Jesse Kline: Amira Elghawaby defends antisemitic protest in front of Toronto hospital

Not a great look:

…Not that the protesters themselves would ever admit this, as doing so would expose them to hate crime charges. The group Toronto4Palestine said that Mount Sinai “just happens to be along our regular rally route.” How were they supposed to know it’s the one hospital in that area with strong ties to the Jewish community?

It’s not hard to see through their thinly veiled excuses, but that hasn’t stopped their fellow travellers from putting on blinders and coming to their defence — including Elghawaby, Canada’s “special representative on combating Islamophobia.” Taking to the social media platform formally known as Twitter on Tuesday, Elghawaby noted that blocking the entrance to a public hospital was “troubling,” but also criticized “the rush to label protesters as antisemitic and/or terrorist sympathizers.”

Never mind that they deliberately targeted an institution with Jewish roots. Never mind that signs could clearly be seen portraying terrorists as freedom fighters. And never mind that they were loudly chanting, “Long live the intefadeh,” a reference to the two Palestinian uprisings, in which hundreds of Israeli civilians were killed in suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks, many of which were committed by Hamas, the perpetrator of the Oct. 7 massacre.

You’d think that someone whose job is to combat hatred would be the first to denounce a hate-filled rally such as this, even if it was antisemitism being espoused, rather than Islamophobia. But according to Elghawaby, such displays should only be condemned “if police determine any action was motivated by hate.” (Which is a little hard to do since we can’t read minds, and highlights the folly of creating a separate class of crimes that are dependant on the thought processes of the perpetrators.)

source: Jesse Kline: Amira Elghawaby defends antisemitic protest in front of Toronto hospital