As I sat in an anthropology lecture at the University of British Columbia, we debated the question: What is a unifying national identity for Canadians? In response, I said, “Our national identity is that we aren’t Americans; our identity is contrasted against American identities, for good or for bad.”

Some students laughed, and my professor nodded approvingly. How I wish we could laugh about our lack of Canadian identity today, as we watch university student encampments support the repressive tyrannical terrorist regime Hamas, the antithesis of democracy.

I am not Jewish, but I have watched in awe as the Israel Defense Forces fights to defend the Jewish nation from Hamas, and free the remaining hostages. The parliamentary democracy that governs Israel acts as a beacon of light in the Middle East. The strong national identity that interlocks the state and the people propels the continued hostage rescue operations.

It is my greatest hope that Canada, my country, would feel as strongly in their national responsibility to rescue me, my family, or fellow Canadians if we were ever taken hostage, or if Canada was invaded by a terrorist group. However, I fear that the national Canadian identity would not be strong enough to withstand the international pressure that Israel has withstood to continue the hostage rescue missions.

Across Canada, university students are assuming pro-Hamas identities — many after reading ill-informed or false Instagram posts. In the name of social justice, they are aligning with a cause that approves the intentional targeting of Jewish civilians, calls for the eradication of the world’s only Jewish state, and ignores the fact that Israel is waging one of the lowest civilian-to-combatant casualty wars in the history of armed conflict.

Here in Canada we, as the Gen Z’ers, don’t have a strong national identity. We haven’t grown up with a strong appreciation for our democracy, military, or a high respect for our veterans. Many of us under the age of 30 do not know the words to “O’Canada.” We have taken for granted the freedom that is our democratic right in Canada. I hypothesize that so many of our younger generations have fallen for terrorist propaganda because we lack rootedness in a national backbone.

There is nothing wrong with advocating for civilians in war zones. It’s exactly because of our democratic freedoms that we can have differing dialogues around war. But what is taking place on campuses is not pro-peace, pro-innocent civilians, pro-hostage release, or pro-democratic values.

These university encampments are anti-peace and they promote hate, propaganda, and terrorism. Before our eyes, since the Oct. 7th massacre carried out by Hamas, many university students have sided with the terrorist organization.

I am nearly infuriated to the point of tears most days, in what feels like a never-ending battle of terrorist propaganda being shared by my leftist friends. I have always been a politically center-left person, but as the left moves further to the extremist side, I feel the need to call this extremism out.

As a non-Jewish Canadian university student, I have had enough of this childish behavior. If we want to be treated like adults, we need to act like them. As silly as that sounds, my peers are using their democratic rights to advocate for a terrorist group. A terrorist group who would kill us if given the chance.

Without a strong national backbone, we have lost ourselves to incompetent “social justice” causes that cease to make rational or logical sense. Canadian democratic values are about peace, respect, and diversity. Hamas is a radical Islamist military movement that does not believe in equal rights for men and women, let alone LGBTQ+ individuals. It does not make democratic sense to advocate for a terrorist group who are fanatical Islamic extremists.

Intense false realities have been created by the extreme left that fantasize and romanticize terrorists as resistance fighters — a desperate attempt to create a false narrative that implicates Israel as the terrorist organization. Instead of calling for accountability and disbandment of Hamas, the blame has been unfairly placed on Israel. These dangerous terrorist-sympathizing ideologies need to be met with harsh repercussions, as the democratic values of future adult Canadians rest in the balance.

Many of us on the left have lived in fear of falling victim to cancel culture, and have instead allowed the extremism on the left to grow. The hypocrisy and privilege of these protestors have stripped them of their credibility for a social justice movement.

Putting up signs stating “F*** KKKANANDA” at the University of British Columbia, painting “F*** Quebec” in Montreal on the face of a new Holocaust museum poster, and chanting “Death to America” on campuses, is life or death for Western democratic values.

The (false) colonial narrative about Israel has become dizzyingly amplified on campuses, commonly stating that Israel is a colonizer of the land and the Palestinians are the oppressed. Instead, the ancestral and Indigenous right of Jewish return is the ultimate act of decolonization.

The intense leftist approach to teaching makes race the center of every issue, causing students to view indigeneity and colonization in simplified forms without historical context. I am an Arts student who has always been politically and socially left, and an active feminist.

However, I have been inundated with intense frameworks of colonialism, racism, and intersectionality since beginning my undergraduate studies — and these claims are not always based in historical reality.

I never thought I would write these words, but I am dismayed by how my leftist peers are acting, and it is becoming more extreme every day. They are acting like puppets for terrorism, amplifying propaganda and disinformation about what occurred on Oct 7th.

I do not want to live in a society that denies rape, denies accountability, and denies basic human rights to Israelis and Jewish people. I love that my friends in the LGBTQIA2S+ community get to live freely here in Canada and that my friends who choose to receive an abortion for personal or life-saving reasons, can do so. Also, as a woman, I can live equally in a society that promotes my human rights. None of these rights are awarded by Hamas in the society they govern. With the privileged position of having access to basic human rights, I am thankful to call myself a Canadian citizen.

If we don’t fight for our Canadian democratic values, we will be flattened by external forces. It is time to build and cultivate a strong national backbone that holds us accountable for upholding our country. Maybe we will one day be able to look back with humor on this dark period in academic spaces that have allowed this ideology to foster. Until then, we must fight for our country to remain the “True North, strong and free.” If we stand for nothing, we will fall for everything.

As a Gen-Z Canadian, I refuse to allow my peers to degrade our freedoms by romanticizing terrorism.

Zara Nybo is a student at the University of British Columbia, and a Campus Media Fellow with HonestReporting Canada and Allied Voices for Israel.

The post Weak National Canadian Identity Is Leading to Democratic Values Backsliding first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

The University of Pennsylvania has suspended four pro-Hamas protesters who participated in illegally occupying the campus, according to an activist group that helped organize the demonstration.

“The [university’s] administration has continued to endorse Zionist ideology and bent to the will of their donors in order to prioritize their profit and image. In their most recent attempt to stifle pro-Palestinian speech, they have suspended four of their own students,” a Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) splinter group — Freedom School for Palestine — wrote on Instagram.

“It is clear that Penn is not an institution of education but a corporate power which serves to oil the gears of the global war machine (and then beat, jail, and suspend those who protest this) [sic],” the post continued, adding that the students were “placed on semester-long or year-long suspensions.”

Freedom School for Palestine — which helped organize a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” in which pro-Hamas students lived for weeks and refused to leave unless administrators agreed to boycott and divest from Israel — also implored the public to flood the administration’s office with messages demanding revocations of the suspensions, claiming that the students have been “robbed of their income, health insurance, and access to education.”

The University of Pennsylvania (Penn) commented on the report on Wednesday.

“Penn continues to review student conduct cases in connection with campus demonstrations this spring,” it said in a statement shared with The Algemeiner. “The university affords due process to all students in accordance with our policies and recommends sanctions as appropriate on a case-by-case basis.”

Penn’s handing down disciplinary sanctions came nearly two months after it finally cleared protesters from school property with the help of the Philadelphia Police Department. The university had attempted to negotiate with the protesters, but its patience wore thin amid their escalating conduct. After hours of discussions failed to yield a settlement acceptable to both sides, interim president Larry Jameson publicly called the protesters a safety hazard while noting that they had committed acts of vandalism, including defacing a statute of Benjamin Franklin, one of the United States’ Founding Fathers, and “The Button,” a sculpture built in the early 1980s.

In addition to divestment from Israel, the demonstration’s leaders demanded that the university vacate a suspension of Penn Students Against the Occupation of Palestine, which the school shut down after multiple rules violations. Frustrated with the university’s refusing to grant them any concessions, masses of new people joined the encampment, expanding it over a larger area of school property and forcing the university to request additional security on campus.

“The protesters refused repeatedly to disband the encampment, to produce identification, to stop threatening, loud, and discriminatory speech and behavior, and to comply with instructions from Penn administrators and Public Safety,” Jameson said after the tents were dismantled. “Instead, they called for others to join them in escalating their disruptions and expanding their encampment, necessitating that we take action to protect the safety and rights of everyone in our community.”

Antisemitism fueled by anti-Zionism exploded at the university long before the “encampment” was set up, an action which was precipitated by Israel’s military response to Hamas’ massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7. In September, it hosted “The Palestine Writes Literature Festival,” which included speakers such as Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta, who once promoted antisemitic tropes, saying in an interview, “Jews were hated in Europe because they played a role in the destruction of the economy in some of the countries, so they would hate them.” Another controversial figure invited to the event was former Pink Floyd vocalist Roger Waters, whose long record of anti-Jewish snipes was the subject of a documentary released last year.

One day before the event took place, an unidentified male walked into the university’s Hillel building behind a staffer and shouted “F—k the Jews” and “Jesus Christ is king!” before overturning tables, podium stands, and chairs, according to students and school officials who spoke with The Algemeiner. Days earlier, just before the Jewish New Year of Rosh Hashanah, a swastika was graffitied in the basement of the university’s Stuart Weitzman School of Design.

Former Penn president Elizabeth Magill, who refused to stop the university from hosting the festival, resigned from her post in December, ending a 17-month tenure marked by controversy over what critics described as an insufficient response to surging antisemitism on campus.

The University of Pennsylvania will continue to deal with the events of this academic year for some time. Last month, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit challenging a US congressional investigation of antisemitism there, which the House Committee on Education and the Workforce launched after Magill failed to provide acceptable answers about her handling of the problem during a hearing in December. The ruling cleared the way for Congress to continue an inquiry that could complicate Penn’s attempts to repair a perception that it coddled antisemites because they claimed to be partisans of the progressive left.

As part of its inquiry, the committee, led by US Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), subpoenaed the university for a trove of documents, including reports and correspondence, which would provide a window into how administrators discussed antisemitism on campus.

Such documents have already proved injurious to Columbia University, which according to reports by The Washington Free Beacon, derided Jewish students’ concerns about rising antisemitism, calling them “privileged” and “wealthy.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.

The post University of Pennsylvania Suspends Pro-Hamas Rioters for Full Semester, Activist Group Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

Former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters defended the Hamas terrorist organization for perpetrating the Oct. 7 massacre in southern Israel in a combative interview with British broadcaster Piers Morgan on Tuesday.

Waters, a longtime critic of Israel who has been widely accused of antisemitism, also rejected the use of the term “terrorism” to describe the attack, in which 1,200 people were murdered and some 250 others were taken as hostages by Hamas. Most of the victims were civilians.

“To kill a civilian is a war crime,” Waters, 80, said about the Oct. 7 attack during an appearance on the talk show “Piers Morgan Uncensored.” When Morgan asked him if it’s considered “terrorism” as well,” Waters replied, “Well, to use the word ‘terrorism’ is really dangerous and difficult. You have to remember that the people fighting on behalf of Palestine liberation have a legal and moral, not just a right, they have a right to fight back against the oppressor.”

He added: “If someone invades your country, kicks all the people out of their home, steals everything and is stealing all your land and occupies all your land for 75 years, you have an absolute right to armed resistance against that invader.” When asked if Hamas committed war crimes on Oct. 7, Waters replied, “probably.”

Rogers further denied there is proof that Hamas terrorists raped some of its victims on Oct. 7, despite widespread evidence to the contrary, including testimonies from former hostages.

“All the filthy disgusting lies that the Israelis told after Oct. 7 about burning babies and women being raped — No they weren’t,” he claimed. Morgan shot back, “Actually women were raped. It’s been established by the United Nations. There is extensive evidence of assault and rape.” But Waters repeatedly replied, “You can say anything you want [but] there is no evidence.”

“All those piles of cars that were destroyed by Apache missiles from helicopters… Hamas didn’t have helicopters,” Waters added, referring to the site of the Nova music festival in Israel where Hamas murdered more than 350 party-goers on Oct. 7.

The tension between Morgan and Waters escalated when the singer questioned Hamas’ abduction of infants and seniors on Oct. 7. Talking about now 1-year-old Kfir Bibas, who at nine months old was the youngest Israeli abducted on Oct. 7 along with his mother and four-year-old brother, Waters falsely claimed that the child has been released in a hostage exchange. Morgan corrected him, saying that the child has not been released, but an annoyed Waters replied, “Piers, you may or may not be making it up — I know you believe nonsense that you’re told by ZAKA or people who have made up tons of lies about Oct. 7.”

ZAKA is a volunteer-led rescue and recovery organization that assisted with the collection of bodies of victims from the Oct. 7 attack so they could be buried  in accordance with Jewish law.

At various stages of the interview, Waters began talking out loud to himself, urging himself to calm now and not let Morgan get him riled up or angry. He also talked to Morgan during the interview about the “Israeli lobby” and Israeli “war machine” being “very powerful” and critical of him in the past. He additionally called Israel “oppressors” and “torturers,” and Zionism a “failed experiment.” Numerous times he accused Israel of “committing genocide” in Gaza, additionally claiming that the Jewish state aims to “killing every single Palestinian.”

“They’re not gonna kill every Palestinian, obviously,” Morgan cut Waters off by saying.

“Oh, they’re not? Well they’re trying to,” Waters replied.

“No,” Morgan clarified, “they’re trying to kill every member of Hamas.”

An utterly frustrated Waters then looked straight into the camera and told viewers, “The oppressor, the stare of Israel, is committing genocide on a whole people. Some of the people, in the prison where the genocide is being committed, resisted the genocide on Oct. 7 and some people in Israel were killed. And I feel for them and their families. But let’s not forget where this started … It’s one set of people trying to steal a whole land from another set of people.”

When Morgan asked him to respond to accusations of him being antisemitic, Waters said, “I’m not antisemitic even very faintly. You know who would know if Roger Waters were an antisemite? Roger Waters would know, because I would have feelings about Jews!”

Last year, an explosive documentary showed fellow musicians detailing Waters’ long record of anti-Jewish barbs. In one instance, a former colleague recalled Waters at a restaurant yelling at the wait staff to “take away the Jew food.”

Morgan tweeted about his interview with Rogers, saying, “I interviewed Pink Floyd star @rogerwaters yesterday, after calling him ‘the world’s dumbest rock star’ and a ‘complete and utter moron.’ It went as well as could be expected.”

Watch Waters and Morgan’s full interview below.



The post Roger Waters Defends Hamas, Claims There’s ‘Filthy Lies’ and ‘No Evidence’ of Sexual Violence on Oct. 7 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.