February 29, 2024
TORONTO – B’nai Brith is outraged that International Women’s Day (IWD) rallies across Canada are planning to commemorate terrorism while ignoring the violence perpetrated last October by Hamas terrorists against innocent Israeli civilians, including women and girls.
IWD, on Mar. 8, 2024, is intended to celebrate women and their contributions to society. It is also a time to advocate for women’s rights and challenge gender-based discrimination.
Instead of using this day as an opportunity to raise awareness about Israeli women and girls who were raped, mutilated, and killed on Oct. 7, or to demand the release of those still held hostage in Gaza by Hamas terrorists, some groups in Canada will be supporting their captors.
For instance, promotional materials for women’s marches in Toronto and Vancouver feature figures such as Leila Khaled, who participated in the 1969 hijacking of TWA Flight 840 and the 1970 attack on El Al Flight 219 as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a listed terrorist entity in Canada.
Other extremists cited as luminaries of Palestinian “liberation” include Ahed Tamimi, who was arrested for attacking Israeli soldiers and later for inciting violence against Jews on social media.
“The public must see the hypocrisy in these attempts to manipulate IWD into anti-Israel propaganda,” said Richard Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s Director of Research and Advocacy. “IWD is a day to promote the universal struggle for women’s rights, and to celebrate women’s accomplishments – not to glorify terrorists, even if they are women. If anything, this should be a moment to express global revulsion towards Hamas’ cruel treatment of women on and after Oct. 7.
“It is profoundly concerning that some IWD organizers do not see the pain and suffering of the victims of Hamas terror as something worth acknowledging simply because they are Jewish or Israeli.”
Following public backlash, the Vancouver IWD march organizers updated a Facebook statement to express “support [for] Jewish women,” while hypocritically dedicating IWD this year to Palestinian women who have “engendered revolutionary change.”
