About Ariel Troster

The Back Story on the Jewish Trustee who is Marching Today with Capital Pride

We have published several articles recently on the anti-Israel statement adopted by Ottawa’s Capital Pride organization. The Pride statement includes a promise to libel Israel by accusing them of genocide at all of their main events. This is allegedly being done in the name of Palestine solidarity. If this is what you have to do to show solidarity with Palestine, it certainly puts Palestine in a bad light.

Happily, many organizations that have supported Pride in the past have recognized the fact that the statement, and the plans to libel Israel, are not in keeping with the stated mission of Pride, which is to make everyone welcome. The Jewish Federation of Ottawa, a long time supporter of Capital Pride, made it very clear that Jews do not feel welcome at Pride this year and announced their withdrawal from the event. After meeting with representatives of the community, Capital Pride offered no compromise. In response, the Mayor and the City of Ottawa withdrew from the event (oddly city funding of $85,000 will apparently still be handed over).

The major hospitals pulled out, as did the school boards. Businesses who announced their withdrawal include Rogers, Giant Tiger, Ikea, and CAA. The Liberal Party of Canada pulled out. Some federal government departments announced that they were not participating. Ottawa University and Carleton University also publicly withdrew, as did Algonquin College.

Some groups and individuals loudly protested these decisions. One of the more outspoken has been Ariel Troster, a member of Ottawa City Council. Regular contributor Fred Litwin has followed Troster’s career for many years. Today Fred is back with some interesting background and a critique of her recent statements in support of Capital Pride’s hostile statement against Israel.

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Just Who is Ariel Troster? by Fred Litwin

This year’s Capital Pride march will be a much smaller event. In fact, the parade route has been cut in half. Pride says this is because fewer police officers have been assigned to protect the event. But Matthew Cox, president of the Ottawa Police Association (OPA) told the CBC that there is “still a bad taste in some members’ mouth” after Pride banned uniformed officers back in 2017.

Image: Somerset Councillor Ariel Troster ———-Source: Ottawa Life

The truth is that fewer people will be out in the streets because of Capital Pride’s horrible anti-Israel statement. The Mayor of Ottawa, Mark Sutcliffe, started an avalanche when he announced he would not be marching. This was followed by entire federal government departments and many private organizations.

But there is one person who is bucking the trend – Ottawa City Councillor Ariel Troster.

Troster explained her position in an opinion piece for the Ottawa Citizen. Unfortunately, she seems oblivious to what was so odious about Capital Pride’s statement. She believes that Pride “released a statement standing in solidarity with Palestinians, who have lost more than 40,000 people.”

But Pride’s statement was nothing of the sort. The only Palestinians they show solidarity with are the anti-Israel Hamas crowd, who want to destroy the Jewish state. Troster could have shown some courage by advocating for the Palestinians to live in peace next to Israel, but that would be asking too much. Does Troster ever wonder why you never seen banners advocating co-existence at the rallies across the country?

And where does she get her information that 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Hamas war? Oh, I know. From Hamas.

Troster also believes that the Pride statement “was consistent with Pride’s roots as a political protest.” But protest for what? The only causes she states are Black Lives Matter, solidarity with sex workers and “whether uniformed police officers should be welcome to march with us.”

But what about solidarity with our LGBT brothers and sisters around the world who do not have the freedom to express themselves? Why doesn’t she care about the rights of gay people in Khomeinist Iran, where homosexuality is punished by death? And if I dare point out that gay people have absolutely no rights in Gaza or the West Bank, she would accuse me of pinkwashing. How about African countries like Ghana and Uganda who are criminalizing homosexuality? Or Russia?

Why does Capital Pride offer no solidarity with those people? And why is Troster so uninterested in the rights of LGBT around the world? And why have they decided to single out Israel for their animus?

The answer to this lies in her 2011 M. A. thesis for a Women’s Studies degree at the University of Ottawa, “Unlikely Bedfellows: The Harper Government and Homonationalism.”

What is homonationalism? It’s hard to say exactly since it’s such a ridiculous term. When the powers that be hide their supposed anti-immigrant stance behind pro-gay policies, that is homonationalism. Troster wrote that “we see homonationalism reproduce itself in both Canada and the U.S., when governments defend the war in Afghanistan or condemns the actions of the Iranian government.”

Wow. Does she not realize that the Aghan people supported the NATO-mission in Afghanistan? Does she not want to condemn Khomeinist Iran?

Of course not, because who are we to talk?

While the Taliban and Iranian fundamentalist forces are undoubtedly hostile and violent towards woman and sexual minorities, there is a tendency in North America to portray the West as more tolerant and liberal, compared to the barbarians over there. [emphasis in original]

Why on earth would we think we are more tolerant or more liberal than the Taliban?

We all know the old saying that history repeats itself. Actually, it doesn’t repeat – it rhymes. Capital Pride’s capitulation to the Hamas crowd mirrors what happened over a decade ago when Queers Against Israel Apartheid (QuAIA) hijacked pride marches.

And back then Troster was upset about the actions of B’nai Brith to get QuAIA booted from Toronto Pride.

The abrupt association with the gay community only developed when the organization became uncomfortable with the ties being forged between queer activism and Palestinian solidarity.

Yup, there’s that Palestinian solidarity once again. But QuAIA was just another anti-Zionist organization which never had any interest in really supporting the Palestinian people.

I wrote about Ariel Troster in my 2015 book Conservative Confidential:

The influence of post-modernism, and the paradox of its desire for identity with the oppressed and the “other” that sometimes goes so far as to prefer the glamour of oppression over progressive emancipation, was on full display in the case of Capital Xtra columnist Ariel Troster.

 While running a blog called dykesagainstharper, Troster began to appear regularly in Capital Xtra in 2006, and would go on to leave her position as a board member of the gay rights group Egale (Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere) on the grounds that Egale had become too mainstream. Troster was so concerned with maintaining gay identity in the category of the subaltern (a postmodernist classification of groups marginalized by capitalist and imperialist “hegemony”) category that she objected to campaigns against homophobia.  Even the foundational gay movement position that “sexual orientation is not a choice” was enough to set her off. It bothered her almost as much as it annoyed old-school social conservatives.

Anti-homophobia activism “denies the entire thrust of the gay liberation movement,” Troster wrote. Objecting to an anti-homophobia advertising campaign in 2007, Troster complained that the campaign undermined gay culture and its ideas, “which dared to suggest that queer people have something better to offer the world, a unique vision of sex, love and relationships, gleefully removed from hetero-normative values and the missionary position.” To Troster, the notion that homosexuality was a normal state of being, rather than a conscious lifestyle choice, was “dangerous,” because it could lead to “the same kind of gender and sexual essentialism that continues to oppress queer and trans people today.”

Troster believes that fighting homophobia around the world would be counter to her belief in queer and trans identity.

Troster was also incoherent after 9/11:

In April 2006, Ariel Troster wrote about the “modern day fight against terror where it’s hard to separate the good guys from the bad ones.”

Two months later, Troster was at it again. Canadians were vulnerable to terrorist reprisals because of a too-close association with the U.S. war on terror. Canada's contribution to the UN-authorized military mission in Afghanistan was merely “the logistical and material support that Canada is providing to the US occupation of Iraq,” Gay people should choose sides. And not the side of Canada. Troster quotes an academic authority Capital Xtra would routinely consult for party-line polemics in these matters, the Laurentian University professor Gary Kinsman: “If gays and lesbians have learned anything about our history, we should stand in solidarity with the people who are being targeted today.”

You see, we just might be the bad guys. So, who are we to talk about gay rights around the world?

The issue to her is that “Homonationalism goes a step further as an analytical hook, looking for the places where self-described radical queers have also become inculcated into racist and colonialist narratives, whether they intend to or not” To her “queers have been inculcated into a neo-conservative vision of citizenship that relies implicitly on whiteness, racism, colonialism and Islamophobia.”

Whiteness, racism, colonialism, and Islamophobia?  When you are this politically incoherent, it’s no wonder you can mistake anti-Israel hatred with Palestinian solidarity.

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We thank Fred for giving us some insight into the world view of Ariel Troster. If we lived in Somerset ward, we would be looking for a different candidate to represent us on City Council after the next municipal election.

News Update

Over night we were up late as it seemed like war was breaking out between Israel and Hezbollah. Today all seems to be quiet. Israel reported that it struck simultaneously with 100 war planes at over 1000 rocket launchers to thwart a planned large scale attack on Israel. Hezbollah succeeded in launching 320 rockets. An Israeli sailor was killed by an errant Israeli antimissile.

Image: Petty Officer Moshe Ben Shitrit, z”l was killed by an errant Israeli antimissile ————Source: Times of Israel

Israel and Hezbollah both said that the plan was to attack targets in Tel Aviv. However none of the rockets Hezbollah managed to launch seem to have been directed at targets that far south.

Hezbollah claimed that further attacks would be coming from other parties. Israel has been spared the no holds barred attack from Hezbollah that some had feared was coming. The Israeli Prime Minister said Israel is not done with Hezbollah yet and that further actions were coming to change the situation on the ground.

In spite of the exchange of fire with Hezbollah, Israel’s delegation went to Cairo to continue truce talks with mediators. Meanwhile, Hamas announced that it has rejected the American sponsored proposal for a truce and launched a rocket at central Israel from Khan Younis. The rocket fell in an open area.

A report an hour earlier indicated mediators remain optimistic that a truce and hostage deal is close.

Israeli delegation returns from Cairo talks; officials said optimistic despite Hamas claiming to reject latest proposal

By Reuters and ToI Staff

Palestinian terror group Hamas is sticking to the ceasefire-hostage release deal proposal that it submitted on July 2, and rejects new Israeli conditions for a ceasefire, Osama Hamdan tells Hamas-run Al-Aqsa TV.

He further claims that any talk of an imminent deal is false.

Channel 12 reports, however, that the talks in Cairo are moving in the right direction, and citing unnamed officials, it says that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar is under heavy pressure to accept the deal.

The report adds that the Israeli negotiating team returned to Israel from Cairo earlier this evening, and will discuss the next steps with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The negotiators were set to meet with the Prime Minister to discuss the meeting in Cairo.

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