Ottawa university students say a group began yelling in English and Arabic that they were Zionists and Jews as they were leaving a bar.
By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
A Canadian student supporter of Israel and an Israeli engineering student at Carleton University say they are lucky to have survived an attack with a machete, near a bar in Gatineau, across the Ottawa River from the Canadian capital, the National Post reported on Monday.Nick Bergamini, 22, vice president of the Carleton University Students’ Association, said he and his roommate Mark Klibanov, 20, were leaving the bar late on Monday night when a group began yelling in English and Arabic that they were Zionists and Jews, said the report.Bergamini was quoted in the article as saying that he recognized one of them as a Carleton student, although he couldn’t remember how many there were, and that he responded to them, “I love Israel, because I support Israel’s right to exist.“I told them not to do this, because I knew who they were, but I got hit hard on the back of the head. We ran to the bar entrance because bar security was there.”The National Post reported that a few minutes later, after the commotion died down, they left the bar and walked through a parking lot near the Chaudière Bridge that connects Gatineau, Quebec, to Ottawa, Ontario, when three men in a car pulled up beside them.“One of them rolled down the window and said: “‘I am the one who hityou, you f***ing Jew,’ although I am not a Jew,” Bergamini was quotedas saying, adding, “Two guys came out of the car and one of them triedto kick my roommate.“One attacker said, ‘Open the trunk,’ and another guy pulled out amachete that glinted in the street lights. I yelled that they hadweapons and we started running as fast as we could. I saw the guy windup with the machete as I looked back.”Klibanov said the machete narrowly missed the back of his friend’s headas the two sprinted across the bridge, and that they weren’t hurt onlybecause they outran their attackers.