By: Zach Paikin

In this week’s Hasbara Angle, we talked a bit about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement.

Well, Montreal has been graced with the pleasure of having its very own BDS conference, which will be held on the weekend of October 22-24. How exciting. It gives me great reassurance that while Mahmoud “Atom-Bomb” Ahmadinejad and Hassan “40,000-Rockets” Nasrallah are making speeches in Lebanon this week calling for the destruction of the State of Israel, several “peace activists” in Canada are contributing to this very noble effort.

BDS supporters often invoke leftist and socialist rhetoric in order to portray themselves as being “peace activists”. Words such as “solidarity”, “justice”, “liberation”, “resistance” and “equality” are constantly brought up.  Sounds nice, eh? Of course, what most don’t know is that by “resistance” they usually mean the deliberate use of lethal violence against Israeli citizens.

In the case of our Quebec BDS Conference (online at bdsquebec.org), we don’t have to look too far to discover a hidden ugliness. The list of speakers includes Bongani Masuku, who has been judged by the South African Human Rights Commission of being guilty of antisemitic hate speech, and Ewa Jasiewicz, a self-proclaimed vocal supporter of Palestinian “fighters” and “armed resistance”.

The BDS movement tries to portray itself as being progressive and liberal. It isn’t. BDS is a radical leftist campaign that will not sleep until the State of Israel has been dismantled. Such a movement undermines peace and human rights abroad while creating a toxic environment that doesn’t allow for debate here at home.

For more on how to combat the BDS movement, check out this week’s Hasbara Angle. Also, if you’re in the Montreal area and are interested in helping us with opposing this upcoming conference, please contact me at zpaikin@hasbarafellowships.org.

Turning now to other news, the Ottawa Israel Awareness Committee is hosting a bar night on October 14^th, and plans to host Israeli movie nights on October 18^th at Carleton and on October 19^th at OttawaU. Also, Israeli Vice-Premier Moshe Ya’alon spoke at the Ottawa JCC this week regarding this issue of Israel’s contemporary strategic challenges as well as those of the West.

Finally, and most importantly, my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs are now 3-0 after their 4-3 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Stanley Cup parade route is in the process of being planned. Go Leafs Go!