Who is behind Canada's synagogue shootings?
B'nai Brith Canada's Richard Robertson tells Ezra Levant that gunmen recruited online are being hired to shoot at Jewish institutions, and that authorities have not said who is behind them.
On Friday's Ezra Levant Show, Ezra opened with the sentencing of Abdirazak Mahdi Ahmed, who fired shots at Montreal's Yeshiva Gedola in November 2023. Ahmed got 66 months, with time served counted, and Ezra noted that prosecutors did not establish an antisemitic motive.
His guest, Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy at B'nai Brith Canada, said the case fits a pattern of Jewish institutions in Montreal and Toronto being shot at in the middle of the night. "These are guns for hire," he said, describing gunmen recruited on the dark web who offer their services for pay.
That is partly why no hate motive was found, Robertson said, since the shooters appear to be acting for personal gain. The question that remains, he said, is "who is ultimately behind this?" Authorities have not disclosed who is orchestrating the attacks, and Robertson said the person who wanted to harm the Jewish community "is still out there."
Ezra said Canada knows who the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps activists in the country are, yet "there's no political will to deal with them."
Robertson pointed to a conference planned for Toronto at the end of the month, hosted by Masar Badil, which he said has links to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Samidoun, "both listed terrorist organizations here in Canada." Canada, he said, is "far too lenient" in its laws on terrorism.
Ezra tied the problem to immigration. As long as Canada keeps admitting people from countries where antisemitism is endemic, he argued, "it's going to make Canada a more and more anti-semitic place," though he stressed that is not "casting aspersions on any particular immigrant."
Robertson disagreed. "The issue isn't somebody's religion," he said, and Canada needs to screen people for extremism and radicalization instead.
The two agreed on one point. Extremism is compromising national security, Robertson said, and the government's response "has been lacking," whether through enforcement or a shortage of laws.
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