At every stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there have been calls not to import it to Quebec, but nothing can stop this movement. This conflict, due to its cross-cutting nature and the success of some groups’ propaganda, Harmful to our society.
However, this phenomenon is not new. Each episode of warming between the Israeli side and the Palestinian side provokes reactions, tensions and violence. However, the current surge is pushing the limits.
The steep increase in anti-Semitic acts against the Jewish community, the ongoing acts of intimidation against institutions such as schools or synagogues, hate speech being shouted in our streets… What is happening right now is immeasurable. It is a scam.
Something we thought might be connected to the past reappeared in broad daylight. It is true that insults can become a means for some groups to use Jewishness to criticize society and cut us down to make us nothing.
The Jew, the enemy who becomes a tool
Importing this conflict and the anti-Semitism it expresses allows hatred of Quebec and hatred of the West as a whole to grow. Ernest Renan spoke of the nation as “the will to continue life in common.” However, how can we believe this desire of many activists who have been active in university camps and violent demonstrations since October 7?
Many of the rebels who pollute our streets are Quebecois and reject Western values. To them the Jew is seen as an oppressor. Virtue, which makes only the Gentiles righteous among the people, becomes the instrument of corruption of the Jewish community. He is the “dreyfus,” the ritual barrier that prevents people from achieving “liberation.”
Gold Like philosopher Pierre Taguieff
, it is under this analysis that Judeophobia and hatred of the West intersect. Importing the Israel-Hamas conflict becomes a new means to escalate the fight against some for the benefit of the anti-Semitism that stinks Quebec even more.
The exemplary nature of our political leaders is at stake
We often hear that a Member of Parliament should be a role model. This theory, important in an era of import of the Israel-Hamas conflict, takes on its full meaning when some enter the game of demonizing the Jewish state as a colonialist, apartheid state, criminal or racist. For petty political gains.
Yet the latter do not realize that by wanting to play the role of political morality through such comments, they are playing the role of sheep who choose to vote for the wolf.
The danger of this strategy is that it feeds what we want to condemn. While everyone wants a united society, to support the demonization of Jews and to support the demonization of Israel is to support social separatism and communalism.
The question that ultimately arises is this: Are the importers or users of this conflict willing to destroy our commons as if we were nothing?
Political gain is not worth the effort.
Photo by Julian Corona
Julian Corona
Associate Director of Communications and Media Relations
Center for Consultation on Jewish and Israeli Relations (CIJA)
