Monday, 5 October 2026
THESE ASSHOLES JUST DON''T FUCKING GET IT
Greens label Zionism “a form of racism”
A half century after most of the world labelled Zionism racism, a major Anglosphere party has finally echoed the call. The Greens’ resolution is a significant blow to Tel Aviv, Ottawa, supremacist lobbyists and Elizabeth May.
On Sunday, the Green Party of England and Wales adopted an anti-Zionist resolution. Echoing the 1975 UN General Assembly motion, the Greens’ motion labels Zionism “a form of racism”. It also calls for a “single democratic Palestinian state in all of historic Palestine” and to de-proscribe Palestine Action.
Zionists are panicking. The Israeli government immediately banned the (Jewish) leader of the Greens from entering the country and opposition leader Yair Lapid posted a long denunciation, concluding, “It is not Zionism that’s racism, it is the Green Party.”
Following in the footsteps of his beloved supremacist state, Liberal MP Anthony Hausefather posted, “the UK Greens have crossed the rubicon. Anti-Zionism (the complete denial of Israel’s right to exist) is antisemitism plain and simple. I am disgusted.”
Housefather is especially angry because he just convinced his government to explicitly label opposition to Jewish supremacist colonialism racism. A Public Safety Canada report released last week stated that antisemitism “includes anti-Zionism.”
More than any other Canadian political leader, the resolution should embarrass Elizabeth May. Instead of accepting members’ desire to challenge Jewish supremacist colonialism, May tanked the Green party in no small measure due to her philosemitism and Anglican Zionism.
In 2016 May threatened to resign as leader of the Greens if the party didn’t organize a special convention immediately after members strongly backed a partial Boycott Divestment and Sanctions resolution in a pre-convention online poll, convention caucus and full convention vote. In response she forced the party to spend over $100,000 to organize a special convention five months later in a bid to overturn a single resolution. As part of her stunningly undemocratic bid to reverse members’ BDS vote, May fired the sponsor of the resolution, Dmitri Lascaris, and two other shadow critics who defended the members vote.
While May expected the backers of the BDS resolution to give up in the face of her control of the party apparatus, Palestine supporters out organized May in the lead-up to the special convention. As such, May was forced into agreeing with a resolution that deepened the boycott call but withdrew the BDS formulation. But through her control of the party’s megaphone May spun a false narrative of the consensus resolution, claiming the party did not support BDS. In 2019 May told the Canadian Jewish News “We have nothing to do with BDS. We repealed it. We are not a party that condones BDS. We would never tolerate anybody in our party who violates our core values, who are anti-Semitic.”
On multiple occasions May has insinuated that pro-Palestinian members, notably Lascaris, were antisemitic and during the 2020 Green Party leadership race she smeared Lascaris. It was part of why Lascaris was barred from running (he ultimately overturned the ban). As she worked to undermine anti-apartheid voices, May threw her weight behind the little-known Annamie Paul, securing her victory in the leadership race. Deeply anti-Palestinian, Paul destroyed her leadership and severely damaged the Green Party by pushing racist positions during Israel’s 2021 slaughter in Gaza.
Amidst Israel’s holocaust in Gaza and violence across the region over the past three years, May has continued to make statements that prioritize Israeli victims and Jewish feelings over oppressed Palestinians.
Unlike the Canadian Greens which has one MP, 10 000 members and two percent in the polls, the UK party is in ascendance. They have five seats, 200,000 members and over 10% in the polls.
If May had heeded members will a decade ago, the Green party, progressive Canadians and Palestinians would be better off. Elizabeth May should be ashamed.
Sunday, 4 October 2026
LET IT FUCKING GO
New monument to Japanese Canadians reminder of dark period in B.C.’s past
Henry Shimizu was a carefree 13-year-old, working in his parents’ hotel and restaurant in Prince Rupert, fishing with friends and attending school, when his life was turned upside down.
It was 1942, and government agents arrived with orders that all people of Japanese descent had to leave.
Henry’s parents, Shotaro and Kimiko Shimizu, were told to pack up suitcases and gather their four children. They were loaded onto trucks for a long, miserable ride to Vancouver, where they stayed in animal stalls in Hastings Park.
They were issued woollen, numbered blankets, which they could use for either privacy or warmth in barns that reeked of cattle and horse dung.
The Shimizu family was later transferred to an internment camp at New Denver, in the Kootenays, where they spent four years living in shacks with another family — 12 people in total stacked in bunks in two bedrooms with a common cooking area. It was more than 1,600 kilometres from the home and life they had built on the coast.
The shiplap walls of the shacks in the internment camps were built with green slabs of wood, which separated the first winter, letting in cold wind and drifts of snow.
This week, Shimizu — a month shy of his 98th birthday — saw his name etched into one of 100 half-ton slabs of granite that form a 300-foot-long wall and ornate garden at the new Japanese Canadian Monument.
Dozens of survivors, their families and dignitaries gathered on Saturday to officially open the monument at Academy Close, between the north end of Beacon Hill Park and St. Ann’s Academy.
The curved pattern of stone slabs hugged an audience of hundreds as they gathered to honour the monument’s dedication.
Geri Onishi Kraus travelled to Victoria from London, Ont., to attend the ceremony, searching for her name and those of many of her family and friends.
Kraus was born in Hamilton after her parents were removed from the west coast of B.C. and said it wasn’t something they spoke about growing up.
“I didn’t know until my father was in his 80s.”
Etched into the curving wall of panels are names of more than 22,000 Japanese Canadians who were forcibly removed from the west coast and sent to internment camps during the Second World War.
More than 3,000 Japanese Canadians were moved off Vancouver Island, including more than 300 from the Victoria area and 79 from Mayne Island.
Each name is listed by the region where they were torn from their homes, their possessions and properties confiscated and later sold in weekly auctions by the provincial government. Homes, businesses, farms, boats, household items — even pets — were sold off.
Properties were sold for cash at a fraction of their value, and the Japanese Canadians were forced to accept it, some taking the money with them to camps and using it to survive and to eventually start over.
Paul Kariya, president of Japanese Canadian Legacies Society, said at the ceremony that while the memorial can’t bring back homes, fishing boats and businesses, the stone etchings mean “the names of those uprooted will endure.”
More than 90% of Japanese Canadians living in B.C. were detained under the War Measures Act, even though most were Canadian citizens, including members of Shimizu’s family.
“They assumed we were enemies, but we were born in Canada,” said Shimizu, whose father had come to Canada in 1907, working hard to save enough to open a hotel and buy rental houses with a partner.
“They ignored that. They said, ‘You are from Japan.’ ”
Eventually, he said, “the government did feel a little guilty because they realized that most of us were born in Canada and they were putting us in jail with no wrongdoing. I think they realized they had done us a lot of harm and wanted to do something for us that’s positive.”
The monument project is part of a $100-million redress package announced by then B.C. Premier John Horgan in 2022 in recognition of wrongs committed by the province against Japanese Canadians during the Second World War. The money was earmarked to support heritage and education initiatives, and the monument in a Japanese-inspired garden is the centrepiece.
The process of researching and collecting the names inscribed on the memorial walls spanned more than seven years and was done by the University of Victoria’s Humanities Computing and Media Centre in partnership with the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society.
Thousands were forcibly removed from a 160-kilometre exclusion zone from the coast and sent to hastily built camps at former mining sites and farms in the B.C. Interior. Others were sent to road-building camps or to sugar beet farms in Alberta, as well as camps in Ontario and Manitoba. About 4,000 were exiled to Japan, a country many had never even known.
The camps in B.C. were around places like Greenwood, Kaslo, East Lillooet, Hope and in the Slocan Valley, where one of the largest was near New Denver, with hundreds of shacks built in open farm fields.
In 1949, Japanese Canadians were permitted to return to the west coast, but they were still subjected to racist policies and treatment for years, and many communities never recovered.
After their internment, the Shimizu family moved to Edmonton, where Henry worked weekends as an “elevator boy” in a hospital, living in the basement with other orderlies and maintenance staff.
He kept his memories of internment to himself for many years, determined to continue working hard to improve his life without remorse or anger, and studied hard for a career in medicine.
He eventually enjoyed a long career as a plastic surgeon and clinical professor at the University of Alberta Hospital, training new generations of medical practitioners.
Shimizu’s daughter Yoshiko Shimizu, the youngest of his four children, said the new memorial will go a long way toward educating Canadians about what happened to her family. “When I was in high school, only Japanese descendants knew internment camps ever happened,” she said. “It was the secret shame in Canada that nobody would talk about. But it’s changing now.”
Another section of the monument has the names of 3,113 children born to families after the uprooting began and before the restrictions were lifted on March 31, 1949.
Among them is Tony Ibaraki. His father lived in Kelowna and owned property and wasn’t sent to the camps, but his mother was moved from the coast to Hasting Park and then to a camp in Greenwood in south-central B.C.
In 1945, Ibaraki’s father was given paperwork to pick up his bride-to-be.
“They didn’t talk about any of this until after 1949,” said Ibaraki. “They didn’t want to identify themselves as Japanese for a long time. It was hard.
“But I think a lot of people who were interned would be in seventh heaven to see this.”
The monument was both a challenge and inspiration for Hamilton, Ont.-based architect Bruce Kuwabara, whose parents and relatives were forced inland from the coast.
The idea was to create a naming wall similar to the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, D.C., but in a more accessible form, as opposed to a long continuous wall.
“We made panels that were the size of a door. It scaled well to the individual standing in front of it. We wanted an intimate monumentality,” said Kuwabara, who expects the wall to become a pilgrimage site. “People will come to the wall, see the name and touch it.”
The 100 granite panels are placed in a wave pattern, depicting the 100-mile or 160-kilometre exclusion zone, he said.
None of the panels touch — they’re separated with uniform spaces that allow the panels to “curve” over the distance and let light and air through.
“I’m paraphrasing Leonard Cohen, who said there’s a crack in everything — that’s how the light gets through. It represents rupture and struggle. The air and the light gets through to represent healing,” said Kuwabara. “This wall breathes.”
Kuwabara’s parents were also sent to Hastings Park animal pens and later moved to Sandon, near New Denver, where his mother raised the children while his father and some of his brothers were sent off to work camps clearing forest and building parts of the Trans-Canada Highway.
When the war ended in 1945, the federal government offered interned people the choice of deportation or relocation east of the Rocky Mountains.
Kuwabara said the federal government offered some $3,000 to go to Japan, but many had never been to the country. “So a lot started to migrate because they never had anything to go back to,” said Kuwabara, noting strong communities were formed in Steveston, Vancouver and Victoria, though many, like his family, settled in Ontario.
Deportation was later cancelled due to public protest, but not before about 4,000 people were sent to Japan. On April 1, 1949, Japanese Canadians were given the right to vote, and the legal restrictions to control their movements were removed.
The episode is now acknowledged as one of the worst human rights violations in B.C.’s history.
In 1988, the federal government formally apologized and offered compensation to Japanese Canadian survivors and their families.
Architect Jack Kobayashi of Whitehorse-based Kobayashi Zedda worked with Susanne Tabata, chief executive of the Japanese Canadian Legacies Society, on the first pre-design of the monument, which formed the scope and scale of the project. The province then selected Toronto-based architecture firm KPMB, led by founding partner Bruce Kuwabara, who worked with Vancouver-based landscape architect Kelty Miyoshi McKinnon of PFS Studio. Chandos Construction is the general contractor.
Quebec-based Premier Jet engraved the walls. Interpretive boulders, including a dedication by the Songhees First Nation, were engraved by Victoria’s Mortimer’s Monumental Works.
At the ceremony, architect Kuwabara said the curved design for the monument was chosen by community members because of how it emulates a ripple of water. “In that, was a metaphor of change,” he said. The ripple creates three smaller bays for reflection, and each slab resembles a large door.
For Kuwabara, the design was rooted in a strong personal connection. “My entire family on both sides are on the wall,” he said.
dkloster@timescolonist.com
AND IT CONTINUES
Israel Detains Journalists as Settlers Burn Olive Trees, Attack Palestinian Farmers

Israeli occupation forces detained two journalists as settlers attacked West Bank towns and villages, following 530 documented arrests of Palestinians during September alone.
Key Takeaways
- Israeli occupation forces detained journalists Sami al-Shami and Raja Marouf Jabr during separate raids near Nablus and Jenin early Sunday.
- Illegal Israeli settlers attacked farmers, schoolchildren, homes and vehicles across the West Bank, burning olive trees and damaging agricultural land.
- A Palestinian monitoring center documented 530 arrests in September, including 39 children and 15 women and girls, alongside more than 625 administrative detention orders.
Two Journalists Arrested During Home Raids
Israeli occupation forces detained two Palestinian journalists during separate raids in the occupied West Bank early Sunday, Quds News Network reported.
In Asira al-Qibliya, south of Nablus, Israeli occupation forces entered the town and raided several homes before arresting journalist Sami al-Shami and a number of young men.
In Arraba, south of Jenin, forces raided the home of journalist Raja Marouf Jabr, searched and disturbed its contents, and arrested her, according to the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club.
The arrests followed a month in which the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate documented 84 violations against journalists and media workers.
Its August report recorded seven arrests and 30 incidents involving detention or the prevention of press crews from working. It also documented a journalist wounded by gunfire, six assaults, six incidents involving death threats or the brandishing of weapons, and seven cases of confiscation or deletion of journalistic material.
The syndicate recorded the death of a journalist inside Israeli prisons during the month, alongside 10 incidents involving tear gas and three settler attacks. Other violations included damage to or confiscation of equipment and raids on media institutions and journalists’ homes.
In Gaza, the Government Media Office said 262 journalists and media workers had been killed since the beginning of the genocide, including 26 women, while more than 433 had been injured.
The office reported that 50 journalists and media professionals whose names were known had been arrested, with 23 still detained. Three journalists remained missing, and 28 influential media activists had been killed.
It also said 32 families of killed journalists had been wiped out and 53 journalists’ homes had been wholly or partially destroyed. The office described the attacks on journalists, their families, workplaces and equipment as part of a policy aimed at restricting reporting from Gaza.
Settlers Attack Students, Farmers and Homes
Meanwhile, illegal Israeli Jewish settler attacks over the preceding 24 hours affected towns and villages across the occupied West Bank, targeting Palestinian residents, olive trees, agricultural land, vehicles and homes, Quds News Network reported.
Near Jenin, the Palestinian Red Crescent said a man was injured in a settler assault in Arrabuna. Settlers also set fire to Palestinian land in Jaba’, south of Jenin, and Beit Imrin, northwest of Nablus.
In Huwwara, south of Nablus, illegal settlers attacked students heading to Huwwara Boys Secondary School. Residents confronted settler attacks in the town and in nearby Osarin.
During the Osarin attack, illegal settlers damaged Palestinian vehicles and assaulted residents. Red Crescent crews treated a man who had been severely beaten during an attack on farmers.
Armed settlers accompanied by Israeli occupation forces also attacked farmers on the outskirts of Burin. Other attacks targeted farmers south of Baqa al-Hatab, east of Qalqilya, while illegal settlers released livestock onto Palestinian land in the Al-Dhahra area of Beita.
In Awarta, settlers entered the village and performed religious rituals at the Al-Uzair shrine.
Around Ramallah, settlers carried out excavation and bulldozing on Palestinian land in Umm Safa, threw stones at vehicles on the Marj Si’a road between Abu Falah and Al-Mughayyir, and assaulted farmers in Deir Dibwan.
In Rantis, west of Ramallah, members of a Palestinian family were injured in another settler attack.
Illegal Israeli Jewish settlers burned more than 50 olive trees on a resident’s land in Abu Dis, near occupied East Jerusalem, as well as ancient olive trees in the surrounding wilderness.
In Masafer Yatta, south of Hebron (Al-Khalil), illegal settlers released cattle near Palestinian homes in Khallat al-Homs and attacked homes in Wadi al-Rakheem. In Wadi Jheish, near As-Samu, settlers attacked a house, burned a vehicle and wrote hostile slogans.
September Arrests Include Children and Women
The Palestinian Center for Prisoner Studies documented 530 arrests by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem during September, including 39 children and 15 women and girls.
The center said its total excluded hundreds of Palestinians subjected to temporary mass detention during raids. Those detained in the field were held for hours, with some subjected to beatings, insults and threats before release, according to its monthly report cited by Quds News Network.
The youngest child arrested was 13-year-old Habib Allah al-Qawasmeh from Hebron. The center said some children were transferred to detention and interrogation facilities, while others received administrative detention orders.
Approximately 360 Palestinian children remain detained in the children’s sections of Megiddo and Ofer prisons, according to the center.
Women arrested during September included journalist Naqa Hamed from Ramallah, who was held for two weeks on incitement charges before being released. Jerusalem activist Khadija Suweis received orders banning her from Al-Aqsa Mosque and preventing her from traveling.
The report also documented the death of 21-year-old Mu’taz Nizam al-Atrash from Hebron inside Ofer prison.
Al-Atrash was arrested in October 2025 and placed in administrative detention, which was renewed twice. His health deteriorated before his death, the center said, holding Israeli authorities responsible and accusing them of torture, medical neglect, starvation and abuse.
According to the center, his death brought the number of Palestinians who have died in Israeli custody since 1967 to 329, including 92 since October 7, 2023.
Israeli authorities issued more than 625 administrative detention orders during September, encompassing new orders and extensions.
The center also documented the transfer of prisoners to administrative detention after their sentences expired, including Amir Allan from Nablus, whose seven-and-a-half-year sentence had ended.
Regarding Gaza, the center said 61 detainees were released during September, many in poor physical and psychological condition, with some requiring hospital treatment. It also reported the arrest of 10 fishermen while working off the Gaza City coast.
(PC, QNN)






