GOLDSTEIN: In Canada, tolerating intolerance has led to hate

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One of the major societal shifts in Canada in recent decades is that we’ve gone from being a tolerant society to one that tolerates intolerance.

The current political and policing paralysis when it comes to dealing with pro-Hamas demonstrations, ostensibly calling for the destruction of Israel, but whose real agenda is to foster hatred against Jews in Canada, is the latest manifestation of it.

As my Postmedia colleague Jerry Agar has pointed out, every reasonable person knows that if these hate-filled demonstrations were aimed at blacks, or gays, to cite two examples, Canadian authorities would be using every means available to shut them down.

Alternatively, think back to the use of the Emergencies Act to shut down the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, compared to the hands-off approach of every level of government in Canada when it comes to law-breaking by so-called “pro-Palestinian” protesters that has been going on ever since Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct 7, 2023.

If these “pro-Palestinian protests” were genuinely focused on the military policies of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Gaza and the enormous suffering the Palestinians have endured as a result of them, they would not target Jews in Canada where they live, pray, and go to school, nor would Jewish businesses and their customers be subjected to vandalism and intimidation.

If calls to end the suffering of the Palestinians were genuine, these protests would be aimed at the actions of the Israeli government, as well as demanding that Hamas release the remaining hostages, both alive and dead, the casus belli of the war.

Instead, Jews in Canada today have realized that our grandparents were right — that the world’s oldest form of hatred did not disappear in the wake of the Holocaust, and the rise of our so-called progressive and tolerant society in Canada.

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Rather the cry of “never again” — the belief that having seen the evil of the Holocaust the civilized would never allow it to happen again — was merely a slogan, not a genuine belief in the wake of the Second World War.

The threat to Jews in Canada today does not come from the broader Canadian public.

Rather, it manifests itself in an unholy alliance that crosses the political spectrum from the extreme left to the far right.

But the threat comes from the failure of the political class in Canada — with a few honourable exceptions — to counter it, and in failing to counter it, the message it sends is that silence gives consent.

That by allowing these law-breaking expressions of hatred on our streets to continue month after month and year after year, they create the impression that hatred against Jews in Canada is justified because of the actions of the Netanyahu government in Israel, which many Israelis oppose.

The political reality in Canada is that Conservative leaders — Brian Mulroney, Stephen Harper, Pierre Poilievre — have been far more supportive of Israel, but, more importantly, of the Jewish community in Canada, than Liberal ones such as Justin Trudeau and, at least from early indications, Mark Carney.

By repeatedly condemning Israel while not equally denouncing Hamas, they tacitly encourage the hate-filled demonstrations against Jews in Canada that have become a function of daily life in cities like Toronto where on Sunday tens of thousands of Jew and their allies will engage in their annual Walk With Israel, which is really a demonstration of their fading right to live as Jews in Canada, free from hate.