innocent they may be, get falsely accused of “genocide.” Over and over and over.

Hate propaganda becomes effective not when it is said just once.  It becomes effective when it is repeated, endlessly.

Just ask one of the pioneers of the most notorious anti-Semitic campaigns in history, Nazi propaganda minister Josef Goebbels.  Like he said:

Repeat a lie often enough, and it becomes the truth.


PSA

Dear Know Who You Are: If you’ve got a beef with my opinions, raise them directly with me. I can take it (I welcome it). Bitching to someone close to me is sexist and cowardly.

Sincerely, etc.


Divided

The war in the Middle East will end. But I no longer think that the divisions seen everywhere will end anytime soon. They feel permanent.