分类： politics

TORONTO – In a stark and urgent address delivered at Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple on Monday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has sounded the alarm that Canada’s social contract is failing Jewish Canadians, who are facing increasingly brutal, targeted attacks driven by rampant antisemitism across the country.

Carney emphasized that current levels of anti-Jewish hate have not been witnessed at any point since the end of World War II, painting a grim picture of the state of religious tolerance in the nation. Data shared by the prime minister underscores the severity of the crisis: while Jewish Canadians make up just 1% of the country’s total population, more than two-thirds of all religion-motivated hate crimes committed in Canada last year were directed at members of this community.

“The horror and shame are global. Our actions must be local. They start with clearly admitting that Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,” Carney stated during the address.

The prime minister detailed the escalating and violent nature of antisemitic attacks occurring across Canadian regions. Perpetrators have carried out brazen acts including firing bullets at Jewish educational institutions, throwing firebombs at Jewish synagogues, and launching assaults on Jewish community centers. Beyond physical violence, Carney noted that antisemitic harassment has pushed Jewish business owners to face targeted boycotts and attacks on their livelihoods, and has driven Jewish students away from shared public spaces on Canadian university campuses.

While Carney acknowledged that rising antisemitism is a shared crisis plaguing other Western nations including the United States, Europe and Australia, he stressed that the situation in Canada carries unique characteristics, is exceptionally severe, and requires tailored, targeted policy intervention. Global monitoring organizations have recorded a dramatic spike in antisemitic incidents worldwide since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war in October 2023, a surge that has impacted Canada as heavily as many other nations.

In response to the growing threat, Carney outlined concrete steps his administration has already taken and plans to implement in the coming months. Over the past year, the federal government has introduced new legislation designed to crack down on antisemitism and all other forms of targeted hatred. The prime minister also confirmed a $75 million Canadian dollar investment – equivalent to approximately $54 million U.S. dollars – that will go toward upgrading security infrastructure and hiring additional security personnel at faith-based institutions across the country, with a focus on protecting Jewish community sites.

“It pains me that we had to commit $75 million to this, any dollar to this,” Carney said, expressing regret that public funds need to be diverted to protect communities from targeted hate.

To build a long-term, evidence-based strategy to counter antisemitism, Carney announced the launch of a new Ministerial Advisory Council on Rights, Equality and Inclusion. This special body will be tasked with conducting a comprehensive review to map the nature, full scale and root causes of antisemitism in Canada. Following the council’s assessment, targeted investments in public education, hate prevention and community safety initiatives will be rolled out, according to a statement from the Prime Minister’s Office.

Carney took the opportunity to clarify the scope of upcoming policy measures, emphasizing that new interventions will not infringe on fundamental Canadian rights. “I want to be clear about what these potential measures are, and what they are not. They are not curtailments of freedom of expression. They are not constraints on legitimate criticism of any government on any subject anywhere,” he said.

Instead, the prime minister framed the actions as a defense of fundamental public values: “They are the basic standards we owe one another, in our shared public institutions, to ensure that no Canadian community is driven from those institutions by hatred.”

Ahead of Carney’s address, Noah Shack, CEO of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, reiterated that the Canadian federal government needs to go further to reinforce Jewish community security and systematically root out systemic hate, a call that the new policy package directly answers.

In a primary election result that underscores shifting currents within U.S. Democratic politics, Egyptian-American combat surgeon Adam Hamawy has secured a decisive victory in New Jersey’s 12th District Democratic primary, all but guaranteeing him a seat in the U.S. Congress next year.

With over 93% of ballots counted by 10 a.m. local time Wednesday, Hamawy captured more than 28% of the vote, outpacing his closest competitor by a substantial margin. The 12th District, home to the prestigious Princeton University, has been a reliably Democratic stronghold for at least 15 years, leaving little doubt that Hamawy will defeat his Republican challenger in the November general election. If he wins as expected, he will make history as the first Muslim to represent New Jersey in Congress; the candidate grew up in the state and still resides there today.

Hamawy’s political profile weaves together a rare combination of military service, frontline medical experience, and high-profile progressive and centrist endorsements. A veteran combat surgeon, Hamawy’s path to politics first intersected with current U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth in 2004, when he treated the then-soldier for life-threatening injuries in Baghdad that required a double leg amputation. Duckworth has long credited Hamawy with saving her life, and she repaid that debt 20 years later by supporting his campaign from its launch, marking a rare centrist endorsement for an candidate aligned with the modern progressive Democratic movement.

Hamawy catapulted to national attention earlier this year for his harrowing 2024 medical mission to Gaza, where he was deployed to the European Hospital in Khan Younis as part of a delegation organized by the Palestinian American Medical Association. When Israel closed the Rafah Crossing into Egypt, Hamawy and 19 other U.S. healthcare workers were trapped inside the besieged enclave. After the Biden administration negotiated safe passage for the 17 delegation members who held U.S. citizenship, Hamawy refused to evacuate until every member of his team was guaranteed exit. He eventually reached Jordan in late May 2024, and upon returning to the U.S., he repeatedly pressed congressional leaders to address the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Gaza.

ideologically, Hamawy runs on a progressive platform aligned with the wave of new left Democrats who have found electoral success across the U.S. in recent months, prioritizing cost of living affordability and universal equitable access to healthcare. His campaign earned early and widespread support from leading progressives, including the full Congressional Progressive Caucus, Senator Bernie Sanders, Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib. He also secured backing from climate advocacy groups, the national nurses union, and multiple veterans organizations. He entered the primary as the clear frontrunner in both polling and fundraising, with his campaign reporting a total haul of $1.4 million ahead of election day.

Democratic Party leaders welcomed Hamawy’s primary win. “Democratic voters throughout New Jersey have once again demonstrated that they understand the stakes of this moment,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said in a statement Tuesday night. “As a veteran, combat surgeon, and small business owner, Adam Hamawy has continually served his community and our country. He is a proven fighter for working families. We look forward to welcoming him to Congress.”

Progressive and pro-Palestinian advocacy groups framed Hamawy’s victory as a watershed moment for the Palestinian cause in U.S. electoral politics, noting that the crisis in Gaza has become a defining issue for young Democratic voters in 2024. “Voters were drawn to Dr Hamawy’s candidacy because he knows firsthand the reality of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza like few do – having worked to save the lives of Palestinian children under bombardment and unimaginable conditions. His experience is necessary in Congress now more than ever, as too many of the people meant to represent us continue to look the other way while our tax dollars fund injustices here and abroad,” the IMEU Policy Project and Justice Democrats said in a statement Tuesday night.

Jewish Voice for Peace linked Hamawy’s win to a growing global movement that is reshaping domestic U.S. politics. “Last night, Palestine was on the ballot – and won,” the group wrote. “We are on our way to solidifying Palestine as part of popular politics that is intertwined with the fight for working people across the country.”

Hamawy’s path to the primary win was not without conflict, as he faced sustained attacks from pro-Israel and right-wing political actors ahead of the vote. When asked ahead of the election about the criticism he faced, Hamawy downplayed the attacks, noting he had endured far greater adversity during his medical and military career. “I have done harder things than mount a political campaign,” Hamawy told Middle East Eye on the eve of the election. “What’s the worst thing they’re going to do? Call me some names, attack me? I have seen much worse.”

Last month, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed that drew a false equivalence between Hamawy’s values and those of Omar Abdel Rahman, the convicted “Blind Sheikh” who was found guilty of plotting terrorist attacks in the 1990s and died in U.S. prison in 2017. Notably, Hamawy himself testified as a witness in Rahman’s 1995 trial, the largest terrorism trial in U.S. history at the time, where he told the jury that while the cleric expressed anti-American views, he never explicitly outlined plans for a murder plot. Later, Jewish Insider published an article tying Hamawy to al-Qaeda, citing his 1994 volunteer medical mission to Bosnia with the Benevolence International Foundation, a Saudi charity that was not blacklisted by the U.S. or United Nations until 2002, eight years after Hamawy’s work with the group.

The attacks drew national condemnation from progressives, and even reached the Senate floor, where Montana Republican Senator Tim Sheehy, who drew international attention earlier this year for breaking the arm of a pro-Palestinian activist who disrupted a Senate hearing, tweeted, “Democrats are now running actual terrorists for Congress. Surprising? No. Disappointing? Yes.”

Escalating cross-border hostilities between the United States and Iran have sparked a sharp diplomatic rebuke from Tehran, which on Monday slammed the European Union for what it calls a blatant display of biased moral judgment in the group’s response to recent Iranian strikes against US military sites in the Middle East. The condemnation comes as the Trump administration carried out new offensive operations against Iran over the weekend, leaving tentative peace negotiations deadlocked.

On the surface, Leen Ezzeddine’s 2026 commencement address at Harvard Medical School could have fit neatly into the beloved narrative of immigrant achievement: a young Lebanese woman earning a medical degree from one of the world’s most selective elite institutions. But Ezzeddine rejected that sanitized script, choosing instead to center stark personal and political contradiction in a speech that quickly went viral and reignited long-simmering debates on U.S. campuses over Palestine, academic complicity, and the moral obligations of medical professionals.

Ezzeddine’s connection to the crisis unfolding in her home region is not abstract. Just 18 months before she crossed the commencement stage, a U.S.-supplied Israeli missile destroyed her family’s summer home in Arab Salim, a village in southern Lebanon. Her grandparents, who had lived in the home for decades, were forced to flee to Beirut, and the village has remained under repeated Israeli bombardment even as Ezzeddine delivered her speech. Standing in the sanctity of Harvard’s graduation ceremony, she drew a clear, unflinching line between her own privileged path to medicine and the experiences of equally ambitious medical students across Lebanon and Palestine, who are forced to pursue their degrees amid collapsing infrastructure, bombardment, displacement, and the constant threat of death.

“The only difference between me and students who shared the same dream, the same work ethic, and the same devotion to medicine is that they had to pursue that dream in conditions no student should ever have to endure,” Ezzeddine told Middle East Eye in an interview following her speech. She rejected the common narrative that her success at Harvard stemmed solely from hard work or merit, framing her position as the product of luck and circumstance, not inherent worth.

Ezzeddine’s speech entered a charged, long-running battle over Palestine that has roiled U.S. campuses for years, including at Harvard. Since the outbreak of Israel’s expanded military campaign in Gaza, student activists demanding university divestment from companies linked to the war have faced widespread disciplinary action, police raids, suspensions, and accusations of antisemitism. Just one year before Ezzeddine’s graduation, hundreds of Harvard graduates walked out of the commencement ceremony to protest the university’s decision to bar students who participated in a pro-Palestinian encampment from graduating. The university’s handling of Gaza-related activism has become a central flashpoint in a national debate over whether U.S. academia protects dissenting speech – or punishes it when it centers Palestinian rights.

Rather than delivering an abstract political address, Ezzeddine anchored her argument in personal testimony and the core principles of medical practice. Citing Black liberation activist Assata Shakur, she emphasized that dehumanization is a precondition for violence, noting that people affected by war in the Middle East are too often reduced to statistics or political talking points instead of being recognized as full human beings with their own dreams, families, and aspirations. “Lives no less full, no less sacred, and no less worthy than their own,” she said of those caught in the conflict.

For Ezzeddine, medicine cannot be separated from the political structures that determine who gets access to safety, shelter, clean water, and healthcare. “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing but medicine on a large scale,” she explained. “Our work does not begin and end at the bedside. A patient’s health is shaped by whether they have housing, clean water, food, safety, freedom of movement, and access to a hospital that has not been bombed or defunded. So when political decisions determine who is allowed to live with dignity and who is denied the basic conditions of survival, doctors cannot pretend medicine and politics are separate.”

She also challenged the hypocrisy she sees embedded in modern medical education: while students are routinely taught to recognize structural violence, health equity, and the social determinants of health, those very principles are often abandoned when the lives at stake are politically inconvenient for institutional power holders. That contradiction has left countless students and faculty across the U.S. disillusioned since the start of the Gaza war, as universities navigate donor pressure, political backlash, and internal divisions over how to address the conflict.

When asked about the personal and professional risks of speaking out, Ezzeddine situated her choice within a long history of dissident activists whose moral stances were once condemned before being widely celebrated, including Malcolm X, Assata Shakur, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. “Moral clarity is often most costly before it becomes widely accepted,” she said, echoing activist and thinker Audre Lorde’s famous declaration: “Your silence will not protect you.”

Beyond rhetoric, Ezzeddine has turned the attention drawn by her speech into tangible action. She launched a GoFundMe campaign to provide urgent essentials – including baby formula, diapers, medical supplies, mattresses, and blankets – to pregnant people, newborns, and displaced families in southern Lebanon. What began as a speech has already grown into a community-led response, with Ezzeddine noting that many people in the U.S. are hungry for concrete ways to support those affected by the conflict. Longer term, she plans to build a formal grassroots organization that meets emergency needs in Lebanon while creating pathways for more people from marginalized conflict-affected communities to enter elite institutions like Harvard and enter positions of power. “Because we need more of us in these rooms,” she said.

Ezzeddine’s speech did not resolve the deep contradictions she laid bare. Harvard remains an elite institution embedded in existing power structures, U.S. academia remains a deeply contested terrain over Palestine, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and southern Lebanon continues unabated. But her address cut through the comfortable ritual of graduation to demand that medical professionals live up to the ethical principles they claim to uphold. At its core, her message rejects the idea that medicine is separate from the systems that decide which lives are worthy of care – and in a moment where silence too often passes for neutrality, she chose to speak.

On Monday, two high-profile American political commentators, Cenk Uygur, founder of the progressive media outlet The Young Turks, and Hasan Piker, a prominent left-wing critic of U.S. and Israeli foreign policy, confirmed that the United Kingdom government had rejected their Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) applications and blocked their entry to the country. The decision has ignited a firestorm of debate across global social media, with critics accusing the British government of bowing to external pressure to suppress legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and undermining long-standing commitments to free expression.

Uygur and Piker had been scheduled to make multiple public appearances during their UK trip, including speaking slots at the newly launched SXSW London festival and a planned debate at the Oxford Union, one of the world’s most prestigious and historic collegiate debating societies. Piker, who has previously addressed the Oxford Union, used his 2025 speech to condemn U.S. military and diplomatic backing for Israel, arguing that mainstream Western media systematically manufactures public consent for Israeli policies that violate international law. Piker also confirmed he was set to hold private meetings with Zack Polanski, leader of the UK Green Party, and former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn during the visit, details first reported by the independent outlet Middle East Eye. In a YouTube explanation of the decision, Piker confirmed his ETA application had been formally denied.

Shortly after Piker’s announcement, Uygur took to social platform X to confirm his own entry ban, publicly stating that his longstanding criticism of the Israeli government was the clear motivation behind the Home Office’s ruling. “I’ve been banned for criticizing Israel,” Uygur wrote. “Are we free anymore?” Piker echoed Uygur’s claim, writing in a social post that the ban was “at the behest of israel,” adding that Western powers were betraying their own stated liberal values to accommodate what he called a “genocidal fascist foreign government.”

In an official statement provided to press outlets, the UK Home Office only confirmed that the pair’s ETAs had been cancelled “on the grounds that their presence in the UK may not be conducive to the public good.” The department added that entry decisions are “based solely on an assessment of the potential risk an individual may pose to UK society,” but declined to specify which comments or actions by Uygur and Piker formed the basis of the risk assessment.

The decision drew immediate criticism from across the UK political spectrum and from public figures across the globe. Green Party leader Polanski described the ban as a “grim decision” in a post on X, warning that the move signals a dangerous erosion of civil liberties under the current Keir Starmer administration. “People often talk about [the] dangerous road we’d go down under a Reform government – this is another clear warning we’re down there already,” Polanski wrote.

Even critics of the two commentators’ political views condemned the entry ban. American-Jewish political commentator Shabbos Kestenbaum, who was scheduled to debate Uygur on Piers Morgan Uncensored on the day the ban was announced, called the ruling “completely unfounded and must be reversed. Free speech must always be protected and allowed. Shame on Prime Minister Keir Starmer.” Conservative commentator Sohrab Ahmari, who has debated Uygur in the past and disagrees with nearly all his political positions, echoed that sentiment, writing on X: “But he’s no extremist or threat to public order — ridiculous to have to even type that — and I hope the UK government reconsiders.”

Dimi Reider, co-founder of Israeli independent magazine +972 Magazine and a longstanding domestic critic of the Israeli government, argued that the Starmer administration’s decision was setting a dangerous precedent for future authoritarian policy. “The Starmer government is creating the mechanisms, precedent and, worst of all, legitimacy for the authoritarian Reform government they keep warning us about. They’re paving the way,” Reider wrote.

Many social media users have highlighted what they call a blatant double standard in the UK’s entry policy, pointing out that Israeli President Isaac Herzog was not only permitted entry to the UK last September, but was personally welcomed by Starmer at 10 Downing Street. Herzog has been named in a UN Commission of Inquiry report as making statements that amount to direct and public incitement to commit genocide, stemming from comments he made after the October 7 2023 Hamas attacks, in which he claimed all Palestinians in Gaza were “unequivocally” responsible for the violence, rejecting distinctions between militant groups and civilian civilians.

Other users compared the ban on Uygur and Piker to previous UK entry restrictions on far-right and extremist figures, including 11 far-right activists barred from a Tommy Robinson-led rally in May, and American rapper Kanye West, who was blocked over repeated antisemitic comments including a song titled “Heil Hitler.” Critics of the ban were quick to distinguish these cases, noting that Uygur and Piker have never been accused of promoting targeted, racist hate speech against ethnic or religious minorities.

Both commentators have forcefully pushed back against unsubstantiated claims of antisemitism from pro-Israel supporters, rejecting the widespread conflation of anti-Zionism and criticism of the Israeli state with hatred of Jewish people. In a statement to Middle East Eye, Uygur explained: “No one should equate the actions of the Israeli government with Jewish people at large. For example, I don’t blame the British people for this decision, I blame the British government. If that statement were declared to be racist against Brits, that would be patently absurd. Banning me from the UK for criticizing the government of Israel is equally absurd. Israel often says they’re our special ally because they help defend Western civilization, this is the exact opposite – tearing down our freedoms to protect their country and their crimes against humanity.”

Piker has similarly explicitly condemned antisemitism on multiple occasions, including during his 2025 Oxford Union address, where he stated: “Antisemitism is a canary in the coal mine of fascism.” He criticized the long history of violence against Jewish people enabled by antisemitic propaganda, adding: “Valid criticisms against the state [of Israel] committing these atrocities and tying it back to Judaism is a cynical ploy to stop all manner of conversation.”

Prominent British media personality Piers Morgan, host of Piers Morgan Uncensored, also rejected the idea that the ban was justified, writing on X: “I only support banning people who advocate violence or who spew hateful bigotry against people based on their ethnicity/religion. Where has Cenk done that? His rage has been against the Israel govt and its policies. Free speech should protect that.”

Officials from SXSW London released a muted statement acknowledging the decision, noting that entry rulings are the exclusive purview of the Home Office. “SXSW London’s role is to convene a broad range of diverse voices and perspectives. We remain focused on delivering a programme this week fostering open dialogue and exchange of ideas,” the statement read. Oxford Union president Arwa Elrayess directly criticized the government’s decision and reaffirmed the society’s commitment to free expression. “To this day, we defend freedom of speech; the right for our invited speakers to express themselves, and to be challenged, irrespective of political viewpoint,” Elrayess told Middle East Eye, adding that the union is currently exploring virtual format options to allow Uygur and Piker to still participate in their scheduled events. “We will not allow this event to be shut down.”

As of publication, Middle East Eye has stated that it has reached out to the Home Office and Piker for additional comment, and no further response has been issued.

Thousands of pages of confidential documents tied to Peter Mandelson, the disgraced former Labour cabinet minister and UK ambassador to the U.S., have been made public, pulling back the curtain on bitter internal divides within Britain’s ruling Labour Party over the Israeli military campaign in Gaza and the recognition of a Palestinian state.

Mandelson, who was appointed to the ambassador post by Prime Minister Keir Starmer in 2024, was forced to step down from the role in September 2025 after reports of his long-standing personal ties to deceased convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein became public. It was the 1,000-plus page release of files related to Mandelson on Monday that has now revealed the intense behind-closed-doors clash between Mandelson and current UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting over Streeting’s sharp condemnation of Israeli actions in Gaza.

An independent analysis of the released files by Middle East Eye confirms that in July 2025, just two months before the UK government formally recognized Palestinian statehood, Streeting reached out to Mandelson directly to share his unvarnished views and seek input on the pending recognition decision. Streeting argued that recognizing Palestinian statehood was the correct course of action on both moral and political grounds, writing that Israel was openly committing war crimes in Gaza for the world to see. He added that Israel’s ruling leadership used rhetoric matching ethnic cleansing, and that he had spoken to British medical personnel deployed in Gaza who described systematic, deliberate brutality targeting civilian women and children.

Calling Israeli actions “rogue state behavior”, Streeting pushed for the UK to impose full state-level sanctions on Israel, writing that Israel should face consequences as an international pariah rather than only targeting a small number of extreme cabinet officials. These messages were originally released by Streeting himself earlier this year, and multiple anonymous Labour Party sources confirmed to Middle East Eye that the leak was intentionally orchestrated by Streeting to consolidate grassroots support ahead of a potential future leadership bid and increase political pressure on Starmer.

Within days of receiving Streeting’s message, Mandelson launched a scathing personal attack on the Health Secretary in private text exchanges with Pat McFadden, the UK’s current Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. Mandelson described Streeting’s message as “a wild long hysterical message” and told McFadden he had pushed back against Streeting’s claims, adding that the comments reflected poorly on Streeting’s political maturity. McFadden responded by confirming Streeting was aggressively pushing his views on the issue across WhatsApp groups for sitting Labour MPs.

Four days after that exchange, Mandelson shared a post from the U.S. State Department on X with McFadden, noting that the U.S. had rejected the upcoming UN two-state solution conference that the UK planned to attend. McFadden replied that Streeting had already circulated a set of videos and a redacted memo to the entire cabinet ahead of the conference, prompting Mandelson to dismiss the action as “pathetic” and joke that Streeting was “experiencing an early midlife crisis.”

While large portions of the released files remain redacted, the texts offer rare insight into the internal deliberations of senior British cabinet ministers in the months leading up to the UK’s formal recognition of Palestinian statehood. In a July 19 exchange, McFadden described the humanitarian situation in Gaza as heavily redacted, and added that Starmer was not inclined to support symbolic political gestures but may have no other option, suggesting that the scale of humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza left the government with little choice but to move forward with recognition.

The files also confirm that former UK Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair remained actively engaged with current cabinet ministers throughout the decision-making process. Blair had been a key figure in former U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial Gaza Board of Peace initiative the previous year. When Mandelson asked McFadden if he had consulted Blair on Gaza, McFadden confirmed they had spoken, noting that Blair was focused on long-term solutions, including cooperation with Arab states and reform of the Palestinian Authority. Mandelson, who has long backed a two-state solution dating back to the 1970s, responded that if the party did not move carefully, the decades-long push for a two-state solution would stall entirely, recounting how previous attempts at a final agreement had collapsed due to spoilers on both sides over the past 50 years.

Earlier this year, former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn publicly released a letter he sent to Streeting, accusing Streeting of a “shameful failure” to resign from the Starmer cabinet despite his private condemnation of Israeli war crimes. In the letter, Corbyn argued that if the UK government acknowledges Israel is committing war crimes, any continued military or political support for the country amounts to the UK knowingly aiding and abetting those violations of international law.

To date, the Starmer government has only imposed sanctions on far-right Israeli cabinet ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, rejecting widespread calls to sanction the state of Israel itself. While diplomatic relations between the UK and Israel have grown strained under Labour, with the UK imposing a partial arms embargo on Israel, the Starmer government has maintained military cooperation with Israel throughout its ongoing military campaign in Gaza that has been widely described as genocide. As recently as March 2025, just months before Streeting sent his private messages, Starmer walked back comments from then-Foreign Secretary David Lammy that confirmed Israel had committed a breach of international law in Gaza.