Key Takeaways:
- A PFLP splinter group sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury will proceed with a Toronto conference marking “Al-Aqsa Flood,” the Hamas name for the October 7 Massacre.
- The conference calls for a “next phase of struggle” aligned with “resistance efforts” against “Zionist and American settler-colonialism and imperialism.”
- Subsidiary organizations participating in the conference continue to demonstrate commitment to terrorism at recent events.
Despite recent terrorism sanctions by the U.S. Treasury against the Masar Badil Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path, the branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group announced on September 6 that it is proceeding with an October 7 Massacre conference in Toronto.
Masar Badil said in a statement that it was undeterred by the August 26 sanctions leveled against it, and that the November 26-29 Three Years of Al-Aqsa Flood Conference would be held in an act of defiance. The group saw the legal measures as a signal that it was effective in promoting revolution and advancing toward the abolishment of “imperialism” and the dismantling of the “Zionist entity.”
“We will not alter our path or retreat as the state wants us to. Instead, we will continue to take guidance from the steadfast Palestinian Peoples in their homeland who do not bow down to genocide and settler violence, but rather resist by any means necessary,” Masar Badil wrote. “From the Palestinian Resistance, we have learned the true meaning of Jihad as a continuous, unyielding act of defiance against the colonizer. It is a comprehensive struggle that permeates every aspect of our organizing, demanding that we confront the imperialist system in the belly of the beast just as our people confront it on the ground in Palestine.”
The PFLP front group advised allied organizations that they were fighting the “same imperialist enemy together” and that their presence in November would disrupt the “imperialist agenda.”
While Masar Badil is not banned in Canada, its twin organization Samidoun, with which it shares many of the same officers and sub-organizations, was jointly designated by the U.S. and Canada in October 2024.
Al-Aqsa Flood Canada Conference
Subtitled “Resistance & Return From the Belly of the Beast,” the website for the event details how it would commemorate “three years since one of the most courageous acts of resistance in our lifetimes: Al-Aqsa Flood Battle,” referencing the Hamas operational name for the October 7 Massacre. The group decried North America as occupied by American and Canadian “Imperialism,” and saw the efforts of the “victory of the Palestinian national liberation project” as “crucial to defeating global imperialism.”
The Conference would see participants considering “the next phase of struggle that is explicitly aligned with the resistance efforts struggling against Zionist and American settler-colonialism and imperialism” and consolidating “regional forces.”
Participants include Samidoun subsidiary organizations Al-Ahrar Palestinian Prisoner Support, Basil Al-Araj Prisoner Committee, Students United for Palestinian Equality and Return (SUPER UW), and the Masar Badil youth group Tariq El-Tahrir. Projects that appear connected to the network, Free Lebanese Prisoners, Dismantle Damon, Free Palestinian Students, are also listed as endorsers of the conference. Longtime allies of local Samidoun branches, Seattle University Students for Justice in Palestine and Canada Palestine Association, have also noted their involvement.
People’s Fair Promotion of Violence
The conference is being held on the home turf of one of the more active Samidoun subsidiaries, the Toronto branch of Al-Ahrar.
Al-Ahrar set up a stall selling pamphlets and art at a September 5 People’s Fair organized by the Alliance of Workers and Students and the Anti-Imperialist Front. The event — which was backed by major Canadian unions including Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) Ontario, CUPE Toronto District Council, the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and Toronto Tenant Union — included Al-Ahrar posters proclaiming that “Canada is fake” and that the IDF and Toronto Police Service were the same as the Ku Klux Klan. CUPE Ontario also allegedly sponsored the event.
Art being sold by the Samidoun subsidiary included embroidered pictures of American flag-draped coffins urging soldiers to “come closer,” the phrase “death to the IDF,” and a Hamas sniper rifle. Posters continued the theme of American soldiers being killed by Iranian drones, and another portrayed PFLP airplane hijacker Leila Khaled.
The Al-Ahrar booth also featured a station in which participants could write letters of support to “political prisoners” that included serial arsonist Casey Goonan, alleged religious site vandal Mohammad Hamad, and alleged Capital Jewish Museum shooter Elias Rodriguez.
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© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025
