Hate in London and Israel
A Compassionate Defense of Dr. Munir El-Kassem
Following the recent tragic killing of the Afzaal family in London, Ontario, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rightfully denounced the attack as one of hate, as well as vowed to do more to prevent such attacks from happening in the future.
Something about this, however, struck me as odd. This was not because Trudeau took a stance against hatred that totally out of character for him. Rather, he did so with respect to the Afzaal family or, more specifically, the culprit behind their killing on the heels of announcing on Twitter Canada’s “close” friendship with Israel.
Why, I thought, does Trudeau condemn hatred when it happens in his own country but not when it is perpetuated by Israel, a state committed to regularly killing, harassing, brutalizing, displacing and making life miserable for innocent Palestinians? What’s more, how could Trudeau say Canada is friends with such an evil political power?
Whatever the reasons, he is guilty of applying a double-standard, which in effect says, “it is ok for Israel to commit acts of hate but not ok for Canadians to commit acts of hate against one another.” This perfectly parallels well-known intellectual and political commentator, Noam Chomsky’s, definition of the “hypocrite”, namely “the person who applies standards to others but won’t allow them to be applied to himself.”
For as long as Trudeau, as well as other Canadian political leaders, fail to both say no to the hate in London and to no to our continued friendship with Israel — long as it perpetuates hate against Palestinians — they appear hypocritical. Where they, going further, refuse — as many seem to be doing now in the face of mounting evidence of Israel’s crimes against humanity, such as well-documented this year by Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem — they are hypocrites.
This is shameful for Canada indeed.
Offsetting this, however, was the brief though courageous statement by imam Dr. Munir El-Kassem at the vigil: “now there’s a reason why they say the world is a small village. Every country has a foreign policy. I just want to say whatever is happening in Jerusalem and Gaza, is related to whatever happened in London, Ontario.”
Hearing this, I, in contrast to others who falsely accused him of being anti-Semitic, intuitively knew that El-Kassem was referring to the siege by the Israeli military against peaceful Palestinians, many of whom are children and killed as a result, in Jerusalem and Gaza. Such violence is hatred and so, in principle, is the same kind of act committed by the London attacker. Neither has any moral nor legal justification.
I spoke this week with El-Kassem this week and he confirmed that I was correct about my intuition. We also spoke about the necessity to condemn and eliminate hatred worldwide. If we, whether individuals or states, do not, we are complicit in dehumanization.
While we as Canadians must not hate those who perpetuate dehumanization, we must neither be friends with those who do so and especially under false pretexts, such as Israel’s justifying its indiscriminate murder of Palestinians based on its “right” to defend itself. This is absurd. Palestinians are, overwhelmingly, not in the least aggressors.
Fellow Israelis, please know that I love you as I love Palestinians. Your humanity is never anything I have lost sight of. If you are directly involved or support the terrorism against the Palestinian people, I still do not hate you. I do, however, find such atrocities entirely deplorable and unacceptable.
We must work together so Jews and Palestinians can co-exist peacefully, based on what is at the core of our humanity — dignity, care, respect for one another. I believe in the Jewish right to a homeland but never at the expense of the lives of Palestinians or any other people for that matter.
This is what the world is seeing right now, perhaps more than ever with rapid circulation of smartphone imagery (photos, videos, etc.), exposing Israeli terrorism. It is hatred that has no place on this planet and, criminal in nature, Israeli is yet to be held fully accountable by the International Criminal Court.
El-Kassem’s statement reminded me of Malcolm X when he said, “If violence is wrong in America, violence is wrong abroad.” I believe this should be at the fore of our thinking as we continue to reflect on our relationship, as Canadians or otherwise, to Israel. The violence of terrorism is not wrong depending on who commits it. It is wrong always.
Moreover, we cannot condemn hatred only when it gains us favour, as might a politician when they do so against those that have harmed their constituents. We must also condemn hate when the stakes are high, as when it may compromise our relationship with states such as Israel with whom Canada has important political and economic ties.
Since Trudeau has not done so it throws into question how sincere he was in condemning the hatred behind the attack in London. We need leadership that is founded on love. Anything less fails to wholly respect human life, an injustice against all.
