COLUMN: Think Again – We need moral clarity on antisemitism

Protesters rioted in Montreal last Friday. According to a CBC report, protesters torched cars, smashed windows, threw objects at police officers, and set a mannequin on fire. They were upset about the 70th annual session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly taking place in Montreal at the time.

However, CBC left out several key details. Notably, they failed to mention that many demonstrators were decked out in Palestinian regalia and were filmed performing Nazi salutes and chanting calls for a “final solution.” As for the mannequin set on fire, it was an effigy of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s odd, to say the least, that CBC chose to omit these salient facts.

Sadly, CBC has long made its anti-Israel bias clear. When the streets of Amsterdam were taken over earlier this month by a mob of antisemitic protesters openly engaged in a “Jew hunt,” CBC published an article that tried to shift the blame to overzealous Israeli soccer fans.

Canada is dealing with the worst wave of antisemitism that we’ve seen in decades. Ever since the unprovoked Oct. 7 attack by Hamas terrorists against Israel, pro-Palestinian protestors across Canada have flooded city streets chanting pro-Hamas slogans and calling for the destruction of Israel. But if CBC was your only news source, you might think that these protesters were just some well-meaning human rights activists.

To make matters worse, Canada’s prime minister has been missing in action. While Justin Trudeau issued his usual boilerplate denunciations of violence and stated that these kinds of actions “have no place in Canada,” his actions belie his words. Trudeau and his ministers have time and time again tried to placate those who want nothing less than the destruction of Israel.

Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) recently issued a dubious arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Not only is Israel not even a signatory to the ICC, but the arrest warrant was also absurd on its face. There is no moral equivalence between Hamas, a terrorist group that deliberately targets civilians, and Israel, a democracy that is responding to a brutal terrorist attack by Hamas.

Sadly, instead of following the example of U.S. President Joe Biden who immediately denounced the arrest warrant, Trudeau said that he would “abide” by the ICC decision. In other words, Trudeau is willing to arrest the leader of one of our major allies if he sets foot in our country. He then claimed that “This is just who we are as Canadians.”

No, Mr. Prime Minister, that is not who we are as Canadians. We do not abandon our allies when they are brutally attacked by bloodthirsty terrorists, nor do we hide behind blatantly unjust rulings from international bodies with an obvious anti-Israel bias. Trudeau might have lost his sense of moral clarity, but ordinary Canadians have not.

Fortunately, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has been rock-solid in his support for Israel. When asked about the ICC arrest warrant during a radio interview, Poilievre stated, “The prime minister of Israel is a democratically elected leader whose country is responding to an unprovoked invasion, by thousands of well-armed, Iranian funded terrorists who… carried out mass rape and other atrocities deliberately targeted at civilians.”

That is what moral clarity looks like. Hamas is an evil bloodthirsty terrorist organization that has no goal other than the destruction of Israel. Canada deserves a prime minister who is prepared to call out evil for what it is. Unfortunately, right now we have a prime minister who can’t even tell right from wrong.

It’s time for moral clarity on antisemitism. We won’t get that from Justin Trudeau.

Michael Zwaagstra is a high school teacher and deputy mayor of Steinbach. He can be reached at mzwaagstra@shaw.ca.