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Racism and the Coronavirus Includes the Virus of Antisemitism - CAEF Bulletin May 04 2020

Tomorrow is #giving Tuesday.

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Racism, Antisemitism and the Coronavirus

From the earliest detection of the coronavirus, to the epidemic in China, and ultimately the global pandemic, every journalist, news publication, political figure and celebrity has been pointedly and rightly condemning the association of the disease with the Chinese people. While COVID 19 was initially detected in China and spread from there, it is clearly not a race-based virus, not an attack on our civilization by other people, and it is inappropriate and racist to generalize or associate it with any racial or national group.


Yet it can’t be ignored that the spread of the virus has been accompanied by the spread of anti-Jewish libel. When the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation experienced Nazi-oriented Zoom bombing during a webinar, it was indeed reported by Canadian print press and television, as have been stories of other specific instances and types of hostile acts, but given the significant increase in antisemitic acts across Canada, as reported in the newly released Annual Audit of Antisemitism, produced by B’nai Brith Canada, where is the outcry from civil society condemning the increased antisemitism? Where is the outrage about this ancient Jew-hatred that not only endangers one ethno-religious community but all of Canadian society?

Prime Minister Trudeau pointedly condemned these acts in his press conference on April 30, 2020, and stated the federal government’s support for abolishing antisemitism. However, what is being ignored that poses a significant danger is the blaming of Israel and the Jews for the global pandemic. Why has this not been widely reported and totally condemned as the evil it is?



CAEF asks: Where is the condemnation from the Canadian media, academia, politicians, churches, mosques and other sectors of society? The language used and the images disseminated are incredibly reminiscent of those used before and during the Holocaust, and the vicious claims are parallel to those that circulated during past pandemics, whether the Bubonic plague, the Spanish Flu or other societal disrupters.


Here are examples of the hatred breeding in Canada as reported in the Document Project in Canada, a project of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, researched and written by Lt Col (ret) Jonathan D. Halevi, senior researcher on the Middle East and radical Islam at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. The Document Project tracks antisemitic and antiZionist campaigns in Canada.


  1. Jaoudat Najjar, a Palestinian-born Canadian, involved in leading and organizing anti-Israel activities in Montreal, including BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), posted this on March 6th to Facebook (originally in Arabic): In the name of God, The most Gracious, The most Merciful. [Quran 17:4] “And We conveyed to the Children of Israel in the Scripture that, “You will surely cause corruption on the earth twice, and you will surely reach [a degree of] great haughtiness.” The Corona [virus COVID-19] is behind many consequences. I am completely convinced that the Zionist Jews are those who created the Corona virus [COVID-19] and planted it in China to hide their crimes, because they know that the virus will spread to Palestine, and especially to the City of Jerusalem [Al-Quds] and then Israel will take other measures….

  2. April 25th, 2020, Crescent International, a monthly newsmagazine from the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) led by a Canadian Muslim scholar, Imam Zafar Bangash, shares this conspiracy theory: “would it be challenging common sense to speculate that a very small drone, flying under the radar, and remotely controlled by technicians in Zionist, American, or Arabian [Saudi Arabia] military bases, hovers over the residence or parliament or any other meeting place of officials of the Islamic Republic, and then releases a type of Coronavirus that trickles down into the target area where the individual(s) is and he then unknowingly becomes a victim of the virus? The drone then flies back or self-destructs and no one has proof of anything.”

  3. Aliya Hasan [Aliyawa Jamal Hasan], a Co-Manager of Canadian Defenders For Human Rights (CD4HR), a pro-Palestinian Canadian registered not for profit organization (NO.1067715-9) tweeted on April 21, 2020: #Palestinians are trapped between two enemies. One of them is the most dangerous virus this world has ever known & the other is #Covid19#FreePalestine. In response to a question by Twitter user ‏@messy1 “What virus might that be? The flu?” Aliya Hasan wrote: Zionism

Hatred of Jews is endemic amongst extremists on the right, the left and Islamists, and is an assault on Canadian democracy and freedoms.


Should the mainstream media even publish antisemitic lies that potentially endanger individuals or a community? This was an issue in April when the Prince Edward Island Guardian published a letter by known anti-Israel activist Richard Deaton, who maliciously and falsely claimed that Israel is to blame for the spread of coronavirus among Palestinians. This was called out by Honest Reporting Canada and reported internationally in the Jerusalem Post.


Deaton claimed that Israel failed "to meet its obligation under international law, as an occupying power, to provide medical supplies to Palestinians," adding that "this is effectively an Israeli-imposed death sentence for thousands of Palestinians."

The fact that Israel has provided training to front line workers from Gaza, home of its terrorist enemy Hamas, and tests, masks, and ventilators, was unreported by Deaton and the Guardian.


Israel has coordinated its pandemic response with the Palestinian Authority throughout the period of COVID 19. Israel has been publishing all of its health information in Arabic, taking every step possible to provide equal access to health care for all of its citizens, regardless of race or religion, and has assisted the Palestinian Authority which governs most Arab communities in the disputed territories; this despite the PA continuing its decades-long hate campaign to delegitimize Israel.


The lies stated here are merely examples of what is a global pandemic of antisemitism/antiZionism, a desecration of truth intended to rouse antipathy towards Israel and by association Jews. It is never just about Israel and where it is about Israel, antisemitism spreads false and damaging stories that are intended to harm domestic and international relations.


Contrary to the fabrications of the hate mongers, it is the PA and Hamas which are hurting the Arab population. For example, Hamas has not spent donor funds to build a competent health care system but to build more terror tunnels. The PA has continued to spend tax collected and donor funds to award jailed terrorists who killed Jews and not on improving infrastructure, governance, health or any other needs of its population. Both terror-supporting entities are inciting against Israel, even as the health crisis continues.


Recent reports of Arab abuse of its own citizens are horrific, but go unreported by the mainstream press that is only interested in negative stories about Israel. Stories that should be covered include the murder by these Islamists of Arab residents who communicate with Israel or in some way report positively on Israel’s efforts to offer aid. Early during the pandemic some Arab leadership actively resisted the restrictions imposed, though they were equally applied to Arabs and Jews, Christians, Druze and other minorities. They irrationally argued the virus would not affect them. Such specious claims have endangered their communities.


And ironically, the co-founder of the BDS movement in Israel, Omar Barghouti, who is committed to the total destruction of the Jewish state where he lives and is provided with many freedoms, has announced that if a vaccine is successfully developed by Israeli medical scientists, then his ardent antisemitic followers can access it, despite his hating all things Zionist.

Garage door in Toronto


Antisemitic Palestinian Arab Incitement Campaign


Here are the 7 key points of incitement by the Palestinian Authority, its umbrella organization, FATAH and the overarching federated entity, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, in its campaign of delegitimization. Make no mistake about the intent and the acts carried out to hurt the Jewish state and the Jewish people. These were presented in a webinar last week by the former Director-General of the Israeli Ministry of Strategic Affairs, Yossi Kuperwasser, sponsored by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.


  1. There is no Jewish People.

  2. There is no history of Jews in Palestine, so they are colonialists.

  3. Zionists are unbearable. Jews are racist and greedy, so Europe wanted to get rid of them; hence the Jews serve the colonialist west agenda.

  4. Palestinians have the right to fight in all ways, including violence and force; BDS is not against violence which is just another method.

  5. Palestinians are the only victims of the conflict, which justifies bringing back “refugees.”

  6. This represents Muslim and Arab goals, and we cannot give up on any goal.

  7. The battle is over all of “Palestine”, every inch of what is called Israel.


Kuperwasser made it abundantly clear that the pretension of non-violence has infiltrated the political Left, and even part of the Centre, and poses a major security risk to Israel. Importantly, he also distinguished between what has been called a “two state solution for two people” to what is now merely referred to as “two states” which conveniently and intentionally ignores the idea of a state for the Jewish people. In the West, the Left, as witnessed in the UK Labour Party and among the radical Democrats in the US, use vocabulary that often mimics what the Islamists are saying. Leftist Liberals are then consciously or unconsciously supporting the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda and have the support of Qatar, Turkey, Hamas and the PLO.


BDS IS ANTISEMITIC. THE ANTIDOTE IS ADOPTION AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE IHRA AND STANDING PROUD AS JEWS AND ZIONISTS.

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