Israel is pursuing a sweeping diplomatic and public relations campaign to persuade Canada to vary the best way it tackles acts of antisemitism.
From the office of Israel’s president all the way down to its ambassador in Ottawa, the message is similar: Canada must do more to curb threats against Jews.
But while the country’s ambassador is suggesting Ottawa should limit certain “freedoms” so as to take care of threats his government links to Iran, he hasn’t said which freedoms must be limited.
“We’ve a really clear objective this yr, and that’s to create a big change in the best way antisemitism is being handled here in Canada,” Israeli Ambassador Iddo Moed told a virtual forum last week.
“It is tough for a liberal person to think that we’ve to limit other people’s freedoms, in order that our freedom shall be protected. But that’s where we’re right away.”
Carleton University political scientist Mira Sucharov, who researches Israeli-Palestinian relations and Jewish politics, said there “are two things happening” — Israel is trying each to enhance protection for Jews worldwide and to generate support for the war it has launched with the U.S. against Iran.
Moed spoke after Israel issued a series of high-level statements following shootings at three Toronto-area synagogues.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog convened a call with Toronto-area Jewish community leaders on March 9 — a rare move by a rustic whose head of presidency, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has refused to talk with Prime Minister Mark Carney.
“We must learn the teachings of previous antisemitic attacks, including the horrific Bondi Beach terror attack,” Herzog wrote on social media, citing the mass shooting last December at a Hanukkah event in Australia.
“All eyes are on Canada: it’s time to halt the unprecedented wave of Jew-hatred that has erupted ever since Oct. 7,” Herzog added, referencing the 2023 attack by Hamas and its allies against Israel which began the war in Gaza.
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On March 8, Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Gideon Sa’ar spoke with Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand in regards to the synagogue attacks and called for special measures to guard Jewish communities and “Israeli diplomats serving in Canada.”
Sa’ar again called out Canada two days later, linking shots fired on the U.S. consulate in Toronto with the synagogue attacks.
“When antisemitism goes unchecked, violence inevitably escalates. Canadian authorities must act immediately and decisively before this dangerous trend results in further attack,” he wrote.
Israeli junior minister Sharren Haskel, who was born in Toronto, has made similar statements about Canada.
“When antisemitic terrorism is allowed to grow and the Iranian regime’s global terror networks are dismissed as a distant problem, the implications won’t remain overseas,” she wrote on March 8.
Sucharov said Israel’s decision to single out Canada might reflect the undeniable fact that antisemitic attacks keep happening here, regardless that the number of individuals physically harmed in those attacks has been small.
“We don’t normally see individual, single countries identified publicly by the Israeli government, unless there are major attacks there,” she said.
“What’s very alarming and disturbing is … when Canadians who’re indignant about Israel, about Israel’s actions, blame Jews individually or collectively here for what Israel’s doing. And that’s obviously the largest problem we face.”
During a virtual panel held last Thursday by Jewish advocacy group B’nai Brith, Moed suggested Canada has to constrain certain freedoms so as to stop the influence of nefarious actors.
“Some individuals are on the market to abuse our democracy and our values in order that they will dominate,” Moed said.
“I’m conveying to the federal government a really clear message that Jews feel abandoned and Jews in Canada feel that they will not be protected enough and folks understand this in government.”
The ambassador said elements related to Iran are energetic in Canada and “a few of them definitely shall be attempting to push for whatever harassment of the Jewish community could be, simply to make some extent that Jews will not be secure when Israel is at war.”
He claimed that others linked to the Muslim Brotherhood seek to “silence supporters of Israel,” adding that “it’s harder to point at specific actions” by the movement.
Moed singled out al-Quds Day protests, which proponents say advocate for Palestinian rights and for sovereignty over Jerusalem. Jewish groups argue they’re hateful events and indicate that they were pioneered by the Iranian regime.
Moed described al-Quds Day protests as “hate” marches.
“It’s nothing else than an try to openly and massively delegitimize the state of Israel,” he said.
His comments got here a day before Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced a last-minute court filing that unsuccessfully sought to ban those protests.
Moed said the rise in antisemitism in Canada is why his country has been “bringing delegations of representatives of police to Israel to share with them our experience in combating hatred, in coping with counterterrorism.”
Data from Canadian police and Jewish organizations shows reports of anti-Jewish hate, including violent acts akin to firebombings, have risen dramatically in recent times.
B’nai Brith has called on Ottawa to launch a commission on antisemitism.
In December, Carney said during a Hanukkah event that Canada has a “necessity to act” on two years of rising hate.
He linked that with Bill C-9, an act that creates latest offences for intimidating or obstructing someone outside a spiritual or cultural institution, while removing a spiritual exemption to some hate speech laws. The bill is predicted to go to 3rd reading within the House of Commons as early as next week.