Avi Benlolo
National Post, Nov. 3, 2023
“Where are the pro-Palestinian demonstrations demanding that Hamas return the 242 Israelis and foreigners held in medieval-like conditions in Gaza? Where are the candlelight vigils and the calls to stop bombing Israeli cities and towns with crude rockets aimed at civilian populations? Where are the so-called international human rights organizations that eagerly promote the Hamas narrative but remain silent over the 500,000 displaced Israeli civilians?”
A number of years ago, I participated in a press conference alongside a group of Holocaust survivors to denounce the heinous and barbaric gassing of entire villages by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Following the so-called Arab Spring and his own citizens’ calls for freedom, al-Assad had murdered between 350,000 and 500,000 men, women and children, which constituted a genocide.
Surprisingly, there were no demonstrations on the streets of the Middle East. There were no rampaging mobs converging on London Bridge or burning tires in the suburbs of Paris. In Toronto and major cities across America, there were no demonstrations by pro-Palestinian groups calling out what was undoubtedly a real genocide. All was quiet.
When Egypt cracked down on dissidents, when mobs of people rampaged through Libya and Tunisia calling for their freedom but were murdered by their own governments by the dozen, our university campuses remained silent. Unions hardly raised a fuss, if any. There were no hate-crime incidents, and students in schools did not dress up like Hamas terrorists for Halloween. It was as if the world had turned a blind eye.
Nonetheless, we spoke out in the dead of winter on a bitterly cold day, surrounded by every media outlet available to our city. These Holocaust survivors, having walked in the shadow of death, now in their 80s and 90s (most have now passed away), found the courage and righteousness to speak out for Syrians — a Muslim nation that has been at war with Israel for 75 years.
