Terry Newman: Quebec's anti-Israel protesters mimicking early tactics of FLQ terrorists

Yahoo

3 days ago

On Thursday evening, protesters gathered outside of Industry Minister Mélanie Joly's Montreal residence to teach her two very important lessons: that there's no pleasing the demographics of her riding; and that speaking out of both sides of her mouth to appease voters doesn't pay.
In a video circulating on social media, protesters can be seen holding Palestinian flags. Viewers can hear the banging of pots in the background — a common protest accompaniment in Quebec. Several of those gathered have their faces covered with keffiyehs.
Also visible is a stream of mostly English words projected across the top of her apartment building, proclaiming, 'Melanie war criminal — every time Melanie lies a child in Gaza dies. Israel terrorist. Melanie complice (complicit).'
An unidentified woman with short blonde hair and a keffiyeh draped over her shoulders speaks through a megaphone in French. Her words translate to: 'Canada's arming of Israel during this genocide is the greatest stain of our generation. Ms. Joly's actions warrant immediate consequences.' She did not elaborate on what she felt those consequences should be.
This kind of aggressive and threatening behaviour toward politicians and school administrators who displease pro-Palestinian protesters in Montreal has escalated since the October 7 massacre.
In October 2023, not long after Hamas's barbaric attack on Israel, sit-ins were already being held at the Montreal offices of Liberal MPs David Lametti, Rachel Bendayan and Joly, who was then serving as minister of foreign affairs.
The blood at the Nova Festival had barely dried, yet the protesters weren't there to condemn Hamas's actions. They were there to pressure MPs who had not yet signed a letter demanding a ceasefire. At the time, the Liberals still officially supported Israel's right to defend itself, though that seemed to be changing quickly — not even a month after the attacks, 33 MPs, including 23 Liberals, had already signed the letter.
It was clear, even at the time, that there was a well-organized pressure campaign aimed at convincing MPs to speak out against Israel's war of self-defence. A Montreal Gazette report at the time noted that the demonstrations at political offices were 'part of a pan-Canadian series of sit-ins organizers said were taking place at 17 offices in 12 cities across the country in solidarity with Palestinians.'
The campaign has continued ever since. On Dec. 18, 2023, a rally of about 50 protesters organized by the Palestine Solidarity Network Canada gathered outside Steven Guilbeault's Montreal constituency office to pressure him to support a ceasefire.
In September 2024, three pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested and charged with criminally harassing then-immigration minister Marc Miller, who represents a suburban Montreal riding. One called him a 'child-killer.' But the charges were dropped.
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante also got a taste of pro-Palestinian protesters' aggression. On July 9, 2024, a council meeting in Montreal was disrupted by about a dozen protesters. This resulted in the temporary removal of Plante and other councillors as a precaution.
Prior to this disruption, Plante had been more critical of McGill than the protesters, negatively contrasting its approach to an anti-Israel encampment on its campus, which was eventually taken down with the help of a public health order, with Université du Québec à Montréal, which ceded to most of the protesters' demands. But a few days before the council meeting was disrupted, she drew the ire of protesters by ordering the dismantling of a Pro-Palestinian encampment in Victoria Square.
In October 2024, three months after they disrupted her meeting, she finally called pro-Palestinian protest activity in Montreal, which included widespread vandalism, 'unacceptable,' saying that it would 'not be tolerated.'
Yet a month later, after anti-Israel rioters smashed windows and burned cars, she said the violence was the work of 'professional vandals' and 'agitators,' suggesting a few bad apples had co-opted otherwise peaceful protests.
It's not only politicians' homes that these pro-Palestinian groups target.
In May 2024, McGill University President Deep Saini told the campus community via an email that the homes of school administrators had been targeted more than once. He described the actions these protesters took as being designed to 'threaten, coerce and scare people.'
In one instance, he said that protesters stayed for hours and used a megaphone to shout, 'You can't hide.' In another, an administrator was followed home from campus and harassed.
'None of this is peaceful protesting,' wrote Saini. 'It is completely unacceptable. In each case we have reported what has happened to the police and urged them to act.'
Saini said that these tactics were used to try to pressure the administration after students chose to walk away from negotiations to end the encampment, and was baffled by the inaction on the part of Montreal police.
It is all baffling at first glance, until you consider the province's history of violent activism and its ties to the Palestinian movement.
Quebec is the only province in Canada where an activist group has killed a government official. In 1970, a separatist group, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), kidnapped Pierre Laporte, Quebec's minister of labour, and James Cross, a British diplomat, during what is known as the October Crisis. Laporte was eventually murdered.
The escalation from activist protests to kidnapping and murder takes time. It doesn't happen overnight.
The FLQ, like these pro-Palestinian protesters, dabbled in the rhetoric of anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism. Two FLQ members, Normand Roy and Michel Lambert, were trained in guerrilla warfare by the Palestine Liberation Organization.
The FLQ started out as a non-violent movement in the early 1960s. It distributed propaganda and painted pro-independence slogans on public buildings.
But its actions quickly escalated to Molotov cocktail attacks and then bombings. In 1963, an FLQ bomb exploded at an Army recruitment centre in Montreal, killing a night watchman by the name of Wilfred O'Neil.
In 1969, FLQ terrorists bombed the Montreal Stock Exchange, injuring 27 people. That same year, the FLQ bombed the home of Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau, who opposed Quebec separatism.
It seems as though Montreal police were not very useful back then, either. The situation continued to escalate until it reached a crescendo in October 1970, with the kidnapping of Cross and Laporte.
Laporte was eventually found strangled to death in the trunk of a car. Cross was released two months later, through negotiations that resulted in his abductors being granted safe passage to Cuba.
Minor bombings still occurred after this, though public support for the FLQ began to dwindle. But perhaps the group, and the radical ideas it espoused, never completely disappeared. Today, anti-Israel groups are emulating many of the tactics used by the FLQ, and the relationship between Quebec activists and the Palestinian Liberation Organization's goals seems like it's been revived.
It started out with relatively peaceful protests, but quickly escalated with the firebombing of multiple Montreal-area Jewish institutions in November 2023 and the riot at the pro-Palestinian, anti-NATO protest a year later. And it is clear that many of these demonstrators have no qualms about targeting politicians they disagree with personally, including harassing them at their private homes.
Their acts have increasingly become normalized by the frequency of the protests, the lack of sufficient police action, equivocating government statements, misplaced sympathies from academics and celebrities, and broader anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives that have permeated the news media and popular culture.
Will people have to die before Canadian governments, police forces and the general public start taking the threat posed by these protesters seriously? Let's hope not.
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