The Islamic State terrorist group claims responsibility for the Toronto shooting spree. I ll tell you what the CBC and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have to say about it, and why it s not good enough. Plus, a look at why the media is so tight lipped about it.
00:00:00.000Tonight, the Islamic State terrorist group claims responsibility for the Toronto shooting spree.
00:00:05.580I'll tell you what the CBC and Justin Trudeau have to say.
00:00:08.620It's July 25th, and you're watching The Ezra Levant Show.
00:00:17.020Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:00:20.840There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
00:00:24.540You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.
00:00:27.540The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
00:00:38.240This morning, just after 5 a.m. Eastern Time, the Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for the mass shooting in Toronto.
00:00:46.520A terrorist attack that left a 10-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman dead, and more than a dozen others wounded.
00:00:53.640Horrific attack. The announcement from the terrorist group came in Arabic, of course, from the semi-official news agency for the Islamic State called AMAK.
00:01:03.900In English, they said that the murderer, Faisal Hussain, was, quote,
00:01:07.640That's the language the ISIS uses when someone was inspired by them, as in, got their information from them on how to do it,
00:01:25.880studied the Islamic State's ideas online, planned the attack themselves, but did it in the name of the Islamic State, not directed by them.
00:01:33.560That's different from the more spectacular terrorist attacks, such as the military-style operation that ISIS did in Paris a few years back.
00:01:41.900Teams of ISIS terrorists slaughtered dozens of people working together as a unit.
00:01:47.180This, what we see in Toronto, is more in the style of the ISIS terrorist attack on Parliament Hill a few years ago,
00:01:53.340when one person murdered Corporal Nathan Cirillo, who was standing at the National Memorial in Ottawa, and then burst into Parliament himself.
00:02:02.080Here's the Reuters announcement of today's Islamic State declaration.
00:02:07.100Now, since then, news of this terrorist claim has been published around the world,
00:02:11.760from India to Israel to America and the UK, everywhere, China even.
00:03:10.740Is there evidence of him consuming ISIS propaganda?
00:03:15.320Those are really good questions, don't you think?
00:03:18.220But not the kind of questions we've been seeing so far from most Canadian news media.
00:03:22.820Yeah, I'll get to the Canadian news media's focus in a moment.
00:03:25.700But in fact, Canadian police have been very tight-lipped about things.
00:03:29.820First, delaying releasing the identity of the murderer for a full day after they knew it.
00:03:35.760And then even as the days go by, there have been contradictory reports from the police,
00:03:40.720but all by way of leaks or off-the-record gossip, nothing official.
00:03:44.940Here's a story in global news where one police leaker says they had, in fact, detained the murderer twice in the past for mental health reasons.
00:13:02.740Sure, there might be mental health issues.
00:13:04.760Sure, the police might have come before, but to end this conversation and to be told by certain very prolific people in this country
00:13:11.640that we should ask no questions about his background, no questions about his belief system,
00:13:17.580no questions about what he's reading or viewing online or what his thoughts might be,
00:13:22.720to me is the most elite anti-intellectual project I've ever seen when this isn't some random act of violence that resulted in nobody being hurt.
00:13:30.58015, 16 people were mowed down, and as the police are doing their job, we need to find out what the evidence is.
00:13:37.620But the mental health aspect, which is constantly used for these kinds of shootings and attacks, is way overplayed.
00:13:44.360And I can tell you, if he was still alive, he would not be getting a get-out-of-jail-free card because of the mental health issue.
00:13:50.480Yeah, look, there's enough truth poking through the fog of lies here.
00:13:53.420I mean, let's be honest. This was terrorism. We all know it. We all know it.
00:13:58.860I think the reason why that crazy teacher was so crazy is because she knew it, but she didn't like the fact someone was saying it.
00:14:06.120I don't think she would have been that revved up if she didn't know it was true,
00:14:11.160and she was just trying, fighting against her own disillusionment.
00:14:15.420All the irregularities here, delaying publishing the terrorist name, publishing a PR document as if it's a real letter from the family,
00:14:23.620running with the mental health excuse without any corroboration or any proof or any reasonableness,
00:14:28.260downplaying the ISIS claim, even as every single major newspaper in the world reported it.
00:14:33.000I tell you what, I don't think they're getting away with it.
00:14:36.020I think normal people notice what's going on. They know this was a terrorist attack.
00:14:39.600Don't think people don't see the 5P professionals, politicians, the press, police, prosecutors, and professors.
00:14:47.560Don't think we don't notice that they're all obscuring the truth together, not clarifying things,
00:14:54.160but they're all telling us to mind our own business, not to worry our pretty little heads about things.
00:14:58.840A teacher enraged that someone would dare ask a question.
00:15:02.420A prime minister in hiding. A state broadcaster colluding with an Islamic activist.
00:15:07.640We notice it. We see it. At least those of us paying attention.
00:15:12.980They want to shut us up. They want to shut us down.
00:15:15.620But it's moments like this where an independent media like The Rebel is most valuable.
00:15:21.400Don't you think? And to that school teacher.
00:15:24.940You may love socialist countries like Venezuela and the censorship of pesky journalists they have,
00:15:31.440but sister, we're not Venezuela yet. Not yet.
00:20:24.780You know, I think the facts are coming out slowly but surely.
00:20:28.840The fact that there was sort of a pause on releasing the key detail, the identity of the killer.
00:20:35.080These days, when I see that, my spider senses start tingling.
00:20:39.760I'm thinking, if the name is released quickly, we know what the facts are.
00:20:44.160But if it is known to police and withheld, these days, it makes me think perhaps a jihadist, they don't want a Muslim-sounding name to be released because politicians are trying to tamp this down.
00:20:56.400And that seems to be what's going on here.
00:20:59.140The fact that, like you mentioned, contemporaneously, the same moment the name was released, a pre-written, well-sculpted document was presented by a Muslim activist.
00:21:11.560But the fact that it was written by him was kept in secret.
00:21:17.640I mean, first of all, the killer was known to the police.
00:21:22.220He's had two interactions with the police.
00:21:24.400The killer's brother is known to the police.
00:21:27.060So at the moment of the time that the killer was shot and they knew who he was, why the delay?
00:21:34.260And then you have to ask yourself, to craft a document like that, and I have crafted documents like that, it takes, first of all, you've got to contact the individual, the family, or someone.
00:21:45.240And I'd like to know who contacted the individual, certainly not the family.
00:21:49.200The family doesn't have the presence of mind when their son has committed murders to sit there and say, oh, I'm going to call an expert.
00:23:18.240And not only have those real victims been forgotten, but the CBC in particular and the Toronto Star has tried to rebrand the terrorist as a, you know, he tried to humanize them.
00:23:30.000The CBC literally said he had a million-dollar smile.
00:23:32.960The CBC said he was humble and polite.
00:24:43.960And the only interest of what I'll call the liberal biased media and the government officials is to drive this narrative, this Muslim narrative, which is trampling on this poor father and daughter's lives.
00:24:59.900You know, I think this is a national story.
00:25:05.700In some ways, if the claim by ISIS that this was an ISIS terrorist is true, and we've seen police reports that Faisal Hussein's online activities came to their attention, so that seems to lend some credence to it.
00:26:34.460Here we have another innocent girl, 10 years old, killed, and no tweet, no heartfelt discussion about her on holidays, ignoring.
00:26:45.060So I judge Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister Trudeau, to his own standards.
00:26:50.060If he did not do that tweet with that fake hijab story and move within hours, and here days have gone by and he's done nothing, I judge him to his actions.
00:27:02.080Much like we do with, much what we did with his groping incident.
00:27:06.840He speaks virtuously about his feminism, about the Me Too movement, but when it comes to himself, he doesn't act.
00:27:16.460And that's the same, so we've got a pattern here, and the pattern is in almost everything he does.
00:27:22.800Manny, I want to ask you one last question about journalism.
00:27:25.420We've been trying our best to cover this story at The Rebel.
00:27:28.060I mean, we're a small operation, we don't have hundreds of staff like the CBC, but I think we've been doing a good job.
00:27:46.820Joe Warmington broke the news about Faisal Hussain's links to ISIS and a possible trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
00:27:54.320So let me give full credit to the Toronto Sun, but so much of the rest of the media, Manny, has not only been a part of this narrative-building operation,
00:28:05.260but they've actually criticized Anthony Fury, Sue Ann Levy, and Joe Warmington of The Sun, and of course they hate us at The Rebel.
00:28:13.800So what's strange to me, Manny, I'm not looking for praise from my competitors and rivals,
00:28:18.480but for them to focus their rage at us and at Joe Warmington for trying to cover the news, that, to me, gives away their game.
00:28:28.660These journalists have more rage for us than they do for the terrorists.
00:29:36.740If you can knock Ezra and rebel out, then there is a one voice, one non-investigative journalism in Canada.
00:29:46.180And we become much closer to those countries we deplore, like North Korea and Russia.
00:29:53.660We need to have people asking questions from all sides.
00:29:56.360And I'm dismayed that the media doesn't even ask the questions, you know, like the question as to who created the press release, the family press release.
00:32:18.420Well, first of all, it's important to know that they have coexisted in many countries
00:32:23.720for many, many, many years and decades and even centuries.
00:32:28.040Across Europe, you've got – I mean, when Europe was broken up in the 17th century,
00:32:35.240it was broken into states that would represent each one a different people with its own language,
00:32:41.200with its own flag, with its own history.
00:32:42.700And really, all across Europe, when the democratization came through, that was maintained as crucial to distinguish one country from another.
00:32:53.820Every single country has its own special needs, its own special declarations, its own special relationship with its history and its past.
00:33:02.840And democracy, which can live fully in coexistence, is about giving individuals, citizens, the rights that democratic nations have,
00:33:13.760the right to free speech, the right to property, the right to assembly and all the rights that we know about.
00:33:19.560America was a little unusual, actually, because it was founded as – based on an idea rather than based on a single cultural ethnic heritage.
00:33:29.420But this isn't the case across most of Europe, and Israel was founded largely on a kind of a European democratic model.
00:33:36.120The idea of Israel was to create a home for the Jewish people, not just a refuge for persecuted Jews to escape,
00:33:44.820but a place where the aspirations of this country could come to fulfillment.
00:33:49.000And at the same time, they wanted to be a democracy.
00:33:51.160So they extended many rights, equal rights to non-Jewish and Jewish citizens.
00:33:57.200What happened was, over the course of many decades, Israel didn't have a constitution.
00:34:02.180So they passed a series of basic laws.
00:34:04.440And in the 1990s and early 2000s, they passed laws that ratified the democratic, liberal freedoms of a democracy,
00:34:12.840of equality, of rights for Jews and non-Jews alike.
00:34:15.800What they didn't do at the time, and this was a big controversy, was to similarly pass a basic law that codified its status as the Jewish state.
00:36:34.140I think other countries should copy it.
00:36:36.880Listen, I think a lot of – the great majority of the opposition to this law was politically motivated rather than based on its substance.
00:36:46.780It came from all the usual corners of all the people who want to attack Israel.
00:36:51.340Both – and not just Israel, but specifically the fact that it's more of a right-wing nationalist government means that within Israel,
00:36:57.900everybody on the left started screaming, and in the opposition, that is, started screaming.
00:37:03.320And that resulted in people all over the world who identify with that and who might not like this particular government similarly screaming.
00:37:11.060But most of them hadn't even read the law.
00:37:13.100And the law itself is really quite ordinary to anybody who's familiar with the history.
00:37:20.600Israel is a country like Canada that respects the – not just the individual rights, but also the rights of communities to have their own status and their own history.
00:37:31.480And the one thing that is reserved just to the Jewish community and the Jewish people is the right to express itself nationally as its form of national self-determination.
00:37:44.020And there isn't any country on earth that gives a small minority national self-determination.
00:37:59.040I think this law captures in a way that isn't really politically partisan but captures a consensus of what the Zionist movement was about.
00:38:07.900The Zionist movement in its origins was about reestablishing Jewish national life through sovereignty, through building communities of Jews, what they call settlement, not settlements with an S at the end, and through culture.
00:38:24.120And it's important to note that Israel has managed to create its own really special, unique culture that is spreading out throughout the world.
00:38:34.600And the work that I've been doing has been about introducing people to that.
00:38:40.800And that's what the Israel Innovation Fund, that I'm the executive director of, and allows people to connect with Israel through nonpolitical ways, such as planting vines and leading Israeli wineries and so on, and film and art and so forth.
00:38:53.080And that's something that only could have happened in a Jewish state, not a state that was, you know, accepting all these, you know, redefining itself according to its minorities.
00:39:04.920But doing what every democracy does, which is in addition to providing rights to everybody, it also allows itself to pass in law the things that make that country unique.
00:39:54.160And frankly, I think Canada, and I think even America, could learn from it to restate who they are and what they are, and whether it's based on ethnicity or religion or history.
00:40:03.860I mean, you know the old saying, if you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything.
00:40:13.740Do you think this will actually change anything specifically, or is this more just a cultural reassertion, more a symbolic way to say, hey, Israel, be proud of yourself?
00:40:24.500So do you think this is a pep talk, or do you think this is something substantive?
00:40:27.360Look, I think that symbols are important.
00:40:31.540So when you say that something is symbolic, it doesn't mean it's not going to have an outcome.
00:40:35.700I think it affects the hearts and minds of every single Israeli and every single person who cares about what Israel is and where it's going.
00:40:44.700This is a country that, in my view, you know, people love to say maybe Israel won't exist in 20 years or 50 years.
00:40:51.560I think Israel has a better chance of being around 50 years from now than most of the countries of Europe.
00:40:56.060Because its people believe in themselves, they believe in their national vision, because its minorities see how much better their lives are living in a democracy, having rights, than what's going on through much of the Arab world.
00:41:13.320Because it's a country that's established itself and is secure, both militarily, geopolitically, but also economically, to the point where now its creative forces are being unleashed and its sense of self is being felt throughout, across the world.
00:41:30.740You know, now, when I was a kid, nobody knew what Israelis were.
00:41:33.600But today you see them on TV, you see them in, you know, in culinary arts, you see them in music, you see them in architecture and design, and that's before you even begin to talk about high tech and startup nation and all that stuff.
00:41:45.420Israel is a growing power in the world, and the most important part of that power is going to be cultural.
00:41:51.560Israel, and as more and more people want to know what is so fascinating about this amazing little country.
00:42:58.800And what bothers me is the collusion when you've got Bill Blair, the Liberal cabinet minister, meeting with the Toronto mayor and the Toronto police chief,
00:43:09.080and they're meeting in private, and they're massaging things before they announce the story.
00:43:12.760I don't like the fact that you've got a Liberal cabinet minister and a political mayor of the city who are basically telling the cops,
00:43:20.380Now, you be quiet now, and don't you rev things up now, and we're going to bury this now.
00:43:25.020I'm certain that's what they were saying.
00:43:26.240Otherwise, why did they delay releasing the name for a day?