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Canada’s Conservative Leader Condemns Antisemitic Crime Surge, Says Visa Holders Who Break Law ‘Will Be Deported’
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters, primarily university students, rally at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Oct. 28, 2023. Photo by Sayed Najafizada/NurPhoto
Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has announced plans to crack down on visitors to the country who promote hate against Jews, asserting that anyone in Canada on a visa who breaks the law will be deported.
“We will bring in tougher laws to target vandalism, hate marches that break laws [and] violent attacks based on ethnicity and religion,” Poilievre said at a campaign event in Ottawa on Saturday. “Anyone who is here on a visitor visa who carries out law-breaking will be deported from this country.”
Canada has criminalized hate speech, leveling a maximum punishment of two years imprisonment for anyone who engages in “communicating statements in any public place” which “incites hatred against any identifiable group where such incitement is likely to lead to a breach of the peace.”
Poilievre also blasted the string of recent hate crimes targeting Canadian Jews, decrying the “targeting of synagogues and Jewish schools with hate, vandalism, violence [and] firebombings.”
Antisemitic outrages surged a staggering 562 percent in Canada last year compared to 2022, according to a report from the World Zionist Organization and the Jewish Agency for Israel. Their research, unveiled in January, showed a 340 percent increase in total antisemitic incidents worldwide.
On April 7, B’Nai Brith Canada, a Canadian Jewish advocacy group, published its review of last year’s antisemitism, finding that the “total number of reported cases of hatred targeting Jews reached an apex of 6,219 incidents in 2024. This is the highest number B’nai Brith Canada has documented since the inception of its audit in 1982. It reflects a 7.4 percent increase in incidents since 2023, when we recorded a then-unprecedented 5,791 national tally.”
Poilievre’s pledge aligns with recent moves by the Trump administration in the US to block alleged antisemites from entering the country and deport those already here.
US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced last week that it will monitor social media platforms for antisemitic speech and conduct as a basis for denying permanent residency status and immigration benefits. The agency announced that the new policy is set to take effect immediately and will be applicable to both green card applicants and international students.
“There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” said Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). “Secretary [Kristi] Noem has made it clear that anyone who thinks they can come to America and hide behind the First Amendment to advocate for antisemitic violence and terrorism — think again. You are not welcome here.”
On Monday, the Trump administration revoked the visa of Columbia University graduate student Mohsen Mahdawi and took him into custody, making him the latest foreign student and anti-Israel activist detained and slated for deportation as a result of alleged support for the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas.
Mahdawi said that he “can empathize” with Hamas over the terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. He served as co-president of Columbia’s Palestinian Students Union, which organized protests calling for the school to divest from the Jewish state.
In August, Mahdawi praised the “martyrdom” of a cousin who served in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. “Here is Mesra who offers his soul as a sacrifice for the homeland and for the blood of the martyrs as a gift for the victory of Gaza and in defense of the dignity of his homeland and his people against the vicious Israeli occupation in the West Bank,” he wrote on Instagram.
On Sunday, the Washington Post reported that an internal State Department memo challenged the rationale for detaining Rumeysa Ozturk, a Turkish PhD student at Tufts University who co-wrote an op-ed advocating for divestment from Israel, currently held at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center in Basile, Louisiana.
According to the Post, the memo stated that “neither DHS nor ICE nor Homeland Security investigations produced any evidence showing that Ozturk has engaged in antisemitic activity or made public statements indicating support for a terrorist organization.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of the decision to expel Ozturk that “the activities presented to me meet the standard of what I’ve just described to you: people that are supportive of movements that run counter to the foreign policy of the United States.”
On Friday, Judge Jamee Comans of the LaSalle Immigration Court in Louisiana ruled that the Trump administration can deport Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, the first foreign college student targeted on the basis of anti-Israel advocacy.
Rubio said that Khalil had engaged in “antisemitic protests and disruptive activities, which fosters a hostile environment for Jewish students in the United States.”
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Lebanon Must Disarm Hezbollah to Have a Shot at Better Days, Says US Envoy
Thomas Barrack at the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn, New York, U.S., November 4, 2022. Photo: REUTERS/Brendan McDermid/File Photo
i24 News – Lebanon’s daunting social, economic and political issues would not get resolved unless the state persists in the efforts to disarm Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy behind so much of the unrest and destruction, special US envoy Tom Barrack told The National.
“You have Israel on one side, you have Iran on the other, and now you have Syria manifesting itself so quickly that if Lebanon doesn’t move, it’s going to be Bilad Al Sham again,” he said, using the historical Arabic name for the region sometimes known as “larger Syria.”
The official stressed the need to follow through on promises to disarm the Iranian proxy, which suffered severe blows from Israel in the past year, including the elimination of its entire leadership, and is considered a weakened though still dangerous jihadist outfit.
“There are issues that we have to arm wrestle with each other over to come to a final conclusion. Remember, we have an agreement, it was a great agreement. The problem is, nobody followed it,” he told The National.
Barrack spoke on the heels of a trip to Beirut, where he proposed a diplomatic plan for the region involving the full disarmament of Hezbollah by the Lebanese state.
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Report: Putin Urges Iran to Accept ‘Zero Enrichment’ Nuclear Deal With US
Russian President Vladimir Putin meets Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a cultural forum dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the birth of the Turkmen poet and philosopher Magtymguly Fragi, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Oct. 11, 2024. Photo: Sputnik/Alexander Scherbak/Pool via REUTERS
i24 News – Russian President Vladimir Putin has told Iranian leadership that he supports the idea of a nuclear deal in which Iran is unable to enrich uranium, the Axios website reported on Saturday. The Russian strongman also relayed the message to his American counterpart, President Donald Trump, the report said.
Iranian news agency Tasnim issued a denial, citing an “informed source” as saying Putin had not sent any message to Iran in this regard.
Also on Saturday, Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi stated that “Any negotiated solution must respect Iran’s right to enrichment. No agreement without recognizing our right to enrichment. If negotiations occur, the only topic will be the nuclear program. No other issues, especially defense or military matters, will be on the agenda.”
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Syria’s Al-Sharaa Attending At Least One Meeting With Israeli Officials in Azerbaijan
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks during a joint press conference with French President Emmanuel Macron after a meeting at the Elysee Palace in Paris, France, May 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Stephanie Lecocq/Pool
i24 News – Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa is attending at least one meeting with Israeli officials in Azerbaijan today, despite sources in Damascus claiming he wasn’t attending, a Syrian source close to President Al-Sharaa tells i24NEWS.
The Syrian source stated that this is a series of two or three meetings between the sides, with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani also in attendance, along with Ahmed Al-Dalati, the Syrian government’s liaison for security meetings with Israel.
The high-level Israeli delegation includes a special envoy of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, as well as security and military figures.
The purpose of the meetings is to discuss further details of the security agreement to be signed between Israel and Syria, the Iranian threat in Syria and Lebanon, Hezbollah’s weapons, the weapons of Palestinian militias, the Palestinians camps in Lebanon, and the future of Palestinian refugees from Gaza in the region.
The possibility of opening an Israeli coordination office in Damascus, without diplomatic status, might also be discussed.
The source stated that the decision to hold the meetings in Azerbaijan, made by Israel and the US, is intended to send a message to Iran.
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