Spencer Capier🇺🇦🇮🇱

Musician, School Teacher, Union President

[Selina Robinson @SelinaMRobinson]

Hey @CTVNews … have a listen - this is what the ICJ decision was - you gonna correct your lies?

[Andrew Fox @Mr_Andrew_Fox]

Sam Harris has written the best thing you’ll read today.

https://t.co/gI0wZZNH4m

[Natasha Pein @NatashaHPein]

Thank you @JesseBrown. This needed to be said, and said clearly.

Canada built its entire national identity on multiculturalism. On the idea that every community belongs, every minority is protected, every citizen is equal under the law and in the public square.

The Jewish community has been here for centuries. They didn't just arrive, they helped build this country.

And Canada failed them. Institutions stayed silent. Politicians hedged. Streets became hostile. Campuses became unsafe. And the people in power called it "nuanced."

There is nothing nuanced about a community feeling unsafe in a country that promised them otherwise.

This is not the Canada I came to. It is not the Canada any of us should accept. And those who stayed silent while it happened own a share of that failure.

@SAntizionism

[𐙚⋆ @voidwithverses]

“An enemy will agree, but a friend will argue”

— Russian Proverb

[Michael Geist @mgeist]

This is far longer than my typical post, but it tells an important story of what appears to be an attempt by leadership at Massey College to censor a major conference on antisemitism, leading to the resignation of one of its senior fellows.

The disappointment that greeted Mark Carney’s antisemitism speech this week is partly a function of a Jewish community that has been facing real threats for months, with fears that our governments and institutions have been unwilling to confront them directly and honestly. Hours before the Carney speech, I received a note from Peter Biro, a Toronto lawyer and longtime senior fellow at the University of Toronto’s Massey College, that provided a tangible example of the harm. Biro, facing what appears to have been an attempt by Massey College leadership to censor a major antisemitism conference planned for this fall, resigned his fellowship rather than succumb to it.

Biro proposed, organized, and committed to personally fund a one-day conference, “Antisemitism in Our ‘Free and Democratic Society’: A Canary’s Song,” co-presented with the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights and featuring Deborah Lipstadt, Deborah Lyons, and Irwin Cotler, among others. According to his resignation letter, which I am sharing here with his permission, the College told him it had never approved the event and insisted on appointing an advisory committee to review, curate, and approve a version of the program that fit the College’s “mission and approach.” When he asked who had raised concerns and whether such a committee had any precedent, he says he received no answer.

Biro calls the stated objection false and a pretext. The real concern, he argues, is the substance: how antisemitism would be examined, by whom, and whether a human rights centre founded by a Jewish and Zionist lawyer was an acceptable partner. That objection makes little sense, since the College itself partnered with the very same centre only months ago. In Biro’s words, the committee “looks and feels less like prudent corporate governance and more like antisemitism.” Read the letter and judge for yourself.

Here is the part that should worry everyone. An academic institution responded to a conference on antisemitism, organized by one of its own fellows and featuring some of the world’s most notable antisemitism scholars, by insisting that an oversight committee was needed to decide whether the subject was being handled appropriately. I’ve organized many conferences and never had university leadership intervene in this manner. Massey College, much like Mark Carney, had a chance to lead, but both failed to meet the moment. The conference will go on in Toronto on September 15. The stain on Massey College will not come off as easily.

[Bryan Breguet @Prominent_Bryan]

Full results are posted on the website

Final round, votes

Caroline Elliott 10,847
KLF 10907

I had heard that Elliott won the popular vote but it isn't the case but it's even closer than the points (KLD got 50.1% of the votes!)

[David Frum @davidfrum]

Core problem:

If you're recruiting for people who are comfortable mouthing the lie that Israel's just war of self-defense was a "genocide," you'll find yourself hiring people who are comfortable mouthing a lot of other lies as well.

[Andrew Coyne 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇬🇪🇲🇩 @acoyne]

How very diplomatic.

[Naya Lekht 🇮🇱 🇺🇸ניה לכת @LekhtNaya]

It’s not complicated to name the disease terrorizing Jews and the West. It is called antizionism. On May 17 @SAntizionism and @Tafsikorg hosted the FIRST ever Symposium Against Antizionism. It is historic because for the first time, Jews and non-Jews mobilized to call directly out the most lethal form of hatred terrorizing Jews and Israelis today: antizionsim.

The bigger question is why did it take grassroots efforts and not @ADL or the @AJCGlobal to do such an event? The ADL was created with the stated goal of combating defamation of Jews. The AJC was one of the first to call out antisemitism after the Holocaust. We must demand a total paradigm shift from our Jewish organizations: talk about antizionism, teach about its Soviet and Nazi origins. It’s not rocket science.

[Scott Robertson @sarobertson_]

PM Carney: "This is an observation from experience. In these separation issues it is often advanced that 'Vote for this and we will strengthen our hand in future negotiation.' That is a very dangerous bluff. I saw firsthand what happened in the UK, they're still trying to undo what people didn't think they were voting for but what they ended up having."

[Scott Robertson @sarobertson_]

Scott Reid unloads on Danielle Smith: "The premier in the same breath that she talks about the need to get this issue resolved is herself the sponsor of it. She acts as though she's just a cork in a raging river of democracy. She's steering the ship and she's steering it toward the shoals of separatism."

[David Frum @davidfrum]

The globalized intifada shot 20 bullets into my boyhood synagogue in Toronto. The supposed line between antisemitism and anti-Zionism is a semantic device, not a real barrier. Latest in @TheAtlantic https://t.co/pXkkga2Vhg

[John Spencer @SpencerGuard]

100% there is no genocide in Gaza. No eradication project. People confused about what the word means is culturally appalling and dangerous for the future of western society. The confusion has indeed been engineered by people know what they are doing. No genocide does not mean simply too much death and destruction in war. It is about intent and action to destroy a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part. Sam Harris @MakingSenseHQ is spot on.

[Selina Robinson @SelinaMRobinson]

Brilliant analysis.

[Kathleen Stock @Docstockk]

Maeve Halligan at the Cambridge Union, facing down Helen Webberley and telling the truth 🔥🔥

[Jonathan Kay @jonkay]

that CBC-funded “prank” didn’t just target pundits. In @Quillette, I report on their efforts to mock a humble 82-yr-old Brockville granddad who enjoys 19th-c historical re-enanctments. Producers repeatedly lied to him for months, then exploited his trust
https://t.co/XemYbTsWMB

[Ken Boessenkool @KenBoessenkool]

This is the most important, most brilliant, and most well written thing you could read today.

If you’re an Albertan, or a Canadian, and read nothing else, fine. Just read this.

Goodness me. Every word. https://t.co/TliiUbwj6H

[Benjamin Ryan @benryanwriter]

NYU professor @JonHaidt, who has stood at the forefront of the movement to challenge academia’s culture of suppressing the free exchange of ideas, is facing a campaign to cancel his graduation address. https://t.co/4egRWmkpP7

[Andrew Fox @Mr_Andrew_Fox]

Remarkable writing. Every word.

[Chris Kennedy @chrkennedy]

Full disclosure: I'm writing about an election where the winners become my bosses. With BC trustee elections coming in October, my latest post looks at what the role actually involves and what it takes to do it well. NEW on Culture of Yes: https://t.co/tkHLZweHm3 #bced