Avi Lewis is right to not boost the genocidal warmongers. The NDP leadership candidate didn’t join other dippers and ‘pro-Palestinian’ thought leaders in encouraging an authoritarian Zionist frenzy.
On Sunday genocidal fanatic Israeli foreign minister Gideon Sa’ar called foreign minister Anita Anand to express the rogue apartheid state’s “concerns regarding a series of shooting attacks targeting synagogues in Toronto in the past few days. I requested that, alongside efforts to apprehend the shooters, special measures be taken to increase security for the Jewish community and its institutions, as well as for Israeli diplomats serving in Canada.”
Since Israel unleashed mayhem in Iran and Lebanon a week ago three synagogues in Toronto have been hit with bullets in the middle of the night. It’s sparked a new authoritarian Zionist push.
At a press conference about the incidents Sara Lefton, of United Jewish Appeal of Greater Toronto, called for shutting down anti-genocide demonstrations and a website documenting Jewish organizations, which are likely violating charity and criminal law by promoting the Israeli military. She said, “We are calling on all of those who are speaking out today and beyond, to actually make sure that sort of thing and Al-Quds Day [protest next week] specifically, is shut down, and is not allowed to take place in Toronto, or anywhere in this country, because hateful words, hateful demonstrations turn into this kind of violent attack, and we need to end it now.” They also demanded the police investigate the website “GTA To IDF: How Toronto Produces Israeli Soldiers”, reported Canadian Jewish News, “for highlighting alleged connections between summer camps, schools and synagogues in Toronto and the Israel Defence Forces.” Additionally, the press conference promoted Ontario legislation to suppress anti-genocide protests and this week the federal Liberals are seeking to pass Bill C-9, which is designed to suppress opposition to war.
A new authoritarian Zionist push was the predictable outcome of the frenzy joined by all the politicians, including (twice) ‘pro-Palestinian’ NDP leadership candidate Heather McPherson. Leadership candidate Rob Ashton and interim NDP leader Don Davies also boosted the war and genocide advocates. (In a sign of the views of party activists my responses to Ashton and Davies received far more likes and retweets.) Despite seeing this show over and over and over again, ‘pro-Palestinian’ thought leaders like Mathew Behrens, Sidney Nestel, Alex Neve and John Clarke (in a more sophisticated way) boosted those promoting aggression against Iran without even asking cui bono?
To his credit NDP leadership candidate Avi Lewis stayed mum. It’s likely due to the online pushback, his effort to woo left NDP voters and the fact that his Jewishness insulates him from pressure to join the warmongering. We should consider Lewis’ silence a small win.
In pushing back against Nestel’s Facebook post on the matter, Lawyer Max Sylverman offered some important context. He wrote:
“Crime committed with a handgun, in Canada, carries a presumption of intent to murder. Shooting a handgun at the door of an empty building at night is treated the same, in law, as shooting a handgun at a person. Handguns are also extremely hard to come by and tend to be owned by either legal owners, where the bullets are fully traceable, or organized criminal entities. Not random neonazis, unless part of an organized armed entity, but even then, we tend to see them using long arms because it gives the cops a pretext to ignore them.
“So either someone hates Jews a lot in Toronto, but not enough to want to kill any, but enough to spend $10k a pop (this is the Montreal shoot someone price; Toronto is probably more) to have put bullets through an empty door; some mobster or street gang is really concerned about Palestine but confused about the geopolitics of it; or something else is happening here.”
Fifteen months ago, I wrote about a similar frenzy over property destruction at Montreal Jewish institutions, noting:
“One’s reaction to the late-night attacks against synagogues and schools partly reflects who you think is responsible for these crimes. With few arrests or court cases it’s difficult to know. But there are several cases in which Jews have been apprehended for committing these types of crimes and little evidence of Palestinians or solidarity activists’ involvement despite these institutions usually promoting violence against Palestinians.
“In May the police arrested 67-year-old Avrom Bobrowski for starting a fire at his Toronto synagogue. A CTV headline explained, ‘Congregant accused of deliberately setting North York synagogue on fire’. Two months later 33-year-old Jonathan Szeftel was arrested for throwing a rock through a synagogue window in Toronto. After a high-profile antisemitic incident at a Winnipeg coffee shop in 2019, a Jerusalem Post headline explained ‘Antisemitic attack on kosher cafe in Canada was staged by owners, police say’. Initially described as the ‘most brazen’ antisemitic attack the city had seen, three owners were arrested for staging an assault and spray-painting hateful graffiti. Two years earlier 19-year-old Israeli Michael Kadar was arrested for making bomb threats to a slew of Jewish institutions in Canada, the US and elsewhere. The Guardian noted, ‘Israeli teen accused of 2,000 bomb hoax calls and blackmail’. Kadar received a ten year sentence from an Israeli youth court.
“It is certainly possible Palestinian sympathizers have committed some of these strategically and morally objectionable acts against Jewish institutions over the past 14 months. It’s also possible that some white supremacists have taken advantage of rising tensions to perpetrate some of these acts.
“I would be surprised if Canadian Zionist organizations are involved in any organized way. They have too much to lose by organizing crimes that could blow up in their face. But that doesn’t mean pro-Israel forces aren’t involved in an organized way.
“And I wouldn’t exclude Mossad involvement. For an Israeli intelligence agency, which blew up thousands of pagers in Lebanon, it would be easy to smash windows and fire some bullets late at night. Additionally, the Israeli state has an interest in doing so. These acts justify anti-Palestinian measures in Canada. More important for Tel Aviv, they scare Israelis considering migrating, which is a significant concern for Zionism.
“In any crime one must always ask cui bono?”
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