By Yves Engler
While hundreds of Canadians who have opposed genocide have been pursued, none of the Canadians who have fought in Gaza, or returning Israeli soldiers have been charged.
Canadians opposing Israel’s holocaust continue to be unjustly targeted, while security officials fail to charge those who fought in Gaza. My upcoming trial highlights the crass double standard.
On Friday, former United Nations Special Rapporteur Richard Falk was interrogated by border authorities for four hours at the airport, en route to speak at a conference on Palestine in Ottawa.
In another recent example of the targeting of dissidents, Toronto activist Tynan Liebert was found guilty of “being a party to an assault” for protesting genocide at a Chrystia Freeland event, while half a dozen Toronto Metropolitan University students were arrested for protesting against soldiers who took part in genocide.
According to one estimate, the Toronto police have arrested over 150 individuals for opposing genocide, and the just-released Razing Palestine: Punishing Solidarity and Dissent in Canada documents many cases.
On November 28, I will stand trial on four charges related to “harassing” the police. Recently, the prosecution submitted expert testimony to my lawyer, suggesting the Crown plans to waste more public resources on pursuing me for calling on the police to drop charges brought against me for opposing genocide, which they subsequently abandoned.
In February, the Montreal police accused me of harassing anti-Palestinian media personality Dahlia Kurtz. After I wrote about the charges and asked people to email the police to abandon them, they charged me with intimidation, harassment, harassing communication and “entrave” (interference) towards the Montreal police. Concurrently, they sought to impose release conditions that would have muzzled my ability to discuss the initial Kurtz charges.
I spent five days in jail in a successful bid to defeat the conditions for my release that would have blocked me from mentioning Kurtz’s case against me. After charging and jailing me for political posts on X – I have never met Kurtz, messaged her, or threatened her in any way – they quietly dropped the charges in July, effectively admitting that the initial charges leveled against me were absurd. Yet, they maintained the four charges related to me calling on them to drop the now-abandoned charges.
Ten days after the prosecution dropped the charges, Kurtz sued me in civil court for defamation. She’s seeking $150,000 each from me and rock legend, Roger Waters. As she launches a host of odious legal complaints, Kurtz continues to spout openly racist statements, recently labeling Palestinians “lice” and denying their existence.
Discussing how Ben and Jerry’s co-founder, Ben Cohen, “wants suggestions for ingredients” for a Palestine ice cream flavor, Kurtz noted, “I’d say lice. Considering all the Palestinians’ lies. Lice/Lies.” In response to a different post asking, “Are Palestinians people too?” Kurtz posted, “There’s no such thing as a ‘Palestinian’.”
Over the years, I have participated in many email and phone campaigns to police officials and departments. Calling on the police to drop politically motivated charges is not harassment or interfering in police affairs. It is a democracy. Any finding suggesting that one does not have the right to message the police threatens democracy.
In fact, the other side already intervened in Kurtz’s case against me. According to the Crown lawyer at my bail hearing, the police investigated Kurtz’s allegations against me in the summer of 2024 and then closed the file. Subsequently, Conservative Party candidate, Neil Oberman, sent a letter to the Montreal police on Kurtz’s behalf, which prompted the police to reopen the case.
Why is Oberman allowed to communicate with the police but not me? Additionally, why was I the only one charged? Should the more than 4,000 people who emailed the police be charged? Or, at least, any of them who shared the email letter writing campaign?
There is still a chance that the Crown will abandon the charges, but considering the fact that they sent my lawyer expert testimony, it appears that they plan to go through with this anti-democratic and anti-Palestinian charade.
As hundreds of Canadians who have opposed genocide have been pursued, none of the 49 documented – the real number is far higher – Canadians who have fought in Gaza during the past two years have been charged. Nor have any of the Israeli soldiers who have come to Canada. Nor have any of the Zionist schools or other institutions that have ‘induced’ Canadians into the Israeli military in violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act.
The platform for my NDP leadership campaign calls on the government to “Enforce the Foreign Enlistment Act and stop Canadians joining the Israeli military.” It also calls to “Prosecute Canadians who fought in Gaza under the War Crimes Act. Israeli military returnees are a potential public safety concern and are willingly complicit in genocide.”
The campaign is also challenging the broader repressive, anti-Palestinian climate. The platform calls to “Abolish the anti-Palestinian ‘terrorism list’ which is an arbitrary political tool that grants the government powers to ban an organization without due process and the standard legal burdens of proof used to support imperialism and undermine freedom of association and expression.” Our platform also deals with broader infringements of political rights in a subsection headlined “Right to Protest and Freedom of Association.
On November 28, I will stand trial for challenging the police’s support for an individual supporting Israel’s genocide. If you are in Montreal, please consider attending court at Palais de Justice, 9:30 am.
– Yves Engler is the author of Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid and a number of other books. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. Visit his website: yvesengler.com.
All those who support israel ARE FINISHED!!!… they have NO future, as israel has NO FUTURE!!! … TO support israel now, is to show yourself to be a FOOL.. and worse, a heartless monster WITHOUT conscience, WITHOUT a shread of humanity, something LESS than an animal!!! …The continuing support for israel by the 1%, only shows what the REAL STAKES at play ACTUALLY ARE!!!… STAKES SO HIGH, the 1% is literally TERRIFIED!!! …IF PALESTINE IS FREED, the West itself is INEVITABLY DOOMED along with its comprador allies in some strategic Arab states!!!… But PALESTINE WILL BE FREED, and if the West FALLS as a result— SO MUCH THE BETTER !!!