Rob Breakenridge: Edmonton's police chief doesn't need to apologize for Israel trip
Warren Driechel and other police leaders were there to learn, not to endorse the policies of their host's government. His critics must know that.
By: Rob Breakenridge
In the aftermath of a barely averted attack on a Jewish pre-school in Michigan, it had to be rather jarring for parents of the young children who attend Edmonton’s Talmud Torah School to learn of an arrest and hate-crime investigation at the very location where their own children spend each day.
I’m not sure whether there’s any solace to be had the police assessment of “mental distress” — as opposed to some kind of more hardened and sinister ideological factor — as the likely explanation for why a suspect was present at the school shouting “derogatory and racist” comments about Jewish people and “other cultural groups.”
This was just a few months after police made two arrests in the span of just two days relating to larger and more serious such threats. On Dec. 19, a 31-year-old man was arrested for social media posts that allegedly “threatened harm against the Jewish community.” The very next day, a 35-year-old man was arrested for “sharing extremist views” and “uttering threats toward the Jewish community.” This, by the way, was all less than a week after the massacre of 15 Jews at Bondi Beach in Australia.
It’s possible to separate all of this from the debate around policy toward Israel or even the much more narrow questions regarding the recent visit to Israel by Edmonton Police Chief Warren Driechel. It would be unfair to blame criticism of Israeli decisions or actions for Canada’s outbreak of antisemitism, just as it would be unfair to blame critics of the police chief for what happened at the Talmud Torah School.
But some of those critics — including and especially those who have made a mountain out of the Warren Driechel molehill — are the ones playing this unfair game, and they are doing so with a tremendous lack of self-awareness.
Edmonton’s police chief has been called out by the mayor (who said he was “disappointed and frustrated”), some city councillors and various members of the community. There have been demands for him to apologize and even calls for him to resign or be fired.
To emphasize, this is not related to anything he has said or done with regard to policing in Edmonton or his duties as police chief. He has not broken any rules or done or condoned anything inappropriate.
The sole basis for this controversy is a visit to Israel last month by Warren Driechel as part of a delegation from the Major Cities Chiefs Association, which represents chiefs from cities in both the U.S. and Canada (a trip approved by the chair of the Edmonton Police Commission). This trip was not an endorsement of Israel’s current leadership, nor the manner in which war aims against Hamas in Gaza have been pursued. It really wasn’t political at all.
At the risk of stating the obvious, there is valuable insight to be gained from studying the policing and outreach strategies in such a unique and complex environment.
To that end, the interesting part of Driechel’s statement is less the patient explanation of the trip’s aims and who he came into contact with and more so his steadfast refusal to succumb to pressure and issue an apology where one simply isn’t warranted.
His concern isn’t the criticism itself, per se, but rather “the implication that any community group should have the right to direct where we can learn.” As such, he says, “I stand by my decision to take the trip to Israel.”
While police agencies, and those tasked with running them, are indeed accountable and answerable to the citizenry through our elected officials, it’s okay to push back from time to time. In this case, honestly, we should be thankful that Driechel did so.
Frankly, there is nothing here for him to apologize for. In fact, this has all escalated to the point where the ridiculous and over-the-top reaction to the chief’s actions is what’s actually causing potential harm.
It should be noted, for example, that Edmonton Mayor Andrew Knack travelled to China earlier this year. He’s obviously not the first Canadian politician to do so, but it’s quite hypocritical for him to heap the sins of the Israeli government onto the police chief while escaping any such accountability for embracing a regime with a far, far worse human-rights record.
The singling out of the Jewish state in such a manner is unfair and unhelpful, to say the least. That’s also true of the broader implication here from his critics that Driechel has somehow been tainted and corrupted by nefarious Israeli institutions.
A letter signed by over 20 Muslim organizations and mosques in Edmonton calls Driechel’s trip “a serious failure of judgment toward the communities he is sworn to serve and protect.”
But does that not include Edmonton’s Jewish community? Does the Edmonton Police Service — along with its counterparts across the country — not have a role to play in responding to an alarming surge in antisemitic hate crimes? That doesn’t have to affect obligations to other communities, but we can’t pretend this isn’t happening, either.
It’s a very real and very troubling backdrop to all of this, and somehow it has been left out of the conversation. There is still room, of course, for other conversations about policing or marginalized communities or even foreign-policy debates around the war in Gaza and Palestinian statehood.
The unwarranted reaction to Driechel’s trip has been, at best, an unfortunate distraction from all of this. The double standards and guilt-by-association smears can only serve to cause further division.
Rob Breakenridge is a Calgary-based podcaster and writer. He can be found at robbreakenridge.ca and and reached at rob.breakenridge@gmail.com
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20 Muslim organizations complain about a police visit to Israel. Then, the issue becomes heightened by the need to justify the trip.
It's time to challenge the complainants and ignore their complaints. There's absolutely no question about the motivation of "20 Muslim Organizations"--they outvote the Jews by almost 5 to 1.
Bravo to Chief Driechel. Almost across the board, activist groups have been captured by their most radical members. This is absolutely true about groups that use Gaza and the war as a fig leaf to try and demonize and marginalize Canadian Jews. (See also the way radical Alphabet activists have captured women's and LGB and (old school) T organizations and turned them against their founding communities.)