As Canada’s Jewish community gathers to remember the victims one year after the October 7 attack on Israel, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) will be honouring Hamas terrorists as “martyrs.”
The anti-Israel group has announced a planned protest outside the Israeli embassy in Montreal on Oct. 7.
“Join us as we march to honour the martyrs of the past year — and the past 76 years — who gave everything for their land, their dignity, and their liberation,” the group’s Montreal chapter wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday.
The poster has the words: “For Liberation. For our martyrs. For our people. For our land. For Palestine.”
Anthony Housefather, the Liberal MP for Montreal’s Mount Royal riding and the federal government’s special adviser on antisemitism, decried the plan to glorify terrorists who killed some 1,200 people on October 7, and kidnapped 251 people, with 97 hostages still unaccounted for.
“It is beyond disgusting that anyone would celebrate the events of October 7 and diminish the murders and injuries that happened that day and the hostages taken some of whom are still in captivity,” he said.
The rally has caused concern among Montreal’s sizeable Jewish community, which has been rattled by several high-profile antisemitic incidents since last October. In the last year, a Jewish restaurant was shot at, university students say they were regularly intimidated on local campuses, and anti-Israel protesters have picketed outside a synagogue and a Holocaust museum, among other incidents.
As tensions escalate between Israel and the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, community leaders are calling on provincial and federal leaders to take greater steps to protect Canadian Jews.
“Yet again, pro-Hamas groups are planning to celebrate the brutal massacre and terrorist attacks by Hamas on October 7, this time on the anniversary of the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust. They aim to fill the streets with hate. This is not just a celebration of terror or antisemitism; it is an attack on democracy and our Canadian values,” Eta Yudin, the vice president of the Quebec chapter of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA), told the National Post in an emailed statement.
“This should serve as yet another warning that the unchecked hate and incitement in our streets have gone too far. On October 7, these same groups distributed candies to celebrate murder and rape.”
With the fall semester having just begun, Jewish students are also concerned about the ongoing celebration of terrorists.
“On Oct. 8, 2023, students saw their peers celebrating Hamas as ‘resistance fighters,’” Hillel Montreal wrote National Post in a statement. “A year later, our community cannot even have October 7 to peacefully mourn. With protests and ‘days of action’ planned for Oct. 7, 2024, students are wary of the threats posed by these agitators. Despite these circumstances, our community will come together in unity.”
PYM burst onto the national scene following the October 7 atrocities committed by Palestinian terror groups, distinguishing themselves as one of the most unabashedly pro-Hamas outfits in Canada. The group was on the frontlines organizing demonstrations across Canada in the days immediately following the Hamas invasion of Israel, mobilizing activists in Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver.
The group calls itself “a transnational, independent, grassroots movement of young Palestinians in Palestine and in exile worldwide,” however it supports the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a banned terror group in Canada. The Anti-Defamation League describes PYM as promoting “classic antisemitic themes on social media” and supporting “terror against Israel.”
The group seemingly refrains from mentioning Israel as a country. It frequently refers to the Jewish state in social media messaging as the “Zionist entity,” adopting the approach used by Hamas in its controversial charter calling for the country’s destruction. The poster advertising the event says it will take place at the “Zionist consulate.” The address is for the Israeli embassy in Montreal.
In early September, the group promoted another demonstration scheduled for Oct. 5, the Saturday before the anniversary of October 7, boasting that Palestinian martyrs “have shown the world that resistance is the only path to victory against Zionism.” The public message went on to call for the destruction of Israel as the ultimate objective of the movement.
“We know that Palestine will be victorious and that the Zionist entity will fall,” the group wrote on Instagram. “The struggle will live on until every inch of Palestine is liberated, every refugee returns to their homeland, the siege on Gaza is lifted, and every prisoner is free. The fight continues.”
The group’s main Twitter account announced in August that there will be demonstrations held in Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa and in cities across the U.S. on Oct. 5 to “mark this year as one where our people resisted Zionism.”
Yudin said Canada needs to do more to prevent the spread of antisemitism.
“Canada has seen far too many displays of hate, violence, and intimidation. This is why CIJA has called for amendments to Canada’s anti-terror legislation to include the glorification of terrorism,” Yudin said. “It is time to stop the spread of hate and antisemitism.”
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