Excusing Jew-hatred in Canada

''Under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada has become a more dangerous place for Jews.''

By BRADLEY MARTIN
CANADA’S PRIME MINISTER Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. (photo credit: REUTERS)
CANADA’S PRIME MINISTER Justin Trudeau in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
(photo credit: REUTERS)
The Toronto Star, Canada’s largest daily newspaper, recently published a disgraceful article defending a Toronto imam who called for the genocide of Jews.
Ayman Elkasrawy is a former teaching assistant at Ryerson University and junior employee at his mosque, Masjid Toronto.
“O Allah! Count their number; slay them one by one and spare not one of them. O Allah! Purify the Al-Aqsa mosque from the filth of the Jews!” invoked Elkasrawy in a sermon in 2016. After video of his prayer surfaced, Elkasrawy backtracked, claiming that he misspoke.
The Toronto Star contends that Elkasrawy’s words were twisted.
“As for ‘Purify the Al-Aqsa mosque from the filth of the Jews,’ a more accurate translation is ‘Cleanse Al-Aqsa mosque from the Jews’ desecration of it,’ wrote the Star, quoting a supposedly more palatable translation of the Arabic prayer.
Apparently it’s okay to be antisemitic, as long as you’re not anti-semantic.
According to the Star, Canadian Jews can rest easy knowing that this imam does not believe they should be murdered because they are filthy.
But rather, Elkasrawy believes Jews should be annihilated because they are a desecration! But the paper wasn’t quite finished yet. The Star recently published an op-ed by Elkasrawy, in which he now denies ever praying for the killing of Jews. Despite video evidence to the contrary, Elkasrawy blamed some sort of conspiracy by “malicious people” who seek to “divide Canadians.”
Jew-hatred in Canada has gotten so bad that now elements of the mainstream media are defending it.
Elkasrawy is simply the latest example of the rise in Islamic antisemitism in Canada. In two sermons at the Al-Andalous Islamic Center in Montreal, a sheikh called for the genocide of Jews. In December 2016, an imam in a Montreal mosque called Jews “the most evil of mankind” and “human demons” before calling for their annihilation.
Under the leadership of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada has become a more dangerous place for Jews. According to Statistics Canada, Canadian Jews are the most targeted religious group in the country and comprise most of the victims of hate crimes. B’nai Brith declared 2016 “a record-setting year for antisemitism in Canada” in its annual audit of antisemitic incidents.
The Trudeau government’s acquiescence to anti-Jewish incitement has ranged from passive tolerance to outright support. Until recently, the Ontario Ministry of Education issued a textbook titled Canada and the Global Community which falsely accused Israel of using “child soldiers” and “kidnapping” children in order to force them to fight.
Though the textbook’s publisher has apologized and issued a recall, about 800 elementary schools in Ontario already received the textbook and it is currently up to each individual school to request the corrected edition.
Anti-Israel incitement has even received financial support from the Canadian government. In 2015, the creator of an upcoming art exhibit that glorifies terrorist attacks against Israelis has received CAD $35,000 in federal funding.
This individual has continuously justified terrorist attacks, plotted by her brother Khaled Nazzal, against innocent Israeli civilians.
This includes the 1974 massacre of 22 Israeli schoolchildren and four adults. In 2014, this so-called artist put up a similar display at Ottawa City Hall, glorifying Nazzal and other Palestinian terrorists.
It’s bad enough that anti-Jewish bigotry is rising in Canada, but now it seems that elements of the mainstream Canadian media are intent on making excuses for it. This blatant obfuscation by The Toronto Star is indicative of a much larger problem plaguing the Trudeau government and Canadian media.
Canadians must come together and demand that antisemitism not be tolerated and that The Toronto Star stop defending the anti-Jewish bigotry escalating under Trudeau’s watch.
The author is a Senior Fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center and deputy editor for the Canadian Institute for Jewish Research.