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What’s Next for Canadian Jews After the Recent Election

New Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney meets with Donald Trump in the White House on May 6, 2025. Photo: Wiki Commons.

The final votes were still being tallied when the questions started coming from friends and family in Israel and the United States: when are you leaving?

For many Jewish Canadians, last week’s federal election presented an opportunity to end the mealy-mouthed equivocation of the governing Liberals on antisemitism at home and Israel’s right to re-establish its security in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attacks.

Instead, they got another Liberal minority government, with Mark Carney as prime minister, but the same cast of characters around him.

Justin Trudeau’s government managed to commit numerous gaffes where the Jewish community was concerned, including feting a Waffen SS veteran in parliament. When a firestorm of antisemitic vandalism, arson and intimidation erupted after October 7, Trudeau usually made sure his outrage came with a side of caution against Islamophobia and all forms of hate.

On Israel, the Liberals displayed a moral equivalence that was a mix of outright credulity and cynical opportunism, most notoriously when multiple members of Trudeau’s cabinet, including the minister of innovation, science and industry, Francois-Phillipe Champagne and foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly parroted a Hamas Ministry of Health claim that the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was bombed by the Israelis.

When the allegation turned out to be false, the government offered a late night Page Z15 style press release that was notable for how perfunctory it was. Trudeau’s government was also perceived as hostile to Jewish charities, or at least those with ties to Israel. It stripped both the Jewish National Fund and the Ne’eman Foundation of their charitable status.

Carney is not Trudeau. But he sent mixed signals to the Jewish community during the campaign.

On the one hand, he appointed Marco Mendicino, a former member of parliament and strong ally of both Israel and the Toronto Jewish community, as his chief of staff. However, he also retained many of Trudeau’s key lieutenants, including foreign minister Joly.

When Thomas Mulcair, the former leader of the socialist New Democratic Party, accused Joly of taking an anti-Israel position for electoral gain, Joly remarked: “Thomas, have you seen the demographics of my riding?”

On a state visit last year, Joly and fellow Liberal MP Ya’ara Sacks, who is a dual Israeli Canadian citizen, posed for a cringe-worthy photo op in which they held hands with Palestinian dictator Mahmoud Abbas.

Sacks fought a bruising campaign against Roman Baber in a riding in which close to 15% of the population is Jewish. At one point, she distributed a leaflet with a swastika on it, implying that Baber, who is a descendant of Jewish Holocaust victims, had some connection to Nazism due to his opposition to COVID restrictions and support for the Freedom Convoy protests in 2022.

Baber defeated Sacks in the election.

Liberal incumbent Adam van Koeverden was videotaped stumping for votes with the men of a local mosque, while a female Liberal colleague was speaking to the “sisters” downstairs. Van Koeverden pledged his support in ending the “genocide” in Gaza and for “Palestinian sovereignty.”

Somehow the Israeli hostages languishing under horrifying conditions and the recent arson and vandalism attacks on synagogues, Jewish day schools, and Jewish-owned business in Toronto and Montreal must have slipped his mind.

Van Koeverden retained his seat by a handy margin.

Last year, longtime Liberal MP Rob Oliphant was recorded by a constituent complaining about his government’s decision to pause funding to UNRWA over the UN agency’s ties to terrorism. Oliphant was so upset that he considered quitting over the decision. In the end, the Trudeau Liberals reinstated the UNRWA funding and never did miss a payment.

Oliphant retained his seat with more than 60% of the vote.

Although the overwhelming majority of Canada’s arms sales go to the United States and Saudi Arabia, under Trudeau’s leadership, the Liberals imposed an arms embargo on Israel and took the unusual step of cancelling a contract with an American defense contractor because Quebec-made ammunition was going to find its way to Israel.

At a campaign event, a heckler asked Carney about the “genocide” in Gaza, to which he responded: “I’m aware. That’s why we have an arms embargo.”

When called out on the statement, Carney implausibly claimed that he somehow didn’t hear the word “genocide” in the question.

Of the 28 Liberal candidates who signed the “Palestine Pledge” — which called for an arms embargo on Israel and unilateral recognition of a state of Palestine — 18 won re-election. They will now make their case for a more aggressive anti-Israel foreign policy to the other 151 Liberal caucus members.

There was, however, some cause for optimism.

Former Green Party MP Jenica Atwin, who the Liberals welcomed to their party in 2021 after her attacks on her former party’s leader Annamie Paul, a Black Jewish woman who refused to demonize Israel, didn’t run for re-election.

And Majid Jowhari, who was alleged to be an agent of the Iranian regime (claims he denied), lost his seat.

Party discipline is strictly imposed in Canada’s parliamentary system. But even assuming Carney does intend to be more supportive of Canadian Jews and respectful of the security needs of a democratic Israeli ally than his predecessor ever was, like Trudeau, he has a parliamentary minority.

The Conservatives are his only serious competition, and their leader, Pierre Poilievre, has been an unapologetic supporter of Israel and Canada’s Jewish community. Poilievre lost his seat and will be out of parliament in the near term, but he will run in a by-election in a friendlier riding.

It’s possible Carney will make common cause with the Conservatives on Israel and the Jews, but given the views of many members of his caucus and the need to distinguish himself from his main rival, it’s more likely that he’ll continue to rely on the support of the NDP, with whom Trudeau held power for two years via a supply and confidence agreement. The other alternative is to look to the separatist Bloc Quebecois.

Neither of the two is a reliable friend of Canadian Jews, but the NDP, who were reduced to seven seats (out of a total of 343 in parliament), is particularly awful.  Their relationship with the Jewish community has deteriorated to the point that, when B’nai Brith sent out questions to each party in advance of the election, the NDP didn’t bother to respond.

The October 7 attacks made emigration a frequent topic of conversation among Canadian Jews. It remains to be seen whether last week’s election result will stop that conversation or accelerate it.

The post What’s Next for Canadian Jews After the Recent Election first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist

The Jewish community of Beit El in Judea and Samaria. Photo: Yaakov via Wikimedia Commons.

Louis Theroux first visited the West Bank in 2011 to film a documentary titled Louis and the Ultra-Zionists, part of his long-running series for the BBC. Back then, he at least seemed to possess a trace of journalistic curiosity. Even the title signaled a degree of editorial caution — framing his subjects as a small, ideological fringe rather than representative of Israeli society as a whole.

At the time, Theroux made an effort to clarify that he was profiling a narrow segment of Israelis. He showed legally purchased Jewish homes (sold by Arab landowners, no less) and acknowledged the regular — and at times deadly — terror attacks faced by Israeli civilians living in the area, often requiring military protection. There was condescension, certainly. But there was also context.

Fast-forward to 2024, and the curiosity is gone — though the bemused, slightly smug expression remains. His new BBC documentary, Louis and the Settlers, drops even the soft qualifiers. No “ultra.” No nuance. Just “settlers.” And with that, Theroux makes it clear: half a million Israelis living in the West Bank are one and the same — extremists who, we’re told, want every last Palestinian removed from the land.

This time, the documentary doesn’t begin with questions. It begins with conclusions. And Theroux uses a brief, unrepresentative snapshot of life in the West Bank to draw sweeping indictments of the entire Israeli state.

The message is unmistakable: Israel is the problem. Settlers are the villains. And Palestinians are passive, blameless victims of a colonial project.

Within the opening minutes, Theroux plants his ideological flag. He refers to the West Bank as “Palestinian territory” and describes every Israeli community within it as illegal under international law — a sharp departure from his more qualified approach 14 years earlier.

And while his personal views seep in throughout the film, they become crystal clear during one exchange at a checkpoint, where an Israeli soldier casually refers to their location as “Israel.” Theroux shoots back: “We’re not in Israel, are we?”

And just like that, the BBC and Louis Theroux have redrawn Israel’s borders. No Knesset debate needed.

Erasing History to Blame the Massacre

The timing of this return trip is no accident. The film comes in the shadow of the October 7 Hamas massacres — the day 1,200 Israelis were slaughtered, families were burned alive in their homes, and children were dragged into Gaza. And yet, Theroux barely mentions it.

The few passing references to October 7 serve not to inform the audience — but to imply that Israel may be exploiting its own dead to justify further expansion. It’s not an investigation. It’s an accusation. And it allows him to skip over thousands of years of Jewish history in order to frame the current war in Gaza as a convenient cover story for Israeli “aggression.”

Take Hebron, for example. Theroux tells viewers that “in 1968, the year after [the West Bank] was occupied by Israel, a community of Jewish settlers moved in illegally. They now number some 700.” He fails to mention that in 1895 — decades before the modern state of Israel existed — Hebron had a Jewish population of 1,429.

Jews have lived in Hebron since antiquity — it’s where, according to Jewish tradition, Abraham purchased the Cave of the Patriarchs. Modern records date the community back centuries, despite discrimination under Ottoman rule and bans on Jewish prayer at holy sites. In 1929, Arab rioters carried out a massacre, wiping out Hebron’s Jewish population. Dozens were murdered; the rest were expelled. Under Jordanian rule from 1948 to 1967, Jews were banned from the city entirely. When they returned after the Six-Day War — not as colonists, but as a displaced community coming home — Theroux picks up the story there and calls it “illegal.”

On the Six-Day War itself, Theroux offers no context. No mention of the Arab armies preparing to destroy Israel. No mention of Israel’s preemptive strike against an existential threat.

According to The Settlers, Israel simply “occupied” — full stop.

Palestinian Terrorism? Not Even a Footnote.

Theroux visits Evyatar, a small Jewish community near the Palestinian town of Beita, and uses it as a stand-in for the entire West Bank. Beita is depicted as a symbol of peaceful resistance: a proud, ancient Palestinian village standing firm against violent settlers backed by IDF soldiers.

It’s a neat story. Too neat. Because missing from the story are years of organized, violent riots from Beita — complete with Molotov cocktails, burning Stars of David, and Nazi swastikas. All carefully omitted to preserve the narrative: Palestinians peaceful, settlers aggressive. Facts that don’t fit? Left on the cutting room floor.

Meanwhile, Israeli nationalism is treated as something sinister and unsettling — a moral aberration to be examined. The notion that Jews might want sovereignty or security is met with thinly veiled suspicion. Yet Hamas’ goal of a Jew-free Palestine, explicitly laid out in its charter, is never mentioned. Nor is the Palestinian Authority’s “pay-for-slay” policy, which literally incentivizes terrorism by rewarding those who murder Israelis — including women and children.

These aren’t fringe details. They’re central to understanding the region. And Theroux knows it. He just doesn’t care.

The BBC’s Complicity

That The Settlers aired on the BBC — a publicly funded broadcaster once seen as a gold standard of global journalism — says plenty. Not just about Louis Theroux’s agenda, but about the institutional direction of the BBC itself. This wasn’t a rogue filmmaker sneaking bias past the editors. This was bias built into the foundation — signed off, packaged, and broadcast under the banner of credibility.

There is, of course, no problem with scrutinizing Israeli policy, and no issue with questioning the settlement enterprise or highlighting the tensions in the West Bank. But journalism — real journalism — demands context. It demands precision. It demands at least a passing familiarity with the full scope of the story.

Theroux offers none of that. He arrives with a predetermined script and casts his roles accordingly: Hero. Villain. Victim. Oppressor. And when reality refuses to cooperate? It’s left out.

Louis Theroux didn’t return to Israel to understand it. He returned to flatten it. To reduce its complexity to a morality play — and to ensure everyone knows the antagonist is.

The Settlers isn’t a documentary. It’s a hit piece. And the BBC handed him the camera — then applauded the performance.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.

The post The BBC Documentary That Paints Every Israeli as an Extremist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl

Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered by Islamist terrorists in Pakistan in 2002. Photo: Screenshot

The Indian government announced on Thursday that its military forces had killed “Pakistan’s most wanted terrorist,” who was connected to the 2002 murder of Jewish-American Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.

On Wednesday, India launched “Operation Sindoor,” which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) claims is targeted at dismantling “terrorist infrastructure” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The operation came after Pakistani terrorists killed 26 Hindu tourists in Kashmir last month amid escalating tensions between the two countries.

In a post on X, the BJP confirmed that during this week’s operation, the Indian army killed Islamist terrorist Abdul Rauf Azhar, who was involved in numerous terrorism plots, including the 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines flight, the 2001 terror attack on the Indian Parliament, and the 2016 Pathankot Air Force base attack.

Azhar’s involvement in the 1999 hijacking led to the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a British-born al-Qaeda member with close ties to Pakistan’s intelligence services, who later was involved in the kidnapping and subsequent murder of 38-year-old Pearl, who was covering the war on terror as a journalist when he was abducted.

In a statement on X, Pearl’s father, Judea, addressed initial reports regarding Azhar’s death and his connection to his son’s murder.

“I want to clarify: Azhar was a Pakistani extremist and leader of the terrorist organization Jaish-e-Mohammed. While his group was not directly involved in the plot to abduct Danny, it was indirectly responsible. Azhar orchestrated the hijacking that led to the release of Omar Sheikh — the man who lured Danny into captivity,” he said.

In 2002, the Jewish-American journalist was abducted and killed by a group of Islamist terrorists connected to Azhar’s militant network, which had ties to al-Qaeda and Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terror group aiming to separate Kashmir from India and incorporate it into Pakistan.

On Jan. 27, 2002, an email was sent to several Pakistani and US media organizations, which included several photos, stating that Pearl was being held in “inhumane” conditions to protest the US treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in Cuba. Photo: Screenshot

Originally stationed in New Delhi as the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, Pearl later moved to Pakistan to investigate terrorism following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City.

After kidnapping Pearl at a restaurant in Karachi, southern Pakistan, the Islamist terrorists, who identified themselves as the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, accused him of being an Israeli spy and sent the United States a list of demands for his release.

However, Washington did not meet their demands, and Pearl was ultimately executed after being held captive for five weeks.

His wife, Mariane Pearl, gave birth to a baby boy, Adam D. Pearl, in Paris later that year. On the Daniel Pearl Foundation website, she said, “Adam’s birth rekindles the joy, love, and humanity that Danny radiated wherever he went.”

The post Indian Army Kills Islamist Terrorist Linked to 2002 Murder of Jewish-American Journalist Daniel Pearl first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete. Photo: Screenshot

A Jewish jewelry shop owner in Djerba, Tunisia, was brutally attacked by a man wielding a machete just days before the Tunisian island was set to host its annual Jewish pilgrimage, which is expected to draw thousands of visitors.

On Wednesday morning, two Jewish men — owners of a jewelry shop in the center of the island, located off Tunisia’s southeast coast — were physically assaulted by a man carrying a large knife.

Although the attack was halted when one of them screamed — alerting members of the local Jewish community who subdued the assailant — one of them was left severely injured.

According to local media reports, the attacker had surveyed the island the day before, visiting several stores to identify those owned by Jews. Local police arrested him shortly following the assault.

After the attack, one of the owners was admitted to the hospital with severe injuries. The 50-year-old Jewish man had his fingers severed during the assault and underwent surgery to reattach them.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar condemned the attack and expressed his wishes for a swift recovery to the victims.

“This attack comes two years after the previous deadly assault that claimed Jewish lives and the lives of security personnel during the Lag BaOmer celebration,” the top Israeli diplomat wrote in a post on X.

“I call on the Tunisian authorities to take all necessary measures to protect the Jewish community,” Saar continued.

Djerba is home to the majority of Tunisia’s Jewish community, numbering about 2,000 people, and is also where the renowned El Ghriba Synagogue, one of North Africa’s oldest synagogues, is located.

The attack comes just a week before Jewish pilgrims are expected to arrive on the island for the Lag B’Omer holiday, when thousands gather annually for three days of festivities. The annual pilgrimage to El Ghriba Synagogue, scheduled for May 15 and 16 this year, draws visitors from around the world.

The synagogue has been targeted in multiple terrorist attacks over the years, including in 1985, 2002, and 2023.

Two years ago, a shooting at the synagogue claimed the lives of two Jewish cousins and three police officers. Aviel Hadad, a 30-year-old Israeli goldsmith, and Ben Hadad, a 42-year-old Frenchman who had traveled to join the festivities, were among the victims.

The post Jewish Jewelry Shop Owners Brutally Assaulted in Tunisia Days Before Annual Pilgrimage first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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