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Lorne Gunter: Knack's comments on police chief's trip disturbing to many Jewish Edmontonians

Compare that with Knack’s own trip to China at the beginning of this year.

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Mayor Andrew Knack says he’s “disappointed and frustrated” by Edmonton Police Chief Warren Driechel’s trip to Israel last month as part of an international delegation of police chiefs seeking insights from their Israeli counterparts.

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According to the Edmonton Police Commission, which approved Driechel’s trip, the Edmonton chief and other chiefs from major cities around North America were in Israel to learn about “local policing in a highly complex environment, including critical incident response, threat preparedness, and community engagement.”

Driechel was not there to support the Israeli government or give advice on how it should handle Palestinians or Gaza.

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Nonetheless, Knack and city councillors Erin Rutherford and Ashley Salvador all issued statements accusing the chief of contributing to Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism just for making the trip.

The trio’s statements are so condemning of the whole of Israel (and not just the government) that they tar all Israelis with same brush. That is the kind of cloaked antisemitism many Canadian politicians and institutional leaders indulge in.

Knack added, “Families in our community are grieving and are worried about loved ones who are living among unimaginable hardships. Decisions like these cause real hurt, damage relationships with communities that already feel marginalized, and break trust.”

Driechel didn’t go to Israel to cheer on the Jewish state from the sidelines. (Although while the mayor is talking about grieving families, he would do well to remember what set off this conflict in the first place — the slaughter by Hamas of more than 1,200 Jews in October 2023.)

Perhaps Knack should be equally concerned about how his words are genuinely disturbing to many Jewish Edmontonians.

Two things have to be remembered by lefty politicians who are quick to criticize Israel for the Gaza war. First, the war would not have begun and could have ended early on if Hamas had stopped its deadly attacks.

And, second, it’s not as if Gaza and other Palestinian territories are some liberal democracy just waiting to blossom if Israel were suddenly to end its embargoes and attacks. The replacement for Israel’s quasi-occupation would be a repressive Islamist government that denies women and gays any rights, which has no rule of law, no criminal justice system and is ruled over by a fanatical kleptocracy.

But in the case at hand — Driechel’s fact-finding trip to Israel — it’s important to reiterate he was not their to enrich or embolden the government, but rather to learn what Israeli police know about policing in a complex environment.

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Compare that with Knack’s own trip to China at the beginning of this year.

“My visit to China was aimed at promoting economic development and fostering our sister city relationship with Harbin,” Knack said. In other words, Knack was there to help a government with an abysmal human rights record to whitewash its image in the West and expand its economy.

The government in Beijing organizes the widespread use of slave labour by Chinese companies, including the makers of Chinese EVs which the federal Liberal government will soon permit to be sold in Canada.

The Chinese government carries out extensive propaganda and surveillance activities in Canada targeting millions of Canadian citizens of Chinese origin, along with Chinese students and visitors.

The United Front Works Department was created by the Chinese government to, according to CSIS, “co-opt and neutralize potential (foreign) opposition to Chinese Communist policies through overseas Chinese community organizations, business associations, and friendship societies.”

There are also hundreds of Chinese agents and supporters in Canada who intimidate Chinese Canadians and threaten to harm their relatives back in China if they speak out against the Communist government.

No doubt Knack’s China trip caused hurt and grievance to a lot of Chinese Edmontonians, but you don’t hear his lefty colleagues clamouring for his resignation.

lgunter@postmedia.com

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