Far-right Zionist vigilantes target youth and workers who oppose genocide, with the open support of Canada’s ruling class.

Faced with growing revulsion and mass opposition among workers and youth over the Israeli imperialist-backed genocide in the Gaza Strip and the expanding massacre in Lebanon, Canada’s ruling class is waging a war for basic democratic rights. Using the repressive apparatus of the capitalist state – police, courts and intelligence agencies – and increasingly far-right vigilantes, its goal is nothing less than the criminalization and suppression of any opposition to Israel’s genocide and the military campaign of Canadian imperialism.

Confirming that it is now “open season” in Canada for violent attacks on anti-genocide activists, crown prosecutors have dropped assault charges against Zionist Lorna Birnbaum for attacking and ripping off Haifa Abdelkhalek’s hijab outside Ottawa City Hall on May 14, where it was a demonstration against the Israeli genocide.

The Crown ruled that Abdelkhalek’s chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” disqualified her from the protection of the law because her attacker, Lorna Birnbaum, or the jury “could suggest it was an invocation of genocide.” Jewish people,” and therefore “anyone repeats it at their own peril.” This is a deeply frightening decision that turns objective reality and justice on its head.

The completely counterfeit conflation of demands for Palestinian liberation with “genocide” is made possible by the fraudulent definition of anti-Semitism that the IHRA now openly accepts and promotes by the Canadian state and its institutions. Almost any criticism of the State of Israel, exposure of its systematic disenfranchisement of the Palestinian people and demands for the democratic and national rights of Palestinians should be considered anti-Semitism and subject to prosecution as hate crimes.

The Canadian ruling class is so alarmed by the ongoing mass opposition to it and Washington’s war plans, of which genocide of Israel is an important component, that such legal mechanisms alone are no longer felt to be sufficient. So it began tasking Zionist vigilante groups with brutally intimidating and silencing opposition to genocide and imperialist war, as well as spying on and reporting dissent to the police and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Under Canada’s recently announced Public Safety Program, which officially launched Oct. 1, funds will now go to vigilante groups euphemistically called “time-limited security officers” with long links to far-right Zionists and terrorism. Former Liberal public safety minister Marco Mendicino has led a campaign within government to fund these organizations.

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The fact that a former cabinet minister tasked less than three years ago with demobilizing vigilante groups associated with the fascist Freedom Convoy is now helping funnel millions of public funds to similar groups is politically significant. This signals that there is a rapid shift towards authoritarian rule within the Canadian capitalist class.

On September 5, Toronto’s main pro-Zionist organization, The United Jewish Appeal, announced the creation of a “Jewish Safety Network.” Noting the importance of confronting opponents of Israel’s genocide on university campuses, UJA said that “as students across our community return to school this week, we have reached a critical new phase.” The plan aims to centrally coordinate the activities of “community members” (a thinly veiled reference to various Zionist vigilante groups) with CSIS, the RCMP and the Center for Israel and Jewish Affairs, “based on the successful models of other Diaspora Jewish communities that have made good progress in taking take responsibility for your own safety.” All of these models revolve around vigilante group surrogates.

A day later, University of Toronto (UofT) students protesting against genocide, organized as part of U of T Occupy for Palestine, were confronted by organized Zionist thugs guarded by Toronto police as the march moved through College Saint West towards King’s College. Circle. The confrontation had nothing to do with ensuring the “safety” of Jewish students and everything to do with suppressing political opposition to Israel’s genocide.

The vigilantes included Israel Today, the Canadian offshoot of the Jewish Defense League, the private security firm J-Force, and a newly formed group with an Orwellian-sounding name, Magen Herut (Defenders of Freedom), the Canadian Society for Social Surveillance. . Team.”

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Workers should familiarize themselves with these bandits.

Israel Today’s roots lie in the Jewish Defense League, a banned terrorist organization in the US founded by Meir Kahane, whose Kach party was itself declared an illegal terrorist organization by the Israeli government in 1994.

Israel Now’s Canadian leader Meir Weinstein has no ideological differences with LDL, making his splinter group an LDL franchise in all but name. According to an Israeli newspaper HaaretzIsrael Now “actively promotes physical confrontation with Palestinian supporters and encourages direct harassment of individuals online and possibly offline, as well as more broadly promoting anti-Muslim hatred.” The Canadian state refuses to list JDL or Israel Today as a terrorist group, and when LDL members commit crimes in front of the police, the police shrug their shoulders.

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However, Canada classifies the Kah Party and its affiliate Hane Chai as terrorist groups. But this ban is not respected. Kahane Chai supporters openly waved a black and yellow flag in front of UofT and uttered objectively genocidal statements in front of police, including: “Let’s make Gaza a parking lot.”

Several uniformed members of the Canadian community watchdog group Magen Herut also spoke out against the anti-genocide students.

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Magen Herut was founded by Aaron Hadida and is made up of those who are “ideologically close, love Israel and the Jewish people, and have some experience in the police, security or military field,” according to the statement Canadian Jewish News. Members of Magen Herut are trained in the hand-to-hand combat technique of Krav Maga. The slogan on their patch reads: “Nothing says something like an armed Jew. Jews can shoot.”

Thus, the group’s stated goal of “de-escalating and ensuring the continued security of members of the (Zionist) community” is a complete lie. The group is simply a gang of fascist thugs and former IDF soldiers wearing branded T-shirts. They exist to provoke peaceful and non-violent demonstrations. If such incidents serve the interests of the Israeli state, it is because Magen Herut is organizationally linked to it.

Magen Herut is a product of Herut Canada, a Zionist group based on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party. Thus, it is effectively an instrument of Israeli public policy, operating with complete freedom of action on the campuses of Canadian universities, including UofT, Toronto Metropolitan and York Universities. It boasts of expanding across the country.

Herut emerged directly from the terrorist organization Irgun in 1948, which Albert Einstein condemned as “a political party closely related in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and fascist parties.”

The deputy leader of the opposition Conservative Party of Canada, Melissa Lanzman, a right-wing Zionist fanatic, became, along with Mendicino, the leading advocate of Zionist vigilantism within the political establishment. She posed proudly with members of Magen Herut and the second vigilante group Shomrim (Guard). Not a single Canadian politician said a word in protest.

Deputy Conservative Leader Melissa Lanzman poses with members of Toronto’s Shormrim. (Photo: X/Melissa Lanzman)

Shomrim is an international vigilante/parapolice group originating from the Hasidic community in Brooklyn. They are replaced by the police departments of New York, Brooklyn and London, England. In some cases, the Shomrim take the law into their own hands and are accused of covering up crimes committed within the Jewish community.

The Toronto-based Shomrim wear black uniforms and police-style badges. They drive small SUVs with police car markings, sirens and flashing lights.

The Shomrim come from the same social milieu—hard-core right-wing Zionists—who carried out violent attacks against anti-genocide demonstrations. Such types include Meir Gerichter, a former U.S. consulate guard in Toronto accused of kicking a protester in the pelvis, and Ilan Ruben Abramov, a former IDF reservist who shot another female protester with a nail gun while shouting, “Every f **The King of Palestine must die.” Both of these attacks, along with several others, occurred during Palestinian protests at the Aish Hatorah synagogue in Thornhill, where Keller Williams Real Estate was promoting the sale of Palestinian land for illegal Zionist settlements. These are the “public events” that the Shomrim are supposed to “protect.”

These and dozens of other incidents expose the completely fraudulent nature of the Ontario Liberal and Conservative governments’ claims that empowering bands of Zionist thugs by police and the state has anything to do with “public safety.” Rather, their goal is to create a fascist puppet force that will allow the Canadian state to brutally strike its political critics without facing the exposure and outrage that can result from overt acts of state violence and intimidation.