RSS
Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Tries to Bash Israel for Electoral Gain on Monday
After nearly nine years under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada’s foreign policy has drifted into a kind of high school debating club — where policy positions on foreign affairs are usually taken on the fly, and solely for domestic consumption.
Where Israel is concerned, the end result has been an increasingly alienated Jewish community.
In the wake of Hamas’ October 7 terror attack, the Canadian government sounded the right notes, with Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland calling “for the [Israeli] hostages who were seized in this vile, horrific attack to be released immediately.”
Not surprisingly, the terrorists didn’t comply with her polite request.
And the sympathy and goodwill for Israel quickly dissipated once the Jewish State began its inevitable and necessary military response.
By mid-October 2023, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly and her Parliamentary Secretary Rob Oliphant were gullibly parroting talking points from Hamas’ Ministry of Health, which claimed that Israel had bombed the Al-Ahli hospital, killing 500 people.
Days later, in a weekend press release that got lost in the news cycle, Defense Minister Bill Blair grudgingly accepted the facts: that the initial story was a lie, and the “hospital bombing” was in fact a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that landed in a parking lot.
Neither Joly nor Oliphant ever apologized.
In March 2024, the socialist New Democratic Party (NDP) — on whose support the minority Liberals have relied to avoid a non-confidence vote and early election — put forward a motion that sought to recognize Palestinian statehood and reinstate funding to UNRWA, which had been paused due to some of its employees’ involvement with Hamas and the October 7 massacre.
In a last minute compromise, UNRWA got their money (the “pause” was removed before Canada ever missed a payment), and the aspiring State of Palestine had to make do without Canadian recognition.
But it was the Trudeau government’s decision to cease the further authorization of arms exports to Israel that was seen by many so-called progressives as the prize in the negotiations.
The gesture was mostly symbolic, as Canada’s military exports to Israel — which totaled C$21.3 million in 2022 (US $15.7 million) — are a rounding error and a shade more than the C$18.1 million (US$13.3 million) the country sent to Algeria that year.
Even tiny Qatar, which has provided both safe haven and hard cash to Hamas for years, bought more than twice the value of weapons than the Israelis.
And the military exports to all of Canada’s other non-US trading partners are dwarfed in magnitude by the C$1.15 billion (US$ 847.5 million) that Canada sent to Saudi Arabia, which represented more than half of 2022 military exports outside of the US.
When the Saudis were fighting a brutal war with the Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist group, Trudeau’s Liberals resisted calls for an arms embargo.
Saudi Arabia is by no means perfect, but in a choice between supporting a steadfast Middle East ally or giving moral quarter to an unapologetically anti-Western death cult, there was no question about which side to support.
Yet selling a nominal amount of weapons to Israel, which was fighting an existential war against Iranian-backed terrorists on multiple fronts, while trying to exert leverage to free civilian hostages, was somehow beyond the pale.
One could be forgiven for thinking that this shameful episode ended matters, but domestic politics have taken some additional turns against the Liberals, and they’ve decided to dust off the old Israeli punching bag.
In June, the Liberals lost a close by-election in a Toronto-area riding they had held since 1993, in which roughly 15% of the voters are Jewish. According to one exit poll, nearly two thirds of those Jewish voters chose the Conservative candidate.
Last week, the NDP decided they were not going to continue to support Trudeau’s government after all — not that they were going to bring down the government and call an actual election. But they were no longer guaranteeing a rubber stamp and would henceforth start the conversation about every confidence vote with a very firmly Canadian “maybe.”
On Monday, the Liberals will face a by-election in another “safe” Montreal-area riding that they have held since its creation in 2015.
According to current polls, they’re in a tight race, but trailing the separatist Bloc Quebecois and only one percentage point ahead of the NDP, whose candidate has circulated a pamphlet featuring a Palestinian flag and a caption in French saying “I’m voting for Craig Sauvé to stop the genocide in Gaza.”
With Trudeau’s own national polling numbers badly lagging those of the opposition Conservatives, it was time yet again to do something — not of global import, which the country is powerless to achieve — but at least good enough for an Ottawa press conference in both of Canada’s official languages.
Enter Foreign Affairs Minister Joly, who is Trudeau’s fifth cabinet minister in the role, and his fourth in the last six years.
Joly failed up to her current role after a disastrous tenure in her first job as the nation’s Heritage Minister, before taking on less prominent roles in multiple cabinet shuffles.
A few days before the Palestinian statehood vote, she and Mental Health and Addictions Minister Ya’ara Saks, who is Jewish, posed for a cringe-worthy photo in which they held hands with Palestinian Authority strongman Mahmoud Abbas.
With another by-election embarrassment looming, the last symbolic arms embargo was suddenly not good enough and another was apparently warranted.
And while selling much larger quantities of weapons to Saudi Arabia and Qatar is just good business, Israel is apparently such a menace that Canada now needed to ban ammunition exports to the United States from Quebec because they would eventually find their way to Israel.
The decision will, of course, have no impact on Israel’s war effort whatsoever: ammunition is fungible, and if the Americans want the Israelis to have it, then they will have it.
But it felt like yet another slap in the face for Canadian Jews and a cynical ploy to capture NDP votes from the anti-Israel left.
Whether any of this rescues Trudeau’s government from another electoral embarrassment remains to be seen. Regardless of what happens on Monday, the only cold comfort for Canadian Jews is that their government’s hostility toward the Jewish State is blunted only by their country’s irrelevance.
Ian Cooper is a Toronto-based lawyer.
The post Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Tries to Bash Israel for Electoral Gain on Monday first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
RSS
Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
RSS
Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.