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Or sign-in if you have an account.Former Liberal minister Irwin Cotler says that Mark Carney's antisemitism speech on June 1 was well intended, but “there was no mention of Israel and no acknowledgement that, for Jews, Israel is part of the Jewish peoples’ covenantal reality.” Photo by John Kenney/National Post/FileIn the course of researching my biography on Irwin Cotler, I spoke with his old McGill debating partner, Moses Znaimer, the CityTV and MuchMusic founder.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Enjoy the latest local, national and international news.Exclusive articles by Conrad Black, Barbara Kay and others. Plus, special edition NP Platformed and First Reading newsletters and virtual events.Unlimited online access to National Post.National Post ePaper, an electronic replica of the print edition to view on any device, share and comment on.Daily puzzles including the New York Times Crossword.Support local journalism.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one account.Share your thoughts and join the conversation in the comments.Enjoy additional articles per month.Get email updates from your favourite authors.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsSign In or Create an AccountorIn typically unfiltered Znaimer fashion he wondered aloud what the former Liberal party justice minister thought about his old party, “which betrayed the Jewish community, in favour of the huge Muslim influx, of which they are largely the authors.”“It must be heartbreaking,” he said.This newsletter from NP Comment tackles the topics you care about. (Subscriber-exclusive edition on Fridays)By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againZnaimer is no stranger to provocative statements. But the enmity toward the Liberals is a view that is widely held in the Jewish community — and there is evidence to suggest the accusation is grounded in fact.Not least, there was the candid admission by Mélanie Joly, the then foreign affairs minister, that local politics was shaping Canada’s more hostile official approach to Israel during its war with Hamas. According to former NDP leader, Tom Mulcair, she said to him: “Thomas, have you seen the demographics in my riding?”The influx Znaimer referred to is also a reality. There are around 1.8 million Muslims in Canada, of which 500,000 arrived between 2015 and 2021, compared to just 300,000 Jews.You don’t need to be a conspiracist to connect the demographics to policies like resuming funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, an organization with documented ties to Hamas; to the unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state; to the ban on export permits of military equipment to Israel in the middle of the conflict; and, perhaps, most egregiously, to the failure to stand up to Islamic and progressive extremism in Canada, a toxic witches’ brew of hatreds that has seen antisemitic incidents surging to record levels last year.The systemic removal of missing-person flyers, torn from lamp posts in Toronto after the recent disappearance of 14-year-old autistic Jewish girl, Esther, is perhaps the purest evidence that evil is afoot on our streets. She is, literally, the poster child of the irrational, timeless disease of antisemitism.It is against that background that Prime Minister Mark Carney on Monday walked into the Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto, Canada’s oldest Jewish congregation, to acknowledge that his government and its predecessor have made mistakes that need to be fixed.He leaned on the teachings of the Hebrew prophets in his definition of a just society as one that is sustained not merely by laws “but by obligations we owe to each other.”He said that is the covenant that made Canada possible, a covenant that is being tested by the scourge of antisemitism, but which needs to be renewed.“Canada’s civic compact is failing Jewish Canadians,” he said, adding that if the covenant fails one community, it fails all.There probably weren’t that many votes up for grabs in the room, but Carney will have earned grudging respect for citing Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, the late Elie Wiesel, who said the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.“The time has come. Canadians must stand up for each other,” Carney said.The impact any government can make on the tides that wash over society is necessarily limited. Ottawa has a duty to protect its citizens and has allocated $75 million to the Canada Community Security program to protect synagogues and Jewish day schools and community centres. “It pains me that we had to commit any dollars to this,” Carney said.The combatting hate legislation (Bill C-9) that is currently in committee in the Senate is also welcome, particularly the provision that makes it an offence to willfully promote hatred by waving Hamas or Hezbollah flags.But the malignancy of antisemitism will only be eradicated by making it socially unacceptable to incite hate based on someone’s faith.“History teaches us that hatred metastasizes when society grows indifferent to it, when intimidation becomes routine, when conspiracy becomes discourse, when citizens choose to look away,” Carney said.Cotler, the government’s former special envoy for combatting antisemitism (Carney has since abolished the office), said the prime minister’s speech was well intended and well delivered.“He appreciated that the civic compact is broken and that Jews deserve not only the right of protection, but the right to live a thriving life,” Cotler said in an interview Tuesday.“But the thing that was missing from his talk was, there was no mention of Israel and no acknowledgement that, for Jews, Israel is part of the Jewish peoples’ covenantal reality. There was no recognition in the speech about the delegitimization, dehumanization and demonization of Israel, which has put a target on every Jew’s back.”For my part, I felt that it was an unusually eloquent and heartfelt speech but that it fell short for a different reason: it failed to be honest about the cause of the corruption in the body politic.“We welcome the peoples of the world, in all their diversity and splendour. We don’t welcome the world’s hatreds,” Carney said. “When you come to Canada, you bring your faith, your traditions, your language, your story but you leave behind your animosities.”But that is not happening. Islamists arrive and are given permission to give vent to their ancient loathing by anarcho-socialists, and their naive campus enablers, who love Palestine but hate Canada, and despise Jews most of all.The Montreal4Palestine group continues to defend the mock hanging of a man wearing a kippah last month, saying it was directed at a specific political figure (Israeli politician Itamar Ben-Gvir), not at Jews. Will it take a real lynching to convince the waverers that this is not legitimate freedom of expression?Given the demographics, it is clear why the prime minister was ambiguous in laying the blame.But, as Elie Wiesel learned in the death camps, neutrality helps the oppressor and silence encourages the tormentor.The malignancy will continue to metastasize if we keep obscuring its source.National Post Get the latest from John Ivison straight to your inbox Join the Conversation This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. 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