The Liberals have made Canada a country that rewards terrorism

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As the anniversary of October 7 approaches, Justin Trudeau's Liberals have decided to step up their anti-Israel messaging while taking the ridiculous position of openly supporting terrorists.

It's an odd way for Canada to treat an ally – but not surprising given the Liberals' superficial and simplistic response to events in the Middle East.

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The anniversary of the terrorist attack should be about many things: for example, the memory of the grotesque acts of violence, compassion for the victims or fear for the safety of the 97 hostages who are still being held by Hamas thugs. But that would show too much humanity.

Instead, the anniversary will almost certainly be marked by clown politics and self-absorbed performance art, such as those displayed by scores of liberals, union leaders, academics, students and protesters over the past year.

Just hours after the massacre that killed 1,200 people in Israel last year, protesters in Canada took to the streets in pro-Palestinian rallies that openly celebrated the massacre.

Shortly afterwards, Fred Hahn, Ontario leader of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), praised the act of “resistance” in a tweet. He later apologized, but his stunt diverted the focus from where it should have been – to a horrific and evil tragedy.

Soon it was considered acceptable in Canada to tear down posters depicting Israeli hostages. Large-scale protests broke out on streets and university campuses, and Jewish shops, synagogues and daycare centers were attacked.

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One must ask: Were the dead, the victims of mass rape, the slaughtered, the tortured and the 240 hostages overshadowed because they were Jews?

Meanwhile, the Liberals contributed to this fetid atmosphere with a foreign policy that was as clumsy as it was dirty.

In December, Liberals supported a United Nations General Assembly motion for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza – a motion that did not mention Hamas once. Canada's position drew praise from Ghazi Hamad, the senior Hamas leader who vowed to carry out the Oct. 7 bloodshed “again and again.”

The Trudeau Liberals stopped issuing new export licenses for military equipment to Israel and restored funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the discredited UN agency for Palestinian refugees.

UNRWA is a prime example of liberal naivety. Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly resumed funding despite Israel claiming that UNRWA staff were involved in the October 7 attacks. An investigation by the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services found that nine employees may have been involved.

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And this week UNRWA admitted that a suspended staff member killed in an airstrike in Lebanon was one of Hamas' top commanders.

But Joly's willful blindness continues. This week she tweeted about meeting Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Mustafa at the United Nations while reaffirming “our support for UNRWA.” She didn't mention any Israelis.

The Liberals are also pushing for a break with decades of Canadian foreign policy by introducing a motion for a parliamentary committee to study the issue of Palestinian statehood. The committee, the motion states, supports “the recognition of a viable and independent state of Palestine.”

Only in a morally empty universe where a pervasive liberal worldview existed would Hamas be rewarded for its heinous atrocities and war crimes with the recognition of a state of Palestine.

In the coming days the clowns will be on the streets. The anti-Israel Palestinian youth movement will protest in front of the Israeli consulate in Montreal on October 7 to honor dead Hamas terrorists as “martyrs.”

Fears that students could riot in the run-up to the anniversary prompted Pascale Déry, Quebec's higher education minister, to meet with the leaders of her province's universities to discuss how they will prevent “intimidation, harassment, racism and violence.”

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Meanwhile, the Toronto District School Board last month deemed it appropriate to take children as young as eight on a “field trip” to a demonstration in support of a First Nation community – only to turn it into an anti-Israel protest.

As we watch the circus spectacle, the victims are left out and the utter barbarity of October 7th is ignored.

Women in particular were brutally treated in a sadistic manner. Gang rape is too sterile a description of what these women endured. A New York Times investigation last December reported breasts cut off, nails driven into thighs, a woman raped and stabbed at the same time, women's severed heads passed around like trophies, and men who “talked , giggling and screaming” as they raped a woman before he “literally butchered” her.

Paramedics and rescue workers found dozens of dead women, naked or half-naked, with their hands and feet bound.

Many women were trafficked into the cruel tunnels of Gaza, where sexual violence continued.

The horrific stories and videos are published if we can bear to read and watch them. But humanity cannot bear too much reality, so we allow ourselves to be distracted by the loud protests, the vitriolic union leaders, the ignorant teachers and the incompetent politicians.

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We were too happy to suffer fools instead of caring for those who suffered terribly on October 7th.

Why even care?

Because no man is an island, wrote the English poet John Donne 400 years ago.

“The death of any human being diminishes me because I am connected to humanity; And therefore never let it be known for whom the bell tolls; it rings for you.”

But unfortunately, Stephen Sondheim may be more relevant. “Send the clowns in/Don’t worry, they’re here.”

National Post

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