Ezra Levant and Manny Montenegrino expose CBC and Trudeau’s delayed, contradictory response to the July 25 Toronto ISIS-linked shooting—10-year-old and 18-year-old victims died, yet police took a full day to name Faisal Hussain, later contradicted by leaks. A fake family letter, penned by Mohamed Hashim (U.S.-linked Islamist activist), was released without disclosure, humanizing the shooter as "humble" and "polite." Trudeau, silent during the attack but quick to condemn a January hijab hoax, ignored terrorism concerns while pushing mental illness narratives. The episode ties this suppression to broader trends of avoiding hard truths about extremism, contrasting with Israel’s recent nation-state law balancing Jewish identity with democratic protections—seen as a model for cultural resilience over relativist multiculturalism. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, the Islamic State Terrorist Group claims responsibility for the Toronto shooting spree.
I'll tell you what the CBC and Justin Trudeau have to say.
It's July 25th and you're watching the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
You come here once a year with a sign, and you feel morally superior.
The only thing I have to say to the government for why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
This morning, just after 5 a.m. Eastern Time, the Islamic State terrorist group claimed responsibility for the mass shooting in Toronto.
A terrorist attack that left a 10-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman dead, and more than a dozen others wounded.
Horrific attack.
The announcement from the terrorist group came in Arabic, of course, from the semi-official news agency for the Islamic State called Amak.
In English, they said that the murderer, Faisal Hussain, was, quote, a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the attack in response to calls to target the citizens of coalition countries.
That's the language the ISIS uses when someone was inspired by them, as in got their information from them on how to do it, studied the Islamic State's ideas online, planned the attack themselves, but did it in the name of the Islamic State, not directed by them.
That's different from the more spectacular terrorist attacks, such as the military SAL operation that ISIS did in Paris a few years back.
Teams of ISIS terrorists slaughtered dozens of people working together as a unit.
This, what we see in Toronto, is more in the style of the ISIS terrorist attack on Parliament Hill a few years ago, when one person murdered Corporal Nathan Cirrillo, who was standing at the National Memorial in Ottawa and then burst into parliament himself.
Here's the Reuters' announcement of today's Islamic State Declaration.
Now, since then, news of this terrorist claim has been published around the world, from India to Israel to America and the UK, everywhere, China even.
I mean, it's huge news, obviously.
Now, it might not be true, their claim.
They might be lying.
They're willing to kill you.
They'll probably lie to you too, for propaganda reasons.
But historically, the Islamic State tends to be proven accurate about their claims of what they've done.
I mean, I don't know.
Rukmini Kalamaki, she's a New York Times expert on the Islamic State who has interviewed ISIS terrorists, including ones who have returned to Canada unprosecuted by Canadian police.
She weighed in on the ISIS statement this morning.
Here's her key comment, I think.
She said, as a reporter studying this attack, what I want to know is what did police find on his phone and on his laptop?
Specifically, did he have Telegram, the group's preferred messaging app?
Who, if anyone, was he talking to?
Is there evidence of him consuming ISIS propaganda?
Those are really good questions, don't you think?
But not the kind of questions we've been seeing so far from most Canadian news media.
I'll get to the Canadian news media's focus in a moment.
But in fact, Canadian police have been very tight-lipped about things.
First, delaying releasing the identity of the murderer for a full day after they knew it.
And then even as the days go by, there have been contradictory reports from the police, but all by way of leaks or off-the-record gossip, nothing official.
Here's a story in Global News where one police leaker says they had, in fact, detained the murderer twice in the past for mental health reasons.
Now, what does that even mean?
Does that mean they arrested him for being crazy?
Or just they used the powers of the law under the Mental Health Act to pick him up for doing other things to detain him for a bit.
We don't know.
It's just gossip, right?
Here's another story referring to other police leaks.
This is from CBS in the United States.
They say that Faisal Hussain had visited Pakistan and Afghanistan, places where Muslim terrorism is rampant.
Joe Warmington broke the story as well on Monday, same story.
So is that true?
Again, that's an off-the-correct leak.
Here's a New York Post story, also based on leaks, that claims Hussain was really into Batman.
My point is, information has been turned off by the official police spokesman who are relying on gossip.
Don't you think that's odd?
Even more odd, Justin Trudeau, the prime minister, he's on vacation.
He's been on vacation for days.
The mass shooting, even if it's not in the end a terrorist attack, it happened on Sunday night.
It's now Wednesday night.
At the time I'm recording this video commentary, Trudeau has not yet bothered to break away from, I don't know, building sandcastles or whatever he's doing to even speak to reporters, let alone fly back to Toronto to comfort the victims.
I recall earlier this year, I think it was in January, when a young woman, a young Muslim girl, just 11, lied.
She said a Chinese man approached her on the street and cut off her hijab with scissors.
Now, that's something the police quickly revealed to be a hoax.
But Trudeau and half the Liberal cabinet made a special point of weighing in on this hijab hoax and the Islamophobia they said was rampant.
I say again, it was just a hoax.
But today, we have two beautiful young women who were murdered by a Muslim man, perhaps a terrorist, maybe not.
And not a peep about terrorism, not a word about ISIS and no consolation visited by Trudeau, not enough for him to break away from his vacation.
And at least at the moment I'm saying this, silence from the state broadcaster too.
Why?
Again, I don't necessarily believe when ISIS says something, they're into propaganda, but surely a terrorist-style attack in Toronto by a Muslim man, and then the world's most menacing Muslim terrorist group claims credit for it, says he was inspired by them, surely that's got to be news?
Well, no, not when it's against the narrative that this is just a mental illness.
No, there's no Muslim terrorism here.
I mentioned that yesterday, that the official narrative pushed out relentlessly by the mainstream media, especially the CBC, was that the murderer was not a terrorist.
No, don't be so racist.
He was just mentally ill.
Had been for a long time.
So leave it there, people.
Except it was really odd.
That letter, I just scrolled by very quickly.
It was written in the style of a professional PR agency, not in the voice of senior citizen Muslim migrants from Pakistan who don't speak English well.
The letter wasn't actually signed.
No one at the CBC said where they got it from.
No one even said the names of the family members that allegedly wrote it or signed it.
No one said how that came into the CBC's possession.
So weird.
No answers, very opaque.
And as I mentioned yesterday, it perfectly coincided with the moment the police announced the name of the Muslim terrorist, Faisal Hussain.
So the timing was choreographed.
Very strange.
Then last night, the truth came out, and it wasn't written by the family.
That letter wasn't written by the family.
The CBC said it was, but it wasn't.
It was written by this man, Mohamed Hashim.
According to Hashim's own biography, he's a political activist of the left, including working with the Islamist lobby group called the NCCM, the National Council of Canadian Muslims.
They used to be called CARECAM, the Canadian branch of CARE, the Council of American Islamic Relations.
It's a U.S. group that a U.S. court has linked to the Muslim Brotherhood and to the Hamas terrorist group.
So this guy who wrote the PR letter for the family, he's a real operator, but all of that background was kept secret from viewers.
The CBC actually colluded with him, an Islamist lobbyist, and colluded with the murderer's family.
The very fact that he was somehow tipped off before the rest of the public was.
And he had a chance to work with the murderer's family and with the CBC to set the whole thing up is shocking and bizarre.
Imagine that, giving a head start to the murderer's family.
But look, not really.
This is Justin Trudeau, and this is Justin Trudeau's CBC.
It's his state broadcaster.
And it's not weirder that they're claiming a Muslim murderer merely had mental issues and tailoring their coverage.
That's no weirder when you think about it than the fact that they ignored that the ISIS claim.
You know, they ignored it as long as they could, as hard as they could.
I mentioned yesterday that all sorts of media were attacking me and the rebel simply for asking questions.
They attacked Joe Warmington too, and our friend David Menzies and Anthony Fury, who wrote the expose on that Mohammed Hashem and the Sun.
Our friend David Menzies was talking to Torontonians about what they thought, just gentle questions, very consoling questions.
And he just mentioned a U.S. report about ISIS and one leftist activist teacher union type who overheard David on the street came over and just went nuts.
Here, just watch for a moment.
You prefer a communist society?
I prefer socialist society.
Yes, I do.
Like in Venezuela, perhaps?
No.
North Korea?
Oh my God, really?
Cuba?
Wow, wow.
I'm naming all the socialists.
You're descending into your own hell right now.
Listen.
Well, these are hell holes.
I agree with you.
Hell holes.
Now you're quoting Trump.
Lovely.
That was perfect.
Perfect.
He did a different kind of hole.
Quoting Trump is the best thing you could have ever done for yourself.
Way to go.
That was priceless.
Now you're done here.
Way to go.
I'm done here.
It's priceless.
He is now done here.
You don't care what ISIS is doing in the world right now?
No, I actually don't.
What is wrong with this world is that we don't love and we don't talk to each other.
We don't form human relationships anymore.
That is wrong with this world.
It's not about your freaking fascist agenda in your mind.
Fascist.
Fascist.
I'm going to say the word.
Just like you quoted Trump, Trump is a fascist.
Quote me on that.
Quote me on that.
Okay?
Ford, people that elected Ford are people that are demented, that have absolutely no social.
Really?
He won a supermajority government.
Demented.
Most of the province is demented then?
Do you not know anything about social reform?
Do you not know anything about representative governments?
I have two degrees in political science, man.
Don't even try to challenge me.
That was weird, but the weirdest part was when she was screaming at David that he was racist for even mentioning that ISIS might be involved.
He was quoting a U.S. news source, and she was racist, racist.
It was really weird.
You can watch that whole thing.
I recommend you find it on our YouTube page.
It's just really weird.
Anyways, right before she injected herself into David's conversation, he was talking to this guy.
CBS in the U.S. was reporting that this person had visited ISIS websites.
He had pledged his support to ISIS.
He may have visited Pakistan and Afghanistan.
I'm just wondering, do you think there could be a terrorism link to what happened?
Yes, yes, I don't know what to say, but yeah.
If that is the case, though, if there is terrorism, why are the authorities so reluctant to call it terrorism?
I don't know.
That's just awful.
That's just awful.
You can see the crazy lady.
She was just about to pounce.
Anyways, I think that guy's right.
He's sad about Toronto, sad about what's happening.
He's worried.
He doesn't know if it was ISIS or not.
How would he know?
And remember, that was recorded before ISIS publicly claimed responsibility this morning.
So the CBC and the government are telling him one thing, but his gut is telling him another.
And now ISIS is telling him something else.
That claim of mental illness.
Really?
If you're depressed, and many people are depressed, does that make you take a gun and mow down people on the street?
The Globe and Mail reports this, this is interesting.
They say that a Sikh man walked by the murderer on the street.
And the murderer said to him, don't worry, I won't kill you.
What did he mean by that?
Why did he say that to the Sikh man?
Was he only killing Christians or white people?
Who knows?
But it's out there.
It's a fact.
Here's a criminal lawyer who actually managed to speak some truth about this on live TV in Toronto.
They didn't know he was going to say this, so they couldn't cut him off, could they?
Here, take a listen.
...press release that comes out from the family that says there's nothing to see here.
Mental health issues comes out at the very moment that the young man's name is released.
I have questions about that.
Sure, there might be mental health issues.
Sure, the police might have come before.
But to end this conversation and to be told by certain very prolific people in this country that we should ask no questions about his background, no questions about his belief system, no questions about what he's reading or viewing online or what his thoughts might be, to me is the most elite anti-intellectual project I've ever seen when this isn't some random act of violence that resulted in nobody being hurt.
15, 16 people were mowed down, and as the police are doing their job, we need to find out what the evidence is.
But the mental health aspect, which is constantly used for these kinds of shootings and attacks, is way overplayed.
And I can tell you, if he was still alive, he would not be getting a get out of jail free card because of the mental health issue.
Yeah, look, there's enough truth poking through the fog of lies here.
I mean, let's be honest.
This was terrorism.
We all know it.
We all know it.
I think the reason why that crazy teacher was so crazy is because she knew it, but she didn't like the fact someone was saying it.
I don't think she would have been that revved up if she didn't know it was true.
And she was just trying, fighting against her own disillusionment.
All the irregularities here, delaying publishing the terrorist name, publishing a PR document as if it's a real letter from the family, running with the mental health excuse without any corroboration or any proof or any reasonableness, downplaying the ISIS claim, even as every single major newspaper in the world reported it.
I tell you what, I don't think, I don't think they're getting away with it.
I think normal people notice what's going on.
They know this was a terrorist attack.
Questions About the Toronto Shooting00:15:06
Don't think people don't see the 5P professionals.
Politicians, the press, police, prosecutors, and professors, don't think we don't notice that they're all obscuring the truth together, not clarifying things, but they're all telling us to mind our own business, not to worry our pretty little heads about things.
A teacher enraged that someone would dare ask a question.
A prime minister in hiding, a state broadcaster colluding with an Islamic activist.
We notice it, we see it, at least those of us paying attention.
They want to shut us up.
They want to shut us down.
But it's moments like this where an independent media like the Rebel is most valuable.
Don't you think?
And to that school teacher, you may love socialist countries like Venezuela and the censorship of pesky journalists they have, but sister, we're not Venezuela yet.
Not yet.
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, one of our most popular guests is my friend Manny Montenegrino, a former senior partner of a national law firm and an advisor to former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
He now has his own think tank called Think Sharp, where he's the president, and he's one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter because he brings a lawyer's mind to the BS of political and public life.
And I'm delighted to have Manny back on now to talk about the Toronto shooting.
Manny, welcome back to the show.
Thank you, Ezra.
Glad to be here.
Well, you know what I like is you approach the news like a lawyer in cross-examination.
You look at the words, you look at people wiggling around, and you ask clear questions.
And I'm a fan, Manny, and I tell you, your segments on trade and the NAFTA battle have gone viral.
I'd like to bring in your expertise on the Toronto shooting.
Of course, it's a tragedy.
An 18-year-old girl and a 10-year-old girl murdered, more than a dozen others injured.
And we don't want to rush to judgment before the facts are out.
But what's been frustrating to me, Manny, is how the media seems to want to stop the facts from coming out, bury the facts, spin the facts, because it looks like it was an ISIS terrorist attack.
That's what it looks like as of when we're taping this.
You know, ISIS has claimed responsibility.
The man's name is Faisal Hussein, known to police, etc.
I'd like your thoughts on this whole story, Manny.
Well, Ezra, I spent 32 years cross-examining experts.
And to do so, you always have to start with the premise: I don't accept what you are going to say.
I don't accept your expertise.
And you've got to learn to question.
And that's all I do on Twitter.
It started with me the very first thing, and I thought it was very concerning to me.
Why is the new minister, Bill Blair, in Toronto?
Why was he sent there?
It is not a border issue, and it is not an organized crime issue.
That's his new portfolio.
And I found it very odd that Bill Blair was there holding court with the mayor and the chief of police of Toronto.
Now, if you recall, Bill Blair was the ex-chief of police.
Why was he there?
And that was a bit, so that started the questioning.
And then I questioned, why did it take 24 hours to name the perpetrator, the killer?
Why did the press release come at the same time as naming the murderer?
You're talking about the press release that was purported from the family, but it turns out it was written by a Muslim political activist affiliated with CareCan.
And that was kept hidden too, who actually wrote the thing.
There were a lot of curious details.
Sorry, I interrupted you, Manny.
Keep going.
Yeah, no.
So when those facts started popping up, it just seemed irregular.
It seemed improper.
So then you start looking for more and asking more questions.
And the more questions I asked on Twitter, the more I became concerned.
I must say, I did think that it looked like it was orchestrated.
There were too many hands involved in not having the right story out.
That got me concerned.
And so I asked more questions.
And then as I asked questions, a day or so later, we find out the truth, that the family is connected to a lot of violence.
The brother is in fact, his brother is in fact, was a drug dealer, knows a good friend that has access to guns.
So there's a lot of information that, of course, wasn't in the press release and of course wasn't given to the public.
So it got me concerned.
And then you ask yourself, what is the overarching point?
Why is this happening?
And there has to be a broader sense of, I mean, people don't conspire to do things unless there's a broader purpose.
And the broader purpose is to give a message.
And I think that's what concerns me.
And the message is be damned to the innocent victims that were killed.
Be damned to the people that were injured.
Be damned to the truth.
Let's get a message out there to keep people happy.
And that's when I became very concerned.
Yeah.
You know, I think the facts are coming out slowly but surely.
The fact that there was sort of a pause on releasing the key detail, the identity of the killer, these days, when I see that, my spider senses start tingling.
I'm thinking, if the name is released quickly, we know what the facts are.
But if it is known to police and withheld, these days it makes me think perhaps a jihadist, they don't want a Muslim-sounding name to be released because politicians are trying to tamp this down.
And that seems to be what's going on here.
The fact that, like you mentioned, contemporaneously, the same moment the name was released, a pre-written, well-sculpted, you know, document was presented by a Muslim activist, but the fact it was written by him was kept a secret.
There's just too many shenanigans.
Well, think of the time it took.
I mean, first of all, the killer was known to the police.
He's had two interactions with the police.
The killer's brother is known to the police.
So at the moment of the time that the killer was shot and they knew who he was, why the delay?
And then you have to ask yourself, to craft a document like that, and I have crafted documents like that, it takes, first of all, you've got to contact the individual, the family or someone.
And I'd like to know who contacted the individual.
Certainly not the family.
The family doesn't have the presence of mind when their son has committed murders to sit there and say, oh, I'm going to call an expert.
Someone called that expert for them.
Who called them?
Because I know, I mean, I think of my time as an immigrant.
I came from Italy.
My father, my mother, they could hardly even know who anybody was of any expertise.
So who called him?
How long did it take him to get there?
How long did he produce?
Did he even talk to the parents?
Did he even know?
So that must have taken hours to produce.
And that was what the delay was.
And why were the government officials cooperating with the delay to get this press release out?
Because they knew who the murderer was.
They certainly knew the family.
But there was this conspiracy of creating a narrative that, in my view, and Ezra, here's what upsets me the most.
I mean, I've seen politics and I've seen the worst of worst and the best of best.
But there's this beautiful 10-year-old girl that was killed.
And, you know, I have a beautiful daughter, and I remember when she was 10 years old.
And to have these people forget that victim to drive a narrative breaks my heart.
And I'm very upset and I'm distraught with what's happened.
I would want to know every detail as to why the delay, who caused the delay, how would it work out?
But I don't think we're going to get that information.
Yeah.
And not only have those real victims been forgotten, but the CBC in particular and the Toronto Stars tried to rebrand the terrorist as, you know, they tried to humanize him.
The CBC literally said he had a million dollar smile.
The CBC said he was humble and polite.
That doesn't look to be true.
I mean, the fact that...
Well, I mean, that all doesn't matter.
I mean, everyone has a positive human side.
And this person had an evil side.
I'm not interested in that person.
I'm not interested.
I'm only interested in that innocent daughter.
Ezra, the story that broke my heart.
And I don't know if your followers have read it.
But the father and daughter were having an ice cream cones.
The father was shot and the daughter was shot.
The daughter was sent to the children's hospital.
The father went to another hospital in Toronto, and I'm not familiar.
It might be St. Mike's.
They were nowhere near it.
They told the father that the daughter was going to die.
The ambulance took him from his spot at his hospital to his daughter's to hold her hand while she died.
That is Ezra.
There is nothing more vile and sinister to have now perpetrated this false narrative over this poor family.
I tell you, there is nothing that breaks my heart more when I heard that story.
And she is forgotten, he's forgotten.
And the only interest of what I'll call the liberal biased media and the government officials is to drive this narrative, this Muslim narrative, which is trampling on this poor father and daughter's lives.
It just breaks my heart.
Yeah.
You know, I think this is a national story.
In some ways, if the claim by ISIS that this was an ISIS terrorist is true, and we've seen police reports that Faisal Hussein's online activities came to their attention, so that seems to lend some credence to it.
ISIS is not saying they directed it.
ISIS is saying he was inspired by them because they really want do-it-yourself people who watch the videos and get revved up.
And so they're not claiming they ordered the hit from Iraq or Syria, but they're saying he was inspired by them.
That rings true.
And yet our prime minister is still on vacation in BC Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
Every day, if you look at his official calendar on his website, it says personal day.
He hasn't broken off his Sandcastle vacation to even make a public appearance, a public statement.
If this were George W. Bush and Hurricane Katrina, it could be almost a career end or I haven't seen a single mainstream journalist, even mainstream media, CBC, Toronto Star journalist, even mention the Trudeau's wall.
Yeah, no, I don't judge Justin Trudeau with George W. Bush.
I judge him for himself.
When there was that false, fake hijab story, and it was a minor incident, if it were true and it was proven to be false, Justin Trudeau tweeted.
Not only did he tweet within hours, but he tweeted the victim's name, who she was not a victim.
It was all perpetrated.
It was all fraud.
Here we have another innocent girl, 10 years old, killed, and no tweet, no heartfelt discussion about her on holidays, ignoring.
So I judge Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister Trudeau, to his own standards.
If he did not do that tweet with that fake hijab story and move within hours, and here days have gone by and he has done nothing.
I judge him to his action, much like we do with, watch what we did with his groping incident.
He speaks virtuous about his feminism, about the Me Too movement.
But when it comes to himself, he doesn't act.
And that's the same.
So we've got a pattern here.
And the pattern is in almost everything he does.
Manny, I want to ask you one last question about journalism.
We've been trying our best to cover this story at the Rebel.
I mean, we're a small operation.
We don't have hundreds of staff like the CBC, but I think we'd be doing a good job.
A great job.
Well, thank you.
David Menzies has been great.
But we're a small outfit.
The Toronto Sun has been very good.
Anthony Fury broke the news about who actually wrote that family's letter.
Joe Warmington broke the news about Faisal Hussain's links to ISIS and a possible trip to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
So let me give full credit to the Toronto Sun.
But so much of the rest of the media, Manny, has not only been a part of this narrative building operation, but they've actually criticized Anthony Fury, Sue Ann Levy, and Joe Warmington of the Sun.
And of course, they hate us at the Rebel.
So what's strange to me, Manny, I mean, I'm not looking for praise from my competitors and rivals, but for them to focus their rage at us and at Joe Warmington for trying to cover the news, that to me gives away their game.
These journalists have more rage for us than they do for the terrorist.
Exactly.
And what I'm surprised about is, why am I not being contacted by any other media?
I have listed really reasonable questions that really put the issue to test right from the beginning.
I'm not contacted.
I've been proven right on the hijab story, the false hijab, and I've been proven right on this.
I ask detailed questions.
I get attacked for asking the questions.
This is a country where you're supposed to be asking questions.
You're supposed to be, and I'm saddened that the media itself is, they want a narrative.
Everyone moves to the same narrative, and investigative journalism is dead.
The only place you see it maybe is on Twitter, and certainly with you.
I mean, I mean, and what do you do with someone who investigates?
You try to diminish him.
You try to destroy them.
That's what happens to me.
I ask simple questions, and the liberals attack me.
I'm saying, I'm just asking a question.
And the same happens with you.
And Ezra, it's very clear.
If you can knock Ezra and Rebel out, then there is a one voice, one non-investigative journalism in Canada.
Israel's Cultural Reassertion00:11:54
And we become much closer to those countries we deplore, like North Korea and Russia.
We need to have people asking questions from all sides.
And I'm dismayed that the media doesn't even ask the questions.
You know, like the question as to who created the press release, the family press release, how long did it take?
Who penned it?
Who called the person?
Was it a media person that called the person that did the press release?
That's important to know.
If the family didn't even know who he was, that's an alarming fact.
Why don't we know that?
Yeah, yeah, we still don't know that.
Well, Manny, it's great to talk with you.
I hope we keep in touch, and I thank you for asking these questions.
You're always welcome on The Rebel.
I appreciate your who, what, why, where, when approach.
That's journalism.
And we're delighted to have you.
Thank you, my friend.
Thank you.
All right, there you have it.
Our friend Manny Montenegrino.
He's the president and CEO of Think Sharp.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Welcome back.
Well, there's a lot of talk these days about ethnic nationalism, and it's generally criticized as being racist, although others would say it's just letting Italy be Italian and France be French.
It gets a little trickier, I suppose, with countries like Canada and the United States, but I don't think it ought to be.
I think there is a Canadian identity, and it's not rooted in skin color or even religion, even though we have a French and English and Catholic and Protestant past.
It's confusing, but one country seems to be doing it rather well, and that's Israel.
And in fact, just this month, they passed a new basic law, sort of a plain-spoken constitution called Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
It's been such a template that even other ethnic states like Hungary have started to look to Israel as a way of keeping their identity.
And joining us now via Skype from Israel is David Hazzoni.
He's the executive director of the Israel Innovation Fund.
David, great to meet you.
Thank you so much for having me.
How can you combine ethnic nationalism and democracy?
How can those two things coexist?
Well, first of all, it's important to know that they have coexisted in many countries for many, many, many years and decades and even centuries.
Across Europe, you've got, I mean, when Europe was broken up in the 17th century, it was broken into states that would represent each one a different people with its own language, with its own flag, with its own history.
And really, all across Europe, when the democratization came through, that was maintained as crucial to distinguish one country from another.
Every single country has its own special needs, its own special declarations, its own special relationship with its history and its past.
And democracy, which can live fully in coexistence, is about giving individuals, citizens, the rights that democratic nations have, the right to free speech, the right to property, the right to assembly, and all the rights that we know about.
America was a little unusual, actually, because it was founded based on an idea rather than based on a single cultural ethnic heritage.
But this isn't the case across most of Europe.
And Israel was founded largely on a kind of a European democratic model.
The idea of Israel was to create a home for the Jewish people, not just a refuge for persecuted Jews to escape, but a place where the aspirations of this country could come to fulfillment.
And at the same time, they wanted to be a democracy.
So they extended many rights, equal rights to non-Jewish and Jewish citizens.
What happened was, over the course of many decades, Israel didn't have a constitution.
So they passed a series of basic laws.
And in the 1990s and early 2000s, they passed laws that ratified the democratic liberal freedoms of a democracy, of equality, of rights for Jews and non-Jews alike.
What they didn't do at the time, and this was a big controversy, was to similarly pass a basic law that codified its status as the Jewish state.
What exactly does that mean?
How do the Jews express themselves and their national self-determination through this country?
So that's what this law was about.
And a lot of the attacks on it were really very misguided because they lacked this kind of historical context.
Equality and freedom and rights are already ratified, are already expressed within the basic laws.
This one was kind of a corrective force to also rebalance it to show that Israel is a Jewish state.
And what does that mean?
And it means that Hebrew is its national language.
It means that Jerusalem is its unified capital.
It means that there's a special relationship with Jews around the world.
The Hebrew calendar is what the national holidays are based on, and so on and so forth.
You know, I'm reading the basic law, and it is quite plainly worded.
It's not a technical document like the Canadian Constitution is exceedingly technical.
The American Constitution is really an operational document in many ways.
Let me read, for example, Jerusalem, Complete and United, is the capital of Israel.
So it's a symbolic statement.
It's a nationalist statement.
It's not really, I mean, I suppose it's a clear fact.
Let me read another one here about language.
The state's language is Hebrew, but B, the Arabic language has a special status in the state regulating the use of Arabic in state institutions or by them will be set in law.
And C, this clause does not harm the status given to the Arabic language before the law came into effect.
So there's clear protections for minorities.
It makes me think of Quebec, because Quebec, I think, is the most ethnic nationalist place in Canada.
They have a common history, a common culture, a common language, in many cases, a common religion, Catholicism.
And they want to preserve that because it's dissipating.
And English has some status and it's regulated.
But I don't know.
I find it very interesting that Israel is leading the way on ethnic nationalism, but in a way that respects minorities.
I'm excited by it.
I think other countries should copy it.
Listen, I think a lot of the great majority of the opposition to this law was politically motivated rather than based on its substance.
Okay, it came from all the usual corners of all the people who want to attack Israel, both, and not just Israel, but specifically the fact that it's more of a right-wing nationalist government means that within Israel, everybody on the left started screaming and in the opposition that is started screaming.
And that resulted in people all over the world who identify with that and who might not like this particular government similarly screaming.
But most of them hadn't even read the law.
And the law itself is really quite ordinary to anybody who's familiar with the history.
It protects the minorities.
Israel is a country like Canada that respects the not just individual rights, but also the rights of communities to have their own status and their own history.
And the one thing that is reserved just to the Jewish community and the Jewish people is the right to express itself nationally as its form of national self-determination.
And there isn't any country on earth that gives a small minority national self-determination.
That would be secession.
That would be tearing the country apart.
That would be giving them their own country.
And that's something that doesn't happen.
So I'm very impressed with this law.
I think this law captures in a way that isn't really politically partisan, but captures a consensus of what the Zionist movement was about.
The Zionist movement, in its origins, was about reestablishing Jewish national life through sovereignty, through building communities of Jews, what they call settlement, not settlements with an S at the end, and through culture.
And it's important to note that That Israel has managed to create its own really special, unique culture that is spreading out throughout the world.
And the work that I've been doing has been about introducing people to that.
And that's what the Israel Innovation Fund that I'm the executive director of.
It allows people to connect with Israel through non-political ways, such as planting vines and leading Israeli wineries and so on, and film and art and so forth.
And that's something that only could have happened in a Jewish state, not a state that was accepting all the, you know, redefining itself according to its minorities, but doing what every democracy does, which is in addition to providing rights to everybody, it also allows itself to pass in law the things that make that country unique.
Yeah.
And that's what we see here.
I think it's a great idea.
I think it's just a sign of self-respect and knowing yourself and believing in something, anything, rather than nothing.
I think it's a rebuke to open borders globalism.
I think it's a rebuke to relativist multiculturalism.
I want Poland to be Polish.
I want Hungary to be Hungarian.
I want Canada to be Canadian, and I want to stop the self-hate.
And the Jews, who I think too often are infected by self-doubt and even self-hatred, and there's a lot of self-loathing Jews.
There's a lot of anti-Israel Jews.
I think this is a refreshing thing.
And frankly, I think Canada, and I think even America, could learn from it to restate who they are and what they are, and whether it's based on ethnicity or religion or history.
I mean, you know, the old saying, if you stand for nothing, you'll fall for anything.
I'm pleased to see this.
David, give us a last word on this.
Do you think this will actually change anything specifically, or is this more just a cultural reassertion, more a symbolic way to say, hey, Israel, be proud of yourself?
So do you think this is a pep talk or do you think this is something substantive?
Look, I think that symbols are important.
So when you say that something is symbolic, it doesn't mean it's not going to have an outcome.
I think it affects the hearts and minds of every single Israeli and every single person who cares about what Israel is and where it's going.
This is a country that, in my view, you know, people love to say, oh, maybe Israel won't exist in 20 years or 50 years.
I think Israel has a better chance of being around 50 years from now than most of the countries of Europe because its people believe in themselves, they believe in their national vision, because its minorities see how much better their lives are living in democracy, having rights than what's going on through much of the Arab world,
because it's a country that's established itself and is secure both militarily, geopolitically, but also economically to the point where now its creative forces are being unleashed and its sense of self is being felt throughout across the world.
You know, now when I was a kid, nobody knew what Israelis were.
Today you see them on TV, you see them in culinary arts, you see them in music, you see them in architecture and design.
Growing Power of Israel00:03:51
And that's before you even begin to talk about high-tech and startup nation and all that stuff.
Israel is a growing power in the world.
And the most important part of that power is going to be cultural.
And as more and more people want to know what is so fascinating about this amazing little country.
Well, we've got to leave it there.
But David, what a fascinating talk.
And I just wish Canada had some of that self-confidence too.
It's great to meet you.
That's David Azzoni, Executive Director of the Israel Innovation Fund.
Great to have you with us.
Thank you so much for having you on the show.
Oh, my God.
All right.
Well, stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue yesterday about the terrorist shooting in Toronto.
Paul writes, it's pretty obvious why the media didn't name him.
It didn't fit the narrative.
Some man attacks a girl in hijab and they're all over it, even though the slightest investigation exposed it as a hoax.
When a Trudeau's returning ISIS pets starts gunning down people in John Torrey's Sanctuary City.
And we'll have to get our info elsewhere.
So now we see the media is on the side of the terrorists, as are the Trudeau liberals and the likes of Tory.
I agree, Paul.
And what bothers me is the collusion when you've got Bill Blair, the liberal cabinet minister, meeting with the Toronto Mayor and the Toronto Police Chief, and they're meeting in private and they're massaging things before they announce the story.
I don't like the fact that you've got a liberal cabinet minister and a political mayor of the city who are basically telling the cops, now, you be quiet now and don't you rev things up now and we're going to bury this now.
I'm certain that's what they were saying.
Otherwise, why did they delay releasing the name for a day?
Stephen writes, so now the CBC and CTV have all kinds of doctors on talking about mental illness all day, talking about anything except the two young girls killed and the 13 wounded.
How disgusting.
Oh, that is disgusting, but even worse is the CBC.
I told you that their writer Shanifa Hassan, Nasser, she said that the murderer had a million dollar smile.
That's what she published.
She published that he was polite and humble.
They were humanizing the murderer, and they've forgotten about the victims already.
Liza writes, why do apologists insist on defending the shooter and ignoring the victims lying dead?
Excuse me, but I am feeling a little hateful towards someone who came to Canada and then shot up 13 people on a crowded Toronto street on a summer night.
Don't tell me the guy was mentally ill.
Well, that's the thing.
So now that we know because of Anthony Fury's column in the Toronto Sun, that that letter was not written by the family.
It was written by an Islamist spin doctor.
How can we take any of it seriously?
We don't know any facts.
We know the opposite, actually.
We know that that letter was written by a spin doctor.
So how can the media still run with the mental illness story?
Well, the whole point is that is the distraction.
That is the placebo.
That is the excuse.
And that fake letter was good enough.
It was good enough to last one day to set the media narrative.
And I bet you most people, that's all they've heard.
Some folks, like that one guy that David interviewed on the street, I think in their gut they know something's wrong.
A guy named Faisal Hussain shoots more than a dozen people on the street.
ISIS takes credit for it.
They know something's up, which is exactly why the CBC put a cone of silence over it.
It's so weird as a Canadian that the best news coverage we're getting on this terrorist attack is from foreign media.