Thank you Ariella. This is absolutely bang on. Carney missed the opportunity to effect real change. Change that is sorely and urgently needed. Many of us who are not Jews are appalled by what has been happening in Canada since October 7 and are shocked by the degree of antisemitism in Canada that was apparently latent and has now become overt. We are also disgusted by the cowardice of politicians who fail to rise above vote-getting and show moral leadership.
Great article. I'm sure Mr. Carney means well, but he has to stop trying to avoid upsetting the racists on the left who deep down... just hate Jews.
First, there's the basic fact that Canadian Jews are CANADIAN. They're not legitimate stand-ins for Israel. Protestors in predominantly Jewish neighbourhoods insisting they're protesting against Israeli policy are like protesters targeting David Suzuki's grandchildren for protests against Japanese government policy. And I think we'd call people who targeted Canadians of Japanese ethnicity by the tag "racist".
Second, anti-semitism is it's own problem. It's not "anti-semitism and Islamophobia" or on other occasions talking about Islamophobia by itself. Imagine a Canadian political party that condemned anti-Japanese racism without generalizing farther when it came up... but whenever they talked about anti-Indigenous racism or residential schools, they had a habit of generalizing into a wider condemnation of anti-asian bigotry. I don't think that would be well received because of what it would imply about anti-indigenous racism being less of a problem.
And that's before we get into the fact that anti-semitism is targeted **racism** while Islamophobia includes a simple (and legitimate) dislike of the religion known as Islam. There's no "legitimate racism". But there are legitimate, accepted and tolerated dislikes of religion. No one is required to think positively of Christianity. People are allowed to say "Christianity sucks, Jesus was a delusional idiot, it's an evil belief system and the world would be better if everyone quit being Christian". Islam isn't special. Canadians are allowed to say "Islam sucks, Mohammed was a delusional idiot with a penchant for underage girls, it's an evil belief system and the world would be better if everyone just quit being Muslim."
Finally... a word about the target the anti-Israel protestors insist they're upset about... the state of Israel itself. One claim I hear is that the state of Israel is illegitimate because it's an ethno-Jewish state in which Jews have special rights. (It's true, they do). Okay... Is virtually every single Muslim majority state in the world illegitimate? I don't hear that from the same people protesting against Israel which leads me to the unfortunate conclusion is the reason is because they're racists.
This gets into foreign affairs, not the Prime Minister defending Canadians against racist attacks, but our foreign policy and how our Prime Minister speaks about the world shouldn't be grounded in racism. Which means we should be seeing our Prime Minister insisting that Israel has the same right to exist as Canada, Japan, Italy or India and the same right to defend itself against invasion, attack and existential threat.
From the "2 Things Can Be True file", (ignored by folks with an agenda, or who cannot titrate their bias even a little):
Thing one:
The treatment of Jews in Canada is a national embarrassment and many of the protests I've observed in Victoria and Vancouver should have resulted in Pro-Hamas protestors in jail (do not pass go, do not collect $200.) It has to stop and Carney failed the moment.
Thing two:
Articles like this lose a lot of support, including from me, by repeatedly invoking October 7 but containing not one word about Bibi/Likud's ethnic cleansing/annexation of Gaza adding fuel to the anti-zionist rhetoric and behaviour.
Our country deserves a much better discourse than this.
We can say this treatment of Jews is wrong and drop like a ton of bricks on the pieces of shit who promote cruelty and violence against Jews in this country and ALSO say Bibi/Likud's choices are an abomination. If we can't manage the better discourse, we'll be subject to the stultifying back and forth between two deaf extremes. We KNOW where this goes. (see ammerika news)
Yes. This is the only balanced, fair comment here. Isreal's treatment of Gaza and it's citizens is an international disgrace. As was the attack of Oct 7th. There should be no room in Canada for attacks on Canadians for any of that, but there must be agreement that both sides have to stop what they are doing.
> Articles like this lose a lot of support, including from me, by repeatedly invoking October 7 but containing not one word about Bibi/Likud's ethnic cleansing/annexation of Gaza adding fuel to the anti-zionist rhetoric and behaviour.
True.
At the same time, I think the fact that that causes a loss of support is itself a double standard applied to the Jewish state and not applied to anyone else.
Consider that Israel has faced existential attacks since it's inception. When Israel was created, their neighbours invaded the very next day. Since then it has face repeated attacks, including both military invasions and terrorist attacks, including of course the Oct 7th attacks. And these attacks have always included a racial dimension and have been existential.
There isn't any country on earth that could tolerate such a scenario. What would the USA do if they were facing that kind of thing from Ontario? What would France do if it faced that kind of thing from Switzerland? When Europe faced the Nazis we didn't stop when we'd repelled them from France and just said "okay, we guess the Nazis can still control Germany and have some weapons..it'll be fine". Quite the opposite. We crushed Germany until the Nazis were destroyed. Ditto the USA and Japan. We didn't stop until the group that threatened us was utterly defeated, subjugated and pacified. Then those countries were dominated for decades until they could be trusted to be friendly... and there was no guaranteed end date on that... it was "when we trust them to behave and not a minute sooner".
That's the standard we apply to ourselves when we are attacked. The fact that we have a different standard for when the Jewish state is attacked is itself very, very revealing.
And to be clear, none of this is to say that the Israeli response to October 7th is pleasant. Quite the opposite. It's horrifying because war is horrifying. But remember... the west nuked and firebombed cities. I don't miminize any of that... the word "firebombing". We should shudder in horror at that and at Gaza. And not delude ourselves into thinking that any of this won't be horrifying.
I am broadly sympathetic with much of what Ms. Kimmel has to say. But she has left a whole lot unsaid.
Yes, the ancient scourge of antisemitism in this country is once again crawling out of its dark, dismal swamp. Yes, calls to destroy Israel and deny its right to exist are hateful and wrong. Yes, a Jew should not have to live in fear in this country simply because of events halfway around the world that are beyond her control.
But that’s only part of the story. Zionism began as a movement to give Jews the security and dignity of their own homeland. However, Ms. Kimmel neglects to acknowledge that thanks to the calculated brutality of the Netanyahu regime Zionism has morphed, in the eyes of many, into a murderous force wreaking disproportionate violence and destruction.
Much of the world now sees Zionism as an ideology that has spawned crazed fundamentalist settlers that murder and steal land from West Bank Palestinians who simply want to live in peace in their ancestral homes. Zionism has become the guiding light of a rogue state that has brought utter destruction to Gaza while uprooting millions and killing tens of thousands. It has become a juggernaut that has levelled dozens of Lebanese villages, and which has incited an ignorant fool of an American President to bring war to the entire Middle East.
From its earliest days, Israel has always fought for its survival. But how far do you take it? How long until you become just as monstrous as the foe you are fighting?
Let’s be crystal clear: no matter the horrors being committed over there, nothing justifies the hatred and violence being inflicted on Jews in Canada, here in their own country. It just doesn’t. Jews are living in anguish and fear in a place where it simply should not be possible, and it is deeply disturbing.
Yet nothing happens in a vacuum, and the atrocities committed by both sides in Israel and Palestine are leaching into this country.
Hamas wanted to start a major war because they knew the ensuing body count would turn the world against Israel . They have no interest in a state of Palestine or the people who live there . They will sacrifice every last one in pursuit of the elimination of the State of Israel . The word genocide and gaslighting of history has really worked in their favor
For me, you have to switch the vacuum to the 'on' position to make a vacuum function. Keep it in the off position and there is no vacuum. On October 7, 2023, Hamas flipped that switch and now here we are.
Hamas = death cult.
Israel = democracy (with its problems but still not a death cult)
This is a desperate attempt to establish some moral equivalency but there is no equivalency in this situation. Hamas and its supporters, especially those within Gaza are evil and Israel's response is both appropriate and measured.
A two-part problem. Jews in Canada have no say in the actions of the government of Israel. There is no excuse for them to be harassed in any way, shape or form, and it's something that law enforcement should be addressing aggressively.
However, the notion that October 7 " triggered this worldwide wave of antisemitism" is utter nonsense. I was in full agreement that Israel had a right to respond, even though it is still unclear what Bibi knew and when that could have prevented it. That is something else Israel will eventually have to answer for. However, the response from the government of Israel to the horror of October 7 is no longer reasonable, nor proportional. It is little less than the same ethnic cleansing the Jews suffered in the holocaust. So while I am disgusted by the harassment of any Canadian for the actions of a foreign government, I also believe the only appropriate response from Canada to what is taking place today is to break off diplomatic relations with Israel. There is no justification of any kind for what Israel is doing in Gaza and Lebanon.
Israel was attacked by Hamas in Gaza and by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both of these groups of terrorists continue to bomb Israel. You seem to be of the view that Israel should just accept that its citizens should be killed.
Yes, it was, and I made no such implication. Are you suggesting that Israel has accepted and lived by the land agreements from when it came into existence? Or that Israel is completely innocent? And are you suggesting that what Israel is doing in Gaza today is a reasonable response to October 7 2023?
My understanding is they have set up a buffer zone, are bringing in aid and are killing members of Hamas who participated in the October 7th pogrom. I’m ok with that.
And it's taken how long to get to this? How many kids have starved to death waiting? Sorry, it's a genocide. It's confirmation that some of those who survived the camps took notes. I gave Israel 6 months after October 7 to extract their pond of flech. A country that has done what they have done deserves to be shunned by the world, and I still believe Canada should break off diplomatic relations with Israel over this. I accept that we won't find common ground.
I do wonder what is responsible for the 83% spike in antisemitic incidents in Canada that was documented between 2021 and 2023? I assume you've seen the October 7th footage.
Yes. I've seen too much of it. There aren't words to describe how disgusting it is. But 2.5 years later, do you still think what Israel is doing in response is justified? Is it accomplishing anything useful?
As for what happened between 2021 and 2023, that was an issue for the police to address. I have said here many times that anyone protesting what Israel is doing in Canada is an idiot. I have zero tolerance for religious hate directed at anyone.
No. There wasn't a specific event. I think Hamas took a calculated gamble. I think their hope was that the world would be so disgusted with Israel's response that they'd stop supporting Israel. They knew the response would become indefensible(I think that's where it is now). I think they were almost correct. I also think Bibi knew it was coming and did nothing to prevent it.
That said, the same applies to Israel, whose existence is entirely tied to support from the US. Until Israel sits down and talks to the other side, it will never have peace. It will never have security. Israel has almost as many questions to answer because of Bibi.
Israel is long past the line of "defending itself". What it is currently doing is entirely offensive. And it is not making Israel more secure in the long run. But it will be fabulous recruiting for future suicide bombers.
> However, the response from the government of Israel to the horror of October 7 is no longer reasonable, nor proportional. It is little less than the same ethnic cleansing the Jews suffered in the holocaust.
I've asked a few people this, but do you think it's worse than what the allied powers collectively did in WW2? Because I don't think it is.
Also... come on man... 6 MILLION Jews did in the holocaust. Did you really just say that what's happening in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon is "little less than" killing 6 MILLION civilians?
You're entitled to your opinion on your first comment. If you have a solution to what Hitler was doing beyond the Allied response, I'd love to hear it. To be clear, it was absolutely heartless and brutal. The options, as I see it, were to do what we did or let Hitler keep doing what he was doing.
I didn't mention 6 million Jews. But weren't Polish Jews herded into the ghetto in Warsaw? How is that any different from Gaza? And when there was an uprising, what followed seems no different from what Israel has done to Gaza. My point was that the Jews were ethnically cleansed. The Israeli government is now ethnically cleansing Gaza. I was referring to the act, not the numbers. Kids are dying of starvation in Gaza. Aren't we supposed to learn from history rather than repeating it? The kids that survive will all be easy recruits for the next incarnation of the PLO of whatever re-emerges. In the end, Israel will again pay the price. The cycle will repeat until both sides conclude that enough people have died.
I doubt we'll find any common ground here. More than anything, I want to know what Bibi knew, because I don't believe any of this needed to happen.
> I didn't mention 6 million Jews. But weren't Polish Jews herded into the ghetto in Warsaw?
CLASSIC motte and bailey!
Let's go back to what you said.
> However, the response from the government of Israel to the horror of October 7 is no longer reasonable, nor proportional. It is little less than the same ethnic cleansing the Jews suffered in the holocaust.
The ethnic cleansing the Jews suffered in the holocaust WAS the killing of 6 million Jews. It included the Warsaw ghetto AND killing 6 million Jews. It's classic motte and bailey to make that absurd claim and then say that you only meant the Warsaw ghetto and not the overwhelming rest of it.
Just admit that the comparison is an absurd one and you shouldn't have made it. Don't try the motte and bailey move.
Back on the other point... if what we did in WW2 in order to crush Germany and Japan and ensure their complete and utter defeat was justifiable, then it leads to some suggestions about Israel's right to crush Hamas. And I note we didn't leave the Nazis with some weapons, some out of country support and hiding holes and some control of Germany.
OK, so you're hung up on semantics. I withdraw the holocaust and leave it at the ethnic cleansing of the Jews. Hitler ethnically cleansed the Jews in WW2. Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians in Gaza. What's the kill rate of Hamas members to civilians after 2.5 years? What Israel is doing now is more in line with the Holodomor.
I thought you said we were done when I said "Lebensraum". I guess that means you don't want to talk about the West Bank, or the kill ratio between Arabs and Israelis over the past 40 years.
Trying to compare WW2 to October 7 is absurd. I don't see where Hamas is trying to take over and subjugate the rest of the world. There's also that thing called history that we're supposed to learn from.
We're not going to find common ground here, I don't think. What is happening today in Gaza is just fucking disgusting, and I don't believe it can be justified regardless of what happened on October 7. Israel has taken its pound of flesh. Now, they're treating the innocent Gazans the exact same way the Jews were treated before the final solution. It's just killing for sport now, and doing nothing for Israel's long-term security. They don't even really know who they're hunting.
And what did Bibi know and when?
Have a nice night. Out of respect for Matt, I won't be commenting further. It serves no purpose.
"Zionism, which at its very core is simply the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland"
People don't have a right to property they don't own, unless it was stolen from them and you can make that point in court to regain ownership.
So if your ancestors lost their property through some long past circumstances that can no longer be litigated due to the passage of time or regime change, and if you want to live there again, you have two choices. You either buy it back, or you take it by force.
Israel was re-established in 1948 through force and that is a fact that cannot be litigated due to the ensuing regime change.
But if it wants to be considered a place where rule of law has some meaning, then continuing to allow forcible re-settlement isn't a lawful option anymore. Unless it wants to continue the use of force and therefore suffer the use of force against it. Which would be a just reaction but not necessarily anti-Semitic. Which isn't to say there isn't anti-Semitism in Palestine (using the narrower definition of anti-Semitism as anti Jewish which seems illogical given that Palestinians are Semitic, but I digress ...). But if Israel wants peace, it seems to me that settling the Palestinian question is something it should come to terms with so that the result is palatable to some hypothetically reasonable (not anti-Semitic) Palestinian. Maintaining an apartheid state doesn't seem to me to be the best way to do that.
Personally, I believe that tribalism is antithetical to civilized behaviour and until that mode of thinking is deprecated by a society, it's going to have problems.
And yes, I think the above comments can be applied to any other societal problem anywhere else that has tribalism as a basis.
If I appear to have made assumption that's incorrect, feel free to let me know.
Factual history like this matters to very few in this conversation. They have allowed themselves to be lied to about history , gaslit , and spammed with hot button words until they speak it like a puppet
You're correct. Carney wobbled. But let's be clear....this isn't primarily a political problem. It is an individual Canadian problem. Canadians, in general, accept antisemitism and have done so for decades. In this respect, Canadians are a shameful lot.
I don’t think this is globally true. I know I was vocal repeatedly after Oct 7. To my teens who I wanted to ensure weren’t swept up in antisemitism online, to my friends and family, and also to my Jewish friends who needed to know I supported them. You’re right that individuals need to do that more - but leaders set the tone of what is talked about more broadly. And that is where Carney failed. He failed to set the appropriate tone and open an honest conversation about antisemitism.
Dr. Carney is an anglophile, and antisemitism is de rigeur on the British Isles, so vagueness and indirection are to be expected.
The bombing of the Talmud Torah, in Montreal, over twenty years ago provoked the same milquetoast response from the PM of the time. Summarized perfectly in Rex Murphy's "The Evil That Men Do".
He made a speech supposedly about antisemitism without naming the antisemites. Then his "solution" is to form a committee. He placed no one who might be seen as representing Jewish concerns on that committee, but did find room for two antizionists: Omar Alghabra and Avnish Nanda.
His message to the nation is clear: See what a morally pure fellow I am? I claim to care about antisemitism. But what's his message to Jews? That we must know our place: we're moral tokens. While providing Liberals with the opportunity to display their moral purity, we must not complain about trifles such as the mobs of Jew-haters and terrorists wanting to wipe Israel off the map.
"He placed no one who might be seen as representing Jewish concerns on that committee"
Why wouldn't you consider Marc Gold a representative? From his Wikipedia page:
"He has been involved in Jewish community life as chair of the Jewish Federations of Canada, a member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and is a former chairperson of the Canada-Israel Committee."
This article is spot on. It is really amazing how many different ways the Liberals, formerly under Trudeau and now under The Carney, have found and continue to find to inflict bad government on this country.
Carney absolutely needs to stop with the careful language and deal with this growing problem with a speech in the federal parliament that recognizes the issues at play here honestly. And at the provincial level law enforcement must be better educated in crowd control and empowered to act when protest moves beyond the Israeli embassy into the neighbourhoods. Freedom from hate in your own neighbourhood supersedes anyones right to express themselves.
The pro-Palestinian chants are deeply hurtful to jewish Canadians some of whom take solace in the existence of Israel as the jewish homeland. As was pointed out, it has become fashionable to be anti-Zionist. This is partly the result of a well organized and financed pro Palestinian movement that is aligned with current views of young and new Canadians and the hard reality that their positions have been corroborated by universities and colleges with a social justice agenda. Israel is seen as a settler society and Palestine is viewed to some degree as analagous to First Nations in Canada.
Despite the horror and disgust that all decent people felt after October 11th, the Israeli military destruction of Gaza and killing of civilians, and the ongoing war in Lebanon enabled by Donald Trump is viewed by many as excessively disproportionate. Israel has to take some responsibility for this increase in global anti-Zionism.
Israel has a right to self determination. And Canadians who are jewish have a right to live without fear in Canada. This issue needs a whole lot of sunlight shone on it - without pandering to any hyphenated Canadians who put the issue of their native land ahead of concerns for the health and well being of Canadian citizens at home.
This experiment called Canada has done well in the post war period because our leadership largely chose to focus on equality regardless of skin colour or religion - we are all Canadians. Other groups have been stigmatized at various times in Canada. The Japanese, Italians, the Irish Catholics. But aside from their immense contribution to our society anti-semitism can and has reared its ugly head again. It must be stopped in its tracks. To paraphrase the German prime minister, this hurts the soul of our nation. But this situation has to be a call to action not an opportunity to create a another committee.
For me, Israeli destruction of Gaza after the barbaric slaughter and rape of Jews after October 7th could have been avoided by not barbarically slaughtering and raping Jews on October 7th. Don't you think?
Yes, he really should call a spade a spade and talk openly without avoiding the touchy parts. Maybe someone else could give that speech instead and set an example for Carney and force him to respond and encourage police to enforce the laws on this topic.
I read this kind of quickly but I didn’t see an incident of antisemitism to which Carney didn’t adequately respond? I’m just not sure about what she’s talking. Obviously it sucks to feel excluded, or even to be losing an argument in general North American public opinion on a topic about which one cares deeply, like, for many people, Israel. But is the antisemitism really is just increasing opposition to Israel, then, well, I’m not sure what else we should have expected over the past few years.
Opposition to the Israeli government is one thing - targeting Canadian Jews is not opposition. There’s examples plenty of harassment and violence under the guise of protest - just pay some attention.
Canadian leadership is AWOL on antisemitism right now...it is a national disgrace what is happening AND the people who are choosing to vacate Canada as a result. Those who are choosing to leave are our best and brightest, not the uneducated, and unskilled!
The committee that this PM announced was an islamaphobia committee or a DEI committee NOT an anti semitism committee.
Thank you Ariella. This is absolutely bang on. Carney missed the opportunity to effect real change. Change that is sorely and urgently needed. Many of us who are not Jews are appalled by what has been happening in Canada since October 7 and are shocked by the degree of antisemitism in Canada that was apparently latent and has now become overt. We are also disgusted by the cowardice of politicians who fail to rise above vote-getting and show moral leadership.
Great article. I'm sure Mr. Carney means well, but he has to stop trying to avoid upsetting the racists on the left who deep down... just hate Jews.
First, there's the basic fact that Canadian Jews are CANADIAN. They're not legitimate stand-ins for Israel. Protestors in predominantly Jewish neighbourhoods insisting they're protesting against Israeli policy are like protesters targeting David Suzuki's grandchildren for protests against Japanese government policy. And I think we'd call people who targeted Canadians of Japanese ethnicity by the tag "racist".
Second, anti-semitism is it's own problem. It's not "anti-semitism and Islamophobia" or on other occasions talking about Islamophobia by itself. Imagine a Canadian political party that condemned anti-Japanese racism without generalizing farther when it came up... but whenever they talked about anti-Indigenous racism or residential schools, they had a habit of generalizing into a wider condemnation of anti-asian bigotry. I don't think that would be well received because of what it would imply about anti-indigenous racism being less of a problem.
And that's before we get into the fact that anti-semitism is targeted **racism** while Islamophobia includes a simple (and legitimate) dislike of the religion known as Islam. There's no "legitimate racism". But there are legitimate, accepted and tolerated dislikes of religion. No one is required to think positively of Christianity. People are allowed to say "Christianity sucks, Jesus was a delusional idiot, it's an evil belief system and the world would be better if everyone quit being Christian". Islam isn't special. Canadians are allowed to say "Islam sucks, Mohammed was a delusional idiot with a penchant for underage girls, it's an evil belief system and the world would be better if everyone just quit being Muslim."
Finally... a word about the target the anti-Israel protestors insist they're upset about... the state of Israel itself. One claim I hear is that the state of Israel is illegitimate because it's an ethno-Jewish state in which Jews have special rights. (It's true, they do). Okay... Is virtually every single Muslim majority state in the world illegitimate? I don't hear that from the same people protesting against Israel which leads me to the unfortunate conclusion is the reason is because they're racists.
This gets into foreign affairs, not the Prime Minister defending Canadians against racist attacks, but our foreign policy and how our Prime Minister speaks about the world shouldn't be grounded in racism. Which means we should be seeing our Prime Minister insisting that Israel has the same right to exist as Canada, Japan, Italy or India and the same right to defend itself against invasion, attack and existential threat.
To recall Minister Jolie's pathetic rejoinder, have you seen the demographics of his ridings ??
Jolie’s infamous line will live rent-free in the minds of many for the rest of their lives…and that’s not a good thing.
From the "2 Things Can Be True file", (ignored by folks with an agenda, or who cannot titrate their bias even a little):
Thing one:
The treatment of Jews in Canada is a national embarrassment and many of the protests I've observed in Victoria and Vancouver should have resulted in Pro-Hamas protestors in jail (do not pass go, do not collect $200.) It has to stop and Carney failed the moment.
Thing two:
Articles like this lose a lot of support, including from me, by repeatedly invoking October 7 but containing not one word about Bibi/Likud's ethnic cleansing/annexation of Gaza adding fuel to the anti-zionist rhetoric and behaviour.
Our country deserves a much better discourse than this.
We can say this treatment of Jews is wrong and drop like a ton of bricks on the pieces of shit who promote cruelty and violence against Jews in this country and ALSO say Bibi/Likud's choices are an abomination. If we can't manage the better discourse, we'll be subject to the stultifying back and forth between two deaf extremes. We KNOW where this goes. (see ammerika news)
There were no Jews in Gaza on October 6. Israel's response was remarkably controlled, with very few civilian deaths, even by Hamas' accounting.
Yes. This is the only balanced, fair comment here. Isreal's treatment of Gaza and it's citizens is an international disgrace. As was the attack of Oct 7th. There should be no room in Canada for attacks on Canadians for any of that, but there must be agreement that both sides have to stop what they are doing.
I'd ask you this... how do you get "both sides to stop what they are doing" in Europe between 1939 and 1945?
Because both sides did stop and the way we got there was pretty similar to what's happening now... only even more brutal.
> Articles like this lose a lot of support, including from me, by repeatedly invoking October 7 but containing not one word about Bibi/Likud's ethnic cleansing/annexation of Gaza adding fuel to the anti-zionist rhetoric and behaviour.
True.
At the same time, I think the fact that that causes a loss of support is itself a double standard applied to the Jewish state and not applied to anyone else.
Consider that Israel has faced existential attacks since it's inception. When Israel was created, their neighbours invaded the very next day. Since then it has face repeated attacks, including both military invasions and terrorist attacks, including of course the Oct 7th attacks. And these attacks have always included a racial dimension and have been existential.
There isn't any country on earth that could tolerate such a scenario. What would the USA do if they were facing that kind of thing from Ontario? What would France do if it faced that kind of thing from Switzerland? When Europe faced the Nazis we didn't stop when we'd repelled them from France and just said "okay, we guess the Nazis can still control Germany and have some weapons..it'll be fine". Quite the opposite. We crushed Germany until the Nazis were destroyed. Ditto the USA and Japan. We didn't stop until the group that threatened us was utterly defeated, subjugated and pacified. Then those countries were dominated for decades until they could be trusted to be friendly... and there was no guaranteed end date on that... it was "when we trust them to behave and not a minute sooner".
That's the standard we apply to ourselves when we are attacked. The fact that we have a different standard for when the Jewish state is attacked is itself very, very revealing.
And to be clear, none of this is to say that the Israeli response to October 7th is pleasant. Quite the opposite. It's horrifying because war is horrifying. But remember... the west nuked and firebombed cities. I don't miminize any of that... the word "firebombing". We should shudder in horror at that and at Gaza. And not delude ourselves into thinking that any of this won't be horrifying.
Hear, hear!
I am broadly sympathetic with much of what Ms. Kimmel has to say. But she has left a whole lot unsaid.
Yes, the ancient scourge of antisemitism in this country is once again crawling out of its dark, dismal swamp. Yes, calls to destroy Israel and deny its right to exist are hateful and wrong. Yes, a Jew should not have to live in fear in this country simply because of events halfway around the world that are beyond her control.
But that’s only part of the story. Zionism began as a movement to give Jews the security and dignity of their own homeland. However, Ms. Kimmel neglects to acknowledge that thanks to the calculated brutality of the Netanyahu regime Zionism has morphed, in the eyes of many, into a murderous force wreaking disproportionate violence and destruction.
Much of the world now sees Zionism as an ideology that has spawned crazed fundamentalist settlers that murder and steal land from West Bank Palestinians who simply want to live in peace in their ancestral homes. Zionism has become the guiding light of a rogue state that has brought utter destruction to Gaza while uprooting millions and killing tens of thousands. It has become a juggernaut that has levelled dozens of Lebanese villages, and which has incited an ignorant fool of an American President to bring war to the entire Middle East.
From its earliest days, Israel has always fought for its survival. But how far do you take it? How long until you become just as monstrous as the foe you are fighting?
Let’s be crystal clear: no matter the horrors being committed over there, nothing justifies the hatred and violence being inflicted on Jews in Canada, here in their own country. It just doesn’t. Jews are living in anguish and fear in a place where it simply should not be possible, and it is deeply disturbing.
Yet nothing happens in a vacuum, and the atrocities committed by both sides in Israel and Palestine are leaching into this country.
War is hell and that's why it's always advisable not to start one.
Hamas wanted to start a major war because they knew the ensuing body count would turn the world against Israel . They have no interest in a state of Palestine or the people who live there . They will sacrifice every last one in pursuit of the elimination of the State of Israel . The word genocide and gaslighting of history has really worked in their favor
Yup. This has been going on for 2K years. It is going nowhere unfortunately.
Good assessment.
For me, you have to switch the vacuum to the 'on' position to make a vacuum function. Keep it in the off position and there is no vacuum. On October 7, 2023, Hamas flipped that switch and now here we are.
Hamas = death cult.
Israel = democracy (with its problems but still not a death cult)
This is a desperate attempt to establish some moral equivalency but there is no equivalency in this situation. Hamas and its supporters, especially those within Gaza are evil and Israel's response is both appropriate and measured.
A two-part problem. Jews in Canada have no say in the actions of the government of Israel. There is no excuse for them to be harassed in any way, shape or form, and it's something that law enforcement should be addressing aggressively.
However, the notion that October 7 " triggered this worldwide wave of antisemitism" is utter nonsense. I was in full agreement that Israel had a right to respond, even though it is still unclear what Bibi knew and when that could have prevented it. That is something else Israel will eventually have to answer for. However, the response from the government of Israel to the horror of October 7 is no longer reasonable, nor proportional. It is little less than the same ethnic cleansing the Jews suffered in the holocaust. So while I am disgusted by the harassment of any Canadian for the actions of a foreign government, I also believe the only appropriate response from Canada to what is taking place today is to break off diplomatic relations with Israel. There is no justification of any kind for what Israel is doing in Gaza and Lebanon.
You cannot bomb your way to peace.
Israel was attacked by Hamas in Gaza and by Hezbollah in Lebanon. Both of these groups of terrorists continue to bomb Israel. You seem to be of the view that Israel should just accept that its citizens should be killed.
Yes, it was, and I made no such implication. Are you suggesting that Israel has accepted and lived by the land agreements from when it came into existence? Or that Israel is completely innocent? And are you suggesting that what Israel is doing in Gaza today is a reasonable response to October 7 2023?
My understanding is they have set up a buffer zone, are bringing in aid and are killing members of Hamas who participated in the October 7th pogrom. I’m ok with that.
And it's taken how long to get to this? How many kids have starved to death waiting? Sorry, it's a genocide. It's confirmation that some of those who survived the camps took notes. I gave Israel 6 months after October 7 to extract their pond of flech. A country that has done what they have done deserves to be shunned by the world, and I still believe Canada should break off diplomatic relations with Israel over this. I accept that we won't find common ground.
I do wonder what is responsible for the 83% spike in antisemitic incidents in Canada that was documented between 2021 and 2023? I assume you've seen the October 7th footage.
Yes. I've seen too much of it. There aren't words to describe how disgusting it is. But 2.5 years later, do you still think what Israel is doing in response is justified? Is it accomplishing anything useful?
As for what happened between 2021 and 2023, that was an issue for the police to address. I have said here many times that anyone protesting what Israel is doing in Canada is an idiot. I have zero tolerance for religious hate directed at anyone.
I'd be curious what your explanation is.
War is hell and that is why it's always wise not to start one, don't you think?
That is a two-way street. See also the West Bank.
True, but Israel wasn't even on the street October 6th 2023, you see.
Again, war is hell.
Don't start a war. Avoid hell. Pretty basic.
I just can't find anything that justified the October 7th pogrom. Can you?
No. There wasn't a specific event. I think Hamas took a calculated gamble. I think their hope was that the world would be so disgusted with Israel's response that they'd stop supporting Israel. They knew the response would become indefensible(I think that's where it is now). I think they were almost correct. I also think Bibi knew it was coming and did nothing to prevent it.
That said, the same applies to Israel, whose existence is entirely tied to support from the US. Until Israel sits down and talks to the other side, it will never have peace. It will never have security. Israel has almost as many questions to answer because of Bibi.
Both Hamas and Hezbollah continue to attack Israel.
And Israel will defend itself.
Israel is long past the line of "defending itself". What it is currently doing is entirely offensive. And it is not making Israel more secure in the long run. But it will be fabulous recruiting for future suicide bombers.
> However, the response from the government of Israel to the horror of October 7 is no longer reasonable, nor proportional. It is little less than the same ethnic cleansing the Jews suffered in the holocaust.
I've asked a few people this, but do you think it's worse than what the allied powers collectively did in WW2? Because I don't think it is.
Also... come on man... 6 MILLION Jews did in the holocaust. Did you really just say that what's happening in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon is "little less than" killing 6 MILLION civilians?
You're entitled to your opinion on your first comment. If you have a solution to what Hitler was doing beyond the Allied response, I'd love to hear it. To be clear, it was absolutely heartless and brutal. The options, as I see it, were to do what we did or let Hitler keep doing what he was doing.
I didn't mention 6 million Jews. But weren't Polish Jews herded into the ghetto in Warsaw? How is that any different from Gaza? And when there was an uprising, what followed seems no different from what Israel has done to Gaza. My point was that the Jews were ethnically cleansed. The Israeli government is now ethnically cleansing Gaza. I was referring to the act, not the numbers. Kids are dying of starvation in Gaza. Aren't we supposed to learn from history rather than repeating it? The kids that survive will all be easy recruits for the next incarnation of the PLO of whatever re-emerges. In the end, Israel will again pay the price. The cycle will repeat until both sides conclude that enough people have died.
I doubt we'll find any common ground here. More than anything, I want to know what Bibi knew, because I don't believe any of this needed to happen.
> I didn't mention 6 million Jews. But weren't Polish Jews herded into the ghetto in Warsaw?
CLASSIC motte and bailey!
Let's go back to what you said.
> However, the response from the government of Israel to the horror of October 7 is no longer reasonable, nor proportional. It is little less than the same ethnic cleansing the Jews suffered in the holocaust.
The ethnic cleansing the Jews suffered in the holocaust WAS the killing of 6 million Jews. It included the Warsaw ghetto AND killing 6 million Jews. It's classic motte and bailey to make that absurd claim and then say that you only meant the Warsaw ghetto and not the overwhelming rest of it.
Just admit that the comparison is an absurd one and you shouldn't have made it. Don't try the motte and bailey move.
Back on the other point... if what we did in WW2 in order to crush Germany and Japan and ensure their complete and utter defeat was justifiable, then it leads to some suggestions about Israel's right to crush Hamas. And I note we didn't leave the Nazis with some weapons, some out of country support and hiding holes and some control of Germany.
OK, so you're hung up on semantics. I withdraw the holocaust and leave it at the ethnic cleansing of the Jews. Hitler ethnically cleansed the Jews in WW2. Israel is ethnically cleansing Palestinians in Gaza. What's the kill rate of Hamas members to civilians after 2.5 years? What Israel is doing now is more in line with the Holodomor.
I thought you said we were done when I said "Lebensraum". I guess that means you don't want to talk about the West Bank, or the kill ratio between Arabs and Israelis over the past 40 years.
Trying to compare WW2 to October 7 is absurd. I don't see where Hamas is trying to take over and subjugate the rest of the world. There's also that thing called history that we're supposed to learn from.
We're not going to find common ground here, I don't think. What is happening today in Gaza is just fucking disgusting, and I don't believe it can be justified regardless of what happened on October 7. Israel has taken its pound of flesh. Now, they're treating the innocent Gazans the exact same way the Jews were treated before the final solution. It's just killing for sport now, and doing nothing for Israel's long-term security. They don't even really know who they're hunting.
And what did Bibi know and when?
Have a nice night. Out of respect for Matt, I won't be commenting further. It serves no purpose.
You have a nice night.
Great article. Carney is so fond of saying “Fortune favours the bold.” But he acts like the coward he is.
"Zionism, which at its very core is simply the belief that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland"
People don't have a right to property they don't own, unless it was stolen from them and you can make that point in court to regain ownership.
So if your ancestors lost their property through some long past circumstances that can no longer be litigated due to the passage of time or regime change, and if you want to live there again, you have two choices. You either buy it back, or you take it by force.
Israel was re-established in 1948 through force and that is a fact that cannot be litigated due to the ensuing regime change.
But if it wants to be considered a place where rule of law has some meaning, then continuing to allow forcible re-settlement isn't a lawful option anymore. Unless it wants to continue the use of force and therefore suffer the use of force against it. Which would be a just reaction but not necessarily anti-Semitic. Which isn't to say there isn't anti-Semitism in Palestine (using the narrower definition of anti-Semitism as anti Jewish which seems illogical given that Palestinians are Semitic, but I digress ...). But if Israel wants peace, it seems to me that settling the Palestinian question is something it should come to terms with so that the result is palatable to some hypothetically reasonable (not anti-Semitic) Palestinian. Maintaining an apartheid state doesn't seem to me to be the best way to do that.
Personally, I believe that tribalism is antithetical to civilized behaviour and until that mode of thinking is deprecated by a society, it's going to have problems.
And yes, I think the above comments can be applied to any other societal problem anywhere else that has tribalism as a basis.
If I appear to have made assumption that's incorrect, feel free to let me know.
Jews/Zionists purchased property in the British Mandate. For many years before the creation of Israel.
Factual history like this matters to very few in this conversation. They have allowed themselves to be lied to about history , gaslit , and spammed with hot button words until they speak it like a puppet
You're correct. Carney wobbled. But let's be clear....this isn't primarily a political problem. It is an individual Canadian problem. Canadians, in general, accept antisemitism and have done so for decades. In this respect, Canadians are a shameful lot.
I don’t think this is globally true. I know I was vocal repeatedly after Oct 7. To my teens who I wanted to ensure weren’t swept up in antisemitism online, to my friends and family, and also to my Jewish friends who needed to know I supported them. You’re right that individuals need to do that more - but leaders set the tone of what is talked about more broadly. And that is where Carney failed. He failed to set the appropriate tone and open an honest conversation about antisemitism.
Not buying the "leaders set the tone" Ice. At the moment it is the Muslim vote that scares them into silence.
Dr. Carney is an anglophile, and antisemitism is de rigeur on the British Isles, so vagueness and indirection are to be expected.
The bombing of the Talmud Torah, in Montreal, over twenty years ago provoked the same milquetoast response from the PM of the time. Summarized perfectly in Rex Murphy's "The Evil That Men Do".
Shame and cowardice. A natural pairing.
Carney is trolling the Jewish community.
He made a speech supposedly about antisemitism without naming the antisemites. Then his "solution" is to form a committee. He placed no one who might be seen as representing Jewish concerns on that committee, but did find room for two antizionists: Omar Alghabra and Avnish Nanda.
His message to the nation is clear: See what a morally pure fellow I am? I claim to care about antisemitism. But what's his message to Jews? That we must know our place: we're moral tokens. While providing Liberals with the opportunity to display their moral purity, we must not complain about trifles such as the mobs of Jew-haters and terrorists wanting to wipe Israel off the map.
"He placed no one who might be seen as representing Jewish concerns on that committee"
Why wouldn't you consider Marc Gold a representative? From his Wikipedia page:
"He has been involved in Jewish community life as chair of the Jewish Federations of Canada, a member of the Board of Governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel, and is a former chairperson of the Canada-Israel Committee."
This article is spot on. It is really amazing how many different ways the Liberals, formerly under Trudeau and now under The Carney, have found and continue to find to inflict bad government on this country.
Carney absolutely needs to stop with the careful language and deal with this growing problem with a speech in the federal parliament that recognizes the issues at play here honestly. And at the provincial level law enforcement must be better educated in crowd control and empowered to act when protest moves beyond the Israeli embassy into the neighbourhoods. Freedom from hate in your own neighbourhood supersedes anyones right to express themselves.
The pro-Palestinian chants are deeply hurtful to jewish Canadians some of whom take solace in the existence of Israel as the jewish homeland. As was pointed out, it has become fashionable to be anti-Zionist. This is partly the result of a well organized and financed pro Palestinian movement that is aligned with current views of young and new Canadians and the hard reality that their positions have been corroborated by universities and colleges with a social justice agenda. Israel is seen as a settler society and Palestine is viewed to some degree as analagous to First Nations in Canada.
Despite the horror and disgust that all decent people felt after October 11th, the Israeli military destruction of Gaza and killing of civilians, and the ongoing war in Lebanon enabled by Donald Trump is viewed by many as excessively disproportionate. Israel has to take some responsibility for this increase in global anti-Zionism.
Israel has a right to self determination. And Canadians who are jewish have a right to live without fear in Canada. This issue needs a whole lot of sunlight shone on it - without pandering to any hyphenated Canadians who put the issue of their native land ahead of concerns for the health and well being of Canadian citizens at home.
This experiment called Canada has done well in the post war period because our leadership largely chose to focus on equality regardless of skin colour or religion - we are all Canadians. Other groups have been stigmatized at various times in Canada. The Japanese, Italians, the Irish Catholics. But aside from their immense contribution to our society anti-semitism can and has reared its ugly head again. It must be stopped in its tracks. To paraphrase the German prime minister, this hurts the soul of our nation. But this situation has to be a call to action not an opportunity to create a another committee.
For me, Israeli destruction of Gaza after the barbaric slaughter and rape of Jews after October 7th could have been avoided by not barbarically slaughtering and raping Jews on October 7th. Don't you think?
Yes, he really should call a spade a spade and talk openly without avoiding the touchy parts. Maybe someone else could give that speech instead and set an example for Carney and force him to respond and encourage police to enforce the laws on this topic.
I read this kind of quickly but I didn’t see an incident of antisemitism to which Carney didn’t adequately respond? I’m just not sure about what she’s talking. Obviously it sucks to feel excluded, or even to be losing an argument in general North American public opinion on a topic about which one cares deeply, like, for many people, Israel. But is the antisemitism really is just increasing opposition to Israel, then, well, I’m not sure what else we should have expected over the past few years.
Maybe you should go back and read it properly.
Opposition to the Israeli government is one thing - targeting Canadian Jews is not opposition. There’s examples plenty of harassment and violence under the guise of protest - just pay some attention.
+10000
And still the Jewish community in Canada is overwhelmingly Liberal.
Face it, the Liberals have found a larger community to have latch onto them and throwing Jewish people under the bus was the price of admission.
Canadian leadership is AWOL on antisemitism right now...it is a national disgrace what is happening AND the people who are choosing to vacate Canada as a result. Those who are choosing to leave are our best and brightest, not the uneducated, and unskilled!
The committee that this PM announced was an islamaphobia committee or a DEI committee NOT an anti semitism committee.