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GOLDSTEIN: Lack of political will made antisemitism exactly who we are

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To describe Wednesday’s announcement by Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree — earmarking $10 million to Jewish organizations so they can better fortify their synagogues, schools, daycare centres and summer camps from terrorist attacks — as too little too late would be an understatement.

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The fact it comes after three synagogues in the Greater Toronto Area were shot at in the wake of the U.S./Israel attack on Iran — as opposed to the hundreds of attacks, threats, intimidation and violence aimed at Jews across Canada ever since Hamas’ terrorist attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — illustrates the problem.

GOLDSTEIN: Lack of political will made antisemitism exactly who we are Back to video

That is that once you let Jew hatred out of the bottle by ignoring and minimizing it for more than two years, it’s impossible to put it back where it came from.

To be fair, spending $10 million, mainly in Toronto and Montreal, to increase security at Jewish gathering places under attack — in addition to the fact many Jewish congregations have hired pay duty police officers on their own dime for years — at least recognizes there’s a problem.

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Ditto the Liberals — represented by Anandasangaree and AI Minister Evan Solomon, who led off the announcement because he’s Jewish and was a long-time member of one of the shot-up synagogues in Toronto — finally talking about Jew hatred without the obligatory, ever-present and politically correct Liberal reference to fighting “antisemitism and Islamophobia” in the same breath.

At least they now admit, albeit far too late, that what’s happened to the Jewish community in Canada for more than two years is different in kind and degree from attacks on Muslims, which does not justify attacks on Muslims.

But in light of Wednesday’s announcement, which was specifically aimed at Jews, the problem is that firing bullets at synagogues and Jewish day schools where, mercifully, no one has been killed or wounded so far, hasn’t happened in a vacuum.

It is the inevitable result of more than two years of federal, provincial, municipal and policing authorities and the justice system, allowing the toxic stew of antisemitism to fester in Canada, ever since Israel’s counterattack against Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

Their collective lack of action has implied that Jews in Canada deserve to be attacked for the actions of the Israeli government and military in Gaza, and now because of Israel’s participation with the United States in attacking Iran.

That’s textbook antisemitism, a deranged “logic” never applied to Muslims, nor should it be — that they deserve to be attacked because of Islamist terrorism — but the double standard is evident in all our institutions.

In Ontario, for example, where Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow has shown dismal leadership, the city’s police force and the provincial government blame each other for the lack of successful prosecutions of hate crimes against Jews, which does nothing to address the issue.

(To be fair, at least the Toronto police have maintained a visible presence in Jewish neighbourhoods under attack.)

Nor does passing more hate laws, as Anandasangaree said the Carney government is doing, when the problem is the lack of enforcement of our laws that already exist against hate, assault, threats, mischief, vandalism and trespassing, and the lack of application of sentencing provisions that already apply.

The root problem isn’t a lack of laws or a lack of politicians denouncing antisemitism and piously proclaiming: “This is not who we are.”

It’s a lack of political will and of putting antisemites in jail for the crimes they’re committing.

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