A large anti-Israel protest near Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Aug. 10, 2024.Photo by Ashley Fraser/Postmedia

Chris Selley: For anti-Israel protesters, October 7 anniversary is an unofficial citizenship test

If you're celebrating 'Palestinian resistance' on Monday, then you're celebrating a pogrom

by · National Post

I always assumed the anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 pogrom in southern Israel would get ugly. Too many in the anti-Israel crowd either don’t believe it happened, or believe the death toll was exaggerated, or think it was a false-flag event. And of course there are some who seem pretty much OK with what actually happened.

“How beautiful is the spirit to get free that Palestinians literally learned how to fly on hang gliders,” all-purpose activist Harsha Walia famously told a crowd in Vancouver two days after Hamas slaughtered some 800 Israeli civilians and took hundreds hostage — scores of whom are still unaccounted for.

Two arrested for waving Hezbollah flags at Toronto protest, despite police warningsTwo Toronto-area men have been charged with hate crimes after waving Hezbollah flags at a protest in late September.National Post Staff, 04 Oct 2024Terry Newman: A year in the life at Hamas HQ, I mean, a Canadian universityIt has now been a year since Hamas attacked Israel, took hostages, and murdered around 1200, not only Israelis, but also foreign nationals, including eight Canadians. The attack happened thousands of kilometres from where I was teaching, at McGill and Concordia universities, but the effects on campus were shocking and immediate. And I don’t see any sign that universities are prepared for its anniversary, unless you call prepared asking professors to move their classes online, and insisting it has nothing to do with safety.Terry Newman, 04 Oct 2024