Latest / Kvetch & Release / Three Years After Oct. 7: Canadian Guardrails Collapse

Transcript

Three Years After Oct. 7: Canadian Guardrails Collapse · Kvetch & Release

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Now it's time for a special Wednesday edition of Litkey's
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Got a Take. Good morning, John.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Good morning, Gene.
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: So, John, it's October 7th, and three years ago today
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: at 6.29 a.m., Hamas and other armed groups attacked southern
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Israel by land, sea, and air. More than 1,200 people
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: were murdered, most civilians. Babies were murdered in front of
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: their parents. Women were raped and murdered. 251 hostages were
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: were taken, and it's just one of the worst days
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: ever in history. Now, you're an advocate for Jewish Canadians.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: You have been for quite some time. So as we
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: mark three years since the 7th of October, I would
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: imagine this anniversary carries heavy emotional weight from many Canadian Jews,
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: if not all Canadian Jews. So from your perspective, has
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: the meaning of today shifted over these past three years?
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: You know, over the last three years, Gene, October the
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: 7th has transformed for Canadian Jews from a distant tragedy
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: far away on the other side of the world into
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: a horrifying domestic wake-up call. Prior to that day, there
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: was this foundational belief that Canadian civic guardrails would hold.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: that law enforcement, the courts, school boards even, would draw
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: unyielding lines against raw, open hate. But today, that belief
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: is dead for Canadian Jews. October the 7th became the
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: moment Canadian Jews realized that we were fundamentally on our own,
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: forced to watch protests celebrate a massacre on Canadian streets
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: before a single Israeli soldier had even entered Gaza, while
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: our own political establishment defaulted to polite denial. You know,
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: I think about Alexander Look, born 1990 in Montreal. He
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: was just two years younger than me. He was attending
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: the Nova Music Festival just on a whim. He was
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: living in Mexico at the time. And he ended up
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: sheltering in place with 30 others in a bomb shelter
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: that day. And he stood in the doorway as Hamas
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: threw grenades into the shelter. And he grabbed a grenade
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: and threw it out. They threw another one in. He
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: grabbed it. He threw it out. And unfortunately, on the
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: third grenade, it exploded, taking his life. But because he
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: used his body as a shield, he ended up directly
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: saving eight lives. You know, when someone your own age
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: dies taking grenades for strangers, that sort of leaves an
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: indelible mark on your soul. So October 7th began as
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: an unimaginable, staggering grief for, you know, Israeli and Jewish people.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: And unfortunately, it's evolved, as I said, into a domestic
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: horror show.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I still haven't figured out how the victims have
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: become the villains. So if you look at what's happening
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: domestically from street rallies, campus events, to drive-bys at girls'
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: schools and that gunfire outside a synagogue in Belleville on
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Yom Kippur, where did Canadian institutions and law enforcement lose
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: control of the boundaries?
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: You know, I think many cities have a similar experience
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: to what happened in Windsor. So I'll use this as
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: the case study. In Windsor, the surrender of the rule
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: of law happened five days after October the 7th. On
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: October the 12th, the first anti-Israel protest that took place
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: at the Windsor Riverfront And there was a sole Israeli
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: flag bearer there who was assaulted by some of the protesters.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: But the police didn't arrest the assailants. They handcuffed and
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: led away the victim for breach of the peace under
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: the excuse of de-escalation. And we saw that across the country,
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: and it's still going on today. That established a cowardly
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: operational doctrine that infected our services. And it was about
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: appeasement of the crowd, targeting of the victim, and the prioritization,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: quite frankly, of public relations management over enforcement of the
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: criminal code.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: You know, we hear about government security grants, but what's
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: a daily financial and institutional reality for Jewish organizations today?
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: You know, who are just trying to do things like
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: keep schools open, maintaining a community center, or run religious
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: services at synagogues.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: The daily reality is a privatized, mandatory Jew tax, quite frankly.
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: While politicians posture with photo ops, security grants, Canadian Jewish
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: institutions are spending tens of millions of dollars annually out
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: of our own pockets for private security, physical infrastructure upgrades,
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: and even off-duty police officers just to keep daycares, community centers,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: and synagogues open. In Windsor today there's an October the
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: 7th event and it's going to have a police officer
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: there as well as security and you had to pre-register
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: to attend and that's what Jewish events are like all
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: across the country. You can't simply walk into events. You
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: have to pre-register, upload photo ID or show it at
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: the door, undergo bag checks and then wait to be
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: told where the venue is 24 hours in advance just
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: to attend. In my case I was finding out five
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: hours in advance. So this institutional betrayal, though, it goes further.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: While Canadian Jews are paying out of pocket for this
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: basic physical safety at home, Ottawa unfroze tens of millions
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: of dollars in taxpayer funds for the UNRWA, which is
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: the UN's refugee agency for Palestine. And this was after
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: a UN internal investigation admitted that agency employees very likely
• 5:25
  Speaker 2: took part in the October 7th massacres, and they fired thousands.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: a number, dozens of employees immediately after that. So Canadian
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: taxpayers are being forced to subsidize terror-linked infrastructure abroad, while
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Jewish Canadians are paying a private tax to protect our
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: own toddlers at home.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and piggyback on that, politicians regularly launch task forces
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: and issue press statements, like Mark Carney's Ministerial Advisory Council
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: on Rights, Equality and Inclusion. which today marks 100 days
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: since its first meeting. Nothing's happening. Why haven't government promises
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: translated into actual safety on the ground for Canadian Jews?
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: Task forces are public relations theater designed to substitute administrative
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: process for actual courage. They've decided, they've delivered, excuse me,
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: zero public updates, zero policy changes, and zero measurable results.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: But yeah, look at how politicians responded following the violence
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: in Belleville when that hero police officer, Constable Smith, took
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: that shotgun blast to protect the synagogue on Yom Kippur.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: The NDP leader, Avi Lewis, jumped online and didn't even
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: name Constable Jeff Smith or explicitly acknowledge anti-Jewish terror. He
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: defaulted to an all-lives-matter pivot, diluting targeted anti-Semitic violence into
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: a generic lecture about safety for all. But politicians of
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: all stripes love to recite the standard script, and we've
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: talked about this. They say, this isn't who we are.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: That's a falsehood. This is who we are right now.
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: When 1% of the population, Jews, are suffering 70% of
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: religiously motivated hate crimes reported to police, that is the
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: reality of what modern Canada is. So government can launch
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: their panels and their task forces because taking real operational action,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: prosecuting the organizers, enforcing our hate laws, cutting off radical funding,
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: That requires drawing hard lines against vocal political bases, and
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: they're choosing political self-preservation over the potential for domestic human lives,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: and that's horrific.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know what's also horrific? You've got a
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: lot of universities today who are saying that October 7
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: is the day of the martyrs. My goodness. Now, we
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: often hear the defense that anti-Zionism isn't anti-Semitism. So how
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: do you respond to that when local delis, community daycares,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: schools and synagogues are the targets of being attacked? Sometimes
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: people like shooting at a deli in downtown Toronto.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: For your listeners who may not know or may be confused,
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: I'll be clear. Zionism is the belief that Jews get
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: to live in our ancestral homeland with self-determination, a full stop. Anti-Zionism,
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: not believing that Jews have that right, is anti-Semitism because
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: it's holding Jews to a double standard that other groups
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: wouldn't be held to. And saying otherwise is gaslighting. In Canada,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: every marginalized group is granted the authority to define our
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: own oppression, except for Jews, it seems. So the problem, though,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: is that when anti-Zionism translates into shooting at Jewish girls' schools,
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: firebombing synagogues, blockading kosher businesses, demanding registries of Jewish addresses,
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: the academic distinction gene that so many rely on really
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: doesn't matter that much or vanishes entirely. So while people
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: love to say never again and everyone loves to imagine
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: how they would have acted in historical moments of crisis,
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: I know what I would have done in the Holocaust
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: during Nazi Germany. This is the test. History shows us
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: time and again. that when lawlessness and target hatred are tolerated,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: they spread indiscriminately. The stability of our democratic institutions is
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: not guaranteed, and when society stays silent while Jews are
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: forced to live under regular physical and human security, we
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: are not remaining neutral as a society. We are acquiescing
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: to the erosion of Canadian society itself. As I said
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: last time that we talked about this, first they come
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: for the Saturday people, then they come for the Sunday people.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: What starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: One of the worst days in history, and a brilliant
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: take this morning. I thank you.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you, Gene.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: There he goes, John Litke. Litke's got a take on this,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: the third anniversary of October 7th, and just a horrific
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: day for the state of Israel.