Last week, Liberal MP Salma Zahid who is the only member of parliament who wears a hijab, saw her car and another in the driveway of her home torched into metal hulks.  The government, and the police  refused to call it hate-motivated.   But when people protest a genocide, some scream it’s hate-motivated– it is antisemitic.

What kind of bad guy sets fire to two cars close to the Scarborough home of an MP? 

A bad guy who is skinny, wears dark clothes and a hoodie, light socks, and running shoes. A bad guy who brings a jerry can of gasoline—and doesn’t care if he’s seen on camera sloshing it about. 

A bad guy who is not afraid of getting caught. 

Some say this is the “signature crime” by an Israeli settler, or someone sympathetic to Israel.  Jewish settlers on the West Bank set fire to Palestinians’ cars, to homes and to crops all the time. 

Of course it’s arson, not a cybercrime.  But it’s also a warning:  the first serious physical threat against a sitting Canadian MP in  years, I’m sure. And the target was a woman, a Muslim and a politician openly critical of Israel’s genocide. 

But the police and security insist this may not be a hate crime.  When the miscreant is found he will not merit the special long sentences (see bill C-9) that have been meted out –or will be imposed –for those at demonstrations who merely shout cruel truths — or even untruths –about Israel. 

. . . if someone jaywalks on their way to a pro-Palestine rally, that person can be more severely punished as a jaywalker because he attended the rally!

Or how about this? A man at a pro-Palestine demonstration in Toronto saw his friend get arrested.  The man who was not arrested went with others to the police station to protest his friend’s arrest.  When the man was arrested at the police station and then convicted, Jewish groups insisted that his sentence be extended because he had come from an “anti-semitic” demonstration to a demo at the cop shop.   

As Dr Jim Turk the director of Toronto Metropolitan University’s (TMU) Centre for Free Expression notes – a person can get a ticket for jaywalking but if it’s connected to a “hate incident” there can be tougher punishment.  For example  if someone jaywalks across the street to go to a pro-Palestine rally, that person can be more severely punished as a jaywalker (or for littering!)  because the person was then involved in a “hate incident” (i.e: a demonstration against Israel).  

What happened to MP Zahid was serious.  

But with today’s “out of the park” home run for the Liberal government as it handily won all three federal byelections, the Liberals are crowing about their victory.   

No one wants to dwell on the arson attack barely a week ago in Scarborough Centre.  

But it could have been serious, like the murder of UK Labour Party MP Jo Cox.  Cox was a 41-year-old mother of two, when in 2016 a white man shot her three times (twice in the head) and stabbed her 15 times as she walked toward her office, where she was about to meet constituents.  As he stabbed her, he said, “This is for Britain. Britain will always come first.” Her murderer was linked to the extreme right wing British National Party, the KKK in the US and other ultra-right groups.  The killer saw Cox as “one of ‘the collaborators [and] a traitor” to white people.  

Though no Canadian MP has been killed yet, women MPs across party lines say they receive hate mail, sexual threats and are subject to angry confrontations (usually by men) in public.  In the case of MP Zahid, she is not only a woman, but also progressive, a Muslim and she has sided with the Palestinians and urged her government to stand against Israel’s genocide.  Arson is a serious crime – perhaps a springboard  to something undoubtedly deadly. Imagine if the car torching had happened to a Jewish MP! I believe the pressure to declare it a hate crime would be fast and furious.

Silencing criticism of Israel

Of course today the talk is about how to silence talk of Israel’s genocide, and the killings of 74,000 Palestinians.  Canadian MP Zahid has spoken out against the genocide, and  more recently organized an effort to get MPs across party lines to sign a letter that demanded the Canadian government call for a ceasefire in Israel’s war.  In January 2024, she and four other MPs including NDP MP Heather McPherson travelled to Jordan and the West Bank to see the situation firsthand.  Prior to her departure, Zahid the chair of the Canada-Palestine Parliamentary Friendship Group noted, “What we have seen in the last three months is that it is a humanitarian crisis, and the situation also in the West Bank has been worsening.”

If the arson attack at MP Zahid’s home is not a hate crime, what is?  Was burning up two cars, and endangering the lives of a family in their home merely a stunt?   A stunt to scare and to silence MPs like Zahid? Who the perpetrator was, we may never find out.  But the main point is that when Canadians say anything critical about Israel, when people rally to oppose Israel’s genocide, when activists march to protect Palestinians’ lives and their right to live – those the establishment Jews and the government consider hate crimes and will be prosecuted as such.   Other kinds of attacks? Not so much.

Cartoon at the top and below: Being Anti-Zionist is the Most Jewish Thing About Me, by Montreal-based illustrator and writer Rachel Deutsch. For more about her and Cartoonists for Palestine, read this.