September 2024

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On July 22 2024 Wayne Long was confronted by pro-Palestinian protesters: Helmi Alfarra and Drake Tobias, among others. They wanted him to sign a pledge to support an arms embargo against Israel.

This page is a catalog of hateful and divisive messages from Wayne since then.

“What a shame [Helmi] has tainted the entire Muslim community”

Here Wayne needlessly involves an entire religious community for the actions of one man. He is reinforcing Islamophobia.

When referring to Independent Jewish Voices, Wayne concurs that “no Jew would talk or write this way“. This is simply an antisemitic statement.

Wayne again needlessly ties the conversation to the Muslim community.

On July 21 Fredericton Palestine Solidarity and Independent Jewish Voices were invited to grand marshal the pride parade. It was not “hijacked”.

The “1 Million March For Children” was an anti-queer action in 2023. This action included anti-queer Muslims and immigrants. Wayne is generalizing them with those in Saint John’s pro-Palestine movement. Wayne is essentially saying “all Muslims are anti-queer”.

Wayne does not push back against sending them “back to where they came from”.

Wayne likes a comment supporting the deportation of Canadian citizens.

Antisemitism is indeed on the rise but Wayne is unjustly associating pro-Palestinians in Saint John with antisemitism. Antisemitism is real and needs to be destroyed but this association is unwarranted.

In implying that all pro-Palestinian movements are antisemitic Wayne is, ironically, being antisemitic—in that Jews can support Palestine.

Jews are our neighbours and the discrimination they face is real. In relation to the pro-Palestine movement, the sources of antisemitism come from:

• Zionists reporting hate-crimes in bad-faith
• Nazis using the pro-Palestine movement as cover
• Sincerely ignorant pro-Palestinians. Those in the movement are not immune to the pitfalls of conflating the state of Israel with Judaism. In my time I have heard people blame the suffering of Palestinians on “Jews”; that the “Jews” are responsible for the subjugation of the Palestinians. When you hear these remarks you must push back immediately. You must affirm that Israel, not Jews, is responsible for the genocide, subjugation, and suffering of Palestine. Anything less is a disservice to our Jewish friends.

Paula Radwan is a Muslim, pro-Palestine city councilor in Saint John. Here Wayne does not push back against the non-sensical claim that she is a “Hamas propagandist”.

Hamas’ vile terrorism killed roughly 1,100 on Oct 7. Israel’s terrorism has killed roughly 50,000. Two-thirds of that are women and children.

Wayne also makes a false statement here that a pro-Palestinian said Oct 7 was “debunked”. The person was referring to unsubstantiated claims of rape and beheading of babies from Oct 7. They were not referring to the mass killing or taking of hostages.

Wayne has no intention of engaging sincerely or educating himself. He and Israel are feigning interest in the well being of hostages:

• Israel has bombed, shot, and starved the hostages.
• Israel has rejected several ceasefire deals in exchange for hostages.
• If Wayne or Israel cared about the hostages they would push for the end of the war.
• Their care for human life does not extend to the 50,000 dead Palestinians nor those 2,000,000 suffering in Gaza.

Wayne is buying ads to encourage harassment of Helmi and Drake.

Wayne encouraging harassment of Drake.

Wayne encouraging harassment of Helmi.

Wayne supports protest only if it does not hurt his feelings; only when it can be easily ignored. There was no violence on July 22. There are very few wrong ways to protest genocide.

He did not support a ceasefire until his party did. He stated plainly in February: “I’m not going to call for a ceasefire”.

The time for “important conversations” is over.

It is time to act.