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Canada’s Largest Union Asks Vice President to Resign Following Antisemitic Facebook Post
A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer stands guard outside the Senate of Canada prior to the Speech from the Throne in Ottawa, Canada on September 23, 2020. Photo: AFP photo/DAVE CHAN
The national executive board of Canada’s largest union has asked one of its senior officials to resign this week after he shared an antisemitic video on social media earlier this month.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), which has 750,000 members across the country, said in a statement on Thursday that its national board made “the difficult decision” to ask Fred Hahn to step down from his position as general vice president “because he reposted a deeply problematic video that was a clear violation of our union’s equality statement.”
CUPE’s national executive board passed a motion on Tuesday that said it “lost confidence” in Hahn’s ability to represent the union as general vice president, according to a letter CUPE send to related organizations. The board cited a video Hahn posted on Facebook on Aug. 11 and “the impact it has had on CUPE members and the national union.”
The controversial video reportedly showed a diver at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris with a Star of David on their arm, jumping off a diving board before turning into a bomb that fell on civilians. The video’s narrator called the diver an “Olympic champion.”
Hahn, who is also the president of CUPE’s branch in Ontario, deleted the video and in an Aug. 18 Facebook post apologized for sharing a clip that “caused pain for some who viewed it.” He said he wanted to draw attention to what he described as “clearly a double standard” at the 2024 Olympics since Russian athletes were banned from competing in the Summer Games under their own flag, because of the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war, while athletes from Israel were able to represent their country amid the Israel-Hamas war raging in the Gaza Strip.
“My intent was never to associate Jewish people with the violence enacted by the state of Israel,” Hahn wrote in the Facebook post. “It remains my strongly held view that it is a terrible mistake, and antisemitic, to conflate abhorrent actions by the state of Israel with Jewish humanity or identity … Our collective focus should be on the unfolding genocide, on the continued contravention of international law by the state of Israel — not on me or my social media posts.”
He added, “There is so much pain and suffering in our world and the last thing anyone with a conscience, me included, would want to do is cause more of it. I believe other people of conscience would agree that any public discussion now should not take away from organizing for a ceasefire, for justice and peace for all.”
Hahn was elected president of CUPE Ontario in May. He also faced calls to resign last year after he praised the “power of resistance” following the Oct. 7 deadly Hamas terrorist attacks in southern Israel.
Ontario Premier Doug Ford said Wednesday in a post on X/Twitter that he supports CUPE’s decision to have Hahn resign. “I applaud CUPE National for asking Fred Hahn to step down,” he wrote. “Now it’s time for Fred to put his members first and do the right thing by resigning from all his positions of leadership.”
During an unrelated news conference that same day, Ford called Hahn “a bully for 20 years.” The president said he was getting messages on his phone from CUPE members who called Hahn’s comments disgusting. “In my opinion, he’s a disgusting human being anyways, but that’s here nor there,” he added. “His bigoted comments — it’s unacceptable here in Ontario … someone has to discipline this guy and I encourage the [CUPE] workers next time, next time a vote comes, vote this character out, because, in my opinion, he’s just a terrible, terrible human being.”
Ford also applauded Ontario’s Labor Minister David Piccini for confronting Hahn in-person about his actions. During their exchange, which Piccini shared in a video on Tuesday, the minister called Hahn an “antisemite” and told him “you have to stop hating Jews … you’re a labor leader and your members deserve better than you.”
The Canadian branch of the human rights and social advocacy organization Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center voiced support for CUPE’s request that Hahn resign, and called on him to also step down as president of the union’s branch in Ontario. Earlier this week, the Jewish group called Hahn’s apology for his antisemitic Facebook video “insincere and insufficient.”
“Given the repeated harm his words and actions have caused to the Jewish community, Hahn must be replaced by someone who can represent all CUPE member,” the organization added.
In its statement on Thursday, CUPE criticized Piccini and Ford for their decision “to attack Fred Hahn, in a way that is completely revolting and unacceptable.” The union also explained that while it does not support Hahn’s antisemitic social media post, CUPE does condemn Israel for its actions during the ongoing war targeting Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
“Nothing about this decision changes CUPE’s clear, consistent position on the bombardment of Gaza by Israel,” the union noted. “CUPE continues to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire; a release of all hostages from Gaza; and an end to the blockade of Gaza and the restoration of humanitarian aid. CUPE also calls on the Government of Canada to suspend the sale of arms and military equipment to Israel as it committed to doing in March 2024.”
“To suggest that asking for Fred’s resignation as a GVP is to throw in with those who support the genocide in Gaza, or is in response to a conservative premier’s bullying, is frankly ludicrous,” the union said.
The post Canada’s Largest Union Asks Vice President to Resign Following Antisemitic Facebook Post first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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The Algemeiner’s Top 10 Most-Read News Stories of 2024
Israeli soldiers operate in the Gaza Strip amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in this handout picture released on March 5, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
In a year when Israel was at war on several fronts, Donald Trump was reelected president of the United States, and antisemitism continued to skyrocket globally in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7 invasion, these were the 10 stories that most captured the attention of The Algemeiner‘s readers.
1. Masked Activists Violently Attack Jews at North Carolina Public Library
West Asheville Library in North Carolina. Screenshot: buncombecounty.org.
Three pro-Israel attendees of a public event titled “Strategic Lessons From the Palestinian Resistance” reported being attacked and forcibly dragged out by anti-Israel activists also in attendance at the West Asheville Library in North Carolina.
2. Network Behind Eruption of Anti-Israel College Campus Protests Revealed in New Report
The “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” at Columbia University, located in the Manhattan borough of New York City, on April 25, 2024. Photo: Reuters Connect
Anti-Zionist protests striking US colleges and universities across the country have been the result of “tightly coordinated” efforts backed by the financial power and logistical support of groups linked to terrorist organizations and some of America’s most prestigious philanthropic foundations, according to a new report.
Floyd Mayweather speaks to the media during the press conference after the 12-round Undisputed Super Middleweight World Title main-event bout at Premier Boxing Champions, Canelo vs Charlo. at T-Mobile Arena on Sept. 30, 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Photo: Alejandro Salazar/PxImages/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Former boxing world champion Floyd Mayweather will donate $100,000 to United Hatzalah of Israel for the organization to purchase 100 bulletproof vests to keep volunteers safe amid the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Hamas terrorists kidnapping Israeli women at the Nahal Oz base near the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot
In an emotional hearing at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, former hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza recounted harrowing tales of sexual harassment and abuse, as families of those still held captive pleaded for the Israeli government to do more to secure their release.
US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with House Republicans at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington, DC, US on Nov. 13, 2024. Photo: ALLISON ROBBERT/Pool via REUTERS
Hamas has responded to US President-elect Donald Trump’s warning that there will be “all hell to pay” in the Middle East if the Palestinian terrorist group does not release all of the remaining hostages in Gaza before his inauguration on Jan. 20, claiming that Israel has “sabotaged” several potential ceasefire deals and should be held responsible for perpetuating the ongoing war.
Professor Lara Sheehi of the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies. Photo: X/Twitter.
George Washington University psychology professor Lara Sheehi, who was accused of verbally abusing and discriminating against her Jewish graduate students, has left the school and accepted a job at an institution based in Qatar, according to a correspondence obtained by The Algemeiner.
7. Chanel, Tory Burch, Others in Fashion Donate to Help Israelis Impacted by Hamas War
Tourists shop for goods at a CHANEL store at China Duty Free Group’s (CDF) Sanya International Duty Free City in Sanya, Hainan Province, China, Aug 28, 2023. Photo: CFOTO via Reuters Connect
Several fashion brands and their parent companies have announced that they are making donations to help provide humanitarian aid to Israeli victims of Hamas atrocities following the Palestinian terror group’s infiltration of Israel on Oct. 7.
Mob of anti-Zionists attempting to infiltrate event with Ran Bar-Yoshafat at University of California, Berkeley on February 27, 2024. Photo: Screenshot/Twitter
A mob of hundreds pro-Palestinian students and non-students shut down an event at the University of California, Berkeley featuring an Israeli soldier, forcing Jewish students to flee to a secret safe room as the protestors overwhelmed campus police.
9. Prominent Pro-Hamas Activist in Australia Arrested on Kidnapping and Torture Charges
Australian pro-Hamas activist Laura Allam. Photo: XTwitter
Australian police announced the arrest of a prominent pro-Hamas advocate accused of orchestrating the kidnapping and torture of a man whose perceived offense was to work for a Jewish employer.
10. ‘You Corrupt the World!’ Jewish Man Wearing Kippah Assaulted in Washington, DC
The suspect who was arrested for allegedly assaulting a Jewish man in Washington, DC on June 10, 2024 going on a tirade after he was restrained. Photo: Screenshot from video taken by the victim, Ariel Golfeyz, and provided to The Algemeiner.
A Jewish man wearing a kippah was assaulted in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, DC in what police are investigating as a hate crime.
The post The Algemeiner’s Top 10 Most-Read News Stories of 2024 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Pushes to Expand Ties With Cuba as Both Countries Seek to Counter US Sanctions
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, in Tehran, Iran, Dec. 4, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
One of Iran’s top foreign policy priorities will be working to enhance its relationship with Cuba across several domains, according to a senior adviser to the Iranian health minister.
Ali Jafarian also explained during a coordination meeting of the 19th Iran-Cuba Joint Commission in Tehran on Tuesday that Iran’s Islamist regime has made it a central focus to expand cooperation with Latin American countries more broadly, Iranian state-run media reported.
The meeting came as both countries continued looking for ways to combat US sanctions, which are only expected to become more harsh on both Tehran and Havana when US President-elect Donald Trump enters office on Jan. 20.
Jafarian said that a comprehensive 10-year strategic plan between Iran and Cuba should serve as the foundation for all documents related to the 19th Commission on Iran-Cuba Economic Cooperation, which is scheduled to take place in Havana in February.
During Tuesday’s gathering, Mohammad Hossein Niknam, the director-general of international cooperation at the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education, said that, despite being thousands of miles apart, Iran and Cuba have long supported each other and are committed to strengthening their economic relations.
Iranian Ambassador to Cuba Mohammad Hadi Sobhani said during a virtual appearance that, beyond economic matters, the 19th Iran-Cuba Joint Commission will also allow the two countries to expand political cooperation.
Iran and Cuba have taken several steps to grow closer over the past year, motivated in large part by a joint opposition to the United States
Last December, both countries vowed to strengthen relations and stand together against sanctions imposed on them by Washington.
“What can neutralize the sanctions is the exchange of capacities between the two countries,” then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said during a joint statement with his visiting Cuban counterpart, Miguel Diaz-Canel.
“There is a serious determination between the two countries to develop relations,” Raisi said, adding that “the common feature of the two countries is that they both stand against the system of domination.”
That meeting came months after both leaders met in Havana and each said their countries faced similar situations and had to confront “Yankee imperialism and its allies with a tenacious resistance.”
Cuba has been under a US embargo since 1962 and is included on Washington’s list of countries supporting terrorism — like Iran, which is also subject to severe sanctions. Earlier this year, the US also removed Cuba from a short list of countries that it alleges are “not cooperating fully” in its fight against terrorism.
It’s unclear if Iran will end up pursuing a relationship with Cuba to resist US sanctions in a formalized way as it has with Russia.
Iranian and Russian leaders have been working on an initiative to form an international alliance against US sanctions known as the International Union Against US Sanctions. An Iranian lawmaker spearheading the effort said earlier this month that it will soon be completed.
Beyond shared hostility toward the US, Iran and Cuba have also taken several steps to expand their economic relationship. In April, for example, they established a twinning relationship between two major ports in each country to facilitate shipping and trade.
The post Iran Pushes to Expand Ties With Cuba as Both Countries Seek to Counter US Sanctions first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese Calls for Medical Professionals to Cut Ties With Israel
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The United Nations’ special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories has called on all medical professionals to cut ties with Israel, accusing the Jewish state of committing “genocide” and unfairly detaining Palestinian doctor Hussam Abu Safiya.
“I urge medical professionals worldwide to pursue the severance of all ties with Israel as a concrete way to forcefully denounce Israel’s full destruction of the Palestinian healthcare system in Gaza, a critical tool of its ongoing genocide,” Francesca Albanese wrote on X/Twitter on Monday.
The post came after Israel last week arrested Safiya and several other people while conducting a raid on the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza, where the Israeli military is fighting Hamas terrorists. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it arrested Safiya because he was “suspected of being a Hamas terrorist operative.” The IDF also insisted that the hospital has been used as a “command and control center” for the Palestinian terrorist group.
Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), an allied terrorist group in Gaza, have extensive histories of using hospitals — as well as schools, apartment buildings, and other forms of civilian infrastructure in Gaza — as bases for storing weapons and planning and conducting attacks. A PIJ spokesman in April confessed that terrorists have taken over all of the hospitals in Gaza, using the medical facilities to hide military activities and launch attacks.
Israel has reportedly relocated Safiya to a detention facility for further investigation into his purported ties to the Hamas terrorist group.
Albanese’s comments came amid a surge of antisemitism directed at Jewish health-care professionals in the West. In the year following Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel last Oct. 7, about 75 percent of Jewish health workers and students have been subjected to antisemitism, according to a recent study in the peer-reviewed Journal of Religion and Health.
A separate recent study conducted by the Data & Analytics Department of StandWithUs, a Jewish civil rights group, found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace.
That study followed a similar one published in Canada earlier this month, in which Jewish doctors reported being chased not only out of the field of medicine but also out of the country. Commissioned by the Jewish Medical Association of Ontario (JMAO), the survey found that 80 percent of Jewish medical workers who responded to it “have faced antisemitism at work” since Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre and that 31 percent of Jewish doctors — 98 percent of whom “are worried about the impact of antisemitism on health care” — have weighed emigrating from Canada to another country.
Earlier this month, members of the US Congress raised alarm bells about growing antisemitism in the medical field.
“That’s truly scary; the idea that somehow your religious background or your identity would inform or impact the type of care that you get is not only antisemitic, it’s not only anti-American, it is anti-democratic,” Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) said during a hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’s attacks on the Jewish state. In the months following the Oct. 7 atrocities, Albanese has accused Israel of enacting a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people have been killed in Gaza as a result of Israeli actions.
The United Nations launched a probe into Albanese over the summer for allegedly accepting a trip to Australia funded by pro-Hamas organizations. She has also celebrated the anti-Israel protesters rampaging across US college campuses, saying they represent a “revolution” and that they give her “hope.”
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