Dear Mr Housefather,
I realise you are busy. Maybe too busy to reply to yesterday’s email letter I sent you.
It takes a lot of work to defend Israel no matter what it does. You must be running to catch up!

After all, as someone who is Jewish (as am I) told me today: “it’s complicated.” Really. She also told me, if the Israelis get rid of Netanyahu all will be well.
I doubt it – and no doubt you do too.
The government in waiting in Israel is just as right-wing and murderous as the present one. Even you wouldn’t deny it.

Do you support killing babies and children?

Except you still support everything Israel does and says. Do you really support the following– which don’t you support?

-every death of every woman, baby and child;
-every murder of an elderly person;
-the amputations (without proper anaesthetic) of the thousand plus arms and legs of children who were pulled still alive from the rubble of their homes;
-and the recently-uncovered burial of 400 plus unnamed Palestinians in mass graves. The victims either worked in Gaza’s Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals or were patients there.

Some in the mass graves had their wrists zip-tied behind their backs – how can you – a lawyer, a Liberal MP devoted to Trudeau’s “rules based order” justify it? Other bodies found in the mass graves still had tubes, needles and catheters sticking out of them? (I guess it’s too “complicated” to pull catheters out of people before or after killing them) How can that be—and how do you justify Palestinian hospital patients killed en masse, secretly buried on the grounds of the two largest hospitals in Gaza?

“The plaintiffs failed to show that protests were causing irreparable harm.”

Justice Masse

Today’s news must have put you in a tizzy Mr Housefather. Justice Chantal Massé of the Quebec Superior Court in Montreal denied the injunction on behalf of two – count them: two – Jewish McGill students who complained they felt no longer “safe” on campus because of the pro-Palestine encampment. Really? The injunction named five pro-Palestinian groups. But not a McGill building had been barred or locked. Not a barricade was set up by pro-Palestine protesters. Not a service, a library or centre on the campus was closed to students or the public. The whole campus was accessible as always—as Madame Massé noted, if she had granted the injunction to restrict protesters to 100 metres from any building, that would include perimeters around 154 buildings at McGill University!

But Mr Housefather, the two unnamed Jewish students who were corralled (by whom, and at the behest of mainstream Jewish organisations likely B’nai Brith or CIJA?) to apply for the injunction, said they felt “unsafe” even walking by the encampments. Yet the encampments are full of Jewish and non-Jewish students, and young people merely sitting-in to demand McGill divest its academic and financial ties with Israel.

Thank goodness saner heads prevailed and Justice Massé denied the injunction as the “plaintiffs failed to show that protests were causing irreparable harm.”

The judge’s statement includes this: “the court is of the opinion that the balance of inconveniences leans more toward the protesters, whose freedom of expression and to gather peacefully would be affected significantly.”

How do you continue to keep a lid on criticism of Israel?

Well, Mr Housefather, another nail in the coffin of your attempts to silence criticism of Israel. This time a judge won’t let you silence pro-Palestinian demonstrators. First you talked about rampant anti-semitism, then the bullying of Jewish students, then campus’ unsafe conditions – all were lies. Or at least deliberate mistruths.

“Innocent till proven guilty” — not according to Israel

I read your biography and see that you have two, not one, law degrees. Congratulations. I’m sure you’ve heard that people are “innocent” until proven guilty. That is the system that works in most western countries—Canada, the US, the UK for example. Except it does not pertain to justice as practised by Israel. It has killed 34,000 people, 70% are women and children, and generally unarmed. There has not been even one trial to prove even one person belongs to Hamas, or helps Hamas, or lives with someone in Hamas– yet 34,000 people have paid the ultimate price for just being Palestinian. Of course you know how hard it would have been to take children under age10 or 12 to trial because they wouldn’t understand about being in court, and they might even lie, or fib.

Did Israel lie about its crimes?

Not like Israel. When did Israel lie? Too many times to count!
Item: Israel deliberately killed the 7 aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK). It was not merely accidental. The proof is that not one but three cars in their convoy were struck by Israeli missiles late one night killing all the aid workers. One missile destroyed each vehicle, seconds apart. As you know, killing aid workers is illegal under international law.
Item: More than 112 Palestinians were killed and some 700 others were wounded after Israeli troops opened fire on nearly a thousand hungry Palestinians waiting for food aid southwest of Gaza City on 29 Feb. What’s the excuse for opening fire on starving families?
Item: The aforementioned mass graves at the two hospitals. Were all of those dead activists in Hamas. The UN has called for an inquiry but it will be a long time coming.
Item: Israel blew up all 12 universities in Gaza over a few months. There’s no evidence Hamas was running the universities. Imagine if that happened to the 18 publicly-funded universities in Quebec– if every one of them was destroyed?
Item: The IDF destroyed all 24 hospitals in Gaza – that’s collective punishment against Palestinian people living under Israel’s occupation which is illegal under international human rights law.
Item: Israel targeted and killed thousands of professors, poets, artists, and professionals—in their homes and on the streets. Were they all Hamas? Any proof?

On a happier note…

I don’t want to go out on a sad note, so here’s a joke from my husband to lighten your day: How do you get to be a member of Hamas? First you have to be killed by the Israelis.

Featured image at the top: Pro-Palestinian student activists in Montreal have set up camp on the grounds of McGill University, Saturday, April 27, 2024. (credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes)