`Hidden hand'
Israel concerned about outside players in West protests
JERUSALEM — Israel's government is paying close attention to pro-hamas, anti-semitic protests and rallies happening in Canada and the West and is very concerned, a senior Israeli government spokesman says.
Israel believes what is happening abroad isn't organic or spontaneous, says Alex Gandler, deputy spokesman for Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “There is definitely a hidden hand” helping to organize and assist the anti-israel protests, he told the Toronto Sun. “This is not organic. This is not a coincidence.
“This has been going on for years. And the infrastructure for the existence of these protests was set up years ago, pre-hamas.”
The anti-israel, pro-hamas agitation is exceptionally well-organized and well-funded, Gandler insists.
“State-driven voices have been pushing these messages, and investing a lot of money (in the rallies and protests). And not just money, but time — and they have been shaping what they want the response to be when the day comes.”
And, following Oct. 7, that day has come.
As this newspaper has reported for months, foreign interests — Iran and Qatar — are supplying considerable material and rhetorical support to the anti-israel forces.
And, as we have also reported, protesters are even being paid to show up in Canadian cities like Victoria and Montreal.
And Israel isn't their only target, says Gandler.
“This is more than that,” he says. “There has been heavy investing in changing or rearranging the political map of other countries. It is a political push.”
And, as Russia sought to do in the 2016 U.S. presidential election — and as China did in the 2019 and '21 Canadian federal elections — the anti-israel “hidden hand” wants to destabilize and ultimately destroy Western-style democracy.
“It is Western liberal democracy that is on the line,” he says. “That is, Western democracy that is represented in Canada and the United States and Western Europe and also in Israel. The aim, at the end of the day, is to change all that into something else.”
Israel's main focus at the moment is — understandably — winning its war against Hamas, getting back the hostages, and disarming Gaza.
But when the war is over — soon, Israelis hope — attention will turn to the other war: The global propaganda war against Israel and her allies.
Concludes Gandler: “We need to protect ourselves from the worst — by being the better.”