At an event hosted by the National Council of Canadian Muslims on Nov. 1, Toronto’s Mayor Olivia Chow said, “the genocide in Gaza impacts us all.”
Four days later, protesters attacked a group of Jewish students from Toronto Metropolitan University at an event featuring a speaker who served in the Israel Defence Forces during the recent Gaza war.
Is this cause and effect? Did Chow’s words give a kind of permission for anti-Israel activists to act out violently?
Human nature doesn’t work so neatly. Suggesting one directly led to the other is both unprovable and probably specious.
Both of these incidents, however, are part of a larger zeitgeist.
For (at least) two years, Israel has been accused of monstrous barbarities. Accusations against the Jewish state include deliberate starvation, ethnic cleansing, intentional mass killings, wanton destruction of infrastructure and other assorted war crimes.
There are legitimate debates around the definitions of terms and whether or how they apply to recent events in Gaza. However, public discussions, as Chow demonstrated, rarely reflect these nuances.
As a society, we now widely accept that incendiary language can lead to incendiary actions. In discussions around immigration levels, for example, responsible public figures generally engage in discourse that does not demonize migrants or new Canadians. Concerns have been raised in recent years around the tenor of discussion around transgender issues, with advocates warning that some of the language can exacerbate emotional isolation, especially in transgender youth, and can lead to suicide ideation. Words, it is widely accepted, can have tangible, indelible impacts.
This thoughtfulness seems nowhere to be found when Jews and allies warn that the provocative language against the Jewish state is having serious impacts on Jews in Canada.
While cause and effect are rarely provable, correlations can be clearer. Over the past two years, combustible rhetoric against Israel has coincided with an unprecedented spike in antisemitic acts against Jewish institutions and people. One would think, under the circumstances, that reasonable people might see the potential that one is at least somewhat related to the other.
Raise this possibility, though, and you can expect to be met with assertions that “Zionists” are trying to silence criticism of Israel or that there is a “chill” on discussion of urgent and legitimate international matters.
This is an admirable defence of free speech. It is interesting, though, that concepts of almost unfettered free expression seem to be the redoubt of Israel critics who accept limitations on civil discourse in a vast range of other topic areas.
Is it a coincidence, also, that the very concept of “Zionists” controlling what other people are permitted to think and say about Israel dovetails with traditional antisemitic concepts of Jewish power and control?
What everyone should be able to accept – because the evidence is plain – is that there is a parallel between the intensity of rhetoric against Israel and increasing attacks on Jews in Canada (and elsewhere).
Toronto’s mayor is just one of many Canadian leaders who should know better than to nonchalantly toss around accusations, understanding that the pitch of condemnation against Israel is having concrete impacts on Jews in Canada.
Anyone with a public platform should behave in ways that recognize the intended and potentially unintended consequences of their words. A mayor of a Canadian city, for example, should know that her words will have limited effect on the lives of Palestinians, but plenty of impacts here at home.
In a diverse country like Canada, where inclusivity is considered a core value, people in positions of respect and power have a duty to act responsibly, to promote unity and avoid phrases that might inflame community tensions.
Did Chow’s words directly lead to the violent attack on Jewish students this month? Almost certainly not.
But they contributed to an environment already aggravated with tension and peril.