United Church Minister denounces Israel at CASMO hate fest

United Church minister Brian McIntosh appeared at the now infamous al Quds Day seminar organized by an anti-Israel hate group on Friday, August 26.  Despite condemnation of the event from Toronto's mayor and a slew of City Councilors, McIntosh lent his credibility, such as it is, to CASMO, a group of Khomeinist supporters of the racist, terror-sponsoring Iranian regime.

In his address to the assembled fanatics, McIntosh got caught up in the frenzy and denounced Israel with: "...the political powers of the world bear a false witness to the divine will, through politically and military-backed colonialism, horrific ethnic cleansing, systematic, state-sanctioned terrorism, the real, true terrorism, the carrying out of what many have called the Manifest Destiny of the West, known as the Zionist Project in Israel."

McIntosh, whose authority to speak on behalf of the divine will is questionable, went on to express support for a divestment, boycott and sanctions campaign against the only liberal democracy in the middle east, but on that night lacked the fortitude to utter a single word of criticism towards Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism that persecutes religious minorities, murders Gays, and represses women.

What McIntosh did do was to try to bolster his position by invoking Richard Falk, a Jewish anti-Semite and 9-11 conspiracy theorist who has distinguished himself by being the only Special Rapporteur in the history of the United Nations to be condemned by a UN Secretary General.

In addition to saying Palestinians suffer from an "apartheid" worse than that in South Africa thirty years ago, McIntosh also referred to Israeli settlements in the West Bank as "one of the largest politically motivated land grabs in human history." Given that McIntosh made that pronouncement in North America, it betrays a pathetic lack of historical knowledge on his part.

The word "Shahid" is Arabic for "witness", but it is generally taken to mean martyr or someone who has dies in fulfillment of Islamic religious duty. It is the term by which violent, fanatical Islamists in Hamas and Hezbollah refer to their suicide bombers. McIntosh, in his speech, said, "surely there have been enough shahids for Palestinian dignity, justice and freedom who have been killed to convince the world of the necessity of ending this conflict by returning the Palestinians to their homeland.."

McIntosh appears oblivious, if not indifferent to the fact that so many shahids have died not for dignity and justice, but out of a desire to murder innocent Israelis and collect 72 virgins in a promised afterlife.

The ignorance, lack of historical comprehension, lack of context and utter bigotry demonstrated by McIntosh in his speech are astounding. The United Church of Canada has just distanced itself from an individual named Karin Brothers who was said to be a representative of the Church at a CASMO hate rally at Queen's Park.

A question the United Church needs to address is whether the shameful speech by McIntosh reflects the Church, or will they bury their heads in the sand?