EDITORIAL: It’s time to take back our streets

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It’s time to put an end to pro-Hamas demonstrations that regularly take over streets in major Canadian cities and deny thousands of people the right to go about their legitimate business.

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This has taken the form of demonstrators praying at major intersections. Some argue this is about freedom of speech or freedom of expression. It isn’t. You have the freedom to worship any way you want — in your church, temple or mosque.

You can express yourself any way you like, within the bounds of libel and hate speech. You can’t obstruct freedom of movement for the rest of us. Police need to start moving on these protesters and arresting them if they won’t budge.

Demonstrators point to Israel’s renewed air and ground assault in Gaza as the reason for their protest. Here’s the solution: If Hamas released the rest of the hostages, the war would end. The New York Times reported recently that fewer than half of the 59 hostages still held in Gaza are believed to be alive. They all should immediately be returned.

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A recent report by an all-party committee of the British Parliament provided a chilling picture of the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023
Committee chair and historian Lord Roberts said the 318-page report provided incontrovertible proof that Hamas committed mutilation, sexual violence and other atrocities. The attack resulted in the “largest single massacre of Jewish people since the Holocaust.”

The report provided graphic testimony of rapes and murders of young women. The youngest victim of the attacks was identified as Naama Abu Rashed, the daughter of Bedouin parents. She suffered gunshot wounds while still in her mother’s womb. She died 14 hours after doctors performed an emergency delivery.

Roberts said it was important to produce the report to counter “pernicious” attempts to minimize the brutality of the attacks.

That’s what those demonstrators who shut down our streets are endorsing: Wholesale rape, slaughter and the murder of babies.

Hamas has not only the blood of innocent Israelis on its hands. In its refusal to return the remaining hostages and perpetuating the war, it’s responsible for the deaths of thousands of Gazans.

That it’s nothing to celebrate and it’s no reason to shut down our streets.

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