Juno News - November 27, 2023


Unmasking the rise of anti-semitism in Quebec (ft. Barbara Kay)


Episode Stats


Length

15 minutes

Words per minute

155.1281

Word count

2,414

Sentence count

135

Harmful content

Toxicity

4

sentences flagged

Hate speech

16

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In the wake of anti-Semitic incidents across the U.S., how has anti-Semitism spread in Canada? And what role does immigration play in contributing to the problem? Jewish columnist Barbara Kay puts this in context in a piece she wrote this week.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 I do want to talk about some of the anti-Semitic incidents that we've been seeing across this
00:00:14.040 country. I shared yesterday a clip of what looked like a young boy making a call for violence against
00:00:19.960 Jews and Israelis, leading a crowd in a chant of intifada, revolution, resistance from the river
00:00:27.000 to the sea, all of these catchphrases. And the thing about it is that these ideas will get cheered on.
00:00:34.460 They're not controversial now in Canada. Anti-Semitism, Jew hatred, these are all too
00:00:41.120 common things. And I don't think this has just been created in the last few days. I think in the
00:00:45.540 last few weeks, rather, I think it's been awakened. I think people have become very, they felt like
00:00:52.580 they do not need to hide or conceal these views and values, which is even more concerning about it.
00:00:58.880 Now, I don't know what's happening here. This incident is apparently at the U.S.-Canada
00:01:04.120 Rainbow Bridge crossing in Niagara Falls, a vehicle explosion that the FBI are investigating. The
00:01:11.580 bridge is closed. We'll try to keep an eye on details there. And again, I never like saying
00:01:17.400 what something is in the first 24 hours, because it almost always becomes something else. But we are
00:01:24.040 keeping an eye on that. But one of the things when you look at it, I mean, certainly we have
00:01:28.300 university and college campuses, which are hotbeds of anti-Semitism and Jew hatred. And it's a lot of
00:01:33.700 these white, decolonial, post-colonial study lefties that try to take their very distorted worldview and put
00:01:41.300 it on to these situations in the world. But you also have to look at immigration. And I was glad that
00:01:46.820 Barbara Kay, who's a tremendous columnist with the National Post, put this in context so well in a
00:01:53.840 piece she wrote this week, how Quebec turned into a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Barbara Kay joins me
00:02:00.060 now. It's always good to talk to you, Barbara. I know this has been a difficult month and a half for
00:02:04.720 you as a Jewish woman. And I know for you as someone who I think has warned about these things for so
00:02:09.820 long when nobody was paying attention. Yes. Thanks, Andrew. It has been a difficult time and
00:02:15.340 it does make it more difficult. The frustration of having for the last 20 years been very aware of
00:02:23.620 what's been happening in Europe and, you know, sort of a foretaste of what we could have figured
00:02:31.240 was going to happen here as our immigration patterns were echoing those of Europe. So, yes,
00:02:40.020 it's frustrating, but at least it's better we're talking about them now than never. And now is,
00:02:46.920 unfortunately, a very good time to be talking about immigration patterns.
00:02:51.260 And you look at, in a Quebec context, 1970 to 2005. So, a 35-year period here. What happened there? And how
00:03:00.340 has it led, in your view, to what we're seeing now? Well, Quebec nationalism was very hot in 1970,
00:03:07.520 if I'm sure you remember. I mean, maybe not. I read about it. I don't remember, but I know about it.
00:03:13.760 Okay. Anyways, it was, you know, nationalist sentiment was running very high and particularly,
00:03:19.720 and as always, when nationalism is high, fears about the French language declining are high. So,
00:03:26.260 the government quite understandably decided that they did need immigration, but why not, 0.99
00:03:32.980 why not choose immigrants that are already fluent in French rather than bringing in non-French speaking 0.99
00:03:38.380 and spending years, you know, bringing them up to speed? I get that. I understand it. So,
00:03:43.960 the government started looking, kind of throwing open their doors and making it very easy for
00:03:49.520 immigrants who were French speaking to come here. And that made it very logical to look for,
00:03:56.660 a look at former French colonies. So, a lot of people came from, you know, Vietnam and Haiti.
00:04:04.620 Those immigrants didn't have a problem with Jews, but the French colonies that were the source of a lot 1.00
00:04:11.280 of immigration from North Africa and the Middle East did and do. So, we had a lot of immigration from
00:04:18.280 Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco, Jewish immigrants also from Morocco, especially Tunisia, and they brought
00:04:28.100 with them attitudes. So, some of them really, you know, look, most of these immigrants, it has to be 1.00
00:04:38.000 said again and again, and I say it because I mean it, most of these immigrants do not present a problem.
00:04:42.900 Most of them just want a good life. They're peaceful. They're apolitical. But if even one percent
00:04:47.360 of many, many, many, many thousands of people are activists and do harbor certain hatreds and want
00:04:56.460 to see those hatreds expressed in action, that's not good because it doesn't take very many to make
00:05:02.680 trouble. So, you know, we have seen several really bad actors in Quebec and many people of my age
00:05:10.780 certainly remember, or not even my age, Ahmed Rassam, the millennial bomber who made, he set up in 0.93
00:05:19.180 Montreal. Montreal is an ideal place if you're into that business because it's very close to the U.S.
00:05:24.760 It has a good international airport and it's, you can melt into the crowd very easily. So, I once asked
00:05:32.780 a former CSIS director, we haven't had, we haven't had incidents of terrorism in Montreal. He said, no,
00:05:39.280 why would they? It's an ideal place to operate from. So, what you've got are a lot of Islamist 1.00
00:05:46.700 activists in Montreal directing funding for other groups, planning, helping to plan operations
00:05:54.760 elsewhere and radicalizing youth very successfully in their mosques and via internet forums. So,
00:06:05.180 as a result, we've seen a certain amount of, and certainly right now, there are demonstrations
00:06:11.760 every single week and some of them have been, you know, we've had bullet holes in Jewish schools. 0.79
00:06:19.400 We've had Jewish-owned businesses vandalized. We've had a hit list of, well, I don't know if it's a hit
00:06:27.840 list, but a list of Jewish-owned enterprises circulating. One restaurant in my vicinity, which has a very
00:06:35.000 big Jewish clientele, has had a demonstration every single week, right outside its windows.
00:06:43.100 Unfortunately, the police would not even put a perimeter and very hostile. He's lost a lot of, you know, a lot of
00:06:51.080 money because when they assemble like that, the guests can't get out of their underground garage.
00:06:57.640 They can't exit into the street. So, they're causing a lot of trouble and I do feel that it has that
00:07:04.760 feeling of something much worse. You know, when you put bullet holes in a door, you're really saying
00:07:10.140 to the people whose kids go to that school, this time, you know, we shot into the door at night when
00:07:16.020 nobody was there. Next time, well, you know, maybe there will be somebody there. I think Montreal Jews 1.00
00:07:23.260 are extremely fearful. We have no quarrel at all with Monsieur Legault. Premier Legault has made many,
00:07:34.280 several statements that are absolutely, you know, perfect. Says he's, you know, won't be tolerated.
00:07:42.940 And I do, I believe he feels that way. Monsieur Legault is a big supporter of Israel.
00:07:50.380 They have, Quebec was about to open an office in Israel, you know, a Quebec-Israel bureau
00:07:58.220 that unfortunately will have to be postponed until after the war. But so, you know, on an official
00:08:04.760 level, everything's very cool in terms of relationships between the Jewish community,
00:08:10.240 which is 90,000 people, you know, next to Toronto, the biggest. But we're fearful. We're fearful.
00:08:19.340 I want to go back. I mean, one of the things that, I mean, you and I both know Mark Stein,
00:08:23.280 and one of the things that he has done very well, going back to America alone in 2006,
00:08:28.780 was explain that a lot of this is just about numbers. And you said that as well. I mean,
00:08:33.500 if you bring in thousands and thousands of people, 1% is, you know, a small number if you look
00:08:38.100 at the stats, but in raw numbers, that's enough to cause serious problems. I mean, we've seen
00:08:42.280 significant terror attacks that have involved one person. Like, you do not need a lot of people to
00:08:47.460 cause a lot of harm in a country. And when we look at anti-Semitism, I think the best case scenario is 1.00
00:08:53.820 that if someone has, you know, some anti-Semitic beliefs, and they emigrate to Canada, that the
00:08:59.660 country itself has sufficiently said, these are not tolerant here, that you shut up about it.
00:09:04.820 And it just becomes this private bigotry that you hold that doesn't do anything. And the problem is
00:09:10.780 we're seeing in the last six weeks, a lot of people who do not feel that need, they do not feel the need
00:09:16.340 to hide it. They've now been celebrated and cheered on. I mean, people at these rallies, like that child
00:09:22.060 I showed a clip from yesterday that can call for intifada, call for violence against Jews, and they're 1.00
00:09:27.400 getting cheered on by thousands of people. You saw in the UK, 100,000 people take to the streets a
00:09:33.080 couple of weeks ago. Of those, is it 1% that supports violence against Jews? 10%? Like,
00:09:38.960 either way, you're talking about hundreds, if not thousands of people. And as you well know,
00:09:45.440 when you're talking about immigration, the time to deal with it is before you open the doors. 1.00
00:09:51.660 Afterwards, especially if people have gone through the process and become citizens, you really don't
00:09:56.500 have any response to this as a society or as a country. Do you? Well, no. And I don't personally
00:10:05.000 understand how you can, I mean, I guess you have to have a very sincere belief that people, when they
00:10:11.860 cross your borders, they're going to leave all their prejudices behind, no matter what they are,
00:10:18.180 they're just going to, you know, and you think that multiculturalism is just a question of,
00:10:23.560 you know, people getting along and diversity, all these superficial words.
00:10:29.380 Well, and these people say it's offensive to insist that there is or should be something
00:10:33.220 that we would call a Canadian value, that that's even a part of, or should be a part of that process.
00:10:39.300 Well, I should think that one of our values that in any democratic country would be that people
00:10:44.080 from various backgrounds and religions and, you know, should be able to get along with each other
00:10:49.860 without one group fearing that because, you know, that they are, have been collectively tarred
00:10:56.560 as inferior or worthy of extermination. I mean, one would think that would be a basic value for any
00:11:03.740 democratic country. So if you know that you're importing people who have grown up with, I've had
00:11:12.220 countless Middle Easterners tell me who they themselves have sort of managed to divest themselves
00:11:19.580 of these old prejudices, but they have told me, you just have no idea how common anti-Semitism,
00:11:27.160 it's like a given, it's just a given. I know that in Egypt, for instance, which has had a cold peace
00:11:33.560 with Israel since 1979, you'll still find on the street people selling the protocols of the elders of 0.95
00:11:41.840 Zion. It's a very popular, you know, and this is, this is, these myths and horrible blood libels 0.98
00:11:48.960 are considered common knowledge in amongst, you know, in parts of the Middle East. That's how it is.
00:11:59.240 And, and, and you should, and it's up to the government to know that if they're importing people
00:12:05.040 from one part of the world, investigate what, what are these people's cultural values? I know we're
00:12:12.340 not supposed to say that, but you know what, now that people are running around the street saying 0.98
00:12:16.300 Jews are horrible, gas them or whatever, I think I can say, and you could say, or whoever wants to can 1.00
00:12:22.160 say, you know, not all cultures are equal and not all cultures can be counted on to produce people 0.99
00:12:31.020 who have respect for the beliefs or for other people, you know, as individuals and not according
00:12:40.060 to biases that they've inherited from their culture. So, you know, Angela Merkel admitted finally,
00:12:49.540 after she, you know, brought in a million, uh, North African migrants, that it just wasn't working
00:12:56.980 out so well in terms of antisemitism in Germany, which was exploding amongst that population or,
00:13:04.100 and we also saw sexual violence just absolutely spike in that time. Yeah. So when you say, um,
00:13:10.580 here we've seen antisemitism rising like crazy. Well, come on, let's get epidemiological about it.
00:13:18.920 What is the source of this rise and this sudden rise in antisemitism is that, you know, where is
00:13:24.900 the hatred coming from? Um, where, where is the actual, the stuff that is criminal, where is that
00:13:32.300 coming from? Um, and, and let's talk about it. I think we have to be very open. Otherwise we're not
00:13:39.400 going to be able to start, uh, dealing with it in an educational way. It's no good to just say,
00:13:46.960 yeah, we're going to have Holocaust education, uh, for everybody. That doesn't work by the way. You
00:13:52.620 know, a lot of the Holocaust education is, um, obligatory throughout Europe, especially in Germany.
00:14:00.760 They kids, every German, every kid in Germany gets a lesson, a vivid lesson. They go to,
00:14:06.480 they're taken to the camps. So they know their Holocaust education. It has not stopped antisemitism.
00:14:12.460 Uh, well, and we have the answer and we have the federal liberal, but I know one answer is to start
00:14:18.720 looking at who we're bringing in from where and, um, what kind of biases they have about, uh, about Jews,
00:14:27.660 because that's the primary vector, um, you know, for trouble, uh, from, you know, uh, especially
00:14:36.280 amongst Islamists. I mean, Islamists tell us, we don't have to guess. They're very open about it.
00:14:44.980 They hate Jews and they say so. Yeah. Uh, so we, we have the federal government seeking that federal 1.00
00:14:52.120 tending that Islamophobia is just as big a problem as antisemitism. It just isn't. It isn't. Uh,
00:15:00.400 people don't like Islamism. That's not a phobia. They don't like it because it's horrible. Um, but 0.91
00:15:06.920 we should be able to talk about this. Well, the federal government this week, uh, redoubling its
00:15:13.740 commitment to regulating online hate as though the internet is just, you know, the source of
00:15:18.120 antisemitism without talking about this, this immigration side. It was a great column, uh,
00:15:23.320 you wrote Barbara Kay. Thank you very much for coming on. Thanks for listening to the Andrew
00:15:27.100 Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.