Howard Levitt
Gatestone Institute, Apr. 23, 2024
“Specifically, I’d like to hear from someone who wants a ceasefire/is finding it hard to be pro-Israel right now OR someone who supports the war despite the high cost of civilian life — and how their personal lived experiences inform those views.”
Over the last several years, Canadian employers have increasingly brought in “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) trainers to rid their workforces of conscious, and even subconscious, racism. On the face of it, who can object to diversity, equity and inclusion? It is like objecting to Santa Claus.
Unfortunately, these workshops too often have been hijacked by radical ideologues who pitted races against each other. The unhappy story of Richard Bilkszto, who committed suicide after alleging he was deemed a racist by one such trainer for observing that Canadians are not more racist than Americans, was simply the publicly exposed tip of that iceberg.
I have had many Jewish clients, even before Oct. 7, complain about how Jews have been treated in these DEI seminars. To what extent has this radical training played a role in the sudden outpouring of antisemitism here?
Who indeed is to blame for the wave of hatred toward Jews that is roiling Canadian workplaces, universities, unions, social media postings, even our streets and neighbourhoods?
Antisemitism has had a long sordid history in Canada and, for some (ironically many of those who have never knowingly even met a Jew), it has always been hidden just below the surface. There was a reprieve after the guilt induced by the atrocities of the Second World War. But it is ascendant again, and surprisingly, its adherents are proudly so.
Who are the purveyors of antisemitism?
Obviously, first are the radical Islamists importing their ancient historic Jew-hatred based on their particular interpretation of the Koran. Their hatred of Christians and other “infidels” is only slightly behind in the hierarchy.
There is the radical woke left, which has, since Israel’s underdog defeat of the combined armies of Jordan, Egypt and Syria in 1967, viewed Israel as an oppressor. I believe much of the antisemitism in the public sector union movement can be attributed to that strain.
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