Experts Warn of Foreign Influence Iran Russia Fueling Anti-Israel Protests in Canada

[Social Media]

 

A new report by XPOZ has revealed that anti-Israel protests at McGill University have been bolstered by a social media influence campaign with potential ties to Iran. This report adds to growing concerns that foreign entities, particularly Iran and Russia, are manipulating social media to incite anti-Israel sentiments across Canada.

 

Marcus Kolga, the founder of DisinfoWatch, a platform established in 2007 to monitor and expose state-sponsored social media manipulation, has noted a significant increase in such activities. Since the Hamas invasion of Israel last October, Kolga observed a spike in social media accounts shifting from anti-Ukrainian to anti-Zionist content. "Over the past nine months at DisinfoWatch, we’ve observed social media accounts that were previously posting aggressively anti-Ukrainian content, adding anti-Zionist content to their toxic mix," Kolga stated in an email to the National Post. He also highlighted that Russian intelligence has been supporting antisemitic measures and influence operations.

 

 

These revelations come amid reports of foreign governments, including Iran, sowing divisions in Western countries following the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel. In July, the U.S. director of national intelligence issued a statement warning of Iran's role in boosting anti-Israel protests online. Similarly, France accused Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) of a covert campaign to incite fears of antisemitism by graffitiing Paris with Jewish stars. Kolga referenced a joint effort by American and Canadian intelligence agencies that uncovered nearly a thousand bot accounts promoting Russian government messaging as a stark example of such manipulations.

 

 

 

According to Kolga, Iran plays a crucial role in this network, aligned with Russia. "We’ve observed a clear crossover of pro-Kremlin/anti-Ukrainian and anti-Zionist/pro-Hamas narratives by prominent far-left and far-right influencers," Kolga noted. This crossover is evident in the recent report from XPOZ, which identified a coordinated social media influence campaign targeting McGill University’s anti-Israel protests, potentially linked to Iran.

 

 

XPOZ’s report detailed how the anti-Israel protests at McGill were amplified by social media users, with a significant portion of the commentary in Farsi and Arabic. These accounts expressed support for McGill’s student encampment, endorsed Hamas, and accused Israel of committing "genocide" in Gaza. The company found that 60% of anti-Israel posts related to McGill were made by fake accounts, compared to 75% of the critics of the encampment being authentic users.

 

XPOZ’s analysis involved examining nearly 150,000 posts on Twitter (now X), over half a million likes, and more than 65,000 comments. "In summary, there is a very clear attempt by a foreign power to sow discord and incite public unrest within Canada," the company concluded, noting that such practices violated Twitter’s terms of use.

 

An XPOZ researcher, speaking anonymously, emphasized that authentic social media profiles typically exhibit a range of interests, while fake accounts focus solely on political discourse. This pattern of inauthentic behaviour was corroborated by Kolga, who reviewed the XPOZ reports. "It’s not at all surprising that there’s a significant inauthentic network and activity being observed amplifying narratives that are supportive of Hamas," he said.

 

Joel Finkelstein, co-founder of the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), supported XPOZ's findings, noting that while the data should be reviewed cautiously, the broader trends align with NCRI's observations. "The claims being made by the research may be hard to determine in specificity, but are largely uncontroversial in terms of broader trends," Finkelstein told the Post.

 

Michael Bonner, a historian of ancient Iran and senior fellow with the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy, remarked on Iran’s longstanding efforts to infiltrate and destabilize Western democracies. "Iranian intelligence now targets Western domestic cultural and political weaknesses and inflames them, as we saw in recent protests," he said. Bonner called on the federal government to impose strict measures to counter such foreign interference.

 

Neil Oberman, a Montreal attorney who represented Jewish students at McGill against the anti-Israel encampment, flagged the XPOZ report as a national concern. Oberman, who is running for the Conservative Party in Montreal, urged the federal government to investigate and prevent foreign manipulation of Canadian social dynamics. "Canada cannot be allowed to be manipulated by foreign countries to create social upheaval. That is not acceptable. Period," he asserted.

 

This issue of foreign interference in Canadian affairs is not new. A report by the Public Inquiry into Foreign Interference in May found that the 2019 and 2021 federal elections were compromised by meddling from countries including Iran, China, Russia, India, and Pakistan. The report emphasized that Russia's goal is to undermine U.S. dominance and discredit Western policies. While Iran was not deemed a major meddler at the time, officials confirmed they are closely monitoring its activities.

 

At a recent White House briefing, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby acknowledged Iran's role in boosting anti-Israel protests on college campuses. However, Finkelstein cautioned that the Chinese Communist Party's involvement in promoting anti-Israel protests in the U.S. should not be overlooked.

 

The Ministry of Public Safety stated that the government and intelligence agencies take foreign interference seriously and are taking appropriate measures to combat it. Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsmann criticized the current government’s efforts, calling for more robust actions to stop foreign states from targeting Canada. "Any interference, from any foreign state must be stopped," Lantsmann stated.

 

Credit: National Post  2024-08-05

 

 

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[Stargeezr]

It was not just Hamas that built those tunnels in Gaza City, it was a bunch of other people living there as well.

  Hamas has to get out of Gaza and go live with their leader. Same goes for the West Bank, if there are any Hamas members there, they have to leave.

That is my opinion, and 2 cents worth of raving.