Geoff Russ: The anti-Israel mob despises the West, and now they’ve tasted power

This past week, the PA operations of Kelowna and Victoria airports were hijacked, and pro-Hamas and anti-Trump messages were broadcast through the facilities. Similar incidents occurr Windsor International Airport and even at Harrisburg International Airport in Pennsylvania.

Staff were able to regain control and shut down the messaging, but it was one more instance of the infiltration of extremist propaganda into ordinary Canadian life. It was symbolic of the state of Western society, when supporters of violent terrorists are more comfortable than ever grabbing the microphone.

A ceasefire has been officially signed between Israel and Hamas, and the remaining living hostages taken on October 7 have returned home. Even though the guns are silent, for now, a Middle Eastern war has been transformed into a domestic struggle across the West.

Toronto, London, Berlin, and Los Angeles are now hotbeds of not just anti-Israel activism, but a wider cultural insurgency against civilization itself.

For hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people, Israel is a mere stand-in for an ideology that casts the entire West as an inherently evil “colonial project.” The objective of this movement is to delegitimize, disrupt, and demoralize the populations of countries like Canada, Australia, Great Britain, and others.

When they say “Death to Canada! … This is a revolution! We must destroy this settler colony,” chants heard at rallies in Vancouver co-led by the now-proscribed group Samidoun, take their words at face value.

The celebration on the left following the massacre of about 1200 people in southern Israel on October 7, 2023, was just a taste of what was to come.

Last weekend in Australia, independent Senator Lidia Thorpe proclaimed to a crowd of anti-Israel activists that she was willing to “burn down Parliament House” to help secure a Palestinian victory.

Australia’s Federal Police are now investigating Thorpe, who has since tried to write off her incendiary remark as a figure of speech. However, when a sitting parliamentarian muses about incinerating a legislature, the Overton window of rhetoric is pushed further to the extremes.

Thorpe has previously argued that “We have fought over 200 years against colonization. The constitution is an illegal document.” That view, coupled with her weekend remark, makes her stance plain enough.

Across the Pacific in Canada, the line for permissible actions or dialogue has been dragged well past the limits.

Anti-Israel and anti-Canadian students have occupied campuses and shouted down or intimidated dissenting faculty members. Law enforcement authorities have attempted de-escalation that too often rewarded illegal blockades and public disruptions by treating them as a sort of right instead of lawbreaking.

It did not take long for this misplaced tolerance to become permission for the loudest activists to behave like they were in charge of the streets. These ongoing demonstrations are a case study in how liberal norms get abused by those who despise the country that protects them.

An even more grim breakdown of the growing savagery was the assassination of the American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University in September.

The local police say the 22-year-old suspect, Tyler Robinson, acted alone, with investigators pointing to messages suggesting he planned the shooting and viewed Kirk as a “fascist”. Kirk was very right-wing, but no fascist, but slapping the label on anybody is an invitation to violence.

Reactions from the political left across the English-speaking world revealed much about just how callous and coarsened it has become. In England, the incoming president of the Oxford Union debating society appeared to celebrate Kirk’s killing over text.

Ruth Marshall, a professor at the University of Toronto, was placed on leave after posting “shooting is too good for fascists”, following the news of Kirk’s death.. In the United States, a Secret Service employee had his clearance revoked over a post about the killing, and private employers disciplined staff who gloated online, events that sparked a debate about speech, but also drew a bright line against celebrating political murder.

Both the October 7 atrocities and the murder of Kirk were clarifying for ordinary, normal people. They showed just how many among us will explain away political violence and terrorism so long as it takes the lives of the “right” people.

That extends to, though is not limited to, Jews, “settlers”, accused “fascists,” and those who oppose the barbarization of their societies.

A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas will not tame this movement. The decolonial mind can only frame institutions as colonial structures ripe for capture. The very idea of a Canadian, Australian, or Israeli citizen is to them a false, illegitimate construct that is oppressive by design and inherently violent towards an imagined victim.

This struggle will only migrate to another symbol if the truce in Gaza holds. First the statues of historical leaders in Canada came down, churches were burned without reprisal, and the national holiday of Australia was attacked. Then came the vandalism of synagogues, the occupations of campus quads, and now the probing of vital infrastructure like airport systems. .

Conquering public space is their goal, and they are advancing. Even those pro-Palestinian marchers who earnestly desire peace have failed, or refused, to police their radical peers.

A movement that waves the banner of ISIS, as seen in Sydney at a pro-Gaza march, or that burns the Canadian flag in Vancouver, is one that will never integrate or be an ally. The insurgency of it all is the point, which is why they lionize the militant Hamas organization.

If the mobs do finally subside in Montreal, Toronto, or other Canadian cities, there is no telling just how deeply they will have infiltrated and altered public life. This is a live demonstration of what happens when leaders refuse to draw lines, enforce the law, and defend the institutions that keep peace among neighbours.

Whether it be within the anti-Israel movement or among those who cheer violence against their political foes, the common denominator is the taste of power. They’ve had it, and they will not give it up easily.