One of the really likeable things about Canada, along with public health care and politeness, is our penchant for reasoned debate as a way to settle our political differences.

So it’s been jarring to see the level of vitriol recently directed toward Avi Lewis, federal leader of the New Democratic Party, who has been an outspoken critic of Israel’s assault on Gaza and Palestinians.

Lewis, who is Jewish, has come under harsh attack from several prominent critics, especially in response to a recent social media post on the eve of Yom Kippur.

Globe and Mail columnist Robyn Urback accused Lewis of engaging in “antisemitism,” and public finance economist Jack Mintz denounced Lewis at an award ceremony, saying that anti-Israel critics “soon turn to antisemitism.”

Most unsettling however was an article in the National Post, written by Yoni Goldstein, former editor of the Canadian Jewish News, which accused Lewis of “endanger(ing) Jews everywhere in Canada,” and insisting that “(w)hen the community is endangered from the inside, reasoned debate and private conversations are no longer options.”

Instead of reasoned debate, Goldstein suggests Biblical law........

© rabble