'YOU HAVE SERIOUS ISSUES:' Israeli minister issues warning of Canada's extremism

OTTAWA — Months before Sunday’s Bondi Beach terror attack, she pleaded with Australian officials to do something about anti-Jewish extremism.

Now, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskell is issuing the same warning to Canada as extremism here in this country races out of control.

“You have serious issues — I’ve been warning, this is the same situation in Canada,” the Toronto-born Haskell told the Toronto Sun in an interview.

“If the government doesn’t do something to stop this rise in antisemitism, if the (Canadian) government continues its rhetoric in either rewarding terrorist organizations like Hamas and buying into Hamas propaganda, it will result in blood in Canada as well.”

Canada extremism a crisis waiting to happen

The world reeled in the wake of Sunday’s deadly antisemitic terror attack, which saw a father-and-son duo leave 15 people dead and dozens more injured.

But many, including Haskell, say such an attack was all but a certainty, thanks to police and officials ignoring troubling warning signs that extremism in Australia was reaching dangerous levels.

“They were standing on the steps of the Sydney Opera House chanting ‘gas the Jews’ on the 9th of October (2023) before the war began,” Haskell said. “Just two days after the worst massacre of Jews since the holocaust, and the government did nothing.”

Police and prosecutors choose not to apply existing hate crime laws, she said — letting far-left, Islamist and anti-Israeli activists spread their hate unopposed.

Indeed, observers note that closely parallels the extremism seen in Canadian cities like Montreal and Toronto, where anti-Israeli mobs operate without scrutiny — sometimes with the assistance of Toronto Police — and activists dressed as Hamas terrorists or waving terrorist flags are frequent sights at anti-Israel rallies.

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Canadian Jews living in fear

That, she said, is causing Canadian Jews to live in fear.

“My dad lives in Canada, he tells me he’s too afraid to go to the Jewish kosher shop to buy things because he’s afraid it’s going to be targeted,” she said.

Indeed, anti-Israel activists have made a habit of targeting Jewish-owned businesses, Jewish community centres and even schools — with Bais Chaya Mushka School for Girls in North York targeted numerous times by gunfire.

“You see people marching with terrorist flags, you see them chanting death threats, you see them targeting and attacking Jews on the streets of Canada — and not many have been prosecuted or deterred,” Haskell said.

“When you enforce the law, you create deterrence for others.”

Police turning a blind eye to extremism

Toronto Police garnered much scrutiny over their tolerance of balant lawbreaking by anti-Israel activists — including official police documents accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing or uniformed TPS officers bragging on official podcasts that the Oct. 7 terror attacks prompted a surge in converts to Islam — and that criticizing anti-Israel protests is somehow “islamophobia.”

Local politicians fare little better, with Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow publicly accusing Israel of committing a so-called “genocide” in Gaza, and presiding over a controversial “Palestinian flag raising” at Toronto City Hall.

But without some landmark changes in public policy and policing, she said, the possibility of a terror attack in Canada becomes an inevitability.

“There’s cells of terrorists like the Muslim Brotherhood, there’s Samidoun, there’s Hezbollah, the IRGC, Hamas,” she said.

“When you see them being emboldened by terrorist acts like the seventh of October massacre, being brave enough to actually go out and march with those terrorist flags in the streets, this must be a red flag for police that there are those who are radicalized,” Haskell said.

“This is not going to be about Israel, this is going to be about saving Canadian lives,” she added.

bpassifiume@postmedia.com
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