Dangerous Times

Two Montreal police officers spent an hour in my office yesterday. No, they weren’t there to arrest or question me. They were there to collect surveillance footage from our security system. That has never happened before.

I’ve mentioned before that federal cabinet minister Melanie Joly is my tenant. Her riding office sits directly beside our building management office. Since October 7, our building has been the site of several anti‑Israel protests—some of them loud, disruptive, and intimidating. Dozens of protesters have entered the building with bullhorns, plastered her door and the corridor walls with stickers, and even thrown red paint at the lobby entrance. Every incident was captured by our cameras. Until now, Montreal police had never come to retrieve the footage.

Yesterday’s protest was comparatively subdued. I didn’t even know it had occurred until the police arrived asking for video. The cameras show roughly two dozen people entering the building carrying a large box, along with one protester holding a black sign with bright yellow lettering. Inside the box was a papier‑mâché mock‑up of a bomb. The sign read: 'Le Canada doit arrêter d’armer Israël' (“Canada must stop arming Israel”).

I asked the officers why they were being so thorough this time. One replied that they wanted to identify every face possible. Clearly, something has changed.

Perhaps this heightened diligence reflects broader concerns following the horrific attack in Bondi, Australia. If so, the local police being on high alert is reassuring. Still, the coincidence of these events may point to something more troubling.

The Bondi attack occurred during Chanukah, one of the few times each year when Jewish communities gather publicly and visibly to celebrate. I don’t believe the protest in my building was directly connected to Chanukah. But I do believe something is stirring online—an effort to incite action against Jews in the diaspora.

Ordinarily, one might expect a ceasefire in Gaza to ease tensions. Historically, however, it is often precisely when vigilance relaxes that violence occurs. That is when adversaries of Israel and of Jewish communities have struck in the past—targeting relatively defenceless Jewish populations outside Israel. The 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires, which followed the first intifada, is a grim reminder. That attack did not emerge from a spontaneous local grievance; it was later traced to Iranian planning and Hezbollah execution, carried out far from the Middle East against a soft diaspora target.

History offers multiple examples of this pattern. During the Second Intifada and its aftermath, attacks against Jewish targets surged across Europe: the 2002 bombing of the Ghriba synagogue in Tunisia, the 2012 murders of Jewish schoolchildren in Toulouse, and the 2014 attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium in Brussels. In 2008, Lashkar‑e‑Taiba operatives targeted the Chabad House in Mumbai—explicitly selecting a Jewish religious centre as part of a broader geopolitical terror operation.

The common thread is not timing alone, but strategy: when direct confrontation with Israel is constrained, violence is displaced outward. Diaspora Jewish institutions—schools, synagogues, community centres, cultural gatherings—become symbolic stand‑ins for the Jewish state, and therefore targets of opportunity.

I have also been watching closely for an Iranian response to recent blows against its regional influence. My expectation has been that any response would be indirect and gradual—through the activation of sympathetic networks, militant proxies, or sleeper cells abroad. Such networks are typically loose and decentralized, which is exactly what makes them difficult to detect and prevent. I expect we will learn soon that Bondi fits this pattern.

Anyone who knows me knows I am not an alarmist—if anything, I’m usually the one cautioning against social‑media‑driven hysteria. But realism matters. And my sober assessment is that we may be entering the most dangerous period for diaspora Jewish communities since October 7.