Uncategorized
Canada’s Indigenous People Who Support Zionism
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks as he and US President Donald Trump (not pictured) meet in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, DC, US, Oct. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
For Jewish Canadians, the period after October 7 has been a lonely time.
The Biblical phrase from the Book of Numbers, describing the Israelites as “a people that dwells alone; not reckoned among the nations,” seems particularly apt today.
Fred Maroun, a Canadian of Lebanese origin, compares the lack of support for the Jewish people after October 7 to their abandonment during the Holocaust. Maroun also remarks on a truth rarely seen in Western media: Hamas’ use of Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages as human shields has resulted in the demonization of Israel around the world.
But not by everyone. A number of Indigenous Canadian activists have been outspoken in their support for Israel and the Jewish people. They have rejected the attempt to establish a point of intersection between their own efforts to assert their identities and cultures, and the aims and practices employed by Hamas and its supporters.
On October 16, 2023, just eight days after the Hamas attack on Israel, Meaghie Champion, an Indigenous Canadian from British Columbia, criticized the use of the term “decolonization” as a fig leaf for supporting Hamas.
“Decolonization is not about rape, kidnapping, hostage taking, mass violence and child-murder,” Champion said. Indigenous struggles in North America have been predominantly peaceful.
Six months later, Harry Laforme and Karen Restoule, prominent Indigenous Canadians, made the same point in the National Post. Describing themselves as Anishinaabe Zionists (Anishinaabe are Indigenous peoples from the Great Lakes region of North America), they emphasize that Jews are indigenous to the Middle East. According to them, accusations related to colonization and decolonization do not justify terror, violence, kidnapping and rape.
I live in Waterloo, a small city in Ontario that is home to two universities. Both of them are located on traditional territory of Indigenous peoples, a point acknowledged at all university functions and special events. Laforme and Restoule note the irony of pro-Palestinian university demonstrations and encampments taking place on Indigenous land for purposes of exclusion, antisemitism, lawlessness, and hate.
This past May, Laforme, the first Indigenous appellate court judge in Canadian history, gave a talk at Tel Aviv University’s Democracy Forum, in which he described how Indigenous history is weaponized to promote antisemitism. In effect, pro-Palestinian activists in Canada use Israel as a stand-in for colonial guilt as “a way to absolve and redirect collective shame over Indigenous suffering.”
Indigenous groups in other parts of the world have also voiced strong support for Israel, particularly those in New Zealand and Australia. The Indigenous Embassy Jerusalem, founded in 2024 by Sheree Trotter and Alfred Nagaro, both of New Zealand, is a platform for Indigenous nations to express their solidarity with Israel and the Jewish people. Indeed, Sheree Trotter and other Embassy representatives participated in Toronto’s impressive March for Israel last May.
Why this sense of kinship? Knowing what it is like to be targeted for extermination must have a lot to do with it. Indeed, the violent language used by pro-Palestinian protestors, the use of terms such as “by any means necessary” and “there is only one solution, intifada revolution,” are offensive and genocidal, and suggest the intent of extinction.
Indigenous Canadians know about genocide. Laforme and Restoule note that when questioned about the high death rate among Indigenous children in Residential Schools, one senior Canadian bureaucrat said, in 1910, “this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this Department, which is geared to the final solution of our Indian problem.” Yes, another final solution.
When it comes to advocacy on behalf of Israel and the Jewish people, perhaps Ryan Bellerose, a Métis activist from northern Manitoba, takes the prize. For more than a decade, Bellerose has been writing articles, giving addresses, and appearing on social media as an unwavering supporter of the indigenous claim of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel.
To Ryan Bellerose and Harry Laforme, Israel is an example, possibly the only one, of a people that achieved self-determination in their ancestral homeland. Bellerose also points out that indigenous rights are about respecting the rights of those who came before you.
A narrative based on the denial of Jewish history — and the lie that Zionists are merely European settler-colonialists — will never lead to peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Jacob Sivak, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, is a retired professor, University of Waterloo.
Uncategorized
Vance downplays ‘little skirmishes’ as Israel bombs in Gaza and Hamas fails to return hostages
(JTA) — Israel carried out a bombing campaign in Gaza on Tuesday in response to what it said was violations of the two-week-old ceasefire by Hamas.
Hamas, meanwhile, rejected the claim that it was behind an attack on Israeli soldiers and said Israel’s bombing was the ceasefire violation.
The two developments, plus Hamas’ continued holding of 13 hostages’ remains, represented the biggest threats yet to the U.S. brokered ceasefire in the two-year-long Gaza war. But U.S. Vice President JD Vance said he remained unconcerned.
“The ceasefire is holding,” Vance told reporters in Washington. “That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there.”
Vance traveled to Israel last week as part of a U.S. pressure campaign to preserve the truce and set the region on a path toward a deeper peace. Both Israel and Hamas have tested the terms of the ceasefire.
Hamas has not released the remains of all of hostages as required by the ceasefire and on Monday night returned remains belonging to a murdered Israeli whose body had previously been returned to Israel. Video footage from Gaza appeared to show Hamas placing the remains underground before retrieving them to hand to the Red Cross for transport to Israel — a charade that the Red Cross denounced as “unacceptable” in a statement.
Hamas said it would halt the planned release of another hostage’s remains on Tuesday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he ordered “immediate and powerful strikes in Gaza” following a meeting of his security advisors.
The strikes followed an attack on Israeli soldiers in Rafah, a portion of Gaza that remains under Israeli military control.
“The attack on IDF soldiers in Gaza today by the Hamas terror organization crosses a glaring red line to which the IDF will respond with great force,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “Hamas will pay many times over for attacking the soldiers and for violating the agreement to return the fallen hostages.”
Hamas said it did not carry out the attack and that the airstrikes, which it said killed at least nine people in Gaza, represented a violation of the ceasefire. But it said it remained committed to the truce, which has so far allowed it to reassert control within Gaza. A second phase, required once all hostages are released, calls for Hamas’ disarmament.
Vance said he understood that an Israeli soldier had been attacked. “We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the president’s peace is going to hold despite that,” he said.
The post Vance downplays ‘little skirmishes’ as Israel bombs in Gaza and Hamas fails to return hostages appeared first on The Forward.
Uncategorized
Vance downplays ‘little skirmishes’ as Israel bombs in Gaza and Hamas fails to return hostages
Israel carried out a bombing campaign in Gaza on Tuesday in response to what it said was violations of the two-week-old ceasefire by Hamas.
Hamas, meanwhile, rejected the claim that it was behind an attack on Israeli soldiers and said Israel’s bombing was the ceasefire violation.
The two developments, plus Hamas’ continued holding of 13 hostages’ remains, represented the biggest threats yet to the U.S. brokered ceasefire in the two-year-long Gaza war. But U.S. Vice President JD Vance said he remained unconcerned.
“The ceasefire is holding,” Vance told reporters in Washington. “That doesn’t mean that there aren’t going to be little skirmishes here and there.”
Vance traveled to Israel last week as part of a U.S. pressure campaign to preserve the truce and set the region on a path toward a deeper peace. Both Israel and Hamas have tested the terms of the ceasefire.
Hamas has not released the remains of all of hostages as required by the ceasefire and on Monday night returned remains belonging to a murdered Israeli whose body had previously been returned to Israel. Video footage from Gaza appeared to show Hamas placing the remains underground before retrieving them to hand to the Red Cross for transport to Israel — a charade that the Red Cross denounced as “unacceptable” in a statement.
Hamas said it would halt the planned release of another hostage’s remains on Tuesday after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said he ordered “immediate and powerful strikes in Gaza” following a meeting of his security advisors.
The strikes followed an attack on Israeli soldiers in Rafah, a portion of Gaza that remains under Israeli military control.
“The attack on IDF soldiers in Gaza today by the Hamas terror organization crosses a glaring red line to which the IDF will respond with great force,” Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in a statement. “Hamas will pay many times over for attacking the soldiers and for violating the agreement to return the fallen hostages.”
Hamas said it did not carry out the attack and that the airstrikes, which it said killed at least nine people in Gaza, represented a violation of the ceasefire. But it said it remained committed to the truce, which has so far allowed it to reassert control within Gaza. A second phase, required once all hostages are released, calls for Hamas’ disarmament.
Vance said he understood that an Israeli soldier had been attacked. “We expect the Israelis are going to respond, but I think the president’s peace is going to hold despite that,” he said.
—
The post Vance downplays ‘little skirmishes’ as Israel bombs in Gaza and Hamas fails to return hostages appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Uncategorized
Harvard Demands Dismissal of Latest Antisemitism Lawsuit
A Jewish student at Harvard University harassed by anti-Israel protesters. Photo: Screenshot
Harvard University on Monday asked a federal judge to dismiss an antisemitism lawsuit which alleges that administrative officials violated civil rights law when they declined to impose meaningful disciplinary sanctions on two students who allegedly assaulted a Jewish student during a protest held to rally anti-Israel activists just days after the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israeli communities.
According to The Harvard Crimson, the university’s lawyers contended that the Jewish student, Yoav Segev, has not backed his claim with evidence and that his grievance is founded not in any legally recognizable harm but a disagreement regarding policy.
“Mr. Segev’s allegation, then, is not that Harvard failed to take action, but simply that he disagrees with the actions taken after the investigation,” the university’s lawyers wrote in a filing submitted on Monday, adding that the school believes Segev’s contention that Harvard “conspired” to deny him justice cannot be substantiated.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Segev endured a mobbing of pro-Hamas activists led by Ibrahim Bharmal and Elom Tettey-Tamaklo, who stalked him across Harvard Yard before encircling him and screaming “Shame! Shame! Shame!” as he struggled to break free from the mass of bodies which surrounded him. Video of the incident, widely viewed online at the time, showed the crush of people shoving keffiyehs — traditional headdresses worn by men in the Middle East that in some circles have come to symbolize Palestinian nationalism — in the face of the student, whom they had identified as Jewish.
Nearly two years after the assault, Bharmal and Tettey-Tamaklo have not only avoided hate crime charges but also even amassed new accolades and distinctions — according to multiple reports.
After being charged with assault and battery, the two men were ordered in April by Boston Municipal Court Judge Stephen McClenon to attend “pre-trial diversion” anger management courses and perform 80 hours of community service each, a decision which did not require their apologizing to Segev even though Assistant District Attorney Ursula Knight described what they did as “hands on assault and battery.”
Harvard neither disciplined Bharmal nor removed him from the presidency of the Harvard Law Review, a coveted post once held by former US President Barack Obama. As of last year, he was awarded a law clerkship with the Public Defender for the District of Columbia, a government-funded agency which provides free legal counsel to “individuals … who are charged with committing serious criminal acts.” Bharmal also reaped a $65,000 fellowship from Harvard Law School to work at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamic group whose leaders have defended the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s atrocities against Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.
As for Tettey-Tamaklo, he walked away from Harvard Divinity School with honors, according to The Free Press, as the 2024 Class Committee for Harvard voted him class marshal, a role in which he led the graduation procession through Harvard Yard alongside the institution’s most accomplished scholars and faculty. Harvard did, however, terminate his serving as a proctor for freshmen students.
The US campus antisemitism crisis has kept Harvard University in the headlines.
Earlier this month it disclosed a $113 million budget deficit caused by the Trump administration’s confiscation of much of its federal contracts and grants as punishment for, among other alleged misdeeds, its admitted failure to combat antisemitism on its campus.
According to Harvard’s “Financial Report: Fiscal Year 2025,” the university’s spending exceeded the $6.7 billion it amassed from donations, taxpayer support, tuition, and other income sources, such as endowment funds earmarked for operational expenses. Harvard also suffered a steep deficit in non-restricted donor funds, $212 million, a possible indication that philanthropists now hesitate to write America’s oldest university a blank check due to its inveterate generating of negative publicity — prompted by such episodes as the institution’s botching the appointment of its first Black president by conferring the honor to a plagiarist and its failing repeatedly to quell antisemitic discrimination and harassment.
“Even by the standards of our centuries-long history, fiscal year 2025 was extraordinarily challenging, with political and economic disruption affecting many sectors, including higher education,” Harvard president Alan Garber said in a statement. “We continue to adapt to uncertainty and threats to sources of revenue that have sustained our work for many years. We have intensified our efforts to expand our sources of funding.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.