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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.”
The post Canada’s Conservative Leader Condemns Antisemitic Crime Surge, Says Visa Holders Who Break Law ‘Will Be Deported’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.