On July 18, Jewish communities will mark the 31st anniversary of the AMIA terrorist bombing in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in which Hezbollah, backed by Iran, murdered 85 people and wounded hundreds more at the city’s Jewish Federation building. Until Oct. 7, 2023, the AMIA bombing had been the worst mass attack against Jews since the Holocaust.
For Irwin Cotler—the acclaimed lawyer, former justice minister and chair of the Montreal-based Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights—commemorating this anniversary brings a deeply unsettling sense of déjà vu. For two decades, he has been pushing the Canadian government to take stronger measures against the Islamist regime, resulting in an Iranian murder plot planned against him. Today, Cotler will be speaking on a national Federation panel entitled “The Islamic Republic’s Long Shadow of Terror”.
On today’s episode of The CJN’s North Star podcast, host Ellin Bessner sits down with Cotler in his home in Montreal to hear exactly how Canada’s lax policies on Iran have come home to roost.
Transcript
Irwin Cotler: It was 20 years ago
Ellin Bessner: That’s the voice of Canadian human rights advocate and former Justice Minister, Irwin Cotler, He was reviewing a newspaper article that he wrote two decades ago. In it, he’d warned that the Islamist regime in Iran was a threat to global peace, to the Jewish people, to the State of Israel, and that Canada needed to bring in sanctions, including designating the regime’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a terrorist organization. They answer to the Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah. They protect the country’s nuclear sites, they support terror groups in and outside of Iran, and they repress dissent. Cotler was refreshing his notes. Not that he needs much help to remember any of it, because he’s slated to speak today, Friday, July 18, to a Canadian Jewish Federation event marking 31 years of the bombing of Argentina’s Jewish Federation headquarters in Buenos Aires in 1994. That attack was masterminded by Iran, carried out by Iranians and its proxies in Hezbollah. Cotler is speaking about the long shadow of Iranian terror to this day.
At the time, the AMIA bombing was the worst mass terrorist attack on Jews since the Holocaust, and it remained so until October 7th. No one’s been convicted, although Argentina has tried. In the last 20 years since Cotler wrote his article, he’s devoted much of his career to sounding the alarm about the dangers of Iran’s terrorist regime. He did it while he was Justice Minister, as the founder of the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights, which he continues to do, and while he was Canada’s first special envoy for preserving Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism. He continues this work now, despite having been the personal target of a covert Iranian plot to assassinate him, which the RCMP thwarted a few months ago but has forced him to be a virtual shut-in in his own home with a 24-hour security detail wherever he went,
Irwin Cotler: We have to go ahead and ensure that we are undertaking, as I said, the necessary protective, preventive, and enforcement measures.
Ellin Bessner: I’m Ellin Bessner, and this is what Jewish Canada sounds like for Friday, July 18, 2025.
Welcome to North Star, a podcast of the Canadian Jewish News made possible in part thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
Irwin Cotler has been nominated four times to win the Nobel Peace Prize. He turned 85 earlier this spring, but his punishing schedule hasn’t eased up. In fact, he just had his hair done in preparation for Friday’s live event on Iran’s involvement in the bombing in Argentina and elsewhere. It’s a chance for Cotler to repeat his well-practiced warnings to Canadian authorities about Iran—warnings he’s recently given to Mark Carney, Canada’s new Prime Minister, and his officials: that Canada needs to do much more to stop the estimated 700 Iranian criminals who’ve entered our country and use it as a safe haven. He hopes the new Liberal Leader will do more than what he thinks the Trudeau government did on the file, which he called just tweeting and virtue signalling on an issue that nearly cost Cotler his life.
Here’s our conversation from his dining room table.
Ellin Bessner: I’m sitting in Montreal with Professor Irwin Cotler, and we’re about to mark the 31st anniversary of the AMIA bombing in Argentina from July 18, 1994, when 85 people were killed, and 300 or more were wounded. You’re about to give a speech online to mark this occasion to the Jewish community. Why should Canadians remember this, and how much justice has been achieved to date, if any?
Irwin Cotler: Ironically, not only should Canadians remember this, but should also see this as a call to action. Indeed, those were the words I even used close to 20 years ago, pursuant to my discussions then with the Special Prosecutor in Argentina, Alberto Nisman. Alberto Nisman at the time shared with me what were to be his published principal findings that still are relevant now. He then was deemed to have committed suicide, but in fact, recently a court determined that in fact, he was murdered. He was murdered because of the revelatory findings that he made.
First, he concluded that the mass terrorist bombing was, in his words, conceived, planned, and ordered by the highest echelons in the Islamic Republic of Iran. He called for, at the time, national and international arrest warrants to be issued for former Iranian President Rafsanjani and former members of his government, which included the then-Minister of Intelligence and Security, etc.
The second major finding that he concluded was that the act itself was carried out by Hezbollah, a principal proxy of Iran. One could say, “Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”.
Third, he said that the act had to be seen specifically, as he called it, “an act of anti-Jewish terrorism.”
The fourth thing he said, he referred again to the vast Iranian intelligence and operational structure which has infiltrated Argentina. That, too, is something where I recently spoke of the danger of sleeper cells being activated.
Ellin Bessner: Yeah, we want to talk about that in a minute, here in Canada.
Irwin Cotler: And then he added that we can also prove that a principal motivation for the attack was Argentina’s decision to cancel the contracts for providing nuclear technology and arms to Iran. Amazing how what was said then 20 years ago is so stunningly relevant today. And that’s why I then, at the time, set forth an action plan for the Canadian government, which I regret has yet to be implemented and which I had recently reaffirmed again in an op-ed for the National Post.
That action plan is, number 1, that we had to support the issuance of arrest warrants for the Iranian authorities implicated in that terrorist attack. As Iran was a state party to the Genocide Convention, and inasmuch as incitement to genocide is a standing, standalone breach of the genocide convention, whether or not mass atrocities follow, we should then, I said and repeat now again, impose sanctions at the very least on the Supreme Leader of Iran and those associated with him for their standing incitement to genocide. It’s often forgotten that the 21st century began on January 4th, 2000, with the Supreme Leader saying at the time and has repeated since, that there can be no resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict without, to use his words, the annihilation of the Jewish state. He didn’t even use the euphemism of the Zionist regime. He has continued with that until just recently in May and June 2025, saying once again that we have to extract this cancerous tumor, Israel, from the Middle East.
We have yet also to engage in domestic prosecutions of those Iranian IRGC officials who have entered Canada, in respect of which, one has been deported. There are others that are being investigated, but we should be engaged in domestic prosecution.
We have universal jurisdiction authority. It comes from the War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity Act that was adopted in 2000. It was one of my first pieces of legislation that I co-sponsored as a just-elected Member of Parliament.
We introduced then, and that lapsed, and I’m hoping we do it again, the annual Iran Accountability Week.
And I said then, and will conclude now, that we had, regardless of what was happening, in Iran constituting a sevenfold threat. I can do it in one-liners:
A nuclear threat, a missile threat, a terrorist threat–where Iran is the leading world state sponsor of international terrorism. Fourth a hegemonic threat–whether it be with regard to Syria, the Houthis, Hezbollah in Lebanon, et cetera. The fifth threat had to do with the cyber security threat and manner in which their whole misinformation, disinformation, etc. The seventh threat had to do with the whole matter of transnational repression and assassination. And we’ve seen those assassination threats recently. Just again, two days ago, a Fatwa issued by a senior scholar in Iraq against President Trump calling for his assassination. And the final threat, which is oft ignored, is massive domestic repression. As I’m speaking with you in the immediate aftermath of the Iranian Israel ceasefire, we’ve witnessed massive domestic repression in Iran.
Ellin Bessner: We also know that you too had faced threats from Iran. Has that changed since the Iran war happened? Is that still happening? Are you allowed to say?
Irwin Cotler: What is true is that the threat level has been lowered. I’m still under threat, but the high level of threat has been lowered. Although, as I said, ironically, when speaking to Canadian law enforcement authorities and the like, that at a time that Iran has heightened its conflation of both massive domestic repression and transnational repression and assassination, and there have been reports out of the UK and Sweden, et cetera, of the targeting of Jewish leaders, leaders of the Iranian diaspora. I’m not sure that the lowering of the threat warning is consistent with the realities of the situation, but that are the facts, namely threat levels are lowered. For me, that’s good because I felt too much, maybe, protection on a 24/7 level. I still have 24/7, but not with the same assemblage of protection.
Ellin Bessner: So you mentioned the sleeper cells. What should Canadians and the Jewish community and also the Iranian community know about these sleeper cells? What can we expect?
Irwin Cotler: Well, you know, a lot of this is open source evidence. People are sometimes surprised when I said, where did I get this? When I was asked about it, I said, look, look at the meetings, the hearings of the House of Commons justice and human rights committee, December 2023. I know those are not bestsellers, but the testimony then was to the effect that there were 700, you know, potentially activated IRGC officials and prospective sleeper cells in Canada, and that the US Attorney General spoke recently in the light of the Iranian Israel war about the activation of sleeper cells in the US and we’ve heard about that in Europe and we know about the presence of these cells in Canada.
But my main point was that what we needed in Canada was to be proactive and not just reactive. And proactive means that we need to establish, and we have not yet done so, a standalone federal agency with regard to transnational repression assassins. We have not done that. We need to set up a standalone sort of victims protection framework so that those who are under threat in Canada, be it the leaders of the Iranian diaspora, be it journalists, be it human rights defenders, be it PS-752 and families, a case study in the conflation of domestic oppression, will know to whom to report, to have their voices heard.
No, we need to have, you know, parliamentary hearings on these matters because it’s been some time that we’ve had the evidence come forward. As I said, we used to have annual Iran accountability weeks. That’s been stopped for a number of years. Now we need to return to that.
And number four, we must start to engage in domestic prosecution invoking the principles of universal jurisdiction and making this a priority for the G7. I recommended this to the G7. The Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights put out a position paper on this. We also recommended a G7 rapid hostage safety protection mechanism. So these are all initiatives that the Canadian government can take and should take.
Ellin Bessner: They designated Samidoun and the IRGC, this is under the Trudeau government, as terrorists. And yet the principals of Samidoun are walking around freely, going to Iran TV, going to Beirut. They dropped the charges in B.C.. It doesn’t seem to have the will to tackle this when Canada’s supposedly worrying about tariffs and the 51st state and Trump issues right now. Have you had any opportunity to make this argument to the new government?
Irwin Cotler: I have had an opportunity to make this argument. I first proposed that the IRGC be put on the terrorist list as a Member of Parliament in 2008. It took until 2024, 16 years later, until it was finally put on the terrorist list. And it’s not enough to put them on the terrorist list or to put Samidoun on the terrorist list if there’s not going to be effective enforcement. I mean, the fact that they can still retain non-profit status at the same time that they’re on the terrorist list is a contradiction in terms.
As I’ve always said, what we need to do is organise ourselves around the four Ps, which are the first P is the prevention of, to begin with. The second P is the protection of the prospective victim. The third P is prosecution. We have not engaged in prosecution. And the fourth P is partnership between federal, provincial, municipal authorities, because each is saying, “It’s not me, it’s the other.” No, it has to be the integrated responsibilities and the federal leadership has to take the lead in this regard.
And as we’ve learned only too well, I’ve said this many times, that while it begins with Jews, it doesn’t end with Jews. This is the canary in the mine shaft of global evil. It’s already with us. And as I began this interview and repeat again, we have to act. All this must be a call to action. It can’t just be for performative words and performative tweets. It has to be a call to action.
Ellin Bessner: Then the Canadian government changed in terms of the new leader and they’ve started putting sanctions on members of the Knesset and settlers and talking tough to Israel, you know, with three or four other countries, as sort of a united front. This is the Carney government saying it was genocide, then walking it back, that he didn’t really mean it, he didn’t hear it. I’m just wondering, to sort of pivot a little bit, how do you see the Canadian government’s policy on relations with the State of Israel now different than the predecessor? Sorry to give such a long question.
Irwin Cotler: No, it’s too early to tell, but I will say the following, that I was very disappointed with the previous government. I will summarise those disappointments. Melanie Jolie. We’re meeting here in my home. She’s been here. And our relationship was always a very open and honest relationship. And in my last meeting with her, just before the election of President Trump in the States, at the time that Kamala Harris is a presidential candidate, which becomes relevant to what I’m saying (I’m not deflecting!) We’re [meeting here]. And I said, “You know, Melanie, you said that Israel has a right to defend itself. And Kamala Harris, whom you support, I support, also said that Israel has a right to defend itself. But Kamala Harris then said, and we will provide Israel with all the necessary military assistance for that purpose. What did we do? We became the first G7 country to impose an arms embargo against Israel.”
So Melanie answered, “Well, maybe that was a misnomer. We were only interdicting certain weapons.”
I said, “Yes, weapons produced by a Quebec-based corporation called Quebec Dynamics, intended for the US so that they could fulfil their obligation to Israel. Meaning that we not only were breaching our obligations to our only democratic ally in the Middle East, Israel, but we’re also breaching it to our principal democratic ally, the US, who could not implement their own responsibilities to Israel.”
Secondly, I said we became the first G7 country to restore funding to UNRWA at a time when UNRWA was under investigation for its complicity with Hamas. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be restoring funding to UNRWA. What I’m saying is we should at least await the conclusion of an investigative inquiry to see whether or not UNRWA is, in fact, being complicit with Hamas, and all the evidence now shows that it has been.
And the third thing is that Canada, in respect of our principal ally Israel, sometimes appears to be treating that ally not as an ally, but sometimes as an adversary. I’m speaking now about our interventions in UN debates and in UN votes. When we begin to be sanctioning Israelis rather than sanctioning those who are themselves involved in genocidal incitement and the like, then we are engaged in an asymmetrical response in terms of our overall approaches. And I say this as somebody who cares about the UN, but we have to call out the UN when it itself is engaged in selective opprobrium and indictment of one member state in the Middle East. This kind of Alice in Wonderland situation has to be addressed and redressed.
Ellin Bessner: So you’re saying it’s too early to tell with Carney, despite the steps that it has made already, taking sanctions against Israeli settlers and Israeli MKs and threatening sanctions and things? So, still too early?
Irwin Cotler: Well, I say that. Big thing, we have to realize that Canada was not alone with regard to those sanctions and we are very much linked to, as Prime Minister Carney has said, to the coalition of the willing with regard to the UK and France, so we were not alone with that. That’s number one. Number two, also, to be fair to the new government, Carney has made some strong condemnatory statements with respect to antisemitism, also with respect to the fact that not only the hostages must be released, but that there can be no role for Hamas in Gaza and the like.
I think the most important thing is that he’s charged his special advisor, Scott Gilmore, who has been in touch with me, to develop an action plan for combating antisemitism. I’ve had a conversation already with Scott Gilmore. The Carney Government seems to be taking this seriously and I believe we will see an action plan in place.
He’s already announced certain prospective initiatives in that regard. So I’m looking forward, number one, to that action plan, number two, to the implementation of that action plan. I have to say that I do find Prime Minister Carney’s leadership not to be performative or virtue signalling. When he says he will do something, he’s done it. And so I trust that, in fact, this will be done.
Ellin Bessner: In June, before the Iran-Israel 12-day war, there was supposed to be a meeting in the United Nations, sponsored with France, to discuss maybe recognizing Palestine as an independent state, and France was pushing it. I’m wondering what you know, if anything, about Canada about to do the same unilaterally without peace negotiations?
Irwin Cotler: I have heard, and I believe that Prime Minister Carney has said so, that Canada will not unilaterally recognize Palestine. I believe that the Prime Minister understands that we have, that Hamas cannot be there; it cannot be an armed Hamas, it cannot be a governing authority. I think they understand and, yes, Canada supports a two-state solution, but not a unilaterally imposed two-state solution. And I think they would, knowing Prime Minister Carney, support two democratic states side by side. That’s the best guarantee of security for both Palestinians and Israelis and the best guarantee for a path towards peace and prosperity for both Palestinians and Israelis.
Ellin Bessner: I’m very honoured to have spoken to you. Thank you for giving us your latest updates. We could talk for two hours, but I don’t have the time in the podcast, so we’ll speak again. All the best to you. Thank you so much for being on North Star.
Irwin Cotler: Thank you. It’s always a pleasure to talk with you. It’s your evocative questions that allow me to respond.
Ellin Bessner: (Laughs)
Ellin Bessner: And that’s what Jewish Canada sounds like for this episode of North Star, made possible thanks to the generous support of the Ira Gluskin and Maxine Granovsky Gluskin Charitable Foundation.
As you may have read on The CJN’s website, the diplomat who took over from Irwin Cotler as his successor in the role of Canada’s special envoy, Ambassador Deborah Lyons, announced Thursday she’s stepping down from the post three months early. She said she was doing so with a heavy heart. It isn’t known why she’s leaving, but we’ll be sitting down with her on Monday for an exit interview. So tune in then.
Our show North Star is produced by Zachary Judah Kauffman and Andrea Varsany. The executive producer is Michael Fraiman and the music is by Brett Higgins. Thanks to Gila Cotler for the cover photo.
And thanks for listening.
Show Notes
Related links
- Watch the ceremony and panel on the “Islamic Republic’s Long Shadow of Terror”, live at 11 am EDT on July 18, sponsored by Canada’s Jewish Federations.
- Hear how Winnipeg’s Argentinian Jewish community remembers the 1994 AMIA bombing by Iranian-backed terrorists.
- Read more about the search for justice in the 1994 AMIA terrorist bombing of Argentina’s Jewish community, in The CJN.
Credits
- Host and writer: Ellin Bessner (@ebessner)
- Production team: Zachary Kauffman (senior producer), Andrea Varsany (producer), Michael Fraiman (executive producer)
- Music: Bret Higgins
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