Muslim Hamas Supporters on Toronto Police Force Praise Oct 7

Toronto cops PRAISE Oct 7 and laugh in shocking official police podcast

Toronto Police have been slammed for an official podcast between two cops who made light of Hamas' terror attack against Israel and praised the 'unbelievable' number of converts to Islam after October 7.

The episode was deleted and the police department apologized for the podcast after major backlash from the Jewish community, which says the tepid response has not gone far enough.

Constables Farhan Ali and Haroon Siddiqui made the shocking remarks on the official Olive Branch Podcast, a project launched to supposedly 'engage' Toronto's Muslim communities.

The clip, which quickly went viral on X, began with Siddiqui telling Ali that social media has elevated the beliefs of Islam since the attacks on October 7, 2023. 

'A lot of people, after October 7, started learning about Islam. And they said, "Ok well what is it with the religion - why is it so hated? Why are they being attacked all the time?'' Siddiqui said. 

He went on to say that the number of 'reverts' to Islam since the attacks was 'unbelievable', using the Islamic framing that everyone was born following Allah and new followers are returning rather than converting.

'They're actually educating themselves,' Siddiqui concluded. 

The term 'revert' instead of 'convert' is used by those who claim Islam is everyone's natural faith and that Christians, Jews or Buddhists are created only through parents and society. 

Farhan Ali (left) and Haroon Siddiqui (right) are partners on the force and serve as Muslim liaison officers

Constables Farhan Ali (left) and Haroon Siddiqui (right) pictured in uniform hosting the Project Olive Branch Podcast 

The clip received a slew of negative comments, with one user writing, 'Cops should not be preaching politics or religion. That's not part of their job description. These talks are divisive.'

'It's totally inappropriate! The uniformed Canadian police officers on what appears to be a police related stream?' another added. 

The episode also discussed Islamophobia in Toronto and how anti-Israel protests can be misconstrued. 

'When we have somebody labelling a certain group as something they're not, all of a sudden now an Islamophobic undertone,' Ali said.

He added that it was important not to confuse Palestinian rallies with rallies for Hamas, noting that people may mistake protests against Israel's actions for support of a terrorist organization. 

'However, the people that are there protesting, they're there for a different cause altogether,' Ali explained. 

In response to the backlash, Toronto Police released a statement apologizing for the remarks and acknowledging that the podcast 'caused significant upset and concern in the Jewish community and beyond.' 

Siddiqui (left) and Ali (right) received backlash for comments they made on an official police podcast 

Chief Myron Demkiw said he ordered a review of procedures and will ensure further content aligns with the department's commitment to respect and inclusion. 

'We recognize the Jewish community's profound pain and anguish as a result of October 7th and the ensuing rise of anti-Semitism,' Demkiw said in a statement.

'I have personally heard from the community about the impact of this podcast, and I'm truly sorry. Our commitment to protecting our Jewish communities remains unwavering.' 

However, the statement didn't seem to appease critics, with the Ontario Vice President for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs writing a public letter expressing further concern to the police chief. 

'His [Siddiqui] comments suggest a positive outcome stemming from the atrocities of that day, an idea that, given the highly politicized nature of the issue and the fact that he is in police uniform, is especially concerning,' Michelle Stock said.

Stock criticized the officers' ability to express their religious beliefs on an official police podcast and questioned whether the remarks represented the department's stance. 

She added that the remarks were 'deeply troubling' and went on to cite a rise of anti-Semitism in Toronto. 

'Constable Ali's comments fails to acknowledge the intimidation associated with these protests, thus misrepresenting the menacing nature of the demonstrations,' she added. 

Stock claimed that the officers were in breach of the Community Safety and Policing Act, which requires police to only engage in political activity if they are off-duty and not in uniform. 

The Toronto Police has not announced if the officers were penalized or if they were in breach of the law when discussing religion on their podcast. 

Dailymail.com reached out to Constables Ali and Siddiqui for comment but didn't immediately hear back. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14499391/toronto-cops-police-podcast-october-7.html

The image shared on X that sparked outrage showed a passenger's screen displaying the in-flight map on a flight from Vancouver to Toronto on Monday. The world map was zoomed in and displayed the name 'Palestinian Territories' instead of Israel

Democrats Betrayal of Israel

Democrats’ Israel betrayal: How the party flipped on its staunchest ally

by Melanie Phillips

The arrest of the student who organized anti-Israel demonstrations at Columbia University has provoked an escalating row about free speech.

Columbia has been the epicenter of the harassment and intimidation of Jewish students on campuses around America, as part of a globally orchestrated campaign against Israel’s war in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7, 2023, massacres.

The Columbia ringleader, Mahmoud Khalil, a 30-year-old Syrian of Palestinian-Arab descent, was arrested over the weekend by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and faces having his green card revoked.

A judge Monday temporarily blocked any attempt to deport him.

The Department of Homeland Security said Khalil had “led activities aligned to Hamas.”

Yet Senate Judiciary Democrats tweeted: “Free Mahmoud Khalil.”

Other Democratic lawmakers, along with civil-rights activists and advocacy groups, have protested that Khalil is being targeted merely for expressing support for the Palestinians.

Such indifference to the outrageous lawbreaking, harassment and intimidation that has consumed universities, which have echoed for months chants for Israel’s destruction and the murder of Jews, throws into even sharper relief the shocking revelation that support for Israel in America has fallen to below 50% for the first time.

The latest Gallup polling revealed only 46% of Americans say their sympathies lie more with Israel than the Palestinians, while 33%.

Thirty-three percent sympathize more with the Palestinians, up by 6 percentage points from last year.

How could this have happened?

American support for Israel has long been as reliable as the sun rising in the morning.

Israel is not only regarded as America’s indispensable bulwark in the Middle East; Americans’ support for it has been more full-throated and emotional than among many Jewish communities around the world.

The huge drop in support overall has been caused by Democrat supporters, who have registered a stunning 59% support for the Palestinians versus only 21% for Israel.

In sharp contrast, Republicans support Israel over the Palestinians 75% to 10%.

In other words, Israel has become a partisan issue.

So why have the Democrats turned against the Jewish state?

Woke victim theory

Gallup suggests the reason is the Israel-Hamas war, as well as the polarization of attitudes toward President Trump.

These are hardly likely to be the main causes, though, since such trends have been developing over many years.

The main reason is surely the Democrats have turned against Israel because the left in general has turned against Israel.

This is principally the outcome of the massive Palestinian propaganda campaign that’s been running for decades in the universities and across all the institutions of the culture, indoctrinating successive generations in a false and malicious narrative that’s scarcely been challenged.

It’s also because this Palestinian cause has become in turn the centerpiece of the “intersectionality” agenda of interlocking “victim” groups based on race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender and other categories of identity politics.

These campaigns of grievance and resentment are all based on attacking the Western nation-state as having been born in the original sins of colonialism and racism, with its inhabitants guilty of white privilege.

Israel, the Jewish people’s nation-state and regarded as an outpost of American power occupied by white Jews — though most Israeli Jews are brown- or black-skinned and 20% of the population are Israeli Arabs — is therefore held to be multiply damned.

Fringe is mainstream

The liberal-progressive world’s embrace of all these radical agendas has moved the dial so that what was once considered far left is now deemed the center ground and what was once considered the center ground is now deemed right wing or even far right.

As a result, attitudes in the Democratic Party that would once have been regarded as the fringes of politics or society in general are now considered mainstream.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has repeatedly demonized Israel and accused it of genocide.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal branded Israel a “racist state” and in a CNN interview was reluctant to unequivocally denounce Hamas terrorists’ rape of Israeli women in the Oct. 7 atrocities.

When two Jewish Republicans introduced a resolution decrying antisemitism, Jayapal and Ocasio-Cortez were among 13 Democrats voting no.

Another 92, reluctant either to approve the resolution or be on record as against it, voted “present.”

Their key objection was the resolution’s assertion that “anti-Zionism is anti­semitism.”

Both the Obama and Biden administrations helped promulgate distortions and falsehoods blaming Israel for obstructing peace in the region while ignoring, excusing and even funding Palestinian terrorism and anti-Jewish incitement.

And for decades, much of the mainstream media have pumped out Palestinian propaganda.

The Palestinian cause has become for all liberal progressives the must-have badge of moral worth.

But this cause is based on the demonization of Israel.

Jew hate in vogue

This poison has infected the universities.

Overwhelmingly dominated by liberal progressives, they have turned a blind eye to or actively connived at the hate marches, demonstrations and encampments that have turned so many of them into crucibles of Jew-hatred.

Rather than come to the defense of Jewish students running this gauntlet of hate, Democrats actually reinforced it.

In the face of the sometimes violent “occupations” of US campuses that consistently called for the end of Israel, President Joe Biden said the protesters “have a point,” while Vice President Kamala Harris said of one protester accusing Israel of genocide: “Listen, what he’s talking about, it’s real.”

Trump has vowed to deport foreign students and imprison “agitators” involved in “illegal protests.”

The administration announced last week it’s rescinding $400 million in federal grants to Columbia, accusing it of failing to fight antisemitism on campus.

This is extremely welcome.

But generations have been indoctrinated with propaganda demonizing Israel and sanitizing the exterminatory Palestinian cause.

And violence and intimidation have increasingly become tolerated over a range of issues such as Black Lives Matter and Antifa as well as Gaza.

These ideologies are all anti-West and anti-America.

As I write in my new book, “The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West — and Why Only They Can Save It,” Jewish values are at the very heart of Western and American culture.

Concepts at the core of democracy — limited government and the rule of law founded in the consent of the people — were introduced to the world by the Hebrew Bible.

They were explicitly drawn upon by America’s Founding Fathers when they laid down the principles of the US Constitution and defined the American nation.

That nation and its foundational values have been under sustained assault by liberal universalists led by the Democratic Party.

Scratch an opponent of Israel and you’ll find someone who believes the worst of the West and rubbishes its institutions.

Scratch a protester against the West and you’ll find an enemy of Israel.

The war against Israel is a war against the West; and the war against the West is a war against the Jews.

Melanie Phillips is the author of “The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West — and Why Only They Can Save It,” out now.

https://nypost.com/2025/03/12/opinion/democrats-israel-betrayal-how-the-party-flipped-on-ally/

1916: Pirate of Basra killed by Turks, given Victoria Cross by Brits

Victoria Cross awarded to 'Pirate of Basra' WWI secret agent who was 'murdered' by Turkish troops in Iraq sells for £200,000

An exceptional posthumous Victoria Cross was awarded to a First World War sailor, who was dubbed the 'Pirate of Basra', has sold for £200,000.

Lieutenant-Commander Charles Henry Cowley took part in a suicidal mission to reinforce the besieged Kut garrison in Mesopotamia, now Iraq, in April 1916.

They were carrying 270 tons of supplies in the SS Julnar, a river steamer, when they were attacked by Turkish machine guns and artillery.

Lieutenant-Commmander Cowley's crew fought valiantly in the face of insurmountable odds until all 15 of them were killed or captured.

The 44-year-old river pilot and secret agent helped evacuate British nationals from Baghdad and also carried troops back and forth on the Euphrates and Tigris at great personal risk for 18 months.

This led to him receiving a death sentence in absentia by the Turks, who described him as a 'pirate', prompting Lieutenant-Commander Cowley to fly the skull and cross-bones flag.

Finally having got their man, the Turks swiftly executed Lieutenant-Commander Cowley, who posthumously received Britain's highest award for gallantry.

The soldier was born in Baghdad but educated in Liverpool before joining the training ship Worcester as a cadet in 1885.

An exceptional posthumous Victoria Cross awarded to the 'Pirate of Basra' has sold for £200,000. Lieutenant-Commander Charles Henry Cowley took part in a suicidal mission to reinforce the beseiged Kut garrison in Mesopotamia, now Iraq , in the First Word War

The Victoria Cross that was awarded to Lieutenant-Commander Charles Henry Cowley

When his father died suddenly in 1889, he returned to Baghdad to live with his mother and quickly learnt Arabic and adopted local customs, like an early day Lawrence of Arabia.

In August 1914, he was in command of the steamer Mejidieh, which was ordered from Basra to Baghdad to evacuate British nationals.

Over the next year and a half, he carried out increasingly daring missions until his final stand on the night of April 24-25, 1916.

His Victoria Cross citation reads: 'On the night of 24/25 April 1916 in Mesopotamia, an attempt was made to reprovision the force besieged at Kut-el-Amara.

'Lieutenant Commander Cowley, with a lieutenant, a sub-lieutenant and 12 ratings, started off with 270 tons of stores up the River Tigris.

Lieutenant-Commander Cowley's crew fought valiantly in the face of insurmountable odds until all 15 of them were killed or captured in April 1916

'Unfortunately Julnar was attacked almost at once by Turkish machine-guns and artillery.

'At Magasis, steel hawsers stretched across the river halted the expedition, the enemy opened fire at point-blank range and Julnar's bridge was smashed.

'Julnar's commander was killed, also several of his crew; Lieutenant-Commander Cowley was taken prisoner with the other survivors and almost certainly executed by the Turks.'

His medal, which emerged from the collection of the late Jason Pilalas, went under the hammer at London-based auctioneers Noonans, of Mayfair.

It was bought by a British private collector of gallantry awards.

Lieutenant-Commander Charles Henry Cowley's Victoria Cross

A scroll presented to Lieutenant-Commander Charles Henry Cowley

The river steamer SS Julnar. It was carrying 270 tons of supplies when it was attacked

Nimrod Dix, deputy chairman of Noonans, said: 'Cowley, had been born in Baghdad, and served on steamships up and down the Tigris and Euphrates rivers pre-hostilities, like his Irish-born father who did a similar job.

'Cowley Jnr mastered Arabic and made many local friends, so was ideally suited to serve as a river-pilot, interpreter, and intelligence agent for the British.

'Therefore, it was a small wonder then that his Turkish captors murdered him after he was taken prisoner in a suicidal attempt to reinforce the Kut garrison in the Julnar, that had been carrying 270 tons of supplies, in April 1916.

'Eighteen months before he was murdered, Cowley was in command of the Mejidieh, and ordered from Basra to Baghdad to evacuate all British nationals who wished to leave.

'His command having then been formally requisitioned by the Royal Navy, he went on to play a critical role in carrying troops back and forth on the Euphrates and Tigris.

'His work came to the attention of the Turks, who sentenced him to death in absentia at a military court hearing held in Baghdad - and even sent him a message declaring him to be a 'pirate'.

'Such accusations appealed to Cowley's sense of humour and, far from being perturbed, he took to flying the skull and cross-bones' flag whenever he returned to Basra.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14490853/Victoria-Cross-awarded-WWI-secret-agent-sells-200-000.html

Images taken by a British soldier during the Arab revolt in WW1. In the photograph above, a convoy of horse and carriages are seen preparing to start a 1,000 mile trek to Damascus

British forces' in Mesopotamia, now known as Iraq, as they battled Germany's allies, the Turkish Ottoman Empire. For centuries before the First World War, Mesopotamia had been part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire

Germany had for many years before the war developed Turkey as an ally which it saw as an important part of their eastern expansion. The Turkish army, much of its trade and commerce were led by German advisors. 

Later on in 1916, the Arab revolt, in which Lawrence of Arabia was a central figure, was launched against the Ottoman Empire. Baghdad was captured in March 1917. This image shows a group of people waiting together in Baghdad on a pier head

 Above is the Hit Camp along the bank of the Euphrates, which is one of the longest rivers in Western Asia. The climate was a new experience for the British forces, with temperatures soaring above 40C

Regular flooding was also another weather condition the forces had to battle through. Several men are seen here wading through the water and mud

Tents at the Oxford Bucks camp and Hit town in 1918. 

British troops are seen leaving Hit for England in 1919.The lack of medical arrangements meant wounded men spent up to two weeks on boats before reaching any kind of hospital

In total, more than 40,000 British and Indian forces were killed, with a further 50,000 wounded during the Arab revolt. On the Ottoman side, there were 325,000 deaths. The photographer, Druquer, marveled at the shooting prowess of the Kurdish forces.

He said: 'Along the edge of the water were hundreds of tortoises and birds and wild fowl were plentiful at which the Arabs started shooting but without hitting as far as I could see.' Above shows camp along the bank of the Euphrates

Flies, mosquitoes and other vermin led to high levels of sickness and death during the conflict through disease. A soldier, Mr M.J Taylor, is seen sitting in his car in October, 1918

In another diary entry, Druquer writes with trepidation about an impending 1,000 mile trek to Damascus and Constantinople. This image shows several woman packing their empty cases on to boats before they sail down the river

Above shows a cluster of people leaving on several barges in 1919. British forces closed in on the Turks throughout the autumn of 1917 and into the spring of 1918. The fighting carried on until October 1, when Turkey signed the Armistice

British Soldiers on a Postcard in the Daily Mail 1916