By Henry Srebrnik, [Charlottetown, PEI] Guardian
We know Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is as “politically correct” as they come.
But episodes in 2022 provide evidence that some “anti-racist” and pro-Palestinian initiatives can quickly turn into the appearance of anti-Semitism – with financial and political support from Trudeau’s own federal government.
Anti-racism strategy
Particularly notorious was the Laith Marouf affair. In 2021, an organization known as the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) received $133,000 from the federal government to build an “anti-racism strategy” for Canadian broadcasting.
Housing, Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen personally and publicly endorsed the grant to allow the CMAC to instruct federally regulated broadcasters in “diversity and inclusion.”
The grant was channelled to the Department of Canadian Heritage. The funds enabled the CMAC to hire a senior consultant named Laith Marouf, who promised to implement the project in a “successful and responsible” manner.
But in August 2022, it came to light that Marouf, a Syrian by birth, is given to anti-Semitic rants. A screenshot of his private Twitter account provided more than ample proof.
In one tweet, he wrote, “You know all those loud-mouthed bags of human faces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they come from ..."
In another tweet, he suggested that “Jewish White Supremacists” deserve “a bullet to the head.” Among other claims, Marouf also asserted that Zionism is a project of “white Jews who adopted Nazism.”
Even after Anthony Housefather, another Liberal MP, had alerted Hussen to Marouf’s ugly habits, it took a month for the minister to acknowledge the controversy, pledging to look into the matter. Ahmed Hussen finally denounced Marouf’s “unacceptable behaviour,” saying it “clearly goes against our government’s values.”
He condemned anti-Semitism and “any other form of hate” and asked the Department of Canadian Heritage, the other agency involved, to “look closely at the situation.” Pablo Rodriguez, the Heritage minister, then also came forward to denounce the comments that had been discovered. Marouf’s contract was eventually cancelled, with a promise for “guidelines” to govern funding applications. This, of course, only after Marouf had been exposed.
In fact it turned out the Marouf scandal was far worse than suspected. More than half a million dollars has been paid out by Justin Trudeau-led Canadian governments between 2016 and 2021 to the organization fronted by Marouf, in the name of “anti-racism.”
The usual condemnations of anti-Semitism, apologies, and empty excuses were offered ...
Holocaust denier
In late November came another scandal, as an all-party group of members of Parliament hosted Holocaust-denier and Arabic-language newspaper publisher Nazih Khatatba at a Parliament Hill reception staged by the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group. This event included Trudeau’s Minister of Transportation Omar Alghabra and Liberal MP Salma Zahid, who heads the “friendship” group.
Khatatba’s newspaper al-Meshwar is notorious for having printed articles alleging that the Holocaust was a Jewish plot and has referred to it as the “Holohoax.” The newspaper has also published articles claiming that Jewish bankers financed the Nazi party, and praising terrorist attacks against Jews, including a bombing in Jerusalem in November that killed 16-year-old Canadian-Israeli Aryeh Schupak.
Montreal’s Mahmoud Khalil was also in attendance. He has posted videos of himself, overlaid with dramatic music, giving a speech at a “Glory to our Martyrs” rally in Montreal, as well as reciting a poem commemorating the late Ghassan Kanafani, a spokesperson for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP.)
This news came just days after the Twitter account Documenting Antisemitism reported that Nabil Nassar, the head of the Fatah Movement in Canada, had also attended the reception on Parliament Hill. Nassar’s June 2020 appointment to lead the Canadian branch of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ party was widely noticed in Canada’s Jewish community.
Only days before his appointment, Nassar was mourning the death of Ramadan Shalah, a former leader of the terror-listed Palestinian Islamic Jihad group. He has praised militants such as Ali Hassan Salameh, who planned the 1972 Munich Olympics murder of 11 Israeli athletes. (Khatatba, on the other hand, has claimed the massacre was an operation undertaken by the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency).
Nassar has also had kind words for Dalal al-Mughrabi, one of those involved in an action in 1978 that saw Palestinian militants hijack a bus on the Coastal Highway of Israel and murder its occupants; 38 Israeli civilians, including 13 children, were killed as a result of the attack while 76 more were wounded. Nassar called her the “epitome of the Palestinian woman” and “a symbol of resistance and pride.”
The usual condemnations of anti-Semitism, apologies, and empty excuses were offered when this came to light, among them from Zahid, who said that it was not possible to “research the background of every guest.” Nonsense. This was a parliamentary event and invitees are regularly vetted before invitations are sent.
Participant Elizabeth May, leader of the federal Green Party, also an attendee, stated that “I take my marching orders from the permanent representative of Palestine to Canada.” Really?
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