One of the most common refrains at anti-Israel demonstrations around the world has been the call to “globalize the intifada,” an Arabic word which means “shaking off.”
This slogan, referring to the Palestinian intifada, a set of two violent uprisings against Israel, from 1987-1990, and the second, between 2000 and 2005.
The first intifada was largely characterized by Palestinians throwing rocks and smaller explosive devices at Israeli soldiers, the second intifada saw a dramatic escalation, with suicide bombings targeting Israeli restaurants, commuter buses, discotheques and other civilian targets, murdering and injuring thousands of innocent Israelis.
When anti-Israel activists call to “globalize the intifada,” the message is explicit: to perpetuate acts of violence and terrorism, not just in Israel, but around the world. Purveyors of this message aren’t just protesters in the streets, but have included Palestinian-American real estate developer Mohamed Hadid, father of supermodels Bella and Gigi Hadid, who called to “globalize” the intifada on social media.
While it may be tempting to write off such chants and slogans as nothing more than pent-up rage at rallies, there have been a growing list of instances where hate mobs have sought to globalize the intifada.
In late October 2023, a violent mob in the Russian territory of Dagestan chanting anti-Jewish slogans stormed an airport after discovering a flight from Israel was arriving.
In November, 2023, a mob in Amsterdam physically assaulted Israeli soccer fans, sending some to the hospital with serious injuries.
In other cases, would-be terrorists were caught before they could murder. In July, a father and son in Richmond Hill, Ontario were accused of planning a terrorist attack in Toronto. A Pakistani man was arrested in Quebec for allegedly planning to kill Jews in Brooklyn. A teenager from Newmarket, Ontario was arrested in December for allegedly trying to join the Islamic State.
While Jews and Israelis are typically the first target, they are rarely the last.
In the early morning hours of New Years Day, 42 year-old Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a convert to Islam, mowed down dozens of revelers in New Orleans in a rented pickup truck, killing 15 and injuring scores of others. The flag of the Islamic State was found in his truck.
Investigators said that he was “hell-bent on creating the carnage and the damage that he did.”
His targets were not Israelis or Jews; just regular people celebrating New Year’s. This should not be a surprise. Just as Hamas may be headquartered in Gaza and focused primarily on destroying Israel, its ambitions are far larger; it seeks to destroy Israel because it sees it as an obstacle standing in the way of a global Islamic caliphate. Likewise, the Islamic State may primarily exist in a specific geographic location in the Middle East, but it does not see its efforts as being limited.
While separated by geography, what binds the terrorism of Hamas and the Islamic State, and indeed the attacks – whether stopped in advance or not – emanating from Canada is not geography, but ideology, namely radical Islam.
Reporting the news does not simply mean repeating the basic facts of a story; it should include informing Canadians about the ideological nature of these terrorist threats.
The news media is often called the fourth estate, meaning that it possesses significant power and influence. As sympathizers of radical Islamic terrorists march through major Canadian cities calling for a “globalized” terrorist intifada, politicians and police forces have been overwhelmingly – and dangerously – tolerant of this fanatic threat.
It’s time that the news media takes responsibility when it seems nobody else will.
