Jewish Defense League stages demonstration at Arab Federation Building.

Defiant chants of "Condemn Muslim Terrorism Now" and "Jewish Blood Is Not Cheap" could be heard in the streets of downtown Toronto, on Thursday afternoon, July 31st, as 30 members of Toronto's Jewish Defense League staged an angry demonstration in front of the offices of the Canadian Arab Federation. Responding to the dramatic rise in anti-Semitic attacks on Jews by Muslims in the Toronto area, Meir Weinstein, director of the JDL in Toronto, said, "The abject silence on the part of the Canadian Arab Federation in the face of vitriolic attacks on Jews by Muslim perpetrators is tantamount to tacit approval of anti-Semitism and gives a green light to others who would entertain the notion of attacking Jews."
 
Weinstein was specifically referring to an attack that occurred on November 3, 2006, when a Jewish teenager and her three friends were viciously assaulted at a Toronto train station by Mustafa Taj, 21, who was recently sentenced to one year in prison by provincial court Judge Bill Cummings, who ruled that the attack was racially motivated.
 
According to a report in the Canadian newspaper, The Calgary Sun, dated July 24, 2008, on November 2, 2006, "Taj approached the group (of teenagers) around 10:45 pm, and asked 'who's Jewish.' Nichola Cordato, then 16, stated 'me' and Taj grabbed her and said, 'I'm Muslim and hate Jews.'" The report continues: "He then slapped her in the face and pullled her hair before her friends, Jessica Motta, Kayla Hungle and Daniel Ball attempted to intervene. Hungle attempted to prevent Taj from further attacking Cordato and was punched in the face by him. Motta then intervened and was punched in the face, pulled to the ground by her hair and kicked in the stomach and ribs. When Ball tried to stop the assaults, he was thrown onto the C-Train tracks where he fell onto his back and was spat upon by Taj. During the melee, Taj called Cordato a 'Jewish piece of (crap).'"
 
Prosecutors Ken McCaffrey and Inayat Jetha had sought a sentence of up to two years for the hate crime. Prior to sentencing, McCaffrey called into evidence a similar assault perpetrated by Taj a year earlier when he approached a black male at an LRT station and assaulted him.  
 
"The Canadian Arab Federation has not only not uttered one word of condemnation for this horrific attack, but they have remained silent in the face of arson attacks in Canada directed against shuls and Jewish community centers and violent attacks on Jewish students on local university campuses," said Weinstein. He also noted that yet another anti-Semitic attack occurred as recently as Friday, July 18th, 2008, when "a Jewish camp in northern Ontario was attacked. No one was hurt but property was smashed and tires slashed, sending a clear message. The camp staff was told by the town that Jews were no longer welcome in their stores."
 
According to Weinstein, the Canadian Arab Federation holds the dubious distinction of being an organization that has lent its support and succor to the forces of Islamic terrorism and has worked assiduously to promote both anti-Semitic and anti-Israel sentiment. He charges that members of the CAF attended a Cairo conference last year sponsored by the notoriously anti-Israel organization, The Muslim Brotherhood, that featured speakers who were high-ranking members of Hamas and Hezbollah, and that the CAF justifies the terrorist acts that these organizations engage in. He adds that, "Jewish businesses in Canada are picketed by groups supported by the CAF, claiming these businesses support 'Israeli Apartheid.'"
 
In an op-ed piece appearing in The National Post of Canada of July 11, 2008, The Canadian Arab Federation is "making a strong case that it is every bit as radical and unhinged" as The Canadian Islamic Congress. The article cited the CAF's "recent sponsorship of an essay contest on 'The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine' in which it urged high school students to channel the group's own fervid hatred of Israel for prizes. Now, the group is promoting September 11th conspiracy theories by announcing a July 14th Toronto speaking event entitled, 'The 9/11 deception continues.'"
 
Concerning the essay contest, Weinstein asserts that, "Under the guise of 'Islamophobia,' the CAF is promulgating hatred for Jews in a fashion similar to that of the Nazis during World War II. Just as the Nazis accused worldwide Jewry of maintaining a secret cabal with the intent of dominating and oppressing the 'poor'  and 'downtrodden' Germans, so too is the CAF actively working to promote the fallacious and patently ridiculous claim that the Jews 'run the world,' while Muslims represent a powerless minority, even though there are 1.4 billion Muslims in the world and only 13.5 million Jews."
 
A Canadian news wire service called CNews reported on June 15, 2007 that the CAF honored a man who referred to Canada as "a fully paid up member of the Anglo-Saxon mafia" at its 2007 gala dinner in Toronto for his "unwavering" support of Palestine. Besides calling the country of Canada a member of the mafia, Zafar Bangash, editor of Crescent International, an Islamist newsletter, refers to the vast majority of Canadians – or non-Muslims — as "kuffar" or "kufr" — meaning infidels, and wrote in a 1999 editorial that, "Muhammed is the Messenger of Allah and those who are with him are harsh towards the kuffar and compassionate towards each other."
 
Weinstein strongly asserts that, "It is the ideology of The Muslim Brotherhood that justifies and promotes attacks on Jews in Canada." Regarding the issue of the burgeoning rate of Muslim immigrants to Canada, Weinstein declares that, "some kind of form must be signed that prohibits entry into Canada of people that believe in the Muslim Brotherhood ideology. This would make it possible to conduct denaturalization and deportation proceedings."
 
For now, Weinstein says, "our major concern is the safety of Jews in our community and to that end, we (the JDL) are offering security training to the community. We will not just train anyone. The JDL is not seeking a confrontation with adversarial forces, but because of the level of violence and intimidation against the Jewish community it is important to teach Jews how to defend themselves, should a situation arise."