FIRE FRED HAHN!

"His actions and statements, both online and offline, have repeatedly crossed the line from legitimate political discourse into hate speech, discrimination, and antisemitism."

"It's why we're collectively saying enough is enough. Hahn must go."

Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs

 

"My intention in posting it [antisemitic video] was to call attention to the reality that, while the Russian Federation was barred from participating at the Paris Olympics, the state of Israel was permitted to participate -- which appeared clearly to me to be a double standard."

"My intent was never to associate Jewish people with the violence enacted by the state of Israel. It remains my strongly held view that it is a terrible mistake, and anti-Semitic, to conflate abhorrent actions by the state of Israel with Jewish humanity or identity."

Fred Hahn vice-president, Canadian Union of Public Employees

 

"CUPE's national executive board made the difficult decision to ask for Fred Hahn's resignation because he reposted a deeply problematic video that violated our union's equality statement."

CUPE National Executive Board

"It's vile and shocking. It's unheard of that someone in such a powerful position in Canada can openly disrespect the Jewish community."

"He needs to resign."

Amir Epstein, executive director, Tafsik

A protester calls for CUPE Ontario President Fred Hahn to be fired, in Richmond Hill on Tuesday August 27, 2024. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

The Jewish community in Ontario appears unified in their disappointment and outrage that an individual who is in a prominent position of authority in one of the province's as well as the parent union representing the largest public union in the country whose position is that of a union head took to the Internet to publicly celebrate the ghastly event of October 7 when Hamas terrorist operatives mass-raped, mutilated Israeli girls and women, hunted down and murdered 1,200 Israeli citizens and abducted 250 Israeli children, women and the elderly. Characterizing that signal tragedy as a victory for an underdog.

 

There are many who choose to believe -- because it is a charge that well suits their inner wellspring of antisemitism -- that Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are mercilessly persecuted by Israel, when the living reality is the reverse and always has been, from 1948 to the present. The 'violence' that Hahn attributes to Israel conveniently bypasses the fact that Palestinians in their majority approve of the terrorists among them burning Israeli families alive, tormenting and torturing Israeli girls and women before raping and murdering them.

 

There has never been a dearth of Palestinians prepared to launch attacks against their Israeli neighbours; the grisly suicide bombings of the orchestrated Intifadas following on Yasser Arafat's PLFP and Black September -- plane and ship hijackings and murders of Israelis; Munich Olympics attacks and murder of Israeli athletic Olympic team -- a case in point, respectively. Although Jordan fought a deadly war with the PLO to protect his crown from a Palestinian threat in 1970, its peace treaty with Israel hasn't kept it from involvement in moving deadly weaponry through Jordan for Hamas.

 

Israel Defense Forces entered Gaza following the October 7 bloodbath in response to the Hamas-led, PLFP, Fatah, PIJ terrorist groups inspired by, funded by, trained by and weaponized by Iran and Qatar to declare this war that Fred Hahn deplores as 'Israeli genocide' of Palestinians. Truth remains an unattainable reality for all those preferring to remain oblivious of its presence, for to do otherwise sketches out the deliberate slandering of a state forced to extreme action by its enemies.

 

On October 8, Hahn wrote celebratory accolades of the wonderful exploits of Hamas in butchering Israelis. On August 11, ten months later, he saw fit to share a video on his Facebook account of an Olympic diver identified with a Star of David on his shoulder. The video portrays the diver flipping in the air as he dives, and as he does, becoming a bomb. This is the kind of unnerving sentiment that appears to satisfy twisted minds such as that of Fred Hahn, vice-president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees.

 

And nor does it particularly appear to bother the greater number of union members who purportedly voted this disgusting man back for another term in the office, in a May vote. Giving him the confidence he boasts of that he will not surrender his position in the shame it deserves, for to do so would be to desert the trust of the union membership that relies upon his judgement, despite the order by the union's national executive to do just that. 

Jewish CUPE members are aghast at the union they trusted, they paid fees in its support, they were actively engaged with, leaving them now under the supervision of this raving antisemite, isolated and rejected. Jewish groups have responded to the outrage of a national  union being taken in such an exclusionary, political direction. And Hahn, defiantly states his intention to "continue to fight side by side" with union members; only the union members -- not the board -- he asserts, would decide his fate.

Fred Hahn, president of CUPE Ontario. Photo by Sabrina Bedford /Brockville Recorder and Times