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Why Are Canadian Children Forced to Protest Israel Against Their Will?
Hundreds of anti-Israel protesters, primarily university students, rally at Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square on Oct. 28, 2023. Photo by Sayed Najafizada/NurPhoto
Canada prides itself on being a big tent nation — a place where bilingualism and multiculturalism are official government policy, and diversity is our greatest strength.
According to the country’s mythology, when Canadians disagree, they come up with practical solutions, resolve their differences peacefully, and are better off for it.
Canada’s commitment to inclusion is so deeply ingrained that in a 2015 debate with then-prime minister Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau famously responded to Harper’s suggestion that revocation of citizenship might be justified in the case of a convicted terrorist by saying, “a Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian.”
It was one of many one-liners that helped Trudeau become prime minister that year, and hang onto the job for the next nine and counting.
But while convicted terrorists may take comfort in their prime minister’s promise of unconditional kinship, Canada’s Jews are feeling increasingly unwelcome in their own country.
The latest outrage came from the Toronto District School Board (TDSB), which is responsible for educating roughly 238,000 children and another 100,000 “life-long learners” through adult and continuing education programs.
Like many large North American school boards, while the TDSB has failed in educating children in core competencies such as numeracy, it has compensated with additional servings of diversity, equity, inclusion, and the latest fad — decolonization.
In November 2023, one of the board’s equity advisors, Javier Dávila, earned the dubious distinction of being placed on paid home assignment for the second time in two-and-a-half years for comments about Israel.
In June, after a divisive debate, the school board decided to update its Combating Hate and Racism Student Learning Strategy to include anti-Palestinian racism.
The change was an important victory for activists, who had spent years trying to invent an anti-Palestinian racism crisis out of whole cloth, including via the school board’s 2022 census, whose “Guiding Research Principles” document went so far as to confer victimhood status on non-Palestinian supporters of the Palestinian cause.
According to the new dogma, even though people like Dávila aren’t Palestinian, and Palestinians aren’t a race, these people are nevertheless victims of anti-Palestinian racism.
Never mind that Palestinians constitute a mere 5% of the city’s Arab population — less than the number of people from Egypt, Lebanon, and Iraq, none of which get their own special category.
All of these factors metastasized in spectacular fashion this month, when 15 TDSB schools made a field trip to the Grassy Narrows River Run. The annual event is intended to raise awareness of the plight of a Northern Ontario indigenous community suffering from mercury-poisoned water.
Parents were told that students would merely “observe and learn from the presentations and discussions” and would not be participating in an actual protest.
Indigenous students were “invited to wear their regalia,” while “settlers” were “asked to wear blue, if possible.”
In a particularly unusual instruction, parents were told, “media will be present at the event, and there is a chance our group will pass by cameras. If there are any issues around this, please let me know and we will make every effort to keep faces obscured.”
One would be hard-pressed to come up with another example of a publicly-funded educational field trip in which kids are instructed to divide themselves into tribes of virtuous and odious, and wear masks for fear of being identified as attendees.
Shortly thereafter, video emerged that looked eerily similar to the youth indoctrination rituals in totalitarian regimes.
Small children, some as young as eight-years-old and most of whom were dutifully sporting their settler blue, were led in a call and response: “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime. No justice, no peace. No racist, no peace.”
It would be difficult to come up with a pithier slogan to encapsulate the omnicause of the neo-Marxist left, who believe there is a direct thread running between the long-ago conquest of the Americas by Europeans, the mere existence of the State of Israel, police brutality, and the scourge of racism in general.
Students allegedly came home with “Zionism Kills” stickers, which were being doled out by some TDSB teachers.
But please — don’t call them antisemites.
If Canadian Jews are losers in yet another alienating episode, so are indigenous Canadians, whose event was co-opted by radicals with dreams of playing Model UN, and whose disgraceful conduct ended up taking the spotlight.
There is little question that the failure of Canada — despite years of promises — to bring clean drinking water to many indigenous communities is a moral stain that demands serious solutions.
Indeed, it was in that spirit that when my own daughter’s middle school held a 2022 assembly on the issue of contaminated water on indigenous reserves, I followed up by getting the President and Chief Global Water Officer of charity: water, an American not-for-profit that has brought clean drinking water to close to 20 million people in 29 countries, to agree to speak to the students.
Over the course of two academic years, the school never took me up on the offer.
That’s because for many radical Canadians, activism isn’t about solving problems. That work is hard and often boring.
Rather, the activist’s job is to protest and attack systemic bogeymen, thereby solving all of the world’s problems in one conceptual fell swoop — all without having to learn or do much of anything.
And if some Jews are offended along the way, they should — as one teacher advised one of the children who was dragged to this event — “get over it.”
Two of the schools that participated in this shameful episode have been named in press reports.
I’ve asked the TDSB several times to name the other 13, as they are clearly hostile environments for Jewish children, and Jewish parents have a right to know which schools to avoid.
As of this writing, the Board has denied my requests. However, the Ministry of Education has ordered an investigation into the matter, so it seems probable those names will eventually come out.
One can only hope the end result of the investigation will be a removal of ideology from the curriculum.
If all the Board does is put a few of the shrillest voices on paid leave while allowing their worst ideas to remain on the lesson plan, Toronto’s Jewish community should brace for more episodes like this.
Ian Cooper is a Toronto-based lawyer
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Iranian nuclear program degraded by up to two years, Pentagon says
A satellite image of Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility. Photo: File.
The Pentagon said on Wednesday that US strikes 10 days ago had degraded Iran’s nuclear program by up to two years, suggesting the U.S. military operation likely achieved its goals despite a far more cautious initial assessment that leaked to the public.
Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesman, offered the figure at a briefing to reporters, adding that the official estimate was “probably closer to two years.” Parnell did not provide evidence to back up his assessment.
“We have degraded their program by one to two years, at least intel assessments inside the Department [of Defense] assess that,” Parnell told a news briefing.
U.S. military bombers carried out strikes against three Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22 using more than a dozen 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs and more than two dozen Tomahawk land attack cruise missiles.
The evolving U.S. intelligence about the impact of the strikes is being closely watched, after President Donald Trump said almost immediately after they took place that Iran’s program had been obliterated, language echoed by Parnell at Wednesday’s briefing.
Such conclusions often take the U.S. intelligence community weeks or more to determine.
“All of the intelligence that we’ve seen [has] led us to believe that Iran’s — those facilities especially, have been completely obliterated,” Parnell said.
Over the weekend, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, said that Iran could be producing enriched uranium in a few months, raising doubts about how effective US strikes to destroy Tehran’s nuclear program have been.
Several experts have also cautioned that Iran likely moved a stockpile of near weapons-grade highly enriched uranium out of the deeply buried Fordow site before the strikes and could be hiding it.
But US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week he was unaware of intelligence suggesting Iran had moved its highly enriched uranium to shield it from US strikes.
A preliminary assessment last week from the Defense Intelligence Agency suggested that the strikes may have only set back Iran’s nuclear program by months. But Trump administration officials said that assessment was low confidence and had been overtaken by intelligence showing Iran’s nuclear program was severely damaged.
According to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the strikes on the Fordow nuclear site caused severe damage.
“No one exactly knows what has transpired in Fordow. That being said, what we know so far is that the facilities have been seriously and heavily damaged,” Araqchi said in the interview broadcast by CBS News on Tuesday.
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Switzerland Moves to Close Gaza Humanitarian Foundation’s Geneva Office Over Legal Irregularities
Palestinians carry aid supplies received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
Switzerland has moved to shut down the Geneva office of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a US- and Israeli-backed aid group, citing legal irregularities in its establishment.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza in late May, implementing a new aid delivery model aimed at preventing the diversion of supplies by Hamas, as Israel continues its defensive military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group.
The initiative has drawn criticism from the UN and international organizations, some of which have claimed that Jerusalem is causing starvation in the war-torn enclave.
Israel has vehemently denied such accusations, noting that, until its recently imposed blockade, it had provided significant humanitarian aid in the enclave throughout the war.
Israeli officials have also said much of the aid that flows into Gaza is stolen by Hamas, which uses it for terrorist operations and sells the rest at high prices to Gazan civilians.
With a subsidiary registered in Geneva, the GHF — headquartered in Delaware — reports having delivered over 56 million meals to Palestinians in just one month.
According to a regulatory announcement published Wednesday in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce, the Federal Supervisory Authority for Foundations (ESA) may order the dissolution of the GHF if no creditors come forward within the legal 30-day period.
The Trump administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the Swiss decision to shut down its Geneva office.
“The GHF confirmed to the ESA that it had never carried out activities in Switzerland … and that it intends to dissolve the Geneva-registered branch,” the ESA said in a statement.
Last week, Geneva authorities gave the GHF a 30-day deadline to address legal shortcomings or risk facing enforcement measures.
Under local laws and regulations, the foundation failed to meet several requirements: it did not appoint a board member authorized to sign documents domiciled in Switzerland, did not have the minimum three board members, lacked a Swiss bank account and valid address, and operated without an auditing body.
The GHF operates independently from UN-backed mechanisms, which Hamas has sought to reinstate, arguing that these vehicles are more neutral.
Israeli and American officials have rejected those calls, saying Hamas previously exploited UN-run systems to siphon aid for its war effort.
The UN has denied those allegations while expressing concerns that the GHF’s approach forces civilians to risk their safety by traveling long distances across active conflict zones to reach food distribution points.
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Key US Lawmaker Warns Ireland of Potential Economic Consequences for ‘Antisemitic Path’ Against Israel
US Sen. James Risch (R-ID) speaks during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Washington, DC, May 21, 2024. Photo: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman James Risch (R-ID) issued a sharp warning Tuesday, accusing Ireland of embracing antisemitism and threatening potential economic consequences if the Irish government proceeds with new legislation targeting Israeli trade.
“Ireland, while often a valuable U.S. partner, is on a hateful, antisemitic path that will only lead to self-inflicted economic suffering,” Risch wrote in a post on X. “If this legislation is implemented, America will have to seriously reconsider its deep and ongoing economic ties. We will always stand up to blatant antisemitism.”
Marking a striking escalation in rhetoric from a senior US lawmaker, Risch’s comments came amid growing tensions between Ireland and Israel, which have intensified dramatically since the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023. Those attacks, in which roughly 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 200 taken hostage, prompted a months-long Israeli military campaign in Gaza that has drawn widespread international scrutiny. Ireland has positioned itself as one of the most vocal critics of Israel’s response, accusing the Israeli government of disproportionate use of force and calling for immediate humanitarian relief and accountability for the elevated number of Palestinian civilian casualties.
Dublin’s stance has included tangible policy shifts. In May 2024, Ireland formally recognized a Palestinian state, becoming one of the first European Union members to do so following the outbreak of the war in Gaza. The move was condemned by Israeli officials, who recalled their ambassador to Ireland and accused the Irish government of legitimizing terrorism. Since then, Irish lawmakers have proposed further measures, including legislation aimed at restricting imports from Israeli settlements in the West Bank, policies viewed in Israel and among many American lawmakers as aligning with the controversial Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
While Irish leaders have defended their approach as grounded in international law and human rights, critics in Washington, including Risch, have portrayed it as part of a broader pattern of hostility toward Israel. Some US lawmakers have begun raising the possibility of reevaluating trade and diplomatic ties with Ireland in response.
Risch’s warning is one of the clearest indications yet that Ireland’s policies toward Israel could carry economic consequences. The United States is one of Ireland’s largest trading partners, and American companies such as Apple, Google, Meta and Pfizer maintain substantial operations in the country, drawn by Ireland’s favorable tax regime and access to the EU market.
Though the Trump administration has not echoed Risch’s warning, the remarks reflect growing unease in Washington about the trajectory of Ireland’s foreign policy. The State Department has maintained a careful balancing act, expressing strong support for Israel’s security while calling for increased humanitarian access in Gaza. Officials have stopped short of condemning Ireland’s actions directly but have expressed concern about efforts they see as isolating Israel on the international stage.
Ireland’s stance is emblematic of a growing international divide over the war. While the US continues to provide military and diplomatic backing to Israel, many European countries have called for an immediate ceasefire and investigations into alleged war crimes.
Irish public opinion has long leaned pro-Palestinian, and Irish lawmakers have repeatedly voiced concern over the scale of destruction in Gaza and the dire humanitarian situation.
Irish officials have not yet responded to The Algemeiner’s request for comment.
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