Forewarned Is Forearmed -- Or Is It?

"[Threats to such facilities mark a] major shift [in] Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets like military sites."

"[The suspected plot against the Royal Air Force Fairford base, on September 27 was] not unique. [There have] been other examples [of similar threats to installations] not just in the U.K. but around the world -- most particularly in Iran's own region." 

"[Iran has been forced to rely on] hiring criminals to do their bidding [in Britain and Europe]." 

"Given what we've seen in practise, [Iran has not demonstrated] anywhere near the level of capability [to launch a sophisticated attack on British military bases or other installations]."

"Since I started in this role in 2020, there has been another generational shift. We have again entered a new era of national security – requiring a new response."  

MI-5 Director-General Ken McCallum 

 

"[We will] keep threatening U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide until we've avenged every child in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and the resistance nations." 

"[People should] stay away from Zionist and American interests." 

Iran proxy group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia — or The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Righteous (IMCR)

Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum speaks at Thames House, the headquarters of the U.K.'s Security Service in London, Tuesday Oct. 13, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP, Pool)

 

In its yearly update to dangers facing the United Kingdom and its allies, MI-5's director-general laid out his agency's most pressing concerns among which was the plot uncovered a month earlier as an example, against a British airbase, as forming a scheme plotted by the Islamic Republic of Iran to mount unattributed attacks by in situ groups infiltrating the U.K. and acting as agents for Iran. The attacks have struck high-security targets such as military sites and intelligence facilities. 

 

"The intensity and scale and shape" of the threat emanating from Iran is "shifting at the moment". The linkage reflects fallout from the U.S.-Israel war on Iran seven months earlier, motivating Iran and its Republican Islamic Guard Corps to focus on threatening and attacking American allies. The annual address on security threats included Mr. McCallum's security assessment that Russia "remains aggressor No. 1" against Britain and its allies which links to European support for Ukraine during Russia's now-five-year 'special military operation'. 

 

In recognition of the prevalence of the threats and the nature of the attacks, MI-5 saw the necessity of forming a dedicated new intelligence group linked to the agency meant to focus on potential threats that may in time become a more dire threat not only to the region, but beyond. Advances in artificial intelligence that take into account the possibility of chemical or biological weapons manufacturing guided by AI, and their potential use as instruments of warfare. 

 

Police patrol the perimeter of RAF Fairford as a U.S. Air Force Rockwell B-1 Lancer bomber lands Sept. 28.  Ben Birchall / Press Association via Getty

 

"[Iran has demonstrated that it is] keen on subcontracting its U.K. violence … using criminal proxies to try to intimidate oppositionists, Iranian media organizations, and Israeli sites."

"Sadly, much of this aggression has been aimed at British Jewish communities, with whom I want to express solidarity." 

The interrupted plot against the Fairford airbase is still under investigation by British counterterrorism police. Its occurrence saw the United States evacuate the dozen B-1 bombers it had stationed at the airbase. Recent weeks saw some seven suspects arrested, including five British citizens who were detained soon after midnight on September 27 and subsequently released on bail. The five were in three vans travelling toward the base perimeter, used by U.S. bombers in their strikes on Iran. A nearby farmer was alerted to their suspicious presence and informed police.

 

This was an apprehended incident marking a departure from more recent years' pattern where Iran has been linked to lower-level proxy attacks recruited online to engage in sabotage, arson or stabbings, many of which targeted Jewish communities. Over 50 arrests have been made in the past year in "Iran-linked operations", stated Mr. McCallum. These activities are known to have taken place as well in Canada where Iranian-linked criminals were hired to disrupt life and target Jewish institutions.   

"Many terrorists would dearly love to have some kind of capability with bio, chem or radiological weaponry."

"[If guardrails meant to safeguard the spread of AI fail to gain complete control, a risk presents that] AI could generate novel pathogens not previously seen."

"[A new MI-5] threat centre [was created this year with an aim to focus on such dangers]."

MI-5 Director-General Ken McCallum  

It seems clear enough that what cannot be predicted and what has become a publicly-aired dilemma over increasingly alarming news being released from among the Artificial Intelligence community that bots are striking out on their own -- deliberately taking steps to shield their activities from the notice of their human trainers to plot among themselves and act in swarms disrupting communications while managing to escape the guardrails meant to confine them -- is becoming an entirely new threat on its own. 

 

According to Mr. McCallum, the technology is "supercharging the cybersecurity contest between attackers and defenders". His concern and that of his agency is that AI could enable terrorist networks or state adversaries in the acquisition of  unconventional and extremely toxic and potent weapons that the world must now contemplate contending with. Much, much simpler to deal with challenges posed by state actors in their supercharged yet hard-to-pin-down efforts at world domination.

 

The world is faced with the trifecta of China's and Russia's ambitions on the world stage to prove themselves contenders for the position of superpowers, and the theist-motivated fundamentalism of Islamist conquest exemplified by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxy terrorist groups to fundamentally alter the world's religious, cultural, social, judicial, academic and human rights normalcy from the contemporary struggling against the worldwide threat of infiltration and Muslim population density power of institutional alteration of Western democracy.  

"[Russian military and intelligence services] are once again escalating their attempts at hybrid warfare, [while being careful not to trigger NATO’s Article 5 threshold, in which other countries would be expected to defend their allies]."

"We see them scrambling to pay criminals to do their bidding. The whole aim of hybrid tactics is to try to intimidate us."

"[Within the U.K.’s] multifaceted relationship with China [— Beijing is a major trading partner to London — MI5 has been focused on efforts by the Chinese government] to conduct espionage, coercion or democratic interference."

MI-5 Director-General Ken McCallum  

Police officers at Leipzig Airport in Saxony, Germany, search for a drone Aug. 7. Sebastian Willnow / dpa via AP

 

Canada, Diminished and Faltering

"One could argue that we've lost that unifying sense of right and wrong."

"The very sense of [the] liberal, permissive, non-judgmentally embracing society that our countries were fundamentally founded on is now being openly exploited for the purpose  of reshifting the balance." 

Former Vice-Chief of the Canadian Defence Staff, Mark Norman

 

"Symbolic politics has never been sufficient, it is a sign of weak leadership. Condemnations without enforcement, statements without consequences and gestures without policy are not leadership."

"Canadians do not need additional legislation layered over existing statutes. We need the consistent application of the laws already in force.e"

"Canada is lost and no longer immune. A nation cannot remain open if it forgets how to be a nation. The choice is not between tolerance and cohesion. It is between a confident pluralism anchored in shared civic norms, and a politics of endless accommodation that dissolves the very framework that makes diversity possible."

Larry Maher, CEO, Exigent Foundation

Anti-Israel protesters block a downtown Toronto street to pray as police watch. Photo by Caryma Sa’d/X

 

It took no more than a  decade to fundamentally alter Canada, reverse many of its values, not the least the outstanding human right assurance of equality and rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. With that assurance came the expected responsibility of each member of society to respect the social contract that ensured equal opportunities (if not equal outcomes) to succeed and prosper for Canadian citizens who obeyed Canadian laws and whose experience in the general education system helped them to understand their citizen obligations to the country. 

 

In an earlier era those rights and obligations were unevenly applied and issues of discrimination against minority groups reflected a European heritage of entitlement and belittlement of the exotic 'others' who had made their way into North America, many as refugees fleeing persecution and conflict. Under moderately good governance evinced by leaders who at best understood their own guiding obligations to the people they served, laws were passed that ushered Canada into an era of fair justice and social cohesion.

 

Migrants from abroad who entered Canada in the first half of the 20th century as immigrants from impoverished backgrounds to make a home for themselves in a new country where opportunities abounded worked hard, obeyed laws, and accommodated themselves to a new culture with values that suited their own notions of being and belonging. Canadian authorities refined immigration rules to eventually reflect Canada's needs in a point system that rewarded education, professional qualifications, age suitability and an assessed philosophical fit.

 

A succession of Liberal governments in more recent times gradually morphed toward the kind of liberal progressivism that loosened qualifications and requirements of suitability to join the Canadian population. Sympathy for people searching for haven from authoritarian governments, from endemic poverty, from societal crime rates, from conflict zones opened the gates of entry to Canada wide, including the refugee class and illegal migrants who bypassed normal entrance procedures to declare themselves refugees. 

 

Prime Minister Mark Carney, left, is greeted by Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, centre, as he arrives in Doha on Jan. 18. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

 

The intake swelled, fulfilling what government and business leaders professed to be a need to replace an aging, low-child-bearing population with new recruits to build Canada's working population. Entry to the country no longer relied on screening for adaptability and suitability for integration into the prevailing culture, its values and its laws. To the point where landed immigrants and new citizens openly declared their defiance of those values and accompanying laws, bringing havoc and division and open discrimination to the very streets of the cities throughout the country where they settled in influential numbers.

 

Newcomers to the country felt no loyalty to the country that had adopted them and there were no expectations from government that they should integrate and accept the prevailing social order as it was. Instead religious and ideological divisions erupted and with no amending reaction from government and institutions at any level, those divisions deepened, becoming more publicly expressed, including through deliberate acts of law-breaking.   

 

Canadians of long standing were treated to displays of overt challenges to the  public order in universities and cultural institutions where mass protests took to the streets, bringing foreign campaigns, conflicts, ideological convictions averse to Canada's own, to the fore, with no government intervention at any level. All the while Canada congratulated itself as a bastion of liberal democracy. Politicians rather than applying themselves to Canada's and its populations' defense, eyeing the numbers of voluble protests and the votes they represented, chose appeasement of activist groups.

 

Canadian PM Mark Carney : China's President Xi Jinping AP

 

And from the outside world, lax attention to the actions of foreign powers that invaded Canada's sovereignty through the infiltration of foreign agents acting on their behalf on the social, academic and political levels exercised the 'soft power' of authoritarian regimes and of extremist movements, effectively interfering in Canada's politics as well as the social contract unique to Canada. Russia, China, Iran, 
Qatar, Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood all have made an indelible impact within Canada with their malign presence. 

 

The moral, institutional foundations of Canada's principles of equality and human rights have been assailed by Islamist, Marxist, socialist and other radical engagements in destabilizing Canada, as well as other Western nations they have entered both legally and under the radar. What all these Western nations appear to have in common is an attitude of oblivious disinterest in the interference and subtle changes being wrought in normalizing abnormal social behaviour and its effect on their institutions.

 

The exploitation of liberal societies, priding themselves on their Democratic principles of inclusion appear willing to accept the slow erosion of their adherence to the public weal rather than risk being labelled racist, exclusionary or 'Islamophobic'. Identity politics, moral relativism, and DEI guide governments content to do nothing in response to the unravelling of their nations' stability and social coherence. If there is a solution to Western democracies' inaction in the face of this dilemma, it has not yet shown its face. 

 

Canadian universities have seen a surge of pro-Palestinian protests following similar demonstrations across North America.  University Affairs

 

Historical Wrecking Balls

"We will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make."

"Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists."

U.S. President George W. Bush, post 9/11

 

"Canada condemns Israel's strikes in Qatar -- an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar's sovereignty."

"Regardless of their objectives, such attacks pose a grave risk of escalating conflict throughout the region, and directly imperil efforts to advance peace and security, secure the release of all hostages, and achieve a lasting ceasefire -- efforts in which Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani plays a highly constructive role."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

AFPTV footage shows smoke billowing after Tuesday's explosions in Qatar's capital Doha  Getty Images

 

In 2001, Canada, all the Western world, NATO and the United Nations were 'with' the United States. The international community, those most tied to the United States as democratic allies sent their military forces, their diplomats and NGOs arrived to provide humanitarian services in 2001 when Afghanistan was invaded after its Taliban leaders refused to surrender al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, responsible for the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Towers, the Pentagon and the overpowered terrorists that led to another plane crash in Pennsylvania. 

 

Britain, Spain and France all experienced their own Islamist terror attacks, when the world became familiar with the rise of  'political', 'radicalized' Islam. But no country has ever experienced the level and number of attacks that Israel  has been exposed to -- by its neighbour-states and by terrorist groups fostered, armed, trained and funded by the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Shia theocracy has its laser focus on Israel's destruction, and has never been modest in airing that ambition even in the hallowed chambers of the United Nations whose function is to promote peace among nations.

 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, right, is accompanied by U.S. President Donald Trump, center, at a dinner in the Blue Room of the White House  Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

 

Iran is supported in its aspiration of genocidal obliteration of Jews by Qatar, which acts as a covert bland buffer between the Republic and its Sunni majority neighbours, while presenting itself as a trusted intermediary to the West. Qatar's vast oil-resourced treasury serves as a silver salver to entree in the United States, funding universities and supporting the infiltration of a fellow Islamist generator of antisemitic assaults among the large and growing Muslim diaspora settling in the West, the Muslim Brotherhood. 

 

Qatar has dedicated itself to the stealth promotion of terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, in tandem with the Islamic Republic of Iran. More latterly, Turkey, a risible member of NATO, has joined them in their nefarious schemes against Israel. Both Turkey and Qatar have shielded Islamist terrorism, given them haven, described them as loyal servants of Islam, upholding its most sacred precepts. The Palestinian Authority has done likewise, but it is in sharp competition with Hamas for leadership of the Palestinians.

 

This handout picture released by Qatar’s Amiri Diwan shows Qatar’s Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani (right), meeting with UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan in Doha, on September 10, 2025. (Qatar Amiri Diwan / AFP)

 

Israel, on the other hand, has since its re-emergence as a Jewish state on the geographic terrain of its ancestral heritage, has been forced repeatedly to emphasize its right of existence by defending itself militarily and in the process defeating its regional enemies. The attacks, once conducted by states now reconciled to Israel's indomitable presence, have been dominated by death-cult groups whose focus is trained solely on Israel's dismemberment while the Muslim Brotherhood and indeed Iran/Qatar have longer-range missions; world domination in the name of Islam, the 'religion of peace'. 

 

And it is the Islamist powers that Canada, France, Spain, Ireland, Britain, Norway, Australia and others cater to. Not only because they fail to look behind and beyond the facade spoonfed them by skilled propagandists, but as a result of having been flooded by emigrants, migrants and refugees from the Islamic world who now constitute in numbers a powerful incentive to cater to them as a voting bloc. They take seriously Qatar's presentation as a skilled mediator in talks between embattled Israel and the Palestinian terror group Hamas whose leaders reside in palatial comfort far from the fray while dictating to the Palestinian population to remain defiant (as does certainly the Palestinian Authority/Fatah/Mahmoud Abbas) and accept their sublime fate as martyrs for Islam.

 

This handout picture provided by the Palestinian Authority's press office shows Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (L) received by Qatar's Deputy Prime Minister Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani upon arrival in Doha on September 14, 2025, ahead of an Arab-Islamic emergency summit. (Thaer GHANAIM / PPO / AFP)

 

It is these sanctimonious actors presenting themselves as innocent of any sinister, underhanded plans to disrupt the West, to replace democracy and rule of law with Islamist Sharia law, while in practise inciting hate and suspicion and infecting a wide segment of the West with the viral affliction of violent antisemitism that have gained the support of those who -- as defenders of Judeo-Christian values should be alert to the danger posed -- cite Israel and its presence in the Middle East as the problem, and have abandoned Israel and their own national Jewish populations to a fate they cannot contemplate, soon to arrive on their own shores.

 

Qatar's Emir is furious that Israel attacked Doha for the purpose of using stealth bombers to pinpoint the presence of elite leaders of Hamas and eliminate them. Invoking the sanctity of the state against attacks on its sovereignty, he is adamant that the international community must sanction and punish Israel for this violation of international law. In fact, international law fully supports such an attack on any country that harbors and shields terrorists threatening another nation. Even so, Qatar's Emir has the ear of those like Canada's Prime Minister Carney, eager to support Qatar and condemn Israel.

 

Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thanii chairs a preparatory meeting in Doha on September 14, 2025 [Qatar's Ministry of Foreign Affairs via AFP]

 

Canada's Liberal Government, True to Form

 

"[It was] irresponsible and unacceptable [that Heritage Canada] conducted no research or background checks before they distributed this money]."

"If the government cannot conduct a simple background check on the institutions they distribute money to, they need to reconsider their use of grants and contributions."

"According to Heritage Canada’s own Departmental Reports, in 2020-21 they employed 194 full-time employees and spent $134,607,209 to promote diversity and inclusion. How is it possible with those resources that they did not see fit to evaluate an organization before deciding to grant it $133,000?"

Shadow Minister for Canadian Heritage, MP John Nater

 

"Regardless of the hate and propaganda he promotes, for years [Marouf] was able to sell himself to the government as a legitimate enterprise, regardless of how absolutely offensive his communications were. This is problematic."

"It is profoundly troubling that this individual was supported and enabled in his hate speech, and the government needs to overhaul whatever problem is in these programs."

Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, director of policy, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies 

Laith Marouf   Photo by Peter McCabe/The Gazette

The man at the centre of this controversy in 2022, Laith Marouf, is a flaming antisemite and all-'round racist. He was the top consultant for the Community Media Advocacy Center (CMAC); in fact its founder and only 'employee'. He was given to referring to Jews as 'bags of human feces' deserving of a 'bullet to the head'. He posted regularly on social media sites such as X, and the quality and quantity of those posts were readily available for viewing in a strictly cursory, casual search. Yet, even though a Liberal MP had flagged the content of these posts to then-Minister of Canadian Heritage Ahmed Hussen, they were dismissed. 

The Community Media Advocacy Center in the six years prior to and including the 2022 revelations, received contracts from the federal government valued at $500 million representing cost support, research and advocacy (for equity and diversity programs) from the Canadian federal broadcasting agency. When the scandal of the absurdity and outrage of the federal government having hired a racist consultant to operate training sessions in anti-racism for government employees led to the contract's withdrawal and attempts to recover the funding given the CMAC, little was heard of this man and his agency again.

Now it has been revealed that he was recently arrested, then released by Lebanon's Military Intelligence Directorate, in an area adjacent to the border with Israel. The restricted area that this took place in was a border town in Lebanon, called Mais al-Jabal. Marouf had evidently failed to present the required media credentials. Held incommunicado under "extensive interrogation" at Lebanon's Defense Ministry's headquarters just outside Beirut, he was released on Tuesday, evidently without charges or conditions. 

 

This man, who was known to refer to Quebecers as 'frogs', Black people as slaves, and characterizing Israelis as 'loud-mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists' who would one day be forced to 'go back to where they came from' had been suspended from X for hateful commentary and advocating violence. He had regularly appeared as a pundit for Iran's Press TV and the Kremlin's Sputnik propaganda platform as a supporter of the Assad regime in Syria. He began his career, in violent 'anti-Zionist' protests at Concordia University decades earlier as the son of a Syrian diplomat in Montreal. 

 

After Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, Marouf's Community Media Advocacy Centre collected some $517,480 in Broadcast Participation Fund grants. Once the uproar over his having been hired as an expert anti-racist, prepared to school federal civil servants in equity and diversity had subsided from the public eye and ear, Heritage Canada which had hired him, saw their officials undergoing workshops on identifying antisemitism, with instructions on identifying racists and antisemites among grant applicants.

 

Marouf had busied himself with pro-Hezbollah 'Free Palestine Television' in Beirut, insisting his FPTV is "unaffiliated with any political party or groups", while relying heavily on interviews with fellow 'anti-Zionists', leading to sympathetic coverage of the problems facing Hezbollah after it decided to join Hamas in its conflict with the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, post-7 October 2023. Combat videos featuring Hamas, the Mujahideen Brigades and the Al-Qassam (IRGC) Brigades figured large in Marouf's FPTV series.

 

Mais al-Jabal, the border town where Marouf was picked up on Sunday, was a Hezbollah stronghold. The IDF last October destroyed lookout posts and weapons caches and tunnels in the town, mere metres from the Israeli border. On Marouf's arrival in Mais al-Jabal, he was detained at a checkpoint, and informed he lacked authorization to be in the area. Taken to a detention centre, his driver, Hadi Hoteit, a FPTV producer and correspondent for Tehran's Press TV, was released. 

 

View overlooking the Hula Valley and the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.  Alexey Protasov/stock.adobe.com

 

About 20 kilometres from Israel's northernmost city Kiryat Shmona, Mais al-Jabal is in a strategic location, one that Hezbollah used to rain rockets down over the Golan Heights to Jewish communities below. About 22,000 Israelis lived in Kiryat Shmonia before Hezbollah joined Hamas's war on Israel in October 2023. At least fifty percent of the city's buildings had been destroyed by Hezbollah rockets, its population evacuated to temporary safety in central Israel. 

 

Israeli reserve soldiers take part in a military drill in the Golan Heights, northern Israel, May 8, 2024

(photo credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)

 

"[FPTV launched] with the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Flood — the name Hamas and other Palestinian groups have given to the Oct. 7 massacre. The online station is based out of Lebanon, staffed primarily by students, professors and community members."

"FPTV’s goal is to support the resistance from a media standpoint and to incite free peoples to move and fight Zionism and imperialism wherever they exist."

"Knowing that there is a huge gap left in news programming in English that is supportive of resistance and the right to liberation … we decided to bring together our communities here to start a project, a community television station."

FPTV Website 

 

"The Middle East Forum, an American conservative think tank, published a report that FPTV had links to the Lebanon-based group Al-Tajammu. According to Michael Barak, a researcher at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Israel’s Reichmann University, Al-Tajammu is “an international pro-Iranian platform to leverage the resistance axis against the U.S., Israel and their allies”."

"Marouf described the attacks on Al-Tajammu as “frivolous” and accused the Middle East Forum of being a “racist organization”."

National Post 

 

 

Odd Man Out -- Singing From a Different Hymnal

"When we talk about [Israel's] ability to defend [itself], certainly that would include missile launch sites, military installations, airfields from which these attacks are being launched."

"Israel has a right to defend itself against such attacks and diminish Iran's capabilities of attacking them."

"I think [retaliation] needs to be carefully considered because that isn't the purpose of military response from Israel, but rather to diminish Iran's ability to continue to attack them."

"Israel has a right] to knock those missiles down from the sky [and] target the source of those missiles."

Federal Defence Minister Bill Blair

Minister of National Defence Bill Blair   Canadian Press

"We absolutely need to make sure that this does not become a full-scale war, and that's why we need a ceasefire."

"We need this war to stop."

"[Escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran could plunge the region into] all-out war."

"Canada's role right now, Canada's goal, is to make sure that there's no full-scale war in the Middle East, and so that's why we'll continue to engage diplomatically."

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly 

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says Canada’s goal right now ‘is to make sure there is no full-scale war in the Middle East.’  Still from video/CBC

Under the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau the federal Cabinet is unusually heavy with Muslim ministers and Members of Parliament, all of whom make no secret of their hostility toward Israel and their support for Palestinians and that includes the terrorist groups who claim to represent the best interests of Palestinians. Among their Canadian supporters these are 'freedom fighters' against Israeli oppression and occupation, an 'occupation' necessitated by the Palestinian penchant for lethal violence against Israel and its population.

In the Liberal caucus and Cabinet there are a few who express a level of empathy for Israel facing an existential dilemma courtesy of Palestinian terrorism, made more acute in the public eye since the horrors of the October 7 massacre, mass rape and abduction of hundreds of Israelis into Gaza as  hostages. Anthony Housefather, Marco Mendicino and Bill Blair have on occasion, defied the Liberal insistence that a 'ceasefire' is called for, effectively giving Palestinian terrorist groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad the opportunity to regroup, rearm and recruit to continue its promise to destroy Israel.

Both Justin Trudeau and Melanie Joly have made it clear that nothing is clear about their position regarding Israel's right to exist; on the one hand declaring Israel has every right to defend itself, on the other placing a moratorium on defensive weapons from Canada to Israel, (playing to the Canadian Muslim voting bloc, since Canada does not supply Israel with weapons to begin with) and constant declarations of 'proportionality' and 'ceasefire', going so far as to abandon Canada's traditional position at the UN in support of Israel, to vote against Israel.

The barbaric events of October 7, 2023 in their horrifyingly sadistic details were documented in videos by Hamas terrorists, demonstrating the exultation felt by the thousands of terrorists that flooded Israel's southern border with Gaza in the unfolding bloodbath of savage intensity. Despite the appalling details that have been revealed of sub-human actions against innocent civilians from infants to the elderly, Israel's support has been diminished in the rush to condemn it for its response to the pogrom; a response permitted any other country, but not Israel.

Even Bill Blair, Canada's Minister of Defense, delivers responses that are both supportive of Israel and negatively contradictory as he hews to the Liberal government's playlist. On the one hand he supports the right of the Jewish State to do whatever it considers is required to defend itself from attacks by Iran, including attacks on its oil and gas infrastructure as representing an "appropriate" response to the barrage of missiles unleashed by Tehran against Israel. Yet on other occasions he will withhold approval.

At times declarations of support issuing from Mr. Blair are in direct contradiction to those aired by both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly. On the previous April occasion when Iran bombarded Israel, Joly urged the Jewish State to "take the win" without retaliating. Canada, obviously has never been besieged on its borders by groups of bloodthirsty terrorists determined to destroy the country and savage its population; 'advice' comes easy to those who have no intimate knowledge of terrorism's effects.

Still from video    CNN

Unintended Consequences and its Victims

"It's unexplainable. Suddenly they said, 'Now you can't come'."
"Most of us cannot go back to Iran; we're in complete despair. We are afraid they will give us a sentence [the Iranian regime view them as traitors, sentence them accordingly]. They could put us in jail."
H. Avakian, 35, Armenian Christian, Iranian refugee, Austria

"[The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran engages in] systematic, ongoing and egregious violations of religious freedom, including prolonged detention, torture and executions based primarily or entirely upon the religion of the accused."
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom

Terraces of the Baha'i Gardens in Haifa overlooking the Mediterranean Sea (Oren Fixler/Flash90)

Islam has a controversial and peculiarly polarized relationship with other religions. On one hand, it formally recognizes Judaism and Christianity as sharing some of Islam's precepts, even while reality is that Islam has lifted its sacred precepts from the religions it considers its predecessor 'try-outs' by a God dissatisfied with the earlier iterations, giving his final stamp of approval to the third, Islam, and on the other hand reserving the right to have a wholly negative view of their sacred legality, having spurned the Prophet's invitation to abandon Judaism and Christianity and submit to Islam as Allah has decreed.

So, even while Iran's Constitution proclaims Shiite Islam the official state religion, shunning Sunni Islam as an illegitimate version of true Islam, recognizing Christians, Jews and Zoroastrians as minority religions given Iranian protection, in point of fact the Republic goes out of its way to violate its own stated patronizing position on the protected status it so magnanimously offers religions with a connection to Islam, purporting to be separately quasi-divine, but in actual fact their presence an affront to Islam not taken lightly.

An Iranian woman prays as she attends Christmas Eve mass at the St Joseph Armenian Catholic church in Tehran on Dec. 24, 2016. (Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images)

According to the U.S. Commission, Iranian authorities have detained hundreds of Christians between the years 2010 and 2016. President Suhaib Nashi of the Mandaean Society of American states his fears for a number of Mandaean families who have temporarily established themselves as Iranians looking for asylum, hoping to be re-united with family members living in the United States. They have fled Iranian persecution in hopes of finding a place for themselves where their religion is treated with respect and equality among others.

And they felt so assured there would be a place for them in the United States that they liquidated all their holdings, left their professions and cut themselves away from their place of birth in Iran in a search for freedom for themselves and their families. They travelled to Austria as a safe transit site there to await the processing of their visas enabling them to arrive in the United States to begin their lives anew there. They are still waiting, some one hundred Iranian Christians a year later, their savings drained as they awaited applications for refugee status to be processed.

A return to Iran in recognition of U.S. failure to regard them as refugees, validating their requests and allowing them to emigrate to America, would result in their lives being endangered since the government of Iran regards them as enemies of the state. The 1989 U.S. law, the Lautenberg Amendment offers safe haven to persecuted religious minorities. Among those awaiting word from the U.S. that they may proceed as requested, are ethnic Armenian and Assyrian Christians, Mandaeans and Zoroastrians who have been mostly sponsored by relatives in the U.S.

Jewish Iranians casts their vote at a synagogue used as a polling station for the Jewish community in Tehran on February 26, 2016. AFP

Some 30,000 Iranians, members of the Jewish, Mandaean, Zoroastrian and Baha'i communities, all persecuted minorities in the Islamic Republic of Iran have received refugee status enabling them to settle in the United States since the Lautenberg Amendment saw expansion to include Iranians, in 2004. It is from among these families' relatives that those who see their futile applications being denied by U.S. authorities are being denied hope for the future.


One of the families already conditionally approved for refugee status later received a notice of ineligibility which stated their application "has been denied as a matter of discretion". Recent changes in the U.S. refugee admissions programs resulted, according to a State Department spokeswoman, in "a greater number of denials in the Vienna refugee program", leaving the U.S. Austria and others to work in tandem hoping to find alternatives for the anxiously waiting groups of Iranian Christians.

Image: Omar Marques / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images

Asylum seekers join 2016 protests in Vienna, Austria.

 

Taqiyya: Islamic doctrine of deceit

"Contrary to what many think, that we are only discussing one issue, it is not correct. We are discussing many issues and nothing is agreed until everything is agreed."
"Contrary to what the Iranians are saying with regard to 90 percent of an accord being done, that's not correct. We are not close to an agreement."
"We are pretty far away. There are a lot of issues that still need to be resolved. The Iranians must make substantial concessions."
"Research and development currently has become the most critical and difficult issue, and there won’t be an accord if the Iranians don’t back down."

"They [Iranian negotiators] insist they have to go immediately [sanctions targeting nuclear program]. No way. It is out of the question."
European negotiator demanding anonymity

Iran's FM Zarif (C on left) and head of the AEO of Iran Salehi (C on right) with colleagues in Lausanne March 19, 2015 . (photo credit:REUTERS)

"The main issues have been closed. I hope that in the remaining time we can close this."
"[One] final item still missing; that resolved] we can say that on technical issues, things are clear on both sides."
"Of course there are many details, but I can say that, as a whole, I am optimistic [of a deal before the deadline]."
Ali Akhbar Salehi, Iranian nuclear chief

"[A comprehensive accord would result in] phased, proportionate [relief from sanctions but such relief could be reversed should the Islamic republic violate any final deal]."

"[That is simply not true] Iran crank up and develop a bomb when the deal ends]. To the contrary, Iran would be prohibited from developing a nuclear weapon in perpetuity -– and we would have a much greater ability to detect any effort by Iran to do so."

"[Some constraints could be lifted for a] significant period [others would last] indefinitely, including a stringent and intrusive monitoring and inspections regime [by the IAEA]."

"That [restrictions on centrifuges] would provide us more than enough time to detect and act on any Iranian transgression. The critical question of the possible military dimension of Iran's program... would have to be part of any agreement." 

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken

This testimony from Mr. Blinken at a hearing of the  House Foreign Affairs Committee was greeted by both Democrats and Republicans present with an lively degree of skepticism, with some snorting that the reality of the situation has been that the Islamic Republic of Iran has in the past "been violating those commitment for years". They pointed out as well of the necessity that restrictions be included on the country's robust and threatening ballistic missile program in any nuclear deal as insurance against Iran using them to carry atomic bombs.

Iran's representatives appear to believe, however, that they have the upper hand as their top nuclear official claimed that the main disagreements between his government and the American negotiators and the other partners in the P-5+1 team -- France, Britain, China and Russia, plus Germany -- have been resolved and that little is left to iron out to meet the end-of-March deadline for the framework deal. That deal to place reliable limitations on Iran's nuclear activities to restrict them to what Iran insists they're intended for; strictly peaceful energy needs and medical isotope production.

The West would then be prepared to proportionally release Iran from the economically crippling sanctions. Enabling Iran to get on with its other programs, funding, training and arming Shia non-state and state militias alike to bring them ever more comfortably into its sphere of influence from the Middle East to North Africa and even Latin America and Asia; Iran has been growing influential tentacles. (Strangely enough, although Iran has found its economy strangled, it has managed to continue developing its long-range rockets, and to fund its terrorist proxies.)

The final agreement to be obtained by the end of June looks ever more possible, and the Iranians are smiling broadly. On the other hand, another unnamed but senior American official claims the sides, though having made progress, still face a struggle in eliminating differences on expectations for Tehran to meet before a gradual end to sanctions can be counted on. The disputes focus mostly on technical issues such as the centrifuge numbers Iran could be permitted to operate.

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz joined the talks along with Mr. Salehi in an attempt to reason out technical differences. Republicans in the U.S. continue to argue their case that a deal with the Republic would never be sufficient to guarantee the country that has become so skilled in evading demands over its ambitions for nuclear status would run roughshod over any promises it makes to quell international suspicion over its true plans.

Iranian missiles are displayed at a park in northern Tehran (AFP Photo/Atta Kenare)

This is a country, after all, that has threatened another country in the Middle East with annihilation, not merely once in the hallowed halls of the United Nations, but frequently, expressed by the Grand Ayatollah Khamenei himself as well on occasion. Iran's designs for the Middle East as one of the only two non-Arab countries, to dominate all other Muslim countries through its Shi'ite brand of apocalyptic Salafist Islamism represents to the Sunni-majority countries a looming threat.

Which is why the U.S. Republicans hold the position that such an agreement would be unenforceable, and Iran would inevitably reach the status it so craves, as a nuclear-armed state. And the rush would be on for Saudi Arabia, Egypt and perhaps others to claim their own self-defence needs in the hopes of nuclear deterrence. And while President Omama continues to insist that his administration would never agree to any deal that would permit Iran to acquire nuclear weapons, his words ring hollow against the actions of the past and Iran's slippery reputation for taqqiya.

Otherwise known as the kind of deceit permitted in Islam to throw one's enemies off track and gain the desired advantage -- at any cost.

UN Watch BriefingLatest from the United Nations  Vol. 510  |  October 28, 2014

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UN Watch forum on Iran to feature lawyer of 26-year-old Reyhaneh Jabbari, who was executed by Iran on Saturday Victims, activists, experts to expose violations on eve of Iran's UN review     Geneva Residents: To request an invitation for the UN Watch forum on Iran this Thursday, which will take place at the UN in Geneva from 12:00 noon to 2:00 pm, please write to briefing@unwatch.org. GENEVA,  Oct. 28, 2014 - One day before Iran goes before a United Nations examination of its human rights record, the non-governmental organization UN Watch will convene an international forum of Iranian victims, activists and experts this Thursday, October 30th, to expose gross and systematic violations that are covered up in the regime's written submission to the UN review session. (See excerpts below.) The UN Watch parallel event, to take place inside the UN's European headquarters at the Palais de Nations in Geneva, will feature leading figures on the subject of human rights in Iran: Mohammad Mostafaei - Iranian human rights lawyer who was forced to flee the country after being persecuted by the authorities for his defense of individuals facing the death penalty. Mr. Mostafei was the first lawyer of Reyhaneh Jabbari, a 26-year-old woman who was just executed by Iran on Saturday for allegedly killing the man who was trying to rape her. Mr. Mostafaei is the founder and director of Norway's Universal Tolerance Organization. In 2011, he was awarded PEN's Ossietzky Prize. Sepideh Pooraghaiee - Iranian journalist and human rights activist who was jailed for 110 days in Tehran's notorious Evin Prison. Ms.  Pooraghaiee recently fled Iran, finding asylum in France, after she was threatened by the government for reporting on its crackdown against peaceful protesters. "I was in danger because I know the truth," she says. "And it was bad for them." Marina Nemat - Iranian dissident, former prisoner of conscience and best-selling author, now living in Canada, who was jailed as a political prisoner in Tehran when she was only 16 years old. During her incarceration for two years in the infamous Evin Prison, she was interrogated, tortured, faced execution, and was raped by a prison guard who she was coerced to marry. Ms. Nemat was the recipient of the European Parliament’s inaugural Human Dignity Prize in 2007, and in 2014 was awarded UN Watch's Morris B. Abram Human Rights Award. Sohrab Ahmari - London-based editorial page writer for the Wall Street Journal. Born in Tehran, Mr. Ahmari was interrogated by Iranian security officials as a child when he accidentally brought a Star Wars video cassette to school. He holds a law degree from Northeastern University and previously served as a nonresident fellow at the Henry Jackson Society. An alumnus of Teach for America, Mr. Ahmari is co-editor of "Arab Spring Dreams," an anthology of essays by young dissidents in the Middle East (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).   ____________________ Excerpts from Iran's Report to this Friday's UN Review Session ● “The laws of Iran repudiate all forms of torture.” ● “Iran has tirelessly worked to advance women’s rights.” ● "In order to protect the rights of the people, the Supreme Leader has communicated the following general policies in 2014: [...] the need to fulfill the legal and religious rights of women... the protection of legitimate freedoms and the protection of the nation’s fundamental rights." ● “In all stages of prosecution, including detection, investigation and implementation of sentence – irrespective of race, religion, gender or ethnicity – fairness is of paramount importance.” ● “Consistent with article 14 of the Constitution, the Government is required to treat non-Muslims with respect and Islamic justice and equity, and to respect their human rights. ● “Alongside the recognized religious minorities, the rights of all citizens – including the followers of the Baha’i sect – are respected.”

Iran: Happy video dancers sentenced to 91 lashes and jail

BBC News online -- 19 September 2014

The participants were shown on state television saying they had been duped into taking part

Six Iranians arrested for appearing in a video dancing to Pharrell Williams' song Happy have been sentenced to up to one year in prison and 91 lashes, their lawyer says.

The sentences were suspended for three years, meaning they will not go to prison unless they reoffend, he adds.

The video shows three men and three unveiled women dancing on the streets and rooftops of Tehran.
In six months, it has been viewed by over one million people on YouTube.

The majority of people involved in the video were sentenced to six months in prison, with one member of the group given one year, lawyer Farshid Rofugaran was quoted by Iran Wire as saying.
The "Happy we are from Tehran" video was brought to the attention of the Iranian authorities in May, after receiving more than 150,000 views.

Members of the group behind the video were subsequently arrested by Iranian police for violating Islamic laws of the country, which prohibit dancing with members of the opposite sex and women from appearing without a headscarf.

They later appeared on state-run TV saying they were actors who had been tricked into make the Happy video for an audition.

The arrests drew condemnation from international rights groups and sparked a social media campaign calling for their release.

Williams, whose song was nominated for an Oscar earlier this year, also protested at the arrests.
"It is beyond sad that these kids were arrested for trying to spread happiness," he wrote on Facebook.