Normalizing Violent Antisemitism

"High levels of antisemitism have become a normalized feature in societies with large Jewish minorities."

"The data raise concern that a high level of antisemitic incidents is becoming a normalized reality." 

"The label of antisemitism is harsh and should be applied only after careful consideration and based on solid criteria."

"The peak in the number of incidents was recorded in the immediate aftermath of the 7 October attack, after which we began to see a downward trend. But unfortunately, that trend did not continue in 2025."  

Uriya Shavit, chief editor, Tel Aviv University annual report 

Survivor Saul Reichert, third from left, and his family light a candle at Toronto's Holocaust memorial event, April 13, 2026. (Credit: Shay Markowitz, for the Toronto Holocaust Museum)

"Offenders align with two main ideological orientations."

"They are predominantly Christian white supremacists or Muslims who apply antisemitism as a response to grievances about Middle Eastern political developments."

"[The] most worrying phenomenon [of the past year had been the] normalisation of antisemitic rhetoric in American political discourse."

"[US President Donald Trump had] tolerated, as no contemporary president has, deep-seated, loathsome antisemites within his camp, and continues to do so for cynical political reasons."

"The result is a new culture of everything-goes that is undermining the sense that Jews have had for decades that their future in America is secure."

Tel Aviv University annual report  

The attack at Sydney's Bondi Beach killed 15 members of the Jewish Community.  Getty Images

 

According to an annual study released on Monday, coinciding with the Shoah Day of Remembrance, 2025 distinguished itself as the most violent year in thirty, for Jews facing a resurgence of global antisemitism. The study pointed out that Canada, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy and Australia had all posted notable increases in antisemitic incidents reported in 2025. In the United States and France, irrespective of notable physical attacks on Jewish targets, the report found the number of antisemitic incidents there declined.

 

Violence against Jews saw a spike beginning after the  Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack in southern Israel when an estimated 6 thousand terrorists flooded across from Gaza into Israel, followed by ordinary Palestinian citizens, all of whom committed barbaric, sadistic acts of rape, torture, burning entire families alive in their homes, slaughtering over a thousand civilians, foreign farm workers, children and the elderly, while taking infants, their parents and grandparents, women and men hostage into Gaza.

When Israel mobilized the Israel Defense Forces to enter Gaza to search for Hamas leaders, their operatives, and those of Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, all involved in the heinous bloodshed, the world -- initially shocked at the carnage committed in Israel -- turned against Israeli reprisal against the terrorists, despite the military doing its utmost to spare civilian lives through pre-strike alerts and organized population moves out of harm's way.

A sign reading "Jewish Lives Should Matter, Too" is seen at the floral tributes area outside Bondi Pavilion in Sydney on Dec. 18, 2025, to honour victims of the Bondi Beach shooting. The attack at Bondi Beach on Dec.14 was one of the deadliest in Australian history. Photo by DAVID GRAY / AFP via Getty Images 

 

In Sydney, Australia, a Muslim father and son duo launched a deadly attack on Bondi Beach, killing 15 members of the Jewish community that had gathered in December to celebrate Hannukah. Two antisemitic attacks in the United States in Washington, D.C. and Colorado were mounted, while in Britain two people were murdered at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the most sacred day in Judaism's High Holy Days.

 

Tel Aviv University's Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, alongside the Irwin Cotler Institute for Democracy, Human Rights and Justice annually release their report on antisemitism, coinciding with Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day, the day that serves as a national memorial for the six million Jewish children, women and men whose lives were systematically obliterated in a state mechanism deployed to destroy Europe's Jews. 

 

An increase in antisemitic attacks resulting in physical harm is tracked annually to produce each year's report. This report found that 2025 represented the deadliest year for such attacks since 1994, when a Jewish community centre in Argentina (Asociación Mutual Israelita Argentina),was bombed, where 85 people died and over 300 were wounded. A suicide-bombing attributed to Islamic Jihad/Hezbollah, the Islamic State of Iran's proxy terrorist groups in Lebanon. 

 

Since 2023, the incidents of viral antisemitism have soared, in comparison to those committed in 2022 Incidents that range from physical violence and vandalism to verbal threats and harassment on social media are all tracked by researchers who produce the final report. The report relies on statistics based on reports from police, national authorities, and local Jewish communities.

 

In Canada alone, to cite one country in isolation from others, the number of incidents rose from 6,219 committed in 2024, to 6,800 in 2025, representing a number over three times steeper than in 2022 -- pre-October 7's Palestinian terrorist horde attacking Israeli farming communities and a nearby musical festival where over 370 young festival-goers, men and women were raped and murdered. 

Some might question why the report failed to address the phenomenon of mass protests on the streets of Europe and North America by Palestinian and Muslim groups that immediately began accusing Israel of 'genocide' in its terrorist-seeking foray into Gaza, where masked, keffiyeh-clad 'protesters' issued threats against Israel and harassed, hounded and threatened diaspora-citizen Jews. Where in Canada, synagogues, Jewish parochial schools, and private businesses owned by Jews were vandalized and shot up.  

 

Rabbi Yossi Friedman speaks to people gathering at a flower memorial by the Bondi Pavilion at Bondi Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, following Sunday’s shooting in Sydney, Australia. (AP Photo/Mark Baker)

 

 

Advocating for Better Patient Care in Canada

"Advocating for better patient care, health system reform, and physician rights is a core physician competency and professional responsibility."

"[The organization] unequivocally condemns all forms of workplace harassment, bullying and intimidation of emergency physicians by organizational and system-level administrators, colleagues, medical leadership, health system officials and politicians."

"[Harassment creates] toxic work environments [while undermining patient safety and contributing to physician burnout]."

Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians

 

"It was the perfect storm of overcrowding in the hospital and the emergency department, staff shortages, too many sick patients and too few available ER [emergency room] beds."

"We talk about cracks in the system. But this is when the roof has fallen in. It truly has failed when we can't treat the sickest patients in our emergency department in a timely manner."

Kaitlin Stockton, British Columbia emergency physician

 

"The bullying and harassment, unfortunately, is done by all levels -- by managers, by anybody in admin; it's been done by very senior physicians who hold administrative positions, as well as administrators who hold positions of power."

"Basically, they set up the conditions for constructive dismissal using everything they can. It's the slow bleed out of a care provider. They make it impossible to work. And we've seen that: You ask any physician who's been around for a while. We've seen that."

"The  ORs [operating rooms] can shut down at four o'clock, five o'clock, unless there's an emergency. The [wards upstairs] can say, 'No, we're full', because they have safety concerns, and rightly so."

"The emergency, we never close our doors."

Dr. Trevor Jain, emergency physician, Prince Edward Island 

Across Canada, emergency rooms are routinely operating beyond 100 per cent capacity. Photo by John Mahoney/Postmedia

 

Emergency doctors in Canada have struck a position, demanding protection against harassment and bullying by administration when they speak out about their experiences as responsible physicians struggling with an increasingly impossible situation in trying to treat people who show up at hospital emergency rooms hoping for medical attention, but finding hugely extended wait times because there are too few doctors available, nurses run off their feet, and an increasing population making more demands than ever on the country's universal health care system.

 

Physicians (and nursing staff) witnessing people in agony of pain, uncertainty and fear and feeling themselves unable to respond adequately as they are meant to do, under the weight of their belief in the Hippocratic Oath, do their utmost and frustratingly find it is never enough to stem the rising tide of  health service inadequacy in Canada. When doctors facing situations of pending death should attention not immediately be shifted to those suffering and waiting, raise their voices about unreported deaths resulting from dangerous ER overcrowding, they become themselves victimized by hospital administrators who want to hush up any pending controversy. 

 

"The plethora and huge amount of harassment and bullying emergency physicians are experiencing across the country for shedding light on dangerous overcrowding conditions, lack of [patient] flow and a pandemic of  unreported deaths in our waiting rooms" has led the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians to launch a demand for "effective and enforced" whistleblower protection for physicians who risk personal and professional persecution when they are driven by compassion and caring for the patients under medical duress whose lives are put at risk by such medical inadequacies.  

 

A new report finds that deaths while waiting for medical procedures is up 64 per cent over the last five years in Canada. Photo by Getty Images

 

The Fraser Health Authority, as an example, was sued by B.C. emergency doctor Kaitlin Stockton after she was essentially fired following the posting of a sign in a Port Moody, B.C. ER in 2024, to alert patients of unacceptable the pending wait times they faced. Although Dr. Stockton was one among a handful of colleagues who posted the warning, she was singled out, bullied and threatened once the story of the sign became fodder for area news outlets. Dr. Stockton stated she was threatened and harassed for speaking out and for asking the hospital to transfer admitted patients to various areas of the hospital and call "Code orange" to respond to incoming patients. 

 

Dr. Paul Parks, an Alberta  emergency physician, reported a "near-miss" with  a patient having chest pain, examined while standing in a hallway, no empty stretchers available. The patient was found to have a life-threatening blood clot. In another instance, a woman in her 50s in a "confused/altered" state, unable to walk, arrived at an Alberta ER. "She was flagged for MD assessment still confused after 4 hours waiting in a wheelchair. It became clear something was terribly wrong when she was in a proper treatment space; a CT scan showed a  bad bleed in her brain, requiring emergency intubation and transfer for neurosurgery. She could have easily died waiting for care", stated Dr. Parks.  

 

"There is still a tonne of fear around physicians being retaliated against, losing their job, losing their licence. You lose your licence, you're done. Your career is over."

"But if people can't rely on health-care providers to be their voices, especially those who can't advocate for themselves, who is going to advocate for them?"

"[Whistleblower legislation isn't enough]; It needs to be visible, and it needs to be enforced."

Dr. Kaitlin Stockton 

 

"So, when you walk into the waiting room and there's people lying on the floor, people leaning against the walls, people in distress, people who don't have a family doctor, people with post-op complications, 84-year-olds waiting 12 hours -- that should be a huge red flag that multiple canaries have died and the system is in distress."
"You can't access primary care? 'Go to emerg'. Postop problems from the operation yesterday? Go to emerg. 'I can't look after my loved one anymore'? Go to emerg. A nursing home says, 'This patient has become too difficult for us to manage'? Go to emerg."

"We've become the 'easy button' for the Canadian healthcare system."

Dr. Trevor Jain  

Patients left in the hallway due to an at capacity emergency room at the Humber River Hospital in Toronto. Photo by Nathan Denette /The Canadian Press

 

Providing Evidence of Violent Repression by Government a Criminal Offence in Tanzania

"The killings were pre-planned to target regions that are known to be politically active, those that are critics of the ruling party. "

"Following people to their homes and killing them amounts to a massacre."

Tanganyika Law Society President Boniface Mwabukusi

 

"People in the government are in shock... there's disbelief,"

"Nobody has the guts to talk... that's the sad part of it. But people do whisper."

"We really don't know what to do. Do we want more demos? No, because the youth are going to be executed again." 

"[Hassan's son, Abdul, has] a private militia and most of the people believe that's the one involved in the abductions from the beginning."

 "Why are you abducting a 20-year-old kid just because they criticized you? You're the president, for crying out loud!" 

Government official, unnamed for protection

 

"There's a very, very tiny cabal who is informing and influencing the president and running the country."

"It's unprecedented and very un-Tanzanian. [Everyone else] has been completely frozen out."

"The only explanation is deep-seated paranoia... and now it's out of control."

"[Those with power] know one tool... a very brutal, crude, authoritarian tool."

"What's clear is that Tanzania will never be the same again." 

Former presidential adviser

President Samia Suluhu Hassan was inaugurated on 3 November 2025 at Chamwino, Dodoma, following her re-election with 97.66% of the vote. Photo: Tanzaniainvest

 

Hundreds of young Tanzanian protesters have been massacred in the wake of the country's recent election. They were out protesting at the behest of the country's opposition party, reflecting a broad general consensus that the vote that gave President Samia Suluhu Hassan a massive win was rigged. In many areas of the country people were unable to cast their ballots. Internet had been shut down. Some candidates had been arrested and imprisoned. The unrest and resistance against the outcome of the election had spread across the country.

 

And everywhere there have been reports of extrajudicial killings, not only of those who have gone out to publicly and vehemently protest, but people who happen to be passersby caught in crossfires, or just people going about their business shot by police; a report of a woman in her car with her children having been shot dead, just one example. In other instances police arriving at the home of those they pinpoint as troublemakers, shot dead.

 

It speedily became generally acknowledged that a small, vociferous and threatening cabal around the president have taken control of government reaction to what has amounted to a popular uprising in the making. Of a population of around 70 million people, Tanzania is majority Christian, with a large minority Muslim population. President Hassan is the country's first Muslim president, purportedly elected on October 29 with 98 percent of the vote. 

 

Tanzanian authorities are facing growing concern over killings during crackdowns on protests surrounding last week's election   Still from video ABCNews

 

It took no time at all for the protests against the election results, and charges of  repression to surface. The country's politicians are reputed to be in shock over the violence that has ensued, with claims surfacing that at least a thousand people have been killed. Many of those politicians, while stunned with disbelief, are silent in the face of what appears to be control grasped by hardliners in support of the new president.

 

Bloody images of the dead have appeared on social media; their ubiquity spurring even wider protests. While President Samia Suluhu Hassan is now officially Tanzania's new leader, the reality also is that key opposition leaders were either disqualified from running or were incarcerated, keeping them out of contention. Protests were speedily crushed while communication was cut off, given a five-day Internet blackout. 

 

The United Nations human rights head Volker Turk announced on Tuesday that: "There are ... disturbing reports that security forces have been seen removing bodies from streets and hospitals and taking them to undisclosed locations in an apparent attempt to conceal evidence". 

  

Demonstrations in Dar es Salaam. Photo: Vellum

 

A Tanzanian government senior official, fearing for his life, should his name be attached to any explanatory revelations given to the Western press, spoke on condition that his name be withheld. He spoke of two suspected sites of mass graves located near Dar es Salaam, and at Kondo and Mabwepande. The levers of power and repression appears to be in total control of a group supporting President Hassan, confirmed those in government willing to speak under cover.

 

Eyewitnesses came forward discreetly to describe their experiences in seeing people shot at point-blank range by police and armed men otherwise unidentified. A bystander was shot in the head by a soldier on election day in Dar es Salaam. Three people were lined up and shot "five or six times" in the legs by police the following day, one of the eyewitnesses said, unburdening himself of a nightmare experience.

 

Independence day, on December 9 has been highlighted by the country's political opposition for country-wide protests.  President Hassan's son Abdul Halim Hafidh Ameir, her private secretary Waziri Salum, head of the intelligence service Suleiman Abubakar Mombo, and a member of the East African parliament, Angela Kizigha, comprise the principals surrounding and supporting the president, according to discreet government sources.  

 

Funeral for an opposition youth leader killed during election protests   AFP

 

"There is extreme fear for everyone."

"If it wasn’t for the massive efforts of brave activists sending videos to us, and the people recording them on their phones, the world would have no idea of the scale of the killings."

Kenyan activist Mwanse Ahmed 

 

"Avoid sharing images or videos that are disturbing or demeaning to someone’s dignity."

"Doing so is a criminal offense."

Tanzanian Police 

Canadian Justice for Criminal Acts Perpetrated by Indigenous People

"The offender repeatedly had sexual intercourse with her knowing that he held the power in the situation not only because of their age difference but also because he had inflicted physical harm on her and psychological terror to ensure that she would comply."

"But for his Gladue factors [leniency in sentences for those with Aboriginal backgrounds], I would have imposed the sentence sought by the Crown." 

"The offender's life has been directly influenced by many of the Gladue factors. He has existed for extended periods of time in his life in a state of severe poverty over homelessness, he is under-educated, he has struggled with severe addiction issues and as a child was taken from his family and placed in a foster care system where he was sexually abused and separated from his siblings."

"The racism he faced in his own family and in the outside world, no doubt impacted his views as to how others should be treated." 

Justice Jayne Williams 

A Calgary courthouse. Photo by Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press

 

This Calgary judge, in her legal wisdom delivering justice saw fit to take two years from a  ten-year sentence given a man who repeatedly sexually assaulted a girl who was 12 years old when they met, while he was 25. He terrorized the girl into submission, yet because the man has an Indigenous background, of Cree heritage, he is deemed to qualify for a reduced sentence under Canadian law. Known to the court as RJM, the man met the young girl on  the social media site Instagram. 

 

He assaulted and threatened to kill his victim on many occasions in a period of time between spring and the fall of 2023. Before RJM was arrested in September 2023, he had led police on a wild vehicular chase. He had threatened the  girl and her mother even when he was securely locked into a prison cell. His lawyer saw fit to argue for a six-year sentence for her client, while the Crown recommended a ten-year prison term.

 

In Canadian law, the Supreme Court of Canada set out the Gladue principles requiring sentencing judges to consider what is called the 'unique circumstances' of criminal offenders with Indigenous backgrounds. This was meant to address the over-representation in Canada's courts and prisons of Indigenous people. The decision for reduced sentence was made despite that the court was aware of the gravity of the treatment the young girl was exposed to.

 

The girl was sexually assaulted multiple times, dragged by her hair, punched in the face. "On another occasion he drove her out of the city and left her on the side of the road to walk back. He eventually returned for her." He threatened to kill the girl's mother and her cat, "specifically telling A.B. she was a 'dead slut' and that her mother A.C. was 'going to get hit too'. He would put a bullet in her head, and there was a bomb to total A.B.'s mother's car." Indeed, a makeshift nail bomb was placed under A.C.'s car. She ran over it and it exploded.   

"He took no steps to substantiate her age initially, but on [Sept. 2, 3030] the offender took a photograph of A.B.'s passwords and accessed her Calgary Board of Education account. It was on this date that he learned she  was 13."

"They began to argue about infidelity. He brandished a knife pointing it at A.B. and telling her he was going to kill her He also searched her phone confirming she was not cheating."

"[Once he learned her true age, RJM] confronted her via  text message, about lying. His texts divulge his awareness that her actual age resulted in 'a whole new level of consequences'." 

"[He made a] conscious decision to continue the relationship despite his receipt of this new information. He speaks to A.B. in possessive terms stating, 'better or worse you belong to me', 'that p--sy is mine and that bulls--t sexy little attitude', 'delete every message I ever send to you at the end of the night'."

Justice Jayne Williams  

Soon after RJM and the girl met online, they agreed to meet in person. "Between this first meeting and his arrest in September they met almost every second day" and regularly had sexual intercourse. A.B. informed the man that she was 16 year of age. He admitted to the court that he was violent with her while the girl was still 12 years old, while they drove about in his car. After he learned her true age his texts "include a mix of disbelief that she is so young and a decision to sexually make the most of her age. There is a progression detailed in the [agreed statement of facts] from him being disturbed by her age to him being aroused by it".

 

Calgary police were called by one of the girl's friends, "as a result of aggressive text messages the offender sent to A.B. while her friend was present. These texts included the offender calling A.B. a 'f--king rat', f--king piece of s--t, and 'f-king whore'. He threatened to shoot up and burn down her mother's home and that of her friend. He threatened to kill her mother and her friend, sending a video of himself holding a blowtorch and a video showing he was outside A.B.'s mother's residence." When police located him, he turned and fled. 

 

When police searched his backpack during the arrest they found a manilla folder. "The folder had 'BOOM FOLDER' written on the front and 'Munitions Supply Folder, Burials, Advanced Techniques' written on its back. Documents found inside the folder held details for explosives production, modified ammunition, improvised firearms, and techniques on properly digging a grave." A butane torch, rifle cleaning kit, hatchet, pickaxe, sledgehammer and knife were found on a further search of RJM's car.

 

A Calgary police cruiser is pictured. Postmedia file

"The texts begin with the following sentiments; 'I'm in shock', 'I'm seriously disturbed right now like feel really scared', 'I can get labelled after a pedophile' and progress to 'I might as well earn these potential life-changing charges'." 

"[RJM] was involved in a sexual relationship with a teenager for over three months. He was aware she was 13 for ten days. His conduct was intentional over the course of that ten days and the sexual acts were continual."

"This was not a temporary lapse of judgment on his part. In fact, his arousal having learned that A.B. was 13 resulted in the sexual acts becoming more egregious over the course of that ten days."

Justice Jayne Williams 

Hamas Victimizing Palestinian Civilians Again

"At least five fatalities, multiple injuries and fear that some of our team members may have been taken hostage." 

"We condemn this heinous and deliberate attack in the strongest possible terms. These were aid workers. Humanitarians. Fathers, brothers, sons and friends who were risking their lives every day to  help others."

"Our hearts are broken and our thoughts and prayers are with every victim, every family and every person still unaccounted for."

"We call on the international community to immediately condemn Hamas for this unprovoked attack and continued threat against our people simply trying to feed the Palestinian people."

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation statement 

 

"[Our forces have] full authority and mandate to strike decisively against any entity or individual collaborating with the enemy’s plans or with any rogue, criminal, or traitorous elements that violate the law and the traditions of our people."

"All agents, thieves, and armed criminal gangs are considered legitimate targets for the resistance and its security apparatus."

Hamas media 

The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says at least five of its workers were killed and some are feared to be taken hostage following an attack by Hamas terrorists on Wednesday night. Photo by EYAD BABA /AFP via Getty Images

A bus carrying some two dozen members of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation team in the Gaza Strip was attacked by Hamas. Local Palestinians working alongside with the U.S. GHF team were travelling to one of the U.S.-backed aid group's distribution centres located west of Khan Younis, when the strike took place on Wednesday morning, according to the foundation. 

 

Independent of the United Nations, the group has been establishing aid depots at various points in the Gaza Strip in a determined effort to deliver food aid to Palestinian civilians, in a marked purpose to ensure that Hamas has no opportunity as it did formerly, to divert much of the humanitarian aid from the civilian population to their warehouses for their own use, and for sale on the black market at astronomical prices. 

 

The Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, expressed his frustration and that of the Israeli administration at the continued threats and violence levelled by Hamas toward the humanitarian group and toward Palestinian civilians who travel to the depots to take advantage of the aid, infuriating Hamas, which sees its authority flouted and its source of additional income and supplies being thwarted.  

"This attack did not happen in a vacuum. For days, Hamas has openly threatened our team, our aid workers, and the civilians who receive aid from us."

"These threats were met with silence [from the international community]."

"The GHF is committed to helping the wounded and the families of the deceased and injured. We are working through many channels to transfer the injured from the hospital in Khan Younis to facilities with more robust capabilities."

"Parties holding the remains of the deceased [are called on] to immediately release them to their families. [We will continue] delivering food aid to the people of Gaza after this tragedy."

Gaza Humanitarian Foundation  

David May, research manager, and senior research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wryly observed: "The perverse incentives of the international community will punish the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation for having its staff murdered, and reward Hamas for doing the murdering". His colleague at the organization, CEO Mark Dubowitz had this to add: "Hamas killing Palestinians working to deliver aid to Palestinians. Will this get reported? Don't hold  your breath."  

"The Hamas terrorist regime has zero care for Israelis and, as we continue to see, has  zero care for the people of Gaza."

"It's why they launch terrorist attacks from urban settings and civilian infrastructure."

"We are monitoring closely concerning reports of Hamas once again doing whatever it can to thwart humanitarian distribution efforts." 

Danny Danon, Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations  

People transport relief supplies on a cart from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in the central Gaza Strip on Sunday. Photo by EYAD BABA /AFP via Getty Images

 

Global Trade Uncertainty

"[Businesses should] suspend [investments in the U.S. pending talks with the Trump administration, after a] brutal and unfounded 9decision in announcing its raft of tariffs against other countries]."

"Because what would be the message of having major European players investing billions of euros in the American economy at a time when they're hitting us?"

French President Emmanuel Macron

 

"If Trump really imposes high tariffs, Europe will have to respond, but the paradox is that the EU would be better off doing nothing."

"On the other hand, Trump seems to understand only the language of force, and this indicates the need for a strong and immediate response."

"Probably the hope, in Brussels, is that the response will be strong enough to induce Trump to negotiate and, soon, to backtrack."

Matteo Villa, senior analyst, Institute for International Political Studies, Italy

Atlantic Council

Dismay spread across the world of commerce and trade at U.S. President Donald Trump's sweeping new tariffs, shocking governments amidst threats of retaliation and calls for negotiations rescinding the new import taxes on goods globally. A tense world, anticipating that the American President would proceed with his threats of imposing stiff tariffs widely across the world, but hoping against hope he might set aside the clearly trade-antagonistic agenda he has been toying with, were shocked at the magnitude of the Wednesday tariff scheme.

 

Not all countries hard hit by the imposition of trade-crippling tariffs were eager to threaten retaliation; there were also calls for negotiations in hopes that -- the mercurial American president's sentiments on making other countries pay for what he counselled Americans was a 50-year rip-off of the American consuming public -- he would vacillate and withdraw his aggressive agenda in response to reasoned arguments.

 

The shock of universally applied import taxes that ranged from 10 to 54 percent which Mr. Trump characterized as 'getting back' at the steep tariffs other countries had imposed for decades on American products would result in factory jobs returning to the United States. "Taxpayers have been ripped off for more than 50 years. But it is not going to happen anymore", he said, with finality. "There are no winners in trade wars and tariff wars, and protectionism is not a way out ... It is clear to everyone that more and more countries are opposing the U.S.'s unilateral bullying actions", was the return message from Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun. 

 

A key exporter to the United States, of all manner of products from clothing to kitchenware, China announced a raft of retaliatory measures that would certainly raise prices for its merchandise to American consumers. France is prepared to see its wines and spirits, food industry, cosmetics, health, metals and aircraft impacted. Little can be gained, according to analysts, from an all-ut trade war, for any country, including the U.S. Higher tariffs have the potential to lower growth and raise inflation. 

Stock market turmoil deepened on Friday, as China hit back at tariffs announced by US President Donald Trump, raising the likelihood of an extended trade war and damage to the global economy.  Getty Images

It is the companies in the United States that buy goods to sell to Americans who pay the tariffs, aka taxes. And they are then left with the dilemma of whether they should absorb the additional costs, or to pass them on to consumers in higher prices. "He's not going to back off", warned Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. "This is the reordering of global trade". Deals can be possible "only if these countries can change everything about themselves, which I doubt they will". 

As the European Union prepares its response, rumours of a tax imposed on American digital giants Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon and Microsoft advocated by France, have been in circulation. "Nobody wins in a trade war, that is not in our national interest." The U.K. government would react with "cool and calm heads", noted British Prime Minister Kier Starmer.

 

The U.S. had been adjusted to an average tariff of 25 to 30 percent, the "worst end of expectations", the highest since the early 20th Century, observed Deutsche Bank's Jim Reid, of the "radical policy reordering". Reflected by radically jolted financial markets, with oil prices sinking more than $2 a barrel, in response to the global trade uncertainty. 

Behind a television monitor showing U.S. President Donald Trump, the display board with the Dax curve shows falling share prices, in Frankfurt, Germany, on Thursday, after the tariff package announced by Trump has pushed share prices sharply into negative territory. (Arne Dedert/dpa/The Associated Press)

"This is a game chamber, not only for the U.S. economy but for the global economy."

"Many countries will likely end up in a recession."

Olu Sonola, Fitch Ratings' head, U.S. Economic Research

Canada, Threats From Within

"It is becoming increasingly clear that Canada is a  high priority target for ISIS-inspired terrorists." 

"[The Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security must be convened for an emergency session to probe] this most recent foiled terror attack."

"They [two young men in their teens] are alleged to have formed a plan last fall to violently attack Jewish persons in Ottawa, possibly through the detonation of an explosive device at a pro-Israel rally."

Conservative members of the Commons Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security

The Parliament Hill bomb plot is only the latest in a string of arrests related to domestic terror plots with Islamist or anti-Israel motives. Photo by Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press

 

Look no further than the unwieldy numbers of immigrants, refugees and illegal migrants that have penetrated Canadian society at every level; Muslims emanating from Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Sudan, Yemen and Afghanistan, and most particularly from Gaza, for starters. By no means all of these people who have entered Canada, legally and illegally, but the jihad-inspired, Jew-hating contingent and their imported Mullahs whose Friday mosque sermons and prayers urge the faithful to be true to the passages in the Koran describing Jews as the enemy, along with 'crusaders' and kafirs.

A broad import of a searing antisemitism into Canadian society that sees younger generations being taught to view Jews as usurpers of Arab land in 'Palestine', occupiers of land consecrated to Islam, turning the sacred into a sacrilegious presence of enemies of the Prophet Mohammed, routed from Medina in the 17th century, the presence of whom in modern times must meet the same fate. And to Jew-haters in Canada that translates as Canadian Jews being threatened, harassed and tormented by those who abhor their presence in the Middle East, and anywhere else the diaspora has settled.

The wild celebrations in the streets of Canada led by Israel-and-Jew-haters, organized by Arabs, Muslims and Palestinians in Canada over the admired success of Palestinian terrorists in the slaughter of 1,200 mostly civilian Israelis during the October 7, 2023 invasion of southern Israel by tens of thousands of terrorists led by Hamas, and the follow-up marches and demonstrations in honour of and defense of Palestinian terrorism has roiled Canada as it has elsewhere around the world for over a year, in the face of government inaction.

 

While the Liberal government of prime minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly declared that 'this is not who we are', in responding to the attacks on synagogues, Jewish schools, community centres and privately-owned Jewish business, it clearly is what  we are becoming under the auspices of a government that fails to care enough about the fate of Canadian Jews, oppressed, discriminated against, and threatened, to apply Canada's laws on hate-mongering. The opposition Conservative Party on the other hand, has reacted as a responsible government should.

 

Ottawa Pro-Palestinian Rally, CTV News

The latest report of  terrorist activity in Canada itself is that of the arrest of two Ottawa teens, charged with plotting a deadly attack against pro-Israel demonstrators who came out to Parliament Hill in defence of Israel and of Canadian Jews. A Department of Justice court filing declares that the boys were in possession of the constituents of explosive devices; acetone, oxidizer, metal ball bearings. The December 2023 arrest of a 15-year-old terror suspect came with a report that a Facebook account in the father's name was rife with extremist rhetoric, calls to 'get rid' of Israelis among them.

 

RCMP anti-terror investigators in July arrested a father-son duo planning a "serious, violent attack in Toronto". Ahmed Eldidi and Mostafa Eldidi saw arrest in Richmond Hill, in the "advanced stages" of planning an attack. Pakistani national Muhammad Shahzeb Khan was arrested in September as part of a US. investigation of his intention to stage a terrorist attack against a New York City Jewish site, timed to mark the one-year anniversary of the October 7 massacres attributed largely to Hamas.

"The defendant is alleged to have planned a terrorist attack in New York City around October 7th of this year with the stated goal of slaughtering, in the name of ISIS, as many Jewish people as possible."

U.S. Attorney General Merrick R. Garland

Following a wave of shooting attacks and attempted arsons of Jewish sites, Toronto police arrested Helder Antonio De Ameida in connection with a shooting attack on Bais Chaya Mushka Elementary School for girls. De Ameida was accused of firing multiple shots into the school on October 12; found at the site were 14 shell casings. A 17-year-old accomplice was arrested along with De Amida.  In Israel in July, Zacharea Adam Quraishi of Alberta was shot dead by the Israel Defense Forces as he threatened them with a knife, rushing at armed guards outside the gates of the Israeli village of Netiv Ha'asara, screaming "Free Palestine".

'You Cannot be a Christian and be an antisemite"

"[We condemn] those who foment antisemitism in Canada."

"We will stand against all those in this country, regardless of motivation or ideology, who seek to demonize and dehumanize our Jewish fellow citizens."

"As Christians, we will not simply speak but act in support of you, our Jewish friends, in the interest of all that is just and good."

"We will not abandon you."

The Canadian Christian Declaration on Antisemitism

"If we look back ... we see a steady increase in antisemitic hate crimes really since 2020. This is not simply about October7 and the aftermath of that."

"[Jewish communities have historically functioned as] the canary in the coal mine for growing intolerance and hatred within society. We've seen this throughout history. When Jews come to be targeted, it's usually a symptom of something ... rotten within the society at large."

"On the one hand we see the very overt antisemitism on our streets, this very awkward alliance between Islamists and woke progressives who have radicalized around this particular issue. But also I'm concerned about the silence and the inability amongst people who should be speaking out to realize that there's an issue, and to speak out without equivocation."

"My hope is that once we have these signatories to this declaration that we will have a summit, most likely in Toronto, later this year, where we'll bring together 50 of the leading Christian leaders who have been engaged with this declaration, together with 50 Jewish leaders ... to reaffirm this declaration publicly."

"Ant then the third stage is then to have those Christian leaders form a partnership with a local Jewish congregation."

Reverend Dr. Andrew Bennett, director of faith communities, Cardus

The Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett drafted the Canadian Christian Declaration on Antisemitism. Photo by Cardus

It has been a year since the horrendous atrocities of October 7 took place, an infamous day when thousands of Palestinian terrorists led by the governing Gaza Hamas group whose covenant with fate is to please Islam to enable them to rise to Paradise on the glowing record of having raped, tortured and murdered Israeli girls and women, shot to death infants and schoolchildren, burned entire families alive in their homes, as they marauded through southern Israel farming villages pillaging, destroying, slaughtering. An entire year when the Canadian public across the country has been treated to constant displays of rabid antisemitism posing as anti-Israel marches while threatening Jewish Canadians.

 

Governments at any level have done little to express their disgust at these betrayals of the Jewish Canadians at the terror-supporting, Hamas followers that have infiltrated Canada as immigrants, refugees and migrants, amassing a presence of formidable hate-dominating Islamist conquest against human decency and civilizational norms in favour of instilling their medieval-era exclusion/isolation/threatening agenda of Jew-expulsion by any means possible.

 

True, there have been courageous individuals whose moral compass has been outraged at these spectacles of hateful demonization of Jews and Israel, and they have taken to speaking up publicly in defense of human rights, equality, justice and the right of any country to defend itself and its population against the forces of evil exemplified by armed death squads whose function is to destroy and to kill for the rewards of justifying the most basic of Islamist dictums to jihad for the recognition they derive from their lethal actions that place them among the warriors of the Islamist death cult that aims for Jewish lives.

 

Canadians in the aggregate, who like to think of themselves as kind and considerate, courteous and welcoming toward others, believing in equality and neighbourliness, have been strangely silent. There have been no collective challenges to the hate-filled rallies that target their Jewish neighbours. Absent completely demands from civil society to their government to uphold the laws against injustice and hate-mongering. Silence from faith leaders. There has been no groundswell of support from non-Jewish Canadians for their Jewish neighbours.

 

Jews in Canada have been threatened and attacked in every conceivable way. They have been left in a state of disbelief and fear, and wondering whether their generations of life in Canada have been a dream overtaken by a nightmare. Finding empathy with their plight only amongst themselves. Placed in a ghetto of psychological bleakness, fearing for the present and for the future of their children. Simple acts of reassurance conveyed by non-Jewish neighbours to their long-familar Jewish neighbours have been absent.

 

The messages of unconcern for the well-being of Jews in Canada under the weight of an imported loathing of an ancient people viewed by Muslims as challengers to the favouritism of their heavenly spirit of choice bespeaks a total abandonment of civil, social, lawful and just alienation; it is their battle, they can fight it for themselves. The tiny demographic of Jews who have always considered their diaspora home in Canada to be inviolate, now know otherwise.

But here we have a sole individual who has dedicated himself within the country's faith communities to spur them to react to the spirit of carnage brought against the Jewish presence in Canada and the legitimacy of the tiny Jewish state dedicated to the preservation of Jewish life on this globe. Who has invested himself with the obligation to act as a Christian, to urge other Christians to acknowledge their duty to their religion and their fellow man. Hoping to arrive at a strong, inclusive coalition that will help to drive divisiveness, threats and hatred back to where it belongs; in the deepest, darkest corners of the human psyche.

Appealing through the humanitarian argument of a document of 450 words to convince fellow Christians to agree that: "In that light and in support of this declaration we affirm that the Jewish people remain God's chosen people. The law and the covenants that God gave to the Jewish people, which we see as fulfilled in Christ, remain intact." Posted on September 23, forwarded to 675 Christian leaders across Canada, the Reverend Bennett exults that over 200 signatures have been achieved in the first four days. 500 by the end of October, he hopes. "I'd love to see a thousand, I'd love to see 1,500", he enthuses. Good luck.

 

People take part in a pro-Palestine demonstration in Ottawa, Canada, on October 15, 2023. (Kadri Mohamed via Getty Images)

"The people in their respective congregations come to know one another, they come to have conversations about the relationships between Christians and Jews, presently, historically, the good and the bad ... and in that way to build a solidarity between Christians and Jews in this country."

"I think that can have the longest and most lasting impact."

"You cannot be a Christian and be an antisemite. It doesn't work. It's completely incongruent with our Christian faith."

Reverend Dr. Andrew Bennett, deacon, Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church in Canada

Outlawing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps/Terrorist Central

"It's influencing the political and the social landscape of Canada. It's influencing the youth and mobilizing them against Western values against Canadian security, in very subtle ways and sometimes in very overt ways." 

"It's the same issue with respect to China, how they have been operating. The Islamic Republic is no different."

"In terms of the evidence before the Liberal government, nothing substantial has changed since six years ago. We all know that in 2020 the IRGC shot down [Ukrainian Airlines] PS752, killing all 175 passengers, including 55 Canadian citizens. If that wasn't sufficient evidence, I don't know what else the Liberal government was looking for."

"We welcome the change in the government's attitude after six years of not doing anything about it and giving all sorts of excuses why they were not listing IRGC as a terrorist entity despite all the evidence that they admitted existed. The evidence was there. It was just a question of political will."

"[Six years of inaction has allowed the IRGC to] spread their tentacles in Canada. Their numbers have increased. Their influence has increased. We are going to feel that influence and the impact of them being in Canada and within our systems and institutions for decades to come."

Mojdeh Shahriari, Vancouver human rights lawyer, co-founder, Stop IRGC

People take part in a a protest against the Iranian government on April 21 in Montreal (John Kenney / MONTREAL GAZETTE)

 

In 1976 when Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned from exile in France to head a revolution that removed the Shah of Iran from power, in turn installing a theocratic regime with himself at its head, it was understood that a fundamentalist Islamist Shiite government had taken power in the country, with Khomeini as its Supreme Leader. Despite which, the extent of the reach of the Islamic Republic of Iran since that time in influencing Middle East affairs and international relations far afield might never have been imagined.

 

In the close aftermath of the revolutionary change in government in Iran, many Iranians knew they could not remain in their country of birth. From a fairly open society, with good international relations with non-Muslim countries -- including Israel -- the Islamic Republic was destined to become a divisive power broker in the Middle East. Under the ruling Ayatollahs and their Islamic Republican Guard Corps the intention was to restore Iran to its historical influence as the supreme regional power. 

 

In the predominately Arab Muslim Middle East, Iranians, though Muslim, are not Arab but Persians, the Aryans that Adolf Hitler was adamant were a superior 'race'. There is also a sectarian divide between Iran and the other Muslim countries of the Middle East which are majority Sunni Muslim, while Iran is Shiite, a relative minority. From its very inception in 1976 the Islamic Republic set out to gain a commanding influence within the Middle East, and to elevate the status of Shiite Islam. An unsubtle state of confrontation between Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia ensued.

Iran's ambitions rose to challenge Saudi Arabia as custodian of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in its aspirations to become the supreme Islamic authority commanding the Middle East. Iran's animus toward the Jewish State of Israel surpassed that of any Arab state by a wide margin. And Iran courted the disaffected populations of minority-status Shiites in Arab countries. The al-Quds division of the IRGC founded an Islamist Shiite group in Lebanon, training and arming it as a proxy militant arm it could control.

 

The IRGC is a major military, political and economic force in Iran   EPA

Hezbollah came to world notice when in 1983 it undertook a truck-suicide bombing on an American military base, a marine corps barracks in Beirut against UN-affiliated peace envoys, killing 241 American soldiers. Another suicide bomber soon afterward killed 58 French UN-assigned paratroopers. This was Hezbollah, a newly-minted terrorist group, doing the bidding of its masterminds in Tehran. Since that time, Hezbollah has been a terror-creation of Iran, tasked to do its bidding, with a major focus on Israel, and on suicide-mission attacks abroad on Jewish enclaves.

 

There is also a Western infiltration component to the Islamic Republic's aspiration for dominance. Those Iranians who fled a revolutionary Islamist Iran they had no wish to live within, have found themselves, in the past decade, being targeted for their anti-Islamist, anti-Ayatollah, anti-terrorist attitudes. The Trudeau government in Canada has allowed the infiltration of Iranian agents and personnel, including senior leaders of the IRGC to have easy access to Canadian society at all levels, to enter on visas, to establish residency and to undermine the democratic freedoms of the Iranian expatriate population.

 

Their scheme in Canada, as it is elsewhere in the free world, is to destabilize all the institutions that make the West a free world, undermining the social and cultural values of nations of the West. Although Iranian-Canadians have made it clear to the Trudeau government that they have reason to fear the entry of representatives of the Iranian regime to Canada who intimidate and threaten them, the very fact that those involved in the most extremes of human rights abuses have entry to Canada is in and of itself inexcusable.

 

Finally, although all parties in Canada's Parliament have long supported a move to outlaw the presence of Iranian regime representatives in Canada, on a number of occasions voting unanimously to place them on a terror list and impose sanctions, the Trudeau government chose not to take appropriate action. Until last week, when it finally did. "Based on their actions, there are reasonable grounds to believe that the IRGC has knowingly carried out, attempted to carry out, participated in or facilitated a terrorist activity", explained the government's minister of public safety. Stating something that has long been known.

"This process of IRGC spreading its influence throughout the Western world has been going for a very long time, unfortunately, and they have been able to infiltrate many of our academic institutions, our professional institutions and they have been money-laundering [in Canada]."

"Everyone is looking for an assassination plot or something like that, and of course they do that, and they are known for it and their terrorist activities all over the world, but they have been infiltrating and interfering with our institutions for decades and in the past six years this has intensified."

"So it has been a huge disaster, in my view. In 2018, Parliament unanimously voted to immediately list the IRGC and I never heard any reasonable explanation from the Liberal government why they were dragging their feet. Something political has changed for them in terms of their calculation of the cost benefit of listing the IRGC."

Mojdeh Shahriari, Vancouver human rights lawyer

Members of the Revolutionary Guards attend a parliamentary session in Tehran. Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty Images