Anti-Israel protesters praised the October 7 massacre and several terrorist organizations at a Vancouver rally on Friday according to a video published by Free Palestine Tri-cities British Columbia, demanding that the groups be removed from Canada's list of terrorist entities.
Charlotte Kates, the international coordinator for the allegedly Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-affiliated (PFLP) Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, led demonstrators in a chant proclaiming "Long live October 7."
"We stand with the Palestinian resistance and their heroic brave action on October 7," Kates said in her speech on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery.
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The events of October 7, according to Kates, indicated that Palestinians had almost achieved victory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea. Kates criticized Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and opposition leader Pierre Poilievre for denouncing the Hamas-led pogrom, but for not uttering similar denunciations for the subsequent Israeli operations in Gaza.
Kates glorified the "Beautiful, brave and heroic resistance of the Palestinian people, which did not begin on October 7, which has continued for over 75 years, which has continued over 120 years."
"It is long past time to delist Palestinian and Lebanese resistance organizations from Canada's so-called list of terrorist entities," said Kates. "Hamas is not a terrorist organization, [Palestinian} Islamic Jihad is not a terrorist organization, PFLP is not a terrorist organization, Hezbollah is not a terrorist organization. These are resistance fighters. These are our heroes."
Demands that Israel be considered a terrorist entity
In the terrorist organizations' stead, Kates demanded that Israel and those with financial relationships with the state be added to the Canadian list of terrorist entities.
Kates urged the Canadian protesters not to be silent about "resistance fighters," or to be ashamed of the names of Hamas, PFLP, PIJ, and Hezbollah. She said that they were defending humanity and the freedom of peoples around the world.
"Everything that we can do is just to live up to the example that the resistance fighters set every day, yes, with their guns, with their missiles, and their rockets, but also with their medicine, with their books, with their love, and with their hop and joy for a liberated palestine and for the future of humanity," said Kates.
Kates shared her vision of a united liberation front around the world, connecting them with Iraq, Iran, Syria and Yemen. Kates said that Yemen was speaking for the activists by "decolonizing the red sea" and shutting down shipping lanes.
"Yemen is leading the way," said Kates. "Yeman declared Israel and the united states to be terrorist entities and subjected to sanctions."
Kates said that the role of the protesters in the united front was to boycott companies with business relations with Israel such as McDonalds and Indigo Books, and to conduct actions like the occupation of campuses in the fashion of the Columbia University encampment.
At the Hands Off Rafah event that according to promotional content was sponsored by Samidoun, Palestinian Youth Movement, Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement (Masir Badil), Independent Jewish Voices, and International League of Peoples' Struggle in Canada, other speakers called for support of campus encampments.
A speaker in a red keffiyeh claimed that "students have taken it upon themselves to start an intifada" by seizing campuses.
Another protest leader related information from protesters at Ohio State University, and castigated Ohio law enforcement for arresting activists there. The speaker said that the Palestinians guided the movement against imperialism.
"Their martyrs inspire us all," she said.
Videos published by pro-Palestinian groups showed saw signs calling for Intifada.
As demonstrators marched through the city, they chanted "From the water to the water Palestine is Arab" and "there is only one solution, Intifada revolution."
Kates, along with her husband Khaled Barakat, were speakers alongside Within Our Lifetime Nerdeen Kiswani at an online March 24 lecture at Columbia University that led to the suspension of students and the intensification of protest by anti-Israel factions on campus. At the Resistance 101 event, Kates had also urged students to support "resistance" groups, that there was nothing wrong with being part of Hamas, and that October 7 was an "earth-shattering undertaking."
Barakat, purported by PFLP and Palestinian media sources to be a member of the terrorist organization, called for the abolishment of Canada's list of terrorist entities at the ILPS assembly in Ottawa in 2022. Kate's husband complained that Hezbollah, Hamas and PFLP were officially recognized by Canada as terrorist organizations.