50-Year Anniversary of Escaping from Lebanon - The West Beware! (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_908)
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Summary
Growing up as a Jewish boy in Lebanon in the 60's and 70's, growing up in the face of anti-Semitism, and the growing pains that come with growing up Jewish in that environment, and how to deal with it.
Transcript
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Hi everybody, this is Gad Saad. Today is October 31st, 2025. It's the eve of Shabbat
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and it's a very important day in terms of my personal history because it is, I believe it's
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today, 50 years ago that we arrived to Montreal from Lebanon, having just escaped the first year
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of the astounding brutality of the Lebanese Civil War. And so to honor that 50-year celebration,
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I thought that I would take a few minutes to read for you pages 2 through 7 from The Parasitic Mind,
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which I hope that if you haven't gotten a copy yet that you do so. And you'll see in a second
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why it's relevant to this 50-year anniversary. I should mention that I cannot express how
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thankful I am that we were able to miraculously escape such a difficult situation. And so I'm
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forever grateful to, of course, Canada for having granted us a better life in the West and more
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generally thankful to cosmic justice for having allowed us to escape. In any case, here we go.
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The section is titled Growing Up in Lebanon. I was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1964 and spent the first
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11 years of my life in the, quote, Paris of the Middle East. My family was part of the dwindling
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Jewish community that had steadfastly remained in Lebanon despite the growing signs that Lebanese
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Jews had a bleak future. My father had nine sisters and a brother, while my mother had six sisters,
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all of whom, with the exception of one paternal aunt, had emigrated from Lebanon long prior to the
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outbreak of the Civil War in 1975. My maternal grandparents died prior to my birth. My paternal
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grandparents left for Israel around 1970. A similar immigration pattern occurred within my immediate
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family. I have two brothers and one sister, all much older than I. The closest to me in age is 10 years
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older. My eldest brother married a Christian woman of Palestinian origin and they immigrated to Montreal,
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Canada in 1974. My sister also moved to Montreal prior to the outbreak of the Civil War, both to pursue
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her studies and to escape the looming dangers. Finally, my other brother, who had been crowned Lebanese
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champion of Judo on multiple occasions, was forced to flee our homeland due to ominous threats that he
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should retire, for it was not good optics for a Jew to repeatedly win a combat sport. He heeded that
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advice and moved to Paris, France around 1973 to continue his studies and Judo career. The breathtaking
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irony is that he eventually represented Lebanon at the 1976 Montreal Olympics. Hence, the Jewish
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Judo, who was no longer welcomed in Lebanon only a few years earlier, was quote embraced when it suited
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the relevant authorities. Growing up as a Jewish boy in Lebanon had its existential challenges. I vividly
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recall when the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser died in 1970, a few weeks shy of my sixth birthday.
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Nasser's pan-Arabism, unification of the Arab world, had made him a hero in the region and as often happens
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in the Middle East, thousands of people took to the streets to publicly lament his passing. Why would
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this event constitute an episodic memory for a five-year-old? As the angry procession made its way
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down our street, aptly named Rue de l'Armée, or the military street, the terrifying chant,
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death to Jews, left an indelible mark on me as I cowered in hiding next to our balcony. You see,
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even in quote progressive, modern, and pluralistic Lebanon, endemic Jew hatred was always ready to rear
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its ugly head. All calamities in the Middle East are ultimately due to the diabolical Jew. It rained today,
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blame the Jews. The economy is weak, blame the Jews. Tourism is down, blame the Jews. You contracted
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a stomach bug, blame the Jews. The Christians and Muslims in Lebanon are not getting along,
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you guessed it, blame the Jews. And contrary to current attempts at revisionist history,
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this existential disdain for the Jew precedes the founding of modern Israel by 1400 years.
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I can still remember sitting around the table on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, in 1973,
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watching the worried look on my parents' face as word broke out that a combined Arab army had
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attacked Israel on that holy day. Existential genocidal hatred is not something that one magically and
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suddenly contracts as an adult. Rather, it is instilled insidiously and repeatedly in the minds of
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otherwise pure and innocent children. I was the only one of my four siblings not to attend the Jewish
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elementary school. I must have been nine or ten in class at the Lycee de Genfilles when the teacher
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asked pupils to state what they wanted to be when they grew up. Typical responses were uttered
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uneventfully, policeman or soccer player, until one student said, quote,
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quote, when I grow up, I want to be a Jew killer, close quote, after which the class erupted in
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raucous laughter and gleeful claps. I still have the class photos from that era, and that boy's face
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is forever etched in my memory. In sharing these stories, I don't wish to imply that our daily lives
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in Lebanon prior to the Lebanese civil war were hellish. My parents were well entrenched within
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Lebanese society. The fact that we were part of the last wave of Jews to leave Lebanon was a
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testament to my parents' overall attachment to our homeland. Most of my childhood friends were
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Christian and Muslim, one of whom recently reached out to me as his daughter was about to start college
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in Montreal. Any hope of long-lasting peaceful coexistence was shattered once the civil war broke
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out in 1975. This conflict remains the standard by which the butchery of all other civil wars is
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gauged. Neighbors who had lived next to one another for decades became instant prospective enemies.
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Death awaited us at every corner. If the endless shelling did not kill you, we learned to take cover
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or not depending on the whistle signature of the bombs, the snipers might if you appeared within their
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field of vision. Civilians were kidnapped and killed. They were also mowed down while waiting in long
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bread queues. Two of my family members evaded such a death by going out late to buy bread during a
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ceasefire. Various militia set up roadblocks at which point they check to see your internal ID which had
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one's religion written on it. If you were of the quote wrong religion you could be executed. Our religious
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heritage was written as Israelite rather than Jewish which meant we had few Muslim friends at roadblocks.
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Of the innumerable terrifying moments that I experienced during the civil war one sticks out in my mind as
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uniquely eerie and ominous. Prior to the start of the war my parents had contracted a hand dryer service
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that provided a roll of washable textile which was installed on the wall of our kitchen. This was a
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precursor of the subsequent models of disposable hand drying tissues found in public bathrooms.
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Periodically the same individual would come to our house to remove the dirty roll and replace it with
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a clean one. I believe his name was Ahmad or perhaps Muhammad. I thought that this was a rather strange
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service then and even more so now as I recount the story. One evening in the middle of the otherwise
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endless street to street fighting and continuous bombshelling I heard a knock at our front door.
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I walked to the door and asked who was there. The reply came quote it's me Ahmad or possibly Muhammad
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the guy who changes your kitchen roll. Open the door kid. I delayed and his insistence grew more sinister
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and forceful. Quote, open the door now. I ran to my mother. If memory serves me right there were four
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occupants at our house that evening. My mother, my sister who had returned to Beirut to visit us
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and was now stuck there, a male friend of my parents who was also stuck at our house even though he lived a
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short drive away, and myself. My father was not at home. I believe he was outside the country but I can't
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remember why he was away. He eventually returned to Beirut and narrowly escaped death on the drive back
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to our home. My mother approached the door and talked through it with Ahmad who was accompanied by one
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or more men. The exchange grew tense and my mother fetched the male friend who was cowering in another
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room. She hoped he might frighten them away and I recall the disgust and anger that my mother expressed
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for this male friend's breathtaking cowardice in refusing to help. Within the brutality and chaos
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of the civil war there remained some semblance of law and order. As a latch-ditch effort and against
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all odds my mother phoned the police. The Arabic word for the outfit was 16. In Arabic by the way it's
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satash. And they took the call. Remember that this is during a full-blown war. Once they arrived at our
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house we opened the door and let everyone into the kitchen. The lead policeman asked the men why they
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were there and who who they were. Ahmad replied, quote, oh my friends and I were in the mountains and we
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brought back a basket of pomegranate with us and so we stopped by to give it to this family, close quote.
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After the policeman, I recall his impressive rifle by his side, checked to confirm the contents of the
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basket. He stared coldly at Ahmad and said, quote, your connection to this family is that you changed
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their hand-drying role and you decided to brave the street fighting and come in the middle of the night
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to offer them pomegranate? If I ever find you here again, you'll have serious problems, close quote.
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What happened next still gives me shivers down my spine. Ahmad looked at us and said very coldly
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and menacingly, quote, I'll be back for you. We did not stay much longer in Lebanon after that
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incident and so Ahmad never had the chance to visit us again. This, by the way, as a side note to the
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listeners, this happened nearly 50 years ago. Well, it literally is 50 years ago. That's why I'm doing
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this episode and I remember it as if it were yesterday. All right, going back to reading.
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It was clear that we needed to leave Lebanon as soon as possible. The day of our escape from Lebanon
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was straight out of a shoot-em-up movie. On that fateful day, some armed Palestinian liberation
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organization, PLO Militia, picked us up at our home. They had been contracted to give us,
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to get us safely to Beirut International Airport. The risk was that they might drive us to a ditch
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and execute us. The PLO controlled the area around the airport, so there was little chance of clearing
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the checkpoints if the appropriate militia did not accompany you. One of the armed men asked me if I
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wanted to hold his machine gun, which I did with excited trepidation. On the way to the airport,
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I recall my father proclaiming that he had forgotten his money belt at our house and that we
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needed to return to get it. The militiamen rejected my father's plea and we proceeded on a precarious
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journey. The next memory that I have is perhaps one of the most poignant ones of my life. The flight
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captain declared that we were out of Lebanese airspace, at which point my mother took out a chain
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with a star of David, or it might have been a high, a Hebrew symbol for life or living,
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placed it around my neck and said, quote, now you can wear this, not hide your identity and be proud
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of who you are, close quote. Several years later, I asked my parents to fill in my memory lapse. Why
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could I not remember any other details from our drive to the Beirut International Airport? Apparently,
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as we drove through the various neighborhoods, our militiamen exchanged fire with unsympathetic
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local militias. We were crouched in the car with luggage over our heads. I have no memory of that
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incident. My first impression of Montreal was how cold it was. And as I said, it's literally today.
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I believe it's today. It could be tomorrow, but I'm almost certain it was October 31st, 1975,
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50 years to the day. And today is almost the exact same as that day. It's rainy, it's cold,
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it's miserable. So let's keep going. I had never experienced such a climate. That said,
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I recall thinking that it was better to face falling snow than falling bombs. I vividly remember
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being driven by my parents to Iona Elementary School. It was a dark and dreary day. The teacher
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graciously asked me to stand in front of the class and introduce myself. This was an English school,
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and I knew very few English words other than whatever I might have learned while watching
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spaghetti westerns growing up in Beirut. I began. Mon nom est Gad Saad. Je viens du Liban, which basically
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means my name is Gad Saad. I come from Lebanon. I faced the dreaded collective blank stare. Using my hands,
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I gestured a machine gun mowing down people while stating, Liban, Liban, meaning Lebanon, Lebanon.
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I recently ran into a classmate who was present on my infamous first day at school, and he confirmed
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that this episode was also etched in his mind. It is perhaps poetic that we ran into one another
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at my daughter's elementary school year-end barbecue. Even though we had safely arrived at Montreal in 1975,
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our Lebanese nightmare continued well beyond that point. My parents found it difficult to adapt to
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their new lives in Canada, and so they did not fully sever their ties with their homelands until 1980.
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This was the year that my parents made one of their more imprudent return trips to Beirut and were
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kidnapped by Fatah. They were held captive for several days, during which time they faced a very
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unsavory reality. During their disappearance, I was kept in the dark about their circumstances
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in a bid to protect me, and only found out what really happened once my parents were freed
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via high-level political figures who intervened on their behalf. One of my high school classmates,
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who was also Lebanese Jewish, was fully aware of my parents' kidnapping. His parents and mine were
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lifelong friends. He later recounted to me that he had found it very odd that I appeared so carefree
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and joyful during my parents' disappearance. He did not know that I was unaware of their lot as the
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tragic events were unfolding. As my parents were about to embark on their final flight out of Lebanon,
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their friends reminded them that while they were very sad to see them go, they should never return.
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Their sage advice was heated. The gravity of the situation hit me hard upon being reunited with
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them in Montreal. I will never forget the trauma in their eyes, as well as my father's temporary
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asymmetric facial paralysis. I also recall being haunted by the possibility that my mother might have been
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gang-raped by her captors. That I miraculously escaped from Lebanon offered me some temporary respite,
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for the next 15 years or so. The ugliness of ideological tribalism, however, returned to haunt me on
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university campuses. Before I get to that, I want to discuss the two life ideals that best explain why
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I fight against the enemies of reason. Okay, that puts an end to what I wanted to read. I know that many
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of you have either read my book or listened to my book, so you're probably familiar with the pages that
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I just read for you. But I read them here today again, because it is 50 years since I left Lebanon.
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50 years, I can't believe it. On the one hand, it's as if it's 30 lifetimes ago. And on the other hand,
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it's as if it's 30 seconds ago. And the reason why I take this time today on the eve of Shabbat to
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mark the moment, other than, of course, it has great, you know, personal significance for me,
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is that, regrettably, I'm seeing the exact same writing on the wall in the West. Now, again,
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this doesn't mean that tomorrow morning there'll be civil war. It doesn't mean that Beirut will be
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replicated on every street corner next week, or next month, or next year. But once you let in
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an ideology that is built around its supremacy over all other ideologies, only one outcome can
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can be expected. It's one that has occurred for 1400 years. It's one that I lived, my wife's family
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lived, she's also Lebanese, my grandparents lived in Syria, my brother-in-law's family lived in Egypt,
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my wife's family or ancestors lived in Turkey, during the Armenian genocide. So our personal history,
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both that of my wife, and of my own, and of my brother-in-law, is littered with a consistent pattern.
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We're constantly fleeing the people of perpetual peace. And the West has decided,
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through the mechanisms of parasitized minds, and through the mechanism of my forthcoming book,
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Suicidal Empathy, to give up everything. Give up our heritage, our culture, our religion,
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our women, our children, our civilization, under the guise of orgiastic, misguided, suicidal empathy,
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and tolerance, and kindness, and compassion, which will be used against us.
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Heed my warnings. I've been doing these warnings for several decades. As I said earlier today,
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on social media, I wrote a post. After we left Lebanon in 1975, I had a respite from all this
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craziness for the next, say, 20 years. And then by the late 90s, I started seeing the signs. And I
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started standing up on top of the mountain and screaming and warning and imploring people to pay
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attention. Please pay attention. If you don't care for yourself, if you think that it doesn't apply
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to you, it will apply for your children. If you think it won't apply for your children, it'll apply
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to their children. But you can't avoid the outcome that is as clear as the existence of gravity.
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In any case, I have nothing but love in my heart for anyone who believes in personal liberty and
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personal freedoms and seeking truth. That's why the two ideals that shape my life are truth and
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freedom. No, I don't support Israel because I hate Muslims. It's just not part of my makeup.
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I do have deep concerns about an ideology and a religion that is perfectly antithetical to the
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most fundamental foundational values that define the Western tradition. That doesn't make me someone
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that's hateful. It makes me someone full of love, full of love for our personal liberties, for our
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freedom of conscience, for our freedom of speech, for our freedom of association, for just our
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freedom period. Any ideology that imposes itself on others, whether it be communism or Islam or any
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other of the endless ideologies throughout history that said, I decide what your future trajectory is,
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is one that we have to reject. This is what made the West great. This is what allowed us to come 50 years
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ago to the day to Canada and flourish. And I hope to continue my work to at least keep warning people
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that if you wish to retain the freedoms that you've taken for granted, you have to stand up and speak.
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Wish you well. Shabbat Shalom. And I'll talk to you soon.