This article originally appeared in the Line. Below is an excerpt from the article.
By Dan Pujdak, January 22, 2025
A ceasefire has been declared between Gaza and Israel, pending the return of dozens of Israeli hostages. Some have already been returned. For now, there is some peace, and a small glimmer of hope. How long it will last is anyone’s guess. But peace for now and freedom for some, at least, is good. It’s a starting place.
Hopefully, it will last beyond six weeks.
Yet, this ceasefire feels foreboding here in Canada. Perhaps because while the war has stalled in the Middle East, the rhetoric shows no sign of abating here at home.
On the first day of peace, anti-Zionist protesters descended on Liberal party leadership hopeful and former finance minister Chrystia Freeland’s campaign launch. They weren’t there to celebrate peace — they were there to disrupt, agitate, and intimidate — just as they’ve done since Hamas’s terror attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The Jewish community remains angry and hurt — especially since it will never receive an apology for the antisemitism it suffered. For months, protesters have gone well beyond calling for ceasefires or justice for Palestinian people; they’ve spewed hatred towards Canadian Jews while lionizing terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah, who they believe are correct to resist the existence of Israel “by any means necessary.”
The protest at Freeland’s launch event shows that ideologues will continue to try to hijack civil society in an effort to amplify their grievance against Jewish self-determination. Meanwhile, the run-of-the-mill activists who took part in the antisemitic protests will likely just move on to their next cause, unaware or uncaring about the damage they caused and the bedfellows they kept.
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Dan Pujdak is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. He was the director of policy to the Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs and has worked extensively on reconciliation-based initiatives across Canada.
