Features
“The Cure for Hate” – how a former neo-Nazi Skinhead turned his life around
By BERNIE BELLAN On Sunday, November 19, the Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada, in cooperation with the Jewish Federation, Westwood Collegiate, and an organization called “peace days,” screened a documentary film titled “The Cure for Hate – Bearing Witness to Auschwitz.” The film documents a visit made to Auschwitz by former neo-Nazi Skinhead Tony McAleer, during which he confronts his own violent past and discusses the long and complicated journey he has taken through his life
(As an aside, we also had a story in our January 19, 2022 issue, written by Jon Van Der Veen, in which Jon wrote about an interview he conducted with McAleer when Jon was a student in Atlantic Canada. You can find that story on our website, jewishpostandnews.ca..)
Following the screening of the film Tony McAleer was joined on stage at Westwood Collegiate by Westwood History teacher Kelly Hiebert to discuss the film. Also participating in the discussion was the film’s director, Peter Hutchison, who joined in via Zoom.
Interestingly, this was the second Sunday in a row that Westwood Collegiate, in cooperation with the Jewish Heritage Centre and the Jewish Federation – with particular thanks to Kelly Hiebert, served as the venue for the showing of a film and discussion afterward directly related to the subject of antisemitism. The November 12 event revolved around the screening of “Reckonings,” about which we wrote in our November 22 issue. (If you missed seeing that story you can also find it on our website
“The Cure for Hate” follows McAleer on a tour of Auschwitz, where he is accompanied by a Jewish Polish tour guide.
Here is a summary of the film’s storyline: “In the Jewish tradition, tshuvah means ‘return’, and describes the return to God and our fellow human beings that is made possible through repentance for our wrongs. Tony McAleer is a former Skinhead and Holocaust denier who went on to become a founding member of the anti-hate activist group Life After Hate. Profoundly aware and deeply ashamed of the lineage of hate he’d once promoted, Tony had long-contemplated traveling to Auschwitz in the spirit of tshuvah – to bear witness to the inconceivable ravages of the Holocaust, and deepen his personal work against the rise of extremist politics. This project documents his profoundly personal journey of atonement to Auschwitz/Birkenau – exploring the conditions that allowed for the rise of fascism in 1930s Europe; shedding a unique light upon how men get into, and out of, violent extremist groups; and serving as a cautionary tale for our time that underscores the dangers in allowing hate to be left unchecked.”
The film is fairly long – 74 minutes, and it is somewhat repetitious, as McAleer reiterates the shame he feels for his past over and over again, but it does offer some profound insights into what motivates many young men to be drawn to a violent neo-Nazi lifestyle.
At the beginning of the film, McAleer says he has often been asked: “How did you lose your humanity?”
He responds: “I didn’t lose it. I just kept it down until there was nothing left.”
As he begins his tour of Auschwitz, walking through the gate under the infamous sign that says, “Arbeit Macht Frei” (work will make you free), McAleer notes that when he used to get together with his Skinhead friends they would joke that when they’re done with the Jews the sign would read “Nothing will make you free.”
The film follows a pattern of McAleer walking along with the guide (who is often difficult to understand because of her heavy Polish accent), discussing his life and what led him to have an epiphany moment when he realized that the life he had been living was so wrong.
He observes at one point that “no one becomes a Nazi overnight. It’s a slow progression.”
As Jon Van Der Veen describes in his interview with McAleer, McAleer came from an affluent Vancouver family. According to Jon’s article, and something that is also mentioned in the film – although not to the extent it’s discussed in Jon’s interview, it was McAleer’s discovering that his father was having an affair that shattered his life and led him to descending into a downward spiral that culminated in his becoming a full-blown Neo-Nazi.
At one point, McAleer, who engages in quite a bit of introspection throughout the film, repeats something that was said to him by a psychiatrist who was treating McAleer: “All violence is an attempt to replace shame with self esteem.”
McAleer was influenced by a number of prominent Neo-Nazis, he says, whose names he recounts during the film, including; Richard Butter (who McAleer describes as the “spiritual leader” of the Aryan Nations, and who led the infamous 1978 march through a heavily Jewish neighbourhood in Skokie, Illinois which had a very high proportion of Holocaust survivors living there); Tom Metzger, of the White Aryan Resistance, and someone by the name of Lewis Beeton (although I may not have written that name down correctly since I could find no reference to anyone by that name on the internet).
Something that McAleer says during the film – and which is even more chilling than his description of his own long relationship with neo-Nazi ideology, is how so many neo-Nazi groups have been using the tactic of “mainstreaming,” whereby they educate their members to drop the appearance that is often associated with such groups, including uniform dress, scary tattoos and other such paraphernalia, and blend in with the “mainstream.”
Further, according to McAleer many neo-Nazis have been infiltrating police forces and armies in both Canada and the U.S. (Perhaps the most chilling story of such an infiltration came a few years ago when a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, Patrik Matthews, was unmasked as a member of a group known as “The Base,” thanks to the brilliant – and very brave investigative reporting of former Free Press reporter Ryan Thorpe.)
As the film progresses, McAleer describes the process through which he realized that his life had been a total waste. He acknowledges the contribution that his therapist, Charles Barron (who, incidentally, is Jewish), made to his coming to terms with what he had done with his life.
But, in treating him, McAleer says, Barron made him realize “This is what you did, it’s not who you are.”
The reason he had been attracted to neo-Nazi Skinhead ideology, McAleer observes, is out of a “search for longing and purpose.”
So, what turned McAleer around? There were two events that proved pivotal, he explains. One was the birth of a child. (He now has two, he noted during the discussion that followed the film, but he is no longer together with his children’s mother.)
The other event, he says in the film, “was receiving compassion from someone he didn’t expect it from.”
As well, he observes, “Allowing one to have compassion for oneself leads to compassion for others.”
Yet, in what comes as a dark warning toward the end of the film, McAleer states that “the inescapable truth is that white supremacist ideology, if left unchecked, always ends in violence.”
Following the film, McAleer and Peter Hutchison engaged in a discussion with Kelly Hiebert, followed by questions from the audience.
Kelly Hiebert asked McAleer whether there was “a transformative moment for you that led you to leave the movement?”
McAleer answered that “it was a process rather than a moment. For me it was the birth of my daughter. (His son was born 15 months later, he said.) Up until then I was a self-absorbed narcissist. I had been cut off from my emotional self.”
Someone in the audience asked Kelly Hiebert: “Why do you what you do?”
(Kelly Hiebert is a Governor General’s Award-winning educator who has made Holocaust education a key component of his teaching.)
Hiebert answered: “I do what I do to create a better world – for myself, my kids, and my students.”
Someone else asked Hiebert what he says to his students about what’s going on in Gaza?
He answered: “A lot of students are very confused. There’s too much information out there. I’m teaching them to develop a critical consciousness about what they’re consuming…to help them understand the difference between free speech and hate speech.”
Tony McAleer added: There’s confusion between identity and politics. It comes from understanding that it’s not the politics that’s wrong; it’s where I am that’s wrong.” But the identification with a certain brand of politics, he suggested, comes from “a thirst for community, a thirst for belonging.”
Peter Hutchison observed that the shift toward identifying with particular political beliefs “was never a defining characteristic when I was growing up…You end up getting ‘siloed’ in a lot of way. As Americans have become less identified with church, we’ve become much more strongly identified with ideology.”
And, as individuals become more immersed in particular ideologies, “it prevents us from seeing the humanity in one another,” he added.
The discussion turned to Holocaust denial. Peter Hutchison suggested that “if you can tear a hole in a little bit of data you can deny everything.” He went on to discuss the argument that there could never have been 6 million Jews killed in the Holocaust – that it was Allied propaganda.
“It’s happening in real time,” Hutchison observed: “As information came in about a hospital (El Shifa – which was hit by a stray missile found to have been fired by Islamic Jihad) being bombed in Gaza, ”you can discount it or you can extend it to a much larger truth.”
Kelly Hiebert added: “People will believe the first thing they see.”
Someone asked McAleer: “What can you do to bring students together?”
McAleer answered: “Curiosity, courage, and compassion…What we try to teach young people is that it’s very hard to hate someone you meet.”
He cited as an example a student-led initiative that was put forward by students in an American high school – a program called “No one eats alone.”
The idea was to make sure that no one eating lunch would be left to sit by themselves. It was important to work with “students struggling at the margins,” he said.
In another school, students were asked to whom would they like to talk (among other students in their class) if they were “struggling.”
“We went to those students (the ones who were identified as one to whom the struggling students would like to be able to speak) and asked them if they would serve in that role.”
Hutchison noted that “it’s hard to teach ‘compassion.’ We teach ‘active listening’…how to be curious, how to wait your turn to speak…We also ask kids, ‘How does it feel to be hurt?’ “
Someone in the audience suggested that underlying a large part of the alienation that many young boys feel that, in turn, leads them to be attracted to neo-Nazi type groups, is wondering “How can I get girls to like me?”
McAleer responded that “We have to have better discussions about masculinity with young men…There’s a generation of young boys who feel alienated and there are groups who know how to pull them in.’
Peter Hutchison added: “Young men have heard the expression ‘toxic masculinity’ so often they don’t know what healthy masculinity is.”
And, while Belle Jarniewski made an observation about antisemitism sometime in the middle of the discussion, I thought it was particularly relevant to end this article with what she had said.
Belle explained that when a criminal offense occurs that has an antisemitic component to it, someone in the Crown Attorney’s office will often suggest that they ought “to bring in a Holocaust survivor for that offender to meet.”
“In truth,” Belle observed, “it would be much better if they were to meet someone like Tony.”
Features
The moral degradation of Israel’s far-right is even worse than you think
By Dan Perry (Posted March 27, 2026)
This story was originally published in the Forward. Click here to get the Forward’s free email newsletters delivered to your inbox.
This week, an Israeli Knesset member said something that should have been shocking, horrifying and unanimously condemned.
“I stand behind IDF soldiers in every situation,” said Yitzhak Kroizer, a member of the ultranationalist Otzmah Yehudit Party. Even if the “collateral damage is children or women — it does not matter to me.”
“In Jenin, there are no innocent civilians,” he added. “In Jenin, there are no innocent children.”
Kroizer was referring to a genuine tragedy: The killing of almost an entire Palestinian family by Israel undercover forces on March 15, near the village of Tammun. The forces opened fire on the family’s car as they returned from a shopping trip. Waed Bani Ohde, her husband Ali, and two of their young children Othman, 7, and Mohammed, 5, were killed. Two sons survived. The army says the car accelerated toward the forces; Palestinian witnesses say the IDF gave no warning before attacking.
It is tempting to dismiss statements like Kroizer’s as the rhetoric of the extreme. Indeed, I often find myself making that point when talking to people inclined to think the worst of Israel: They do not represent the majority, and not even the immoral government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But that, while true, is becoming a little too pat.
For it is also true that as time goes, as the wars continue and hearts harden, what Kroizer articulated is a moral framework that is steadily taking hold in the Israeli right.
That’s why the statements were not condemned by anyone associated with the government. And, indeed, Israeli far-right activists responded to the deaths with social media posts rejoicing in the death of the unarmed “terrorists.”
No senior Israeli official apologized for the shooting. No one said publicly that even if the soldiers believed they were acting under threat, the killing of two children demands something more than a routine internal review.
No official has even conceded that this type of event might contribute to agitation and instability in the West Bank, and perhaps spark another uprising. Set empathy aside; even enlightened self-interest is beyond the current Israeli government.
Yes, an investigation has been opened. But military investigations almost never lead to concrete action against the troops. A Guardian report this week revealed that no Israeli citizen has been prosecuted for a killing in the West Bank since 2020, despite a radical uptick in violence; settlers and police have already killed 10 Palestinian civilians this month alone.
The undercover soldiers, especially, are something like the real life version of the international hit Fauda, widely admired for their counter-terrorism activity. There is little appetite for throwing the book at them.
So while it’s tempting to chalk this up as just another tragedy in a long list of tragedies on both sides, it is actually much more: a devastating manifestation of something fundamental — not just a personal tragedy but a national one.
That’s a tragedy I’ve seen unfolding slowly, since even before the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023.
I’ve seen it in the rhetoric of far-right leaders like cabinet ministers Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich. But I’ve also seen it firsthand, as when I found myself on wartime television panels where I was besieged by right-wingers enraged at my assertion that innocents have been killed during the war in Gaza. I challenged one of them about whether this idea would include a two-week old baby.
“OK, maybe not the baby!” he conceded, unhappily.
The descent of part of Israeli society into this unforgivable lack of compassion is, some have argued, an inevitable outcome of indefinite control over the Palestinian territories. For years, warnings that rule over millions of disenfranchised Arabs would mutate Israel’s character were treated as excessive, even hysterical.
Israel was not a colonial power in the classic sense, its defenders argued; it was a democracy under siege, navigating impossible dilemmas. The West Bank may be “occupied” but that was justifiable because of the threat its near proximity posed. Israel’s actions might be harsh, but they were necessary, the argument went. It was said that the country’s moral core, despite pressures, would remain intact.
The initial signs after this latest tragedy are not exactly reassuring. Far from condemning Kroizer, as they rightly should have, the cabinet convened this week to offer his party a great gift: the legalization of 30 illegal settlement outposts, including some in “Area A,” which is supposed to be under full Palestinian control.
Israel did not begin this way. Its founding story was deeply bound up with an acute awareness of the need to maintain morality. The early Zionists envisioned a country that would be a “light unto the nations.”
As occupation has become an entrenched reality, most Israelis have wanted to look away; the problem is too complicated. This position may not be possible for much longer. The moral rot is too extreme. But the good news is that it has not infected everything and everyone. Israel’s public broadcaster devoted a segment to the Palestinian family’s tragedy, characterizing Kroizer’s statements as a disgrace.
The humanistic ideas through which Israel once judged itself have eroded. We must now hope that they won’t entirely vanish.
Dan Perry is the former chief editor of The Associated Press in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, the former chairman of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem, and the author of two books about Israel. Follow his newsletter “Ask Questions Later” at danperry.substack.com.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward. Discover more perspectives in Opinion. To contact Opinion authors, email opinion@forward.com.
This story was originally published on the Forward.
Features
The Entebbe Alliance Reborn: Why Uganda Is Ready to Fight Iran Alongside Israel
Fifty years ago, Israeli commandos stormed the terminal at Entebbe Airport under the cover of darkness. They engaged in a deadly firefight with Ugandan troops and Palestinian hijackers to rescue over 100 Jewish and Israeli hostages. The daring 1976 raid astonished the world and reshaped modern counterterrorism, but it cost the life of the assault unit’s commander, Lieutenant Colonel Yonatan “Yoni” Netanyahu.
Fast forward to March 2026, and the geopolitical script between Jerusalem and Kampala has flipped entirely. The very soil where Ugandan and Israeli forces once exchanged fire is now the foundation of an emerging alliance aimed squarely at countering the Islamic Republic of Iran.
General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, the chief of Uganda’s armed forces and the son of President Yoweri Museveni, recently shocked the international community with a blunt declaration.
As regional tensions with Iran boiled over into direct military confrontations, Kainerugaba took to social media to draw a definitive line in the sand. He stated that while the world wanted the war in the Middle East to end, any talk of destroying or defeating Israel would bring Uganda into the war on the side of Israel. To physically cement this dramatic pivot, he previously announced that Uganda would erect a statue of Yoni Netanyahu at the exact spot where he fell at Entebbe Airport, framing the monument as a profound gesture designed to strengthen blood relations with Israel.
While some policymakers in Washington and European capitals are quick to dismiss Kainerugaba’s rhetoric as mere social media bluster, doing so overlooks a profound geostrategic realignment occurring in the Global South. This is not just historical poetry or diplomatic hyperbole. It is the public crystallization of Israel’s new “Circle of Partners” framework, a vital evolution of Jerusalem’s traditional defense strategy tailored for an era of multi-front warfare.
For decades, the Israeli defense and intelligence establishments relied heavily on the “Periphery Doctrine.” This strategy involved cultivating quiet but robust ties with non-Arab states to counterbalance a hostile Arab core.
Today, the threat matrix has completely inverted. The Arab core is increasingly allied with Israel, while the primary existential threat is the Iranian regime. Containing and defeating Tehran’s regional ambitions requires strategic depth far beyond the Levant, necessitating a modernized Periphery Doctrine that extends deep into the African continent. Israel recognizes that securing a “Circle of Partners” is no longer optional; it is a tactical imperative.
By cementing ties with Uganda — a Christian-majority, military heavyweight in East Africa — Israel is effectively anchoring a new southern flank. The strategic utility of this partnership becomes undeniable when looking at a map of Iran’s maritime ambitions. Tehran has spent years attempting to weaponize the Red Sea and the Bab el-Mandeb strait, primarily through its funding of Houthi proxies in Yemen, while simultaneously seeking naval footholds in the Horn of Africa. East Africa serves as the geopolitical backdoor to this critical maritime corridor.
Furthermore, as the conflict with Iran expands across multiple domains, an allied Uganda offers Israel unparalleled intelligence-sharing nodes in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Uganda People’s Defense Force possesses deep institutional knowledge of local terror networks and illicit smuggling routes that Iranian proxies frequently exploit. Uganda also provides potential logistical staging grounds that sit safely outside the immediate range of Iran’s conventional ballistic missile umbrella, offering Israel a secure rear base for long-term strategic planning and operational depth.
Equally important is the diplomatic and ideological blow this alliance deals to Tehran. The Iranian regime relies heavily on a manufactured narrative that pits the Global South against a supposedly isolated Israel. At a time when international forums are routinely weaponized to turn Israel into a pariah state, unconditional support from a prominent African Union member shatters Iran’s diplomatic framing. When a leading African military commander publicly volunteers his own forces to defend the Jewish state and honors a fallen Israeli hero on African soil, it signals a shared recognition of the threat posed by radicalism that transcends geography.
In 1976, the raid on Entebbe proved to the world that Israel possessed the operational reach to strike its enemies and defend its citizens anywhere on the globe. In 2026, the emerging Entebbe alliance proves that Israel possesses the diplomatic foresight to build a continental strategic firewall against Iranian hegemony.
Uganda’s willingness to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel is a testament to the shifting tides of global alliances. If Tehran continues to escalate its multi-front war, the ayatollahs will rapidly discover that Israel is not fighting alone, and its “Circle of Partners” reaches much further than the Islamic Republic ever anticipated.
Amine Ayoub, a fellow at the Middle East Forum, is a policy analyst and writer based in Morocco. Follow him on X: @amineayoubx.
Features
Iran Lowers Minimum Age for War Roles to 12, Sparking Outcry Over Child Soldier Use
The Iranian regime has lowered the minimum age for participation in war-related activities to just 12 years old, a move that will likely fuel the concerns of human rights groups, which have condemned Iran’s treatment of children.
In a televised interview with state media, Rahim Nadali, a cultural with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) in Tehran, announced that the new initiative “For Iran” is recruiting participants to assist with patrols, checkpoints, and logistics.
“Since children are increasingly volunteering to take part, we have lowered the minimum age to 12,” Nadali said, urging young children to join the war effort if they wish.
Rahim Nadali, Cultural Deputy of the IRGC’s Tehran branch (Mar 26, 2026):
“12 and 13-year-old children wanted to participate in Basij checkpoints across the cities. We have lowered the age limit to 12 and above.” pic.twitter.com/lLZy9pU5xm— حافظه تاریخی (@hafezeh_tarikhi) March 26, 2026
Iran International first reported Nadali’s statement, which has since circulated on social media.
As part of the regime’s state media coverage of the US-Israeli war against Iran, this latest announcement has ignited mounting backlash over the use of minors in security‑related roles — a practice that is not new in Iran.
“Recruiting children into military activity is a violation of international laws and the international community must not stay silent,” Iranian-American activist Masih Alinejad posted on social media, along with video of Nadali’s comments. “This is the same regime that lectures the world about morality. But when it comes to survival? They’re willing to send children into danger.”
In the past, widely circulated social media images and videos have repeatedly shown children and teenagers in military-style uniforms cracking down on protests, including during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, which erupted nationwide after Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman, died in a Tehran police station following her arrest for allegedly violating hijab rules.
Under international law, Iran’s move flagrantly violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which explicitly prohibits the use of children in military activities, marking a dramatic breach of its global obligations.
Human rights groups have also repeatedly accused Iranian security forces of killing child protesters during past crackdowns.
According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran, more than 200 children were killed during the nationwide anti‑government protests earlier this year, which security forces violently crushed, leaving thousands of demonstrators tortured or killed.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have also documented cases of children being shot, detained, and abused during these latest demonstrations, noting that government forces have repeatedly targeted minors in ways that breach international law.
Iran has a long track record of widespread human rights abuses, including crackdowns on protesters, harassment of activists, threats to minorities, executions of children, violations of women’s rights, and dire prison conditions.
During the January uprising, at least 6,724 protesters, including 236 children, were killed, with another 11,744 cases still under verification, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). Multiple other reports have estimated that the overall death toll may exceed 30,000.
As in past years, executions remain one of the starkest manifestations of human rights abuses in Iran, with at least 2,488 people executed last year, including 63 women and two children, 13 of them carried out publicly.
Tehran’s latest controversial move comes as Iran has reportedly slammed a US proposal to end the war as “one‑sided and unfair,” a rebuff that has cast doubt on the prospects for a negotiated ceasefire.
US President Donald Trump has warned the Islamist regime it must reach a deal or face a continued onslaught.
“They now have the chance, that is Iran, to permanently abandon their nuclear ambitions and to join a new path forward,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House.
“We’ll see if they want to do it. If they don’t, we’re their worst nightmare. In the meantime, we’ll just keep blowing them away.”