Qatar masquerades as a peace broker while bankrolling terror

If there was ever proof of the antisemitic double standard applied to the Jewish State, we saw it this week. Israel struck the senior leadership of Hamas in Doha — terrorists who have directed atrocities against Israelis for decades. The response was swift and predictable: a landslide of condemnations from world leaders, including our own here in Canada. As always, we parroted others, demonstrating that Canadian foreign policy today is built not on independent thought, but on running with the sheep.

Prime Minister Mark Carney issued a

statement

saying: “Canada condemns Israel’s strikes in Qatar — an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar’s sovereignty. Regardless of their objectives, such attacks pose a grave risk of escalating conflict throughout the region.”

This carefully worded admonition reveals not statesmanship, but hypocrisy. No, Qatar is not a pretend neutral state like Switzerland in the Second World War. It is a nation that has openly provided sanctuary and resources to Hamas leaders. Under international law, specifically

Article 51

of the United Nations Charter, a state attacked by terrorists has the inherent right to self-defence — even when those terrorists are being harboured by another state. This principle was the legal basis for NATO’s invocation of Article 5 after 9/11 and justified Canada’s participation in the war in Afghanistan, as well as the U.S. operation that killed Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil.

Where were the global condemnations when American forces entered Pakistan in the dead of night to eliminate bin Laden?

There were almost none.

Do you know why? Because the action was justified, necessary, and consistent with international law. But apparently, when Israel acts to defend itself — after its own “9/11” on October 7, 2023, when 1,200 people were massacred — the rules suddenly change. That day’s toll, proportional to population, was equivalent to the murder of 40,000 Americans. And yet Israel, unlike the United States, is vilified for daring to strike the terrorists behind the massacre.

This is where antisemitism reveals itself—not on the streets with slogans and placards, but at the highest levels of government. Our leaders have forgotten that Canada itself has designated Hamas a terrorist organization. They have also ignored our own democratic values. By defending Qatar, they are in effect shielding a regime that

Amnesty International

reports continues to discriminate against women, repress LGBT individuals, and jail citizens for their sexual orientation or gender expression.

Qatar pretends to be a global “good citizen,” hosting high-profile conferences, mediating conflicts, and purchasing prestige through universities and investments. The West has been blinded by Qatari wealth, unable or unwilling to see the truth: this is a state

funding Hamas,

sustaining its fortress of terror in Gaza, and sheltering its leaders in luxury hotels while Israeli families wait in anguish for the release of 48 hostages.

International law is unambiguous. States are

obligated

to prevent, suppress, and criminalize the harboring and financing of terrorists. Its actually prescribed

into Canadian law as well:

“Canada must act in concert with other nations in combating terrorism, including fully implementing United Nations and other international instruments relating to terrorism.” But instead of saying Canada will re-evaluate its relationship with Qatar, Foreign Minister Anita Anand has said the very opposite — that Canada

is re-evaluating its relationship with Israel. 

What truly unsettled the West was not the legality of Israel’s action, but its symbolism. By striking in Doha, Israel stripped Qatar of its carefully constructed image as a neutral mediator and exposed it as a state harboring terrorists. This was too much for Western governments to digest after years of financial relationships and diplomatic indulgence.

But Israel’s message was clear: Hamas leaders cannot hide in five-star hotels while their operatives butcher civilians. Like the Nazis who were hunted to the ends of the earth, Hamas leaders now understand they are hunted. Whether Israel’s intent was elimination or warning is irrelevant—the result was the same: the collapse of Hamas’ false sense of immunity.

Switzerland’s neutrality during World War II was exposed as self-serving and financially motivated. Qatar’s complicity will be as well. Pretending to mediate peace while funding terror is against international law and all moral standards.

Our leaders may have lost their way, but Israel has not. By taking decisive action, it reminded the world what it means to uphold international law based on precedent. It reminded the world that justice is not always polite, but it is always necessary.

Avi Abraham Benlolo is the CEO and Chairman of The Abraham Global Peace Initiative.

• Vivian Bercovici: Mark Carney has been seduced by terrorist-sponsoring Qatar
• ‘Palestine’ can’t just be ‘conjured up’: Douglas Murray blasts Mark Carney

Recent years have seen then-presidential candidate
Donald Trump
, Supreme Court Justice
Brett Kavanaugh
, and
members of Congress
targeted for assassination, Minnesota lawmaker
Melissa Hortman
and UnitedHealthcare CEO
Brian Thompson
murdered, and
destructive attacks on Tesla
dealerships and owners, among other politically motivated violence in the United States. But the killing of prominent conservative activist Charlie Kirk somehow seems more dangerous, because it is. 
 

Political candidates, judges, legislators, and even corporate CEOs and tech companies led by politically involved billionaires arguably wield power and make decisions that affect people’s lives. Even though we’re horrified by violence directed at them, we know the perpetrators and their supporters (such people unfortunately exist) imagine themselves striking at individuals and institutions who made themselves legitimate targets through their formal authority. That leaves most of us safe.
 

But Charlie Kirk’s whole role was to debate and persuade young people through his Turning Point USA organization. He was shot at Utah Valley University while speaking at a
Prove Me Wrong
event that allowed his opponents to challenge him and discuss differences of opinion. The only harm he could have done was by voicing his beliefs and, perhaps, changing some minds. That is, Kirk was almost certainly assassinated for no other reason than that his murderer disagreed with his ideas.
 

This crime has been a long time coming and it’s unlikely to be the last we’ll suffer. According to a
2024 brief
by Riley McCabe of the Center for Strategic & International Studies, in the U.S. “the number of domestic terrorist attacks and plots against government targets motivated by partisan political beliefs in the past five years is nearly triple the number of such incidents in the previous 25 years combined.” That’s bad enough and includes the
firebombing of the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion
, the wounding of Trump, the killing of Hortman, and many other incidents. 
 

But Kirk was the highest-profile private citizen who held no policymaking authority to be targeted for his political beliefs. In a bit over a decade he helped build a conservative organization that had chapters on over
850 college campuses
, counted its budget in tens of millions of dollars, and draws massive turnout to its events – about
3,000 students were present
when he was killed. But Kirk never cast a vote on a single piece of legislation or ruled on a case in court. His stature was built entirely through argument.
 

And that was enough for somebody to single him out for death.
 

Strictly speaking, we’ve seen warning signs before that some ultra-partisans consider speech with which they disagree reason enough for violence. During the presidential campaign last year, a
22-year-old Michigan man ran his all-terrain vehicle over an elderly man
who was posting a Trump sign in his front yard. The attacker later killed himself.
 

Months earlier the offices of the Center of the American Experiment and two other conservative organizations were
firebombed in Golden Valley, Minnesota
.
 

In March of this year, FBI Director Kash Patel
warned
of “the alarming rise in ‘Swatting’ incidents targeting media figures.” According to Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission,
most of the swatting victims were targeted
because of their conservative political beliefs.
 

Charlie Kirk marked an escalation of that sort of harassment for ideas both in his prominence and because his case proved lethal.
 

Over the years, political violence has targeted people and property associated with both the political left and the political right. More recently, researchers worked from the assumption that the right is more likely to turn to force than the left.
Polling
in April 2024 by PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist found that one in five “U.S. adults believe Americans may have to resort to violence to get their own country back on track.” That sentiment was held by 28 per cent of Republicans, 18 per cent of independents, and 12 per cent of Democrats, supporting the received wisdom. But a lot can change in a few months.
 

Since that poll, we’ve seen numerous violent incidents, an election that overturned control of the White House, and growing political frustration. Something seemed to shift in the American psyche.
 

Surveying attendees at progressive demonstrations in Washington, D.C., American University’s Professor Dana R. Fisher found a surprising number —
33 per cent of those at the People’s March in January
and
35 per cent at the Stand Up for Science rally in March
– thought “Americans may have to resort to violence in order to save our country.” She
commented
, “Left-leaning Americans participating in peaceful, legally permitted demonstrations are starting to believe that political violence will be necessary to save America.”
 

After the assassination of Brian Thompson, The Network Contagion Research Institute and the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab
reported
“widespread justification for lethal violence — including assassination — among younger, highly online, and ideologically left-aligned users.” The report warned, “online normalization of political violence may increasingly translate into offline action.”
 

Nobody has found evidence that the right has become less violent, but the assassination of Kirk is further evidence that the left is at least as prone to use force if not more so. 
 

After Kirk was murdered, Connecticut’s Young Democrats and Young Republicans put out a welcome
joint statement
decrying “all forms of political violence.” Other political figures have done something similar. But not everybody feels the same way.
 

At Fox News, Jesse Watters
cautioned
of Democrats, “They are at war with us … How much political violence are we going to tolerate.” 
 

His comments were an almost perfect mirror of Connecticut Democratic Senator Chris Murphy’s
comments
, posted a day before Kirk’s murder, that “we’re in a war right now to save this country. And so, you have to be willing to do whatever is necessary in order to save the country.”
 

But who is going to save us from the politicians, pundits and political fanatics willing to do what is necessary to “save the country”? May we all live long enough to see a world in which politics and government matter far less and nobody is willing to kill others to silence their voices.
 

National Post

• Michael Murphy: The left embraces the ‘assassination culture’ that Charlie Kirk warned about
• Geoff Russ: Charlie Kirk was a civilized man

It is entirely possible, of course, that organizers of Friday’s and Saturday’s Canada vs. Israel Davis Cup tennis matches in Halifax received very serious, very credible threats to safety at the event — 

which will carry on without fans in attendance

, Tennis Canada announced this week. The organization cited “escalating safety concerns,” “intelligence received from local authorities and national security agencies” and “disruptions witnessed at other recent events both in Canada and internationally,” 

all of which it said indicated a risk of significant disruption to this event

.

It needed to keep people safe, don’t you know. Safety first, second and third through 30th. It’s 2025, after all.

Anti-Israel types are crowing of their victory, claiming to have scooped up many available tickets and to have been planning to stage a protest inside the arena. (Organizers claim to have sold only 1,500 of 5,000 available on each of the two days.) Doesn’t look much like victory to me: All they get now is a refund.

But it’s certainly a loss for the pro-Israel side, and for the sports-as-unifier side. As ever in this country, simply ejecting protesters from an event or thoroughfare they might unlawfully be disrupting or blocking seems to have been considered an absolute last resort — somewhere beyond outright cancellation.

Indeed, especially given the pathetic ticket sales, it’s very easy to imagine this outcome being primarily the result of everyone involved treading the now well-worn path of perceived least resistance, rather than any genuine safety concerns. (The province of Nova Scotia even chipped in $100,000 to fund the event, so organizers mightn’t be out all that much cash — though the city is asking for its $50,000 donation back now that it’s not even a spectator event.)

Nova Scotia authorities don’t seem to be taking the concerns very seriously. Premier Tim Houston hasn’t said a word, 

despite boasting of the Davis Cup matches

 demonstrating that Halifax “is a top destination for major events.”(Team Houston did however find time this week to post 

a supportive missive for Stand Up Against Bullying Day

, which you are free to find a tad ironic.) The Halifax Regional Police haven’t said boo. From federal sports minister Adam van Koeverden, no fan of Israel, 

there is also silence

.

It’s also tough not to notice how far the tennis-cancellers are shifting the net posts — from what is, at root, a thuggish and simple shouting down of some tennis matches to something far more poetic and noble. 

A letter cosigned by the likes of

former Canadian ambassador to the United Nations Stephen Lewis, Nkosi Zwelivelile Mandela (grandson of Nelson) and former federal justice minister Allan Rock urged players to follow the lead of Canada’s 1978 Davis Cup Team, 

which refused to play South Africa

 along with Mexico, Venezuela and Commonwealth nations in the Caribbean.

“Your refusal to play Israel would be a thunderclap of moral clarity,” they wrote. “It would tell every person watching that justice matters more than any trophy.”

First of all, who says some of the Canadian players don’t support Israel? Second of all, here is a list of countries that have recently refused to compete against Israel, either en masse or by individual athletes, or that have barred Israeli athletes from competing in events on their soil: 

Malaysia

, 

Indonesia

, 

Algeria

, 

the United Arab Emirates

, 

Iran

 … well, you get the picture. Not countries like Canada. Not countries we generally keep an ear to, waiting for moral thunderclaps.

It’s certainly true that sporting boycotts have in the past been associated with political and social progress that had hitherto been considered unthinkable, notably the end of apartheid in South Africa and the fall of the Soviet Union. But of course, they don’t always work: The Soviets boycotted the Olympics in Los Angeles four years after the Americans did, and capitalism lives on; modern bans on Russian participation in international sport don’t seem to bother Vladimir Putin much, despite the gazillions he has “invested” in hosting mega-events like the Olympics and World Cup.

And there is certainly no point trying to discern why Dictatorship A is banned from Competition X, but not Equally Horrid Dictatorship B. Like all forms of diplomacy, it’s inherently inconsistent. It’s one of the reasons I’m very skeptical of bans like the current one against Russian teams, much as I wish Putin would walk into the ocean and stay there.

Israel will generally play anyone, in any sport, no matter how much an opponent professes to hate its country or its people. That’s the example we should be aiming to follow.

National Post

cselley@postmedia.com

Of the millions of words Charlie Kirk contributed to American public discourse, the last two before he was murdered distilled his life’s work almost perfectly.

His t-shirt bore the word “freedom.” His final word, uttered a split second before an assassin’s bullet tore into his neck, was “violence.”

Kirk was precocious enough from his early 20s to grasp the relationship between the two. If people cannot debate differences of opinion in a civil and robust manner, violence has, throughout history and with alarming speed, shown itself to be the logical next step. “When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts,” he once reminded a

blue-haired antagonist

at a college campus debate.

The assassination of Kirk Thursday in front of thousands of students at a university campus in Utah, apparently for the sole crime of encouraging open debate, makes plain that we have arrived at the dark juncture he had warned about.

While the killer is still at large, their political motivation is no longer in serious doubt. Investigators have found

ammunition

engraved with antifascist and transgender ideology in a hunting rifle they believe was used in the attack. The murder appears to have been an attempt to silence Kirk, who at 31 was the most accomplished Republican campaigner of his generation, as well as a husband and father of two young girls.

Had Kirk been killed by a lone crank, that would be a grave tragedy to all who knew and loved him. But it’s worse than that. The accessories to his murder — not in deed but in spirit — are legion. First among them are those on the left who for years hysterically demonized mainstream conservatives as “literal Nazis.”

There can be no compromise with Nazis. No creed is more central in the post-war West than that. Every schoolchild has been taught that the only appropriate response to fascism is brute, uncompromising force. So what did the left hope to accomplish by pushing such a slur?

We cannot make windows into men’s souls. But the immediate responses to Kirk’s death may offer some answers.

Left-wing lawmakers in both the U.S.

congress

and

European Parliament

protested against holding a moment of silence for Kirk. The groans and heckles which erupted in both chambers at the suggestion to mark his murder with 30 seconds of reflection were, at best, extraordinarily distasteful. But a fair-minded observer could easily interpret those heckles as tacitly condoning political assassination. That is, quite simply, unforgivable.

Then there was the response from legacy media. In an annihilatingly chilling exchange on MSNBC, shortly after Kirk had been shot, one pundit accused Kirk of “hate speech” and appeared to

blame him for his own death.

“You can’t stop with these awful thoughts you have, and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place,” he said. Meanwhile, in the TMZ newsroom, cheers, clapping and laughter were

caught on camera

just as word arrived that Kirk had died.

Of course, many left-leaning journalists and politicians were just as horrified by Kirk’s assassination as their colleagues across the aisle. But that should not distract from an uncomfortable truth. The widespread moral equivocation over his murder came largely from the same progressive left who have long called for a “kinder politics.” Had a left-wing commentator been assassinated, it is inconceivable that public figures on the right would have disgraced themselves in such a way.

It’s unclear whether the tacit acceptance of political assassinations has trickled down from the establishment Left to the grassroots or vice versa. But the contagion has evidently spread.

A report from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI),

published

earlier this year, found that a growing number of Americans, especially those on the left, thought political murder was justified.

In a representative survey of over 1,200 U.S. adults, more than half of left-leaning respondents agreed it would be at least “somewhat justified” to kill Donald Trump, while 48 per cent said the same for Elon Musk. The figures in the general population were 38 per cent and 31 per cent, respectively.

In the

hours after

Kirk was shot, thousands

rejoiced

on

social media.

One

post

on X, which has gained nearly 200,000 likes, read: “Maybe Charlie Kirk shouldn’t have spent years being a hateful demagogic fascist and this wouldn’t have happened. Maybe he should take some personal responsibility.”

Hundreds of left-leaning X accounts have since called for other public figures, whom I shan’t name,

to be targeted next.

In doing so, they have vindicated another of Kirk’s warnings. “Assassination culture is spreading on the left,” he

posted

on X in April. “This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.”

How tragically prophetic that now sounds. Progressive lawmakers and unruly activists have, wittingly or otherwise, created a culture of permissiveness around political violence. The Black Lives Matters riots in the wake of George Floyd’s killing, sanctioned by the Democrat establishment and which left dozens dead, were merely a foretaste of what was to come.

Since then, left-wing activists have

swooned over Luigi Mangione,

the man accused of killing Brian Thompson, the CEO of a health insurance company deemed so immoral by many progressives it drove them to excuse murder.

Similarly, the attempts on Donald Trump’s life, one of which was millimetres from succeeding, were met with a morsel of the outrage and national soul-searching that one would expect had, say, Kamala Harris been shot.

It has been said that Kirk was murdered because “they couldn’t beat him in an argument.” It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the growing acceptance for political assassination on the left — including from once respectable figures who ought to know better — is the last gasp of an ancien régime trying to claw back legitimacy through violence.

It may have already succeeded in changing the climate of public discourse in America. Responding to Kirk’s death,

Ben Shapiro,

a conservative commentator who’s hosted scores of public debates, said: “This is the end of all outdoor public (political) events. They’re done. It’s over.”

We must describe this grim spectacle in the plainest English. Those who promiscuously accuse others of Nazism while excusing murder are neither kind nor compassionate. They are engineering a culture of political violence. Beneath the nose piercings and the “trauma” and the university degrees, they are modern-day brownshirts. They should be identified as such, and must not succeed in suffocating freedom in the United States or anywhere else.

Michael Murphy is a journalist based in London. He writes for the Daily Telegraph and presented the documentary ‘Ireland is full! Anti-immigration backlash in Ireland’. You can follow him on X: @michaelmurph_y.

• Geoff Russ: Charlie Kirk was a civilized man
• Jamie Sarkonak: Charlie Kirk was reviled by the left because he was effective

On Tuesday afternoon in Doha, Qatar, the Israeli air force executed a lightning strike on a residential building.

The world was stunned. Facts were scarce.

We now know that the four top Hamas officials targeted by Israel are alive. A number of lower level aides were killed.

The Hamas officials were meeting in Doha to discuss their response to the most recent American and Israeli proposal for ceasefire terms and the return of all hostages. It seemed counter-intuitive to many that Israel would risk scuttling the negotiations at such a delicate stage.

Qatari Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani Al-Thani was enraged and said that Qatar would no longer act as a mediator in the negotiations between Israel and Hamas. For two years Qatar has positioned itself as a trusted intermediary; a close ally of the United States that also has a special relationship with Hamas.

Why the West stroked Qatar so solicitously for so long is a mystery. Qatar is a major financial and diplomatic sponsor of the most violent Islamist movements globally, among them Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis. Hamas leadership has been hosted in Doha for many years, living in extreme luxury. Numerous Hamas leaders are billionaires. The source of their wealth is unclear. Meanwhile, the people they purport to represent live thousands of miles away, under the tyranny of Hamas rule.

For two years, Qatar has had significant leverage over Hamas and has been in a position to pressure them to release the hostages and lay down arms. And yet, the stalemate continues.

Al Thani is reported to have told American officials that he regards the attack as being a betrayal by Israel and the U.S.

The repercussions of this action threaten to undermine Israel’s relations with the United States as well as many other western countries, including Canada.

After already sharp comments directed at Israel by Prime Minister Carney in recent months, Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said on Wednesday that Canada is “evaluating (its) relationship with Israel.”

The

comment

is ominous and deeply concerning.

Meanwhile, Al-Thani is

reported

to have told White House envoy Steve Witkoff that Qatar will undertake a “deep evaluation” of its security partnership with the U.S. “and maybe find some other partners” who can support its security if needed.

The largest American military base in the Middle East is located in Qatar. In exchange, Qatar receives security guarantees from the U.S. In the Middle East, Qatar is an outlier, and its relations with neighbouring states have been profoundly strained for many years, due to the country’s support of extreme Islamists.

Qatar’s reliance on the U.S. for security is total.

We also know that Israel notified the White House of the attack mere minutes before it occurred, leaving its key ally internationally in an impossible spot.

Early reports in the Israeli media on Wednesday exposed aspects of what transpired and how.

Israel’s channel 12 reported that Hamas leadership were targeted by the location of their cell phone signals. But the Hamas men were not in the same room as their phones. They had retreated to a nearby room for prayer.

A day earlier, these same Hamas men had been feeling triumphant.

On Monday, two terrorists boarded a packed civilian bus near Jerusalem and shortly after began shooting passengers. Six were declared dead at the scene. Six are critically injured. Dozens more are wounded. Hamas immediately took responsibility.

Israeli media reports that this provocation likely triggered Netanyahu’s decision to order the strike on Hamas leadership in Doha. In intelligence circles, such a moment is seen as an “opportunity.” An operation that may have been planned for years becomes possible due to circumstances.

Netanyahu and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer believe that Israel must restore its deterrent capability, which was shattered when 1200 people were slaughtered on October 7. If such an attack was to occur in Canada, it would result in 5,500 civilians being slaughtered in 24 hours. In the U.S. that number would be closer to 60,000. But two years on, the majority of Israelis strongly support ending the war, immediately. Returning the remaining hostages is a clear priority for the people.

Among the most outspoken nations denouncing Israel has been Canada.

Prime Minister Carney very quickly issued a statement on X that mirrored posts made by U.K. Prime Minister Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron.

“Canada condemns Israel’s strikes in Qatar — an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar’s sovereignty. Regardless of their objectives, such attacks pose a grave risk of escalating conflict throughout the region, and directly imperil efforts to advance peace & security, secure the release of all hostages, and achieve a lasting ceasefire — efforts in which Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani plays a highly constructive role.”

Canada condemns Israel’s strikes in Qatar — an intolerable expansion of violence and an affront to Qatar’s sovereignty.
 
Regardless of their objectives, such attacks pose a grave risk of escalating conflict throughout the region, and directly imperil efforts to advance peace &…

— Mark Carney (@MarkJCarney) September 9, 2025

Starmer, Macron and Carney have become a tight troika in recent months and were already gearing up for their collective push to rush to recognize the State of Palestine at the UN general assembly next week. This initiative has been opposed by the U.S. on the basis that it rewards terror.

Hamas is an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood movement, which is committed to spreading radical Islam globally. They are committed to the annihilation of Israel, the murder of Jews and the domination of all infidels, including Christians.

Following a one-hour phone call in July with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Carney declared that we would have peace in our time, with Abbas at the helm of a Palestinian state. What Carney seems to disregard is that Abbas, currently in his 20th year of a four-year election mandate, has virtually no legitimacy in the eyes of Palestinians, and is regarded as a corrupt, old demagogue.

Canada’s prime minister does not seem to grasp the complexity of this historical moment, being led by his hubris to impose an absurd outcome on an environment and people that have demonstrated no affinity for liberal democracy.

His fantasy of reordering the Middle East based on a one-hour conversation with a despot is uninformed, reckless and directly rewards terror.

Feeling buoyed by this rush of western enthusiasm for Palestinian statehood, senior Hamas official Ghazi Hamad boasted recently that the October 7 massacre is the reason for this renewed international attention. Hamas has been legitimized as a rational actor. The inversion of moral principle is terrifying.

Since October 7, Hamad has stated repeatedly that Hamas would continue to execute such attacks until Israel is annihilated. Hamas will never accept peace or any recognition of Israel. This existential threat is real and overlooked by Carney.

There is much to criticize about Israel’s conduct in this war — and the country’s people oppose so much of what has transpired in their name since October 7. The domestic unrest in Israel is alarming, because the population disagrees profoundly with the manner in which the coalition government has managed the war with Hamas as well as so many other issues. But it is critical to remember that Hamas and its state sponsor — Qatar — are committed to an agenda of Islamist terror and domination.

For two years they managed to seduce many western leaders into believing that they were honest brokers. We must remind ourselves of who they are and what they support.

On October 7, spontaneous street celebrations filled the streets of Toronto, Montreal and elsewhere across Canada. Huge crowds gathered to celebrate the massacre, as it was ongoing.

By supporting Qatar and Hamas, Canada is rewarding and aligning with extreme Islamist terror.

Vivian Bercovici is a former Canadian ambassador to Israel and the founder of www.stateoftelaviv.com, an independent media enterprise.

• Sheryl Saperia: 24 years after 9/11, the West’s on the verge of falling to terrorist ideology
• ‘Palestine’ can’t just be ‘conjured up’: Douglas Murray blasts Mark Carney

Charlie Kirk,
a champion of classic, civilized debate was gunned down in cold blood Wednesday, and things have changed forever.
 

What the 31-year-old Kirk had been doing since he was a teenager was tirelessly placing himself on a stage so that he could talk and debate with people face to face. His approach stood in stark contrast to the political discourse on Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and TikTok videos in which people learn politics with a shot of dopamine, which leave no room for people to consider disagreement.

For people under 30 who were interested in politics and who came of age in these tumultuous past ten years, Kirk was a towering presence.
 

Across the English-speaking world, people first started hearing about Turning Point USA during their undergraduate degrees. Some would catch clips here and there, while others became dedicated followers, but Kirk’s name was unavoidable.
Altogether, his political enterprises, including TPUSA and the Charlie Kirk Show, were worth $92 million, and he amassed 5.6 million followers on X, and 9.3 million followers on Instagram.

He was very much part of a new generation of conservative American commentators that includes Ben Shapiro, Steven Crowder, and Michael Knowles. Some of them fell into the fringes or obscurity, while others like Shapiro and Kirk became essential figures in the conservative movement.
 
 

Kirk stood out for being the youngest among them, and for actively mobilizing young Americans into chapters of Turning Point USA on campuses across the United States. One can even compare him to William F. Buckley Jr., the leading American conservative intellectual during the Cold War.
 
 

Despite their different upbringings, skills, and styles, Buckley and Kirk were both tuned into the ideological wars taking place on university campuses, and had no fear of walking into them to face a hostile crowd. They both had a great appetite for debate, and that remained constant whether they won or lost on any given day.
 

Earlier this year during a typical appearance on a campus where he would debate long lines of challengers, Kirk laid out the reasons why he did what he did.
 
 

“When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence, that is when civil war happens,” he said, adding that society and personal relationships fall apart without dialogue.
 

By any measure, this was a great man, no matter what people thought about his views.
 

Barely a month before his 32nd birthday, Kirk was a powerful figure within the Republican Party, having earned the friendship and ear of the party’s congressional leaders, media surrogates, and President Donald Trump himself.
 

Many politicos spend their entire careers achieving only a fraction of Kirk’s success as a Republican fundraiser, youth leader, and public figure. His personal life was spotless, and by all accounts he was a disciplined man, a teetotaller and loving father of his two young children.
 

People across the political aisle liked him. Cenk Uygur of the Young Turks, a fierce, combative progressive, publicly
mourned
his death, as did California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, who
posted
an unusually lengthy eulogy for Kirk on social media.
 

“I knew Charlie, and I admired his passion and commitment to debate. His senseless murder is a reminder of how important it is for all of us, across the political spectrum, to foster genuine discourse on issues that deeply affect us all without resorting to political violence.”
 

Newsom himself had
invited
Kirk onto his podcast earlier this year, and the two had a very dignified conversation that included spirited but polite disagreement on many subjects and surprising alignment on others.
 

Similar conversations across political lines are unlikely to become more frequent after Kirk’s gruesome assassination, which was captured on video, and happened within a few feet of his wife and children.
 

Like Newsom, Democratic politicians were almost unanimous in expressing their shock and horror at Kirk’s death. As for progressive commentators, it was far more mixed.
 

Some, like Cenk Uygur and his co-host Ana Kasparian,
reacted
like normal people with heartfelt expressions of grief, as did prominent Democratic social media figure
Harry Sissons
.
 

Others, like high-profile streamer Steven Bonnell, known better by his online name “Destiny,” said that anybody on the left
expressing
grief at Kirk’s assassination was “cucked.” As reported by Newsweek, comedian Brandy Bryant callously
posted
on X, “Breaking: Charlie Kirk loses gun debate.”
 

Republicans and other conservatives took notice.
 

“Witnessing the grotesque reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder will have changed decent people. Forever. The far left has simply forced many reasonable people to wake up and pick a side. And it’s not going to be theirs,”
posted
commentator Stephen Knight.
 

Things are different now. Many on the Republican side are furious at Kirk’s death, and pushed further by the reaction of figures like Bonnell. The olive branches extended by people like Gavin Newsom and Cenk Uygur are unlikely to break through the rage.
 

Equally skilled at working social media and traditional in-person appearances, Kirk was a bridge between the classic democratic forum and modern digital discourse. His death could radicalize thousands, and leave a giant hole in the American political debate.
 

Whoever the killer is, they shot the nice guy. Blood has been spilled, and there will be consequences. 
 

National Post

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