Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Zohran Mamdani’s radical New York： Jew-free judicial panels and government run grocery stores

00:00:00.120 Hello, my friends. Zoran Mamdani of New York City wants government-run grocery stores.

00:00:06.240 Seriously, what could go wrong? I should tell you, Avi Lewis of the NDP is talking about

00:00:10.660 similar things for Canada, too. I'll go through the communism of it all. But first, let me

00:00:14.960 invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. There's a video I want to show

00:00:18.720 you of Mamdani and bananas. I just want you to see it, not just hear it. So make sure

00:00:24.080 you get the video version of this podcast by going to rebelnewsplus.com. One more thing.

00:00:30.000 hey folks do you love a good cup of coffee are you like me banned for life from visiting tim

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00:01:34.760 and this is the coffee to brew rebel news tonight new york's mayor is a communist that's not an

00:01:43.040 insult. It's a description of his government grocery store plan. It's July 28th and this is

00:01:48.920 the Ezra Levant Show. Shame on you, you censorious bug. New York City Mayor Zoran Mamdani is a lot

00:02:08.540 of things. He's shockingly anti-Semitic and extremely anti-American. He's a mayor, but he's 0.87

00:02:16.100 obsessed with foreign policy, but only one foreign policy, denouncing Israel, even threatening to

00:02:22.260 arrest Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. He's not against any other foreign leader that I

00:02:27.720 can detect, including dictators from China or terrorists from Iran or Qatar. Like I say, he's

00:02:34.120 just obsessed with Jews. I saw this weird story. He just put together a council of 18 New York

00:02:40.880 City lawyers to review judicial appointments. And it's a city where about 50% of the lawyers

00:02:47.240 are Jewish, just happens to be that way. And there's not one Jew on his list. The odds of 0.73

00:02:53.840 choosing 18 lawyers in New York and randomly having none of them be Jews, well, that's 0.5 0.84

00:03:01.440 to the power of 18, isn't it? Or it's about one in 250,000 odds. He's cleansing Jews from any 0.62

00:03:08.480 position of power. But being anti-Semitic and being anti-American are pretty close cousins,

00:03:13.080 you know. You don't often see one without the other. But Ma'am, Danny's latest announcement

00:03:18.080 just takes the cake. It's got nothing to do with Jews. Here he is announcing a Soviet-style, 0.98

00:03:23.160 government-run centrally planned grocery store i'm not kidding i'm gonna play two

00:03:31.140 full minutes from his half-hour press conference for you here take a look

00:03:35.540 all of this leaves too many new yorkers feeling like groceries are out of reach

00:03:42.940 and that is frankly unacceptable which is why city government is stepping in to make people's

00:03:48.660 lives more affordable. Today, I am proud to announce a collection of essential staples

00:03:53.980 that will be predictably 30% cheaper at all five of our city-run grocery stores.

00:04:05.100 This core set of goods will include all fresh produce, meat, and seafood, along with 20 other

00:04:10.620 essential items like cheese, milk, and bread. Here's how it will work. Once a month, our five

00:04:16.720 City-run grocery stores will set prices for this core set of goods at 30% below typical retail

00:04:21.900 prices. No exceptions, no gimmicks. The savings will last for the entire month. That means no

00:04:28.320 weekly fluctuations nor sticker shock at the checkout line. Not for our seniors living on 0.99

00:04:33.140 fixed incomes, nor for the parents who rely on a regular supply of apple slices to keep toddler

00:04:38.300 tantrums at bay. Now, can we all see this incredible example of produce in my hand?

00:04:50.040 Now, you will see these plantains here. So for anyone wondering how much these beautiful

00:04:53.700 plantains might cost, you can use this QR code or head to grocery.nyc to access our policy report.

00:05:01.340 I'm going to demonstrate exactly what that means.

00:05:08.300 Ladies and gentlemen, the QR code does work.

00:05:11.900 You can see this here.

00:05:16.640 There you can learn more about our city-owned grocery store program, including the 30% discount.

00:05:21.600 So how would that work?

00:05:23.200 I mean, grocery store margins are very, very thin, about 2% markup.

00:05:30.400 So how could a grocery store possibly sell things at a 30% discount?

00:05:36.640 Mamdani showed some bananas or plantains. I checked. Bananas sell for about 20 cents each

00:05:45.180 in New York City grocery stores. Think about how miraculously that is, by the way,

00:05:50.000 to have tropical fruit picked, shipped to the big city, put on a truck, unloaded a grocery store,

00:05:57.360 laid out on display, and sold for just 20 cents each. That is a miracle of the modern global

00:06:04.580 supply chain logistics food especially raw food it's about as cheap as humanly possible if you're

00:06:12.000 buying you know simple stuff you've got the smartest people with huge economies of scale

00:06:17.680 working to make that happen i mean walmart and all the other stores are competing with each other

00:06:22.700 and it's you know they're trying to shave a penny off this and a penny off that

00:06:27.240 you're not going to be able to find 30 margins by the way it's been that way for decades there's so

00:06:34.380 much plentiful cheap food in America. I don't know if you're old enough to remember, but in 1989,

00:06:39.920 Boris Yeltsin from the Soviet Union, he was a senior official. He wasn't yet president.

00:06:45.820 He visited America and in an unpromptu, unscheduled stop, he just said, I want to pull into a grocery

00:06:52.260 store. And he saw this famous photo of the vast choices, low prices, but most importantly,

00:06:58.500 there was no lineups. There was no one checking, are you part of the communist party? Do you have

00:07:05.260 the right to be here? Are you exceeding your rations? It was just so much food and anyone

00:07:10.740 could buy it. And he said that even the supreme leader of the Soviet Union didn't have such

00:07:16.480 variety and choice. His aides, Boris Yeltsin's aides later said it was really the final

00:07:22.520 light bulb moment for him where he abandoned communism and converted to the free market.

00:07:27.600 And, of course, the Soviet Union was gone several years later.

00:07:30.560 The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 as well.

00:07:33.220 Now, I'm not sure how much cheaper a banana can sell for.

00:07:35.940 So I guess Mamdani is promising to sell it for 14 cents instead of 20 cents.

00:07:40.500 But how would that work with something more expensive like a steak or some fish or a block of cheese?

00:07:48.120 How do you manage to make a $20 steak cost only $14?

00:07:53.980 I mean, who has to take $6 less for it?

00:07:56.940 Do you think the rancher in Texas is going to take less money for? The slaughterhouse, the trucker, that whole logistical chain. Who has to kick in the six missing dollars for a steak? And are they going to answer because some communist in New York City tells them to? I mean, you can't just wave a wand and make things cheaper. That's not how the world works.

00:08:18.900 Now, you know, New York City has one of the most competitive grocery markets in the world.

00:08:23.300 There's about 1,000 full-size grocery stores in the city.

00:08:28.760 And if you've ever been there, you'll know these little shops called bodegas.

00:08:35.000 There's about 10,000 of them in the city.

00:08:37.540 They're on almost every block.

00:08:39.480 It's like a kind of corner store, but with more than just like convenience store items.

00:08:45.580 They have fresh food.

00:08:46.700 They have a hot table.

00:08:47.580 it's it's sort of like halfway between a 7-Eleven and a big grocery store they're called bodegas

00:08:53.320 they're super convenient it's the kind of thing where people who just pop down from an apartment

00:08:57.940 store would buy some basics you maybe wouldn't do major grocery shopping there but you know you're

00:09:04.580 a young person on the go you pop down and get to the bodega probably a touch more expensive

00:09:08.020 than the big stores but they're so convenient and they're pretty much on every block and what's

00:09:13.280 interesting about them is they're almost all independent, right? They're not some big grocery

00:09:17.560 stores. So you got 11,000 stores in New York. Do you really think any of them are making 30%

00:09:24.740 profit? You know, Jeff Bezos of Amazon has a saying, he said, your margin is my opportunity,

00:09:32.120 which is a terrifying thing to hear. What he's saying is, if you're making a lot of money at

00:09:37.360 something if you're profiting 30 that's where he's going to go to undercut you if you're if you can

00:09:44.400 make a 30 margin he thinks he could probably go and take most of that by undercutting you pretty

00:09:50.980 sure that with 11 000 competitors in that town um you would lower prices to win all the business

00:09:56.900 if someone was making 30 000 profit they're not it's about one or two percent margin so how can

00:10:03.120 ma'am danny's plan happen i mean you got to be pretty gullible to believe he can snap his fingers

00:10:08.680 and suddenly make food 30 percent cheaper why didn't the boys at walmart think of that first

00:10:15.660 i mean the same wholesalers sell the same produce to all the stores at similar prices

00:10:21.480 so how do you get 30 savings well i did what ma'am danny suggested and i went to grocery.nyc

00:10:27.560 and I read the plan. And the answer is communism. Let me read the whole paragraph to you so you can

00:10:36.900 see I'm not leaving anything out. Here's how it's going to work. Like he talks about what he's going

00:10:40.540 to do, but I just think, how are you going to do that? There's not 30% worth of fat in there.

00:10:45.680 There's not 30% in profits. You can't just command people to sell you for things less.

00:10:50.820 What are you going to pay people who work at the store 30% less? No, here, let me read to you what

00:10:55.320 he calls the role of the city. While the city can reduce costs and set public priorities,

00:11:02.640 have you ever seen a city, a government reduce costs? It does not operate grocery stores day

00:11:07.780 to day. Delivering affordable food at scale requires deep operational experience, strong

00:11:14.840 supply chains, and proven retail execution. The city will provide the foundation and deliver

00:11:21.820 deliver grocery ready sites, cover rent and property taxes, fund initial build out and

00:11:32.300 establish a single public brand for all New York City groceries locations. The city will also set

00:11:38.300 clear requirements for affordability, job quality, transparency and performance. And here's where it

00:11:45.140 comes down to it. The city will provide lower no cost access to real estate, including public sites

00:11:51.160 offer subsidies that will lower grocery prices within the core basket. Set clear standards for

00:12:00.520 stocking job quality and pricing transparency. Oversee performance to ensure accountability.

00:12:05.120 And that's how they're going to do it. The taxpayer will fund the gap for 30% cheaper food

00:12:15.600 by paying for the building, by paying for the rent, by paying the taxes. So that removes a lot

00:12:22.920 of the cost from any grocery store. Imagine if Safeway or Sobeys or whatever your local grocery

00:12:27.900 store is called suddenly didn't have to pay for the building, didn't have to pay any taxes,

00:12:32.180 didn't have to pay rent. Oh, and it was all built by taxpayer money. And then even after that,

00:12:39.020 taxpayers will offer subsidies to push the price of food below cost now there's no such thing as

00:12:48.000 a free lunch as Milton Friedman the great economist would say someone is paying for it

00:12:53.840 in this case we found out taxpayers are covering many of the costs of the government stores to

00:13:00.700 begin with but that's still not enough to cut the price of steaks by 30 percent so taxpayers will

00:13:07.180 subsidize each customer who buys a steak or eggs or milk or seafood and bananas too.

00:13:16.420 What do you think is going to happen? If you had a grocery store where the government says we will

00:13:22.600 pay a third of all the costs, come in and buy meat and fish and eggs, we'll make it 30% cheaper,

00:13:30.900 not because we're smarter, not because we have a good idea no one ever thought of.

00:13:34.400 we're just going to plain old pay a third of your grocery bill.

00:13:41.060 Well, I mean, just use your imagination.

00:13:42.960 First of all, if you've ever been to New York,

00:13:45.060 you know they are amazingly entrepreneurial.

00:13:47.940 There are hustlers and hucksters everywhere, even on the street.

00:13:51.600 Do you doubt for a second that some savvy characters

00:13:56.100 are going to line up outside the grocery stores

00:13:58.080 every morning before they open to be the first ones inside

00:14:01.560 and they're going to immediately buy all the steaks they can carry. They'll probably carry

00:14:06.620 them out to a pickup truck waiting outside and maybe resell them either to customers or to

00:14:13.840 restaurants or to bodegas even. What's the government going to do? Ration them? Well, probably.

00:14:22.980 You see, economics is all about rationing. To say it another way, economics is about scarcity.

00:14:29.220 that's the essential question of economics human desires are unlimited but resources are finite

00:14:36.420 so how do we determine who gets what i mean the heart wants everything but how do you choose

00:14:43.840 the free market uses the price system which comes from supply and demand price is a signal

00:14:49.480 to both consumers and producers consumers faced with the price of a steak or the price of a

00:14:55.160 hamburger can make a choice, but they will know that steak is more valuable. So do they really

00:15:00.340 want it that much more than the burger? And to producers, price is a signal too. If something

00:15:06.220 is expensive, that's a sign that there's perhaps unmet demand or like Bezos says, room to undercut

00:15:11.820 competitors. The Soviet system, a centrally planned economy, does away with supply and demand and

00:15:19.200 price. It's what Mamdani said he's going to do. The government will now every month have an

00:15:23.880 important meeting to decide what the fair price is and what the proper price is once a month.

00:15:31.560 And then they're just going to declare it. But that would be like announcing that gasoline

00:15:36.000 at your gas station is 30% cheaper than market prices. Why wouldn't every single person in New

00:15:42.840 York City just go to buy up the cheap gas until it was all gone? And if you're doing it for food,

00:15:48.940 why not for gas? Why not for clothes? Why not for, I don't know, apartments? People will jump

00:15:56.240 over each other for the free stuff. It's not free, but it's 30% off stakes. Until it's gone,

00:16:03.440 of course. If you don't let price do the rationing, other forms of rationing will come in,

00:16:09.880 waiting in line, getting up early. That's why Boris Yeltsin couldn't believe the grocery store

00:16:14.980 in America didn't have a lineup. Back to economics. In the Soviet Union, they had the Marxist motto

00:16:21.160 from each according to his ability to each according to his needs. But one's needs or one's

00:16:27.200 wants are unlimited. There's unlimited demand for things that are artificially cheap because

00:16:32.320 the taxpayer has to subsidize them. So there will be no equilibrium until it's totally sold out.

00:16:38.020 Imagine a government-run gas station where taxpayers say, we'll pay 30% of your fill-up.

00:16:44.240 People would just show up with extra tanks and people would drive across town just literally

00:16:48.620 to take as much gas as they could until it was gone.

00:16:53.540 That's how it would be rationed.

00:16:55.140 If you're not going to use price to ration it, you'll ration it in other ways.

00:16:59.360 Or in the Soviet Union, they would have a ration.

00:17:01.520 Maybe they'd be allowed one gallon of gas or one loaf of bread after waiting in line.

00:17:06.280 But the real insiders would get what they wanted before it even went on sale to the public.

00:17:11.440 imagine working in a government grocery store you'd make sure that you and your family and

00:17:16.640 your friends got the good stuff maybe even before it was put on the shelves maybe you'd buy it up

00:17:22.560 and just resell it out the back door i mean it's subsidized meat new yorkers are going to pay for

00:17:29.140 this tens of millions of dollars but what's to stop someone not from new york from driving into

00:17:34.880 new york city from just across the river in new jersey you know manhattan it's bounded by a by

00:17:40.440 Ripley is a small place. Geographically, a huge percent of people who go to New York every day

00:17:46.300 come in from New Jersey, even from Connecticut. How are you going to stop them from buying up the

00:17:51.440 cheap stuff? Criticy of New York taxpayers. What are you going to do? Require ID? They don't even

00:17:58.620 do that for voting now, do they? Ma'am, Danny says he's going to have five of these stores,

00:18:04.360 one for each borough, in a way that's laughable. Like I say, there's a thousand big grocery

00:18:10.320 stores in New York City, 10,000 of these little bodegas. But let's say you're a bodega owner

00:18:15.420 within a few hundred feet, within a few blocks of one of these subsidized stores.

00:18:22.520 How can you compete? You put your entire life savings into a bodega. You borrowed money from

00:18:28.300 your family. You're an entrepreneur doing the American dream. And now Zoran Mamdani sets up

00:18:34.040 a store just across the street from you, undercutting you, selling the same thing you are.

00:18:40.320 cheaper by 30 percent not because they're better but because they have government inside track 0.99

00:18:46.560 if you've ever been to one of these bodegas as the name suggests they're often run by new immigrants 0.95

00:18:50.620 of every background how could they possibly compete against someone undercutting them

00:18:53.880 just because they're subsidized by taxpayers so the tax-paying bodega owner is financing

00:18:59.740 his own competition by the way besides the soviet union and cuba and other countries like that like

00:19:08.500 north korea this has been tried even in america in kansas city missouri with the same marxist

00:19:16.440 promises let me show you how that went this is just a year ago take a look at this as a voice

00:19:22.940 for everyone we're following up on tips we received from viewers about deteriorating conditions at the

00:19:27.920 sun fresh grocery store in the linwood shopping center off prospect first off the smell i mean

00:19:34.380 is just ridiculous. I watch people walk in and walk out. The grocery store has received financial

00:19:41.540 assistance from the city but has been unable to keep those shelves stocked in an area that in the

00:19:46.940 past has often been referred to as a food desert. Around here a good thing don't last too long.

00:19:54.000 And it will impact a lot of people and a lot of families. KSHB 41 News reporter Alyssa Jackson

00:20:00.480 went to the store to witness it for herself and is amplifying the voices of frustrated customers

00:20:05.520 and community leaders. It's clear this Sunfresh at 31st and Prospect is struggling. This is the

00:20:10.840 first section people see when they come in. There's barely any produce. A lot of the coolers

00:20:15.440 and shelves around the store look the same way, empty. So shoppers have been asking us,

00:20:20.720 if the store isn't closing, then where is all the food? A rotten smell comes through the door

00:20:26.140 and anywhere you turn, you'll see products that need to be restocked.

00:20:29.620 No hot food or deli. There was a time this store was on life support.

00:20:34.240 I could tell you today right now is damn near dead.

00:20:37.560 This is a new low, even to people like Pat Clark, who've watched the store go

00:20:41.520 through its ups and downs. 30 days ago, hell, we looked like a grocery store again.

00:20:46.860 The city owns the Linwood Shopping Center, a nonprofit operates the grocery store.

00:20:51.260 Public and private investments are in the millions of dollars for the center.

00:20:55.300 The nonprofit didn't respond to a request for comment.

00:20:57.900 I did ask the mayor's office if the city had plans to step in and consider additional funding.

00:21:02.400 The office responded, the city will work closely with store ownership and all neighborhood stakeholders

00:21:07.320 to support the long-term viability of the store based on normal revenues from customers and area consumers.

00:21:14.140 Where is the money at? I'm asking where the money is.

00:21:17.680 The shelves could indicate the future of the store.

00:21:20.180 Come in here. Look what's going on.

00:21:22.480 They also say a lot about how much patience people have left.

00:21:25.840 Let the store close. Everything on this lot will start to fail. Then whose problem is it then?

00:21:33.360 But of course, if you give things away for free or at a 30% discount below their real price,

00:21:40.800 don't be surprised if the store's shelves are empty. What, are you going to keep restocking

00:21:45.840 them forever? If the whole city comes through, you'll run out of other people's money soon

00:21:51.600 enough and then it's going to be like that Kansas City store. Zora Namdani has never run a business

00:21:57.500 in his life. He has no idea how to do things. He's a communist though and he knows how to whip up

00:22:03.180 anger against the man or the corporations. He recently released a list of all the expensive

00:22:09.980 houses or apartments in New York and he wants to have a special tax for them. He's singling out

00:22:16.180 billionaires. He wants to have a demonization of them, like Stalin did, like Mao did. Maybe

00:22:23.180 there'll be some more assassinations, like Luigi Mangioni. I have to point this out, though,

00:22:28.600 because the thing about grocery companies, they're good at grocery stores, they're good

00:22:32.840 at running grocery stores. Zora Mamdani, not so much, but he's going to spend tens of millions

00:22:39.240 of dollars they've already announced 70 million dollars in capital spending which will obviously

00:22:46.380 double i mean it's a government everything's going to be over budget and yet his first store

00:22:51.800 by his own strategy book here will not open for more than three more years here let me read from

00:23:01.480 his document by the end of 2029 the store at la marqueta is expected to open with the city

00:23:07.920 continuing development of this ground-up public market project. Three years? Why would it take

00:23:15.460 three years to open a grocery store? Well, because this is a centrally planned economy.

00:23:20.700 It's full of political ideologues, not people who actually know how to do things. It's just like in

00:23:26.160 the Soviet Union. I think this will be a total failure. There is no way it can't be. It'll look 0.99

00:23:33.360 just like that Kansas City store with the subsidized meat being stolen or skimmed off

00:23:38.680 by insiders or hustlers. They'll sell out in one day. The shelves will literally be empty because

00:23:45.500 they're being priced for political reasons, not for economic reasons. And of course, the answer

00:23:50.600 will be what you heard in that Kansas City video. More money is needed. All we need is some more

00:23:56.460 money, and it'll work this time. More central planning. You know, New Yorkers are about to get

00:24:02.400 a billion dollar education in supply and demand and price. Hey, good luck to you guys.

00:24:18.240 Well, as you know, Rebel News is part of the Independent Press Gallery. Those are journalists

00:24:23.580 across Canada and indeed some from around the world who don't take government funding. It's an

00:24:29.800 A counterweight to the parliamentary press gallery, which is all bought and sold by the federal government. In fact, 99% of journalists in Canada take government subsidies. It's very sad. And the worst part about it is it's sort of a universally kept secret. Everyone in the cartel sort of agrees not to talk about it, which is fine for their own privacy, but it would be like misleading viewers.

00:24:54.800 viewers. I mean, if an oil company or a tobacco company to take to Bet Noir from the left were

00:25:01.460 to fund every outlet in the country, you would want there to be a disclaimer. It's called

00:25:05.380 advertising. When Mark Carney gives so much money to journalists, it's really advertising,

00:25:11.160 isn't it? Well, we are members of the Independent Press Gallery, and so are other journalists in

00:25:17.080 Canada, including our friends from Juno News, one of the rare outlets that doesn't take that

00:25:21.900 government dough. And I should tell you that next month we are having the first annual Independent

00:25:28.960 Press Gallery Gala Awards Day, where there's a very talented panel of jurors, including our

00:25:37.980 friend Joe Warmington, including Vince Byfield and others, who have reviewed applications from

00:25:46.960 members in the Independent Press Gallery for best investigative report, best video report,

00:25:53.080 best written report. And then finalists have just been announced. I'm taking some time here,

00:25:59.320 but my point is we will have the first ever Gala Awards for the best in independent journalism.

00:26:07.100 Finally, people who aren't on the government payroll will be recognized by their peers. And

00:26:12.980 And one of the finalists is our guest today.

00:26:15.660 You know who I'm talking about, one of my favorite people at Juneau News.

00:26:18.280 Her name is Melanie Bennett, and she joins us now.

00:26:20.740 Melanie, first of all, congratulations on being a finalist for the Gala Awards coming up.

00:26:28.220 I appreciate that very much.

00:26:29.660 I was very, very pleased to be nominated as a finalist alongside some people that I respect very much.

00:26:36.380 My ex-boss, Cosmin, on the list, and Lexa Lavoie, I believe, Tara Ugolini, also from Rebel News.

00:26:41.800 So it'll be an interesting gala.

00:26:43.920 Can't wait to attend.

00:26:45.240 Well, you know what?

00:26:46.280 It's going to be the first, and hopefully this will just grow over time.

00:26:49.600 I think having our own independent awards will be, I think a lot of people will take it to heart.

00:26:57.260 Because this isn't just, you know, this is a juried prize.

00:27:02.300 By that I mean you have talented independent journalists who painstakingly review all the entries.

00:27:07.820 Anyways, I just wanted to give you a shout out for that.

00:27:10.480 and I wish you good luck and the results will be announced.

00:27:13.860 I believe the Gala Awards is on August 30th.

00:27:16.040 And by the way, if anyone wants to attend,

00:27:18.600 we are selling tickets to this event to the general public

00:27:21.180 and you can find that on the Independent Press Gallery website.

00:27:25.020 All right, well, that was a little public service announcement,

00:27:27.800 but let's talk about the real reason we're having you on the show today.

00:27:31.700 You've done some outstanding investigative work about Islamism

00:27:35.440 and how it might turn to violence in our own country. 0.97

00:27:37.560 You've done some great research.

00:27:39.780 And I want to refer to a story you published a week ago in Juno News called Investigation Inside a Targeted Collective Action Campaign Against Canadian Companies.

00:27:52.960 A pro-Palestinian activist network praised past criminal activity and urged escalation as a part of a strategy targeting companies from B.C. to Newfoundland.

00:28:03.040 i mentioned that story melanie because you talk about this campaign to sort of sabotage companies

00:28:10.060 in canada well i woke up today to news that there was one company on this hit list that was hit

00:28:17.920 your prophecy came true in an unfortunate way but you called it tell us about your research and tell

00:28:26.100 us about the news today of a shooting so there's a i guess an activist network of different

00:28:34.240 organizations and it's called arms embargo now they have a website essentially the point of

00:28:41.400 their campaigns is to target companies which are linked to an israeli defense company called

00:28:47.860 elbit systems so elbit systems is a defense company they produce i think drones and things

00:28:54.380 like that. And there are companies across Canada that might supply parts to Elbit Canada. And they

00:29:00.980 have a map which sort of tells you which companies that they've found supply Elbit or possibly Elbit

00:29:07.580 themselves. So their whole campaign on the surface is, I think it's Labour for Palestine, World

00:29:15.340 Beyond War, Palestinian Youth Movement, Palestine Solidarity, those kinds of groups have come

00:29:21.980 together. And they've given people tools to either complain to their MPs or write letters,

00:29:27.860 protests, pressure campaigns, things like that. The thing is, is that this very same

00:29:33.780 campaign, I guess you could say, in a broader sense, is also being, has been adopted by an

00:29:40.200 organization called Palestine Action. Now, Palestine Action is a global organization that

00:29:45.440 has branches across the world. It is most famously known for becoming a terrorist organization or

00:29:51.800 being designated a terrorist organization in the UK following attacks on Elbit systems in the UK,

00:29:58.400 where a police officer intercepted one of these, what they're calling direct action campaigns,

00:30:03.400 which we can go into, and that one of the members of Palestine Action now attacked a police officer

00:30:10.020 with a sledgehammer. I don't know if the police officer's spine was broken, but certainly this

00:30:15.920 very, very injured. And following that, Palestine Action UK was designated a terrorist organization.

00:30:22.680 So Palestine Action Canada has been targeting companies in Canada that are linked to Elbit

00:30:32.980 Systems. And then following that, those direct action campaigns, which are what we could call

00:30:38.880 domestic terrorism campaigns, so vandalism to a building to create a political change,

00:30:44.180 They have been posting them, taking responsibility for those acts of vandalism on businesses linked to Albert in Canada, posting it on their Instagram, and at times have also posted videos of them engaging in this criminal vandalism.

00:30:59.860 So last, I think it was last spring, an account that I've been following called Restore Canada, who's been doing fantastic work. So people feel free to go follow me if you're interested in these sorts of activist campaigns.

00:31:14.820 So he was following this and he was posting that Palestine Action Canada posted videos of themselves vandalizing, I think it was Eru DevTech, a company I'd never heard of in Longueu in Quebec, outside of Montreal.

00:31:28.840 So a video of them attacking the building, taking responsibility for it, saying that this is for political aims.

00:31:34.460 We want to shut down Elbit Systems or these companies that are related to Israel.

00:31:40.040 So this happened again, which is why I wrote the article.

00:31:43.180 It happened again July 12th, where Palestine Action Canada attacked a business in Ontario this time, in Vaughan, Ontario.

00:31:51.980 It was called Dishon Limited.

00:31:53.500 So after this attack, they posted again on their Instagram a statement claiming responsibility, but also a CCTV video of them engaging in the criminal activity.

00:32:05.480 So this is relevant, and this is linked to arms embargo now, possibly.

00:32:10.600 I don't have any evidence of that.

00:32:12.460 But if we go back to arms embargo now, what caught my attention for this article is on July, I believe it's July 16th or 16th.

00:32:20.460 16th, the network of activists had a webinar. So they were launching a new campaign. This was

00:32:28.340 Elbit out of Canada. August 17th, they're doing this coordinated national day of action, 0.57

00:32:33.840 trying to get people involved in their Elbit out of Canada campaign. And within that,

00:32:40.600 some of the activists were promoting Palestine Action UK for what they were calling very

00:32:46.480 successful campaigns to shut down Elbit in the UK. What I did mention is they were also celebrating

00:32:51.980 all these actions to get companies to divest from Elbit. So, for example, Scotiabank. They were

00:32:58.760 saying Scotiabank had been invested in Elbit Systems, and they were very pleased about campaigns

00:33:04.400 that had stopped Scotiabank from investing with Elbit Systems. And what they failed to mention

00:33:10.380 is that Palestine Action Canada had also taken responsibility for a series of attacks on the

00:33:15.400 Scotiabank buildings in Toronto and Montreal. Okay. So I cannot prove that there's a link here,

00:33:21.280 but it does seem interesting that they share similar goals. But arms embargo now might be a

00:33:28.080 acceptable front for this campaign. And just today, we saw a company called in Toronto,

00:33:35.900 a company called Incas, which happens to be located on the list of companies that these

00:33:43.940 campaigns are targeting so if you go to the arms embargo now they have a report um we could possibly

00:33:49.160 share the link here and you could see incas is is on the list of companies that they arms embargo

00:33:54.840 now are targeting however just before the uh just before the show here i i did go check to see if

00:34:00.400 palestine action candidate had taken responsibility and they have it so i we don't know if this is

00:34:05.380 linked but it's certainly interesting that it happens to be one of the companies on the list

00:34:10.640 literally every day in toronto there's another shooting two days ago it was two jewish delis

00:34:19.780 in toronto yesterday it was the u.s consulate for the second time today it's this incas armored car

00:34:29.160 company there is a shooting every day and first of all i think it's becoming normalized it's no

00:34:37.860 long this would be screaming front page news but now it's just oh yeah i mean it's i think that

00:34:44.100 the noisy pro hamas protests have sort of normalized that they've changed the overton

00:34:54.000 window moved the overton window we now think of ourselves as a place that shootings happen all

00:35:00.160 the time and it's no it's just like that that phrase this isn't who we are no one says that

00:35:05.820 anymore because that is who we are as Canada now. I mean, there'll probably be another shooting

00:35:10.620 tomorrow. Why wouldn't there be? I mean, um, we know that there's six or 700 Iranian agents

00:35:18.400 running around at large in this country. We know that because we know, and we know the government

00:35:22.520 knows who they are since we come up with a number for it. And, and I think that the government has

00:35:28.000 made a decision that to crack down on these groups would be to alienate their important

00:35:33.900 support base that's my theory maybe i'm too uh too harsh but i think that this is accepted by

00:35:40.980 the establishment now i haven't seen any criticism of this latest shooting have you i haven't yet i

00:35:47.700 have also not seen any criticism of a look i'm going to call it a domestic terrorism organization

00:35:54.420 palestine action canada and and i'm going to call it that because if you go and look up the

00:35:58.880 definition of terrorism at the RCMP. So Canada's own RCMP's definition of terrorism, and in this

00:36:06.360 case, domestic terrorism. It's not just a violent attack against a citizen or a person. It includes

00:36:15.200 property damage for the purpose of political or social change. We forget that. And so when people

00:36:21.960 say things like, well, it's just property damage, it's just vandalism, you know, it's okay, they're 0.62

00:36:28.220 shooting at people what we're forgetting is that certainly in the case where Palestine Action 0.70

00:36:32.840 Canada has taken responsibility and has said that we are doing this to free Palestine we are doing

00:36:38.540 this you know for our ideological reasons that is by definition domestic terrorism okay so I don't 0.99

00:36:46.420 know what's going to happen with Incas I know the I don't think and I could be wrong here I don't 0.68

00:36:53.800 I don't know that we have suspects in the shooters of the bakeries, but, you know, and I don't know if they're claiming some kind of ideological aim for that.

00:37:02.500 Maybe, maybe not. We don't know.

00:37:03.780 But certainly in the case of Palestine Action Canada and those types of organizations, they are claiming responsibility for damaging property for the purpose of social change.

00:37:13.480 And that does extend to when we think about all these protests that we've seen over the last few years, some of them have engaged in property damage on purpose for political aims.

00:37:24.600 And we forget that.

00:37:26.020 Some of the people, I just want to add one little thing here is that in that July 12 webinar, a few of the people engaged in that webinar had been arrested previously for criminal activity at some of their protests, right, including property damage.

00:37:41.000 So I don't think we're taking this seriously enough.

00:37:43.060 And when we let crime go, especially terrorist-orientated crime, the likeliness is that this will escalate.

00:37:49.540 So I would like to see stronger statements from – and maybe taking this more seriously from our security services for sure.

00:37:57.320 You know, I remember when the anti-Semitic marches really started in earnest about two and a half years ago.

00:38:03.560 They targeted, for example, a store owned by a prominent Jew, namely Chapters Indigo, and they would smash them.

00:38:10.360 they would target restaurants. Jewish restaurants are targeted all the time. Some of that happens 0.52

00:38:15.540 in the dead at night, to be sure, but much of it happens in broad daylight. And there

00:38:20.220 are either no arrests or the arrests and then later released, or if there's charges, they're

00:38:25.600 often dropped. And I think that not only is there the Overton window changing in the media,

00:38:32.200 in the public consciousness, but in terms of law enforcement. I mean, what a contrast

00:38:38.580 between the way pro-Hamas violence is treated versus the trucker convoy, which was completely

00:38:45.860 peaceful. There was no violence. The worst they did was honk some horns. And the absolute

00:38:52.180 difference in how they're treated is shocking to me. You're right to point to the UK because I

00:38:57.680 think they're further down the road than we are in terms of jihadism and the normalization of

00:39:03.640 anti-israel sentiment but even they did crack down on on this same group with the same name

00:39:11.460 something's interesting about it though is you do have like i mentioned foreign countries that 0.99

00:39:18.040 are clearly involved here but a lot of the useful idiots who do the break-ins like in the uk 0.98

00:39:23.860 they were woke white british they weren't people shouting ala akbar i mean sometimes they are 0.99

00:39:33.120 But I think that some of these woke leftist activists, including women, which to me is odd to see women go down the road of violence, it feels unnatural to me, but maybe that's just me being sexist.

00:39:49.860 It's almost like role playing has gotten out of hand. 0.62

00:39:53.040 They were, it was like a costume party.

00:39:54.580 It was a fun social gathering, but now they're doing violent, criminal and terrorist things.

00:40:00.020 Was the sledgehammer user a man or a woman?

00:40:04.100 I can't remember. 0.99

00:40:06.560 Oh, goodness.

00:40:07.920 I think it was a man and the police officer was a woman.

00:40:10.900 Yeah, that's right.

00:40:11.920 But my point is that a lot of the radicals I see are people who I think this started out as like a social exercise, a virtue signaling exercise to show their solidarity with Gaza.

00:40:25.760 And now they've become truly radicalized.

00:40:28.480 And I think that's the same here in Canada. I think you have a combination of foreign nationals, migrants who are here from Muslim countries who are either temporary workers or students, but you do have more and more local Marxists who are getting in on it, just like they would have been for disarmament a generation ago, siding with the Soviet Union, the great counterweight to the West.

00:40:56.320 The great counterweight to the West now is Islamism. I think that is appealing to anti-Western white folks. 0.71

00:41:05.180 Yeah. So one thing that came out after I wrote the article that you were talking about, about the Arms of Margot Now group, Interpol put out their terrorism assessment for 2025.

00:41:16.820 So that is kind of like CSIS, but for the European Union. And they categorize terrorism threats very differently to Canada.

00:41:25.000 and their number one terrorism threat.

00:41:28.060 So the number one category for arrests was, as we imagine, was jihadi terrorism.

00:41:34.860 The number two, and I think it was about three quarters, was jihadiism.

00:41:39.180 But the second category, the second largest category was left-wing terrorism,

00:41:44.040 followed by, I think, left-wing terrorism and anarchism,

00:41:47.860 followed by other types of terrorism, which were much smaller numbers.

00:41:51.980 so we understand what jihadi terrorism is i had a look in their left-wing violence because i've

00:41:58.920 been trying to track this within our own thesis looking at the um integrated assessment center

00:42:04.920 or the iact department they track terrorism in canada and i i couldn't understand how we were

00:42:12.120 tracking these things in this country now the interesting thing about interpol is that they're

00:42:15.340 very clear what they mean by that and they're categorizing the arrests in this category they're

00:42:21.740 talking about essentially the the red in the red green alliance so the leftist and the jihadi

00:42:29.060 uh mixed together so these are groups that will be like palestine action canada but they're

00:42:35.760 specifically transnational they're very ideological they trying to transform society

00:42:40.760 you know all of these sort of the leftist uh escalation that we're seeing in canada from

00:42:47.420 uh red green alliance or leftist groups wanting to cause chaos they're tracking that in europe

00:42:53.980 right and they are making arrests for that in europe so when people think europe is worse well

00:42:58.340 they're they're actually at some level doing something about that now if i take this back

00:43:02.720 to canada if we look at our own categorization that changed i think about 2018 and and now we

00:43:08.580 only have things like ideologically motivated uh extremist violence religiously motivated

00:43:15.180 extremist violence. There's a whole categories of, you know, extremist violence, but they don't get

00:43:20.740 very specific. And I did obtain an FOI of some of these CSIS, what appeared to be their weekly

00:43:26.540 reports. And it didn't seem very clear to me that they were tracking in any way, shape or form some

00:43:31.740 of this violence that we're talking about right now. So I think Canada has a very big blind spot

00:43:36.620 into the domestic terrorism that we're talking about in this country, not taking it seriously.

00:43:42.080 And unfortunately, those things tend to escalate if they're not dealt with.

00:43:47.120 I think, I mean, in the States and in Europe, they use the word Antifa.

00:43:50.620 Just about a week ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio had a gathering of foreign ambassadors to talk about the threat of Antifa violence.

00:44:01.200 And Canada sent the most perfunctory low-level delegate possible.

00:44:06.460 I think Canada has made the political decision under Justin Trudeau, and Mark Carney continues it, to not name violence, to not name Antifa violence or jihadist violence, and to promote a false counter-narrative by giving money to extremist groups like the Canadian Anti-Hate Network to say, oh no, it's right-wing violence.

00:44:28.280 And there's this one kooky professor named Barbara Perry who says there's 300 right wing terrorist groups and can really name one.

00:44:36.260 And she in this really bizarre thing, she refuses to name these 300 groups.

00:44:41.340 I mean, it's clear that she made it up or she misspoke one.

00:44:45.900 So maybe she said 300 people all told that I might believe.

00:44:49.260 And the government gives so much money to fighting hate from, you know, if you just look at the government grants to fight transphobia, to fight Islamophobia, to fight homophobia, they're guarding against the right.

00:45:06.680 but there is no similar campaign to track or fund or defend against jihadist violence or

00:45:13.720 anti-violence and it's obvious why it's the same reason canada didn't send a high-level delegate

00:45:18.720 to marco rubio's gathering because this is the street team of the left these are these violent

00:45:25.520 people are the street teams of the left and if you're even a peaceful street team on the right

00:45:30.860 like the truckers off to jail with you i i think that uh i think there's a lot of problems that

00:45:37.220 are bubbling under the surface in canada and it won't be long before it's not just one bullet

00:45:42.820 shot at a at a jewish own business i think i think we might see actual blood spilled before too late

00:45:49.960 and i hate to say but that's the path we're on last word to you melanie one thing i i hope changes i

00:45:55.980 don't know if it will change but one of the things that i hope changes that we start taking this

00:46:00.400 seriously because in my experience when you leave things we when you have people who are willing to

00:46:07.400 engage in violence for ideological reasons and it is not dealt with this tends to escalate and the

00:46:13.340 last thing that i would want is for you know somebody in one of these companies uh that have

00:46:18.920 been shot up to actually get shot or to start seeing some of this uh violence against civilians

00:46:24.440 in the street the way that we've seen in Europe.

00:46:27.460 So Europe is certainly farther gone

00:46:29.960 in terms of the violence on their streets.

00:46:31.680 I really don't hope that for Canada.

00:46:33.340 So I hope that our national security

00:46:36.480 and our public safety apparatus change their minds

00:46:41.820 and start understanding that, you know,

00:46:44.020 let's take care of this.

00:46:45.300 That's what I'd like to see.

00:46:47.080 Yeah, well, I'm not sure if the political powers that be

00:46:50.320 think that's in their interest.

00:46:51.460 I think they've done the demographic math

00:46:53.580 And they see that the energy and the momentum, certainly through mass immigration, is for the other side.

00:47:00.040 Melanie Bennett, great to see you again.

00:47:02.240 A finalist for the Independent Press Gallery Awards coming up next month.

00:47:07.220 Great to catch up with you.

00:47:08.300 You can read her articles on JunoNews.com.

00:47:12.040 Stay with us.

00:47:12.620 Your letters to me next.

00:47:13.820 hey welcome back your letter to me these are on uh my comments about the multiple terrorist

00:47:28.960 attacks in canada by the way a new one today as you just heard tom mikhil ravie says the sad 0.60

00:47:35.060 reality is jewish population can is low compared to the vote getting muslims for the liberals

00:47:39.920 We have to bring immigration numbers down to the Harper era and deport like we did to Ernst Zundel ASAP. 1.00

00:47:47.420 You know, there's a lot of people in Canada who do not have the legal right to be here. 0.80

00:47:51.140 They were here on a temporary visa to be students or temporary foreign workers. 0.84

00:47:56.000 I don't think we need them from an economic point of view. 1.00

00:47:58.240 They're certainly distorting so many of our social safety nets. 0.92

00:48:02.600 But a lot of them are here as a guest, but they're indulging in anti-Semitic, divisive, crazy hate speech. 0.98

00:48:11.900 And I'm not a censor, but if they're foreign, get out of here. 0.96

00:48:17.160 Tony Solani commented, time for the Jewish population in Toronto to fight back. 1.00

00:48:21.600 Well, that's the thing about Jews is they're not really fighters. 0.99

00:48:24.140 They're not muscular brawlers. 0.98

00:48:26.520 and how do you fight back against gangland style gun shootings anyways you need the police i suppose

00:48:35.500 what you mean is pressure the police to do something sure but the police are run by the

00:48:41.740 police commissions and politicians who like i say have made the mathematical decision that there's

00:48:47.580 more anti-semites than there are jews and that's the path that's certainly the way olivia chow the

00:48:51.720 mayor of toronto is gone that's our show for the day until next time on behalf of all of us here

00:48:57.480 at rebel world headquarters to you at home good night and keep fighting for freedom

Rebel News Podcast - July 28, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Zohran Mamdani’s radical New York： Jew-free judicial panels and government run grocery stores

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