Liberal MP accused of honouring anti-Semite
OTTAWA — A Liberal MP is under fire for presenting a “certificate of appreciation” to a man one Jewish advocacy group labels a purveyor of anti-Semitism.
B’nai Brith Canada has started a petition demanding that Mississauga-Erin Mills MP Iqra Khalid apologize and rescind the federal certificate she presented last week to Amin El-Maoued, the public relations chief of Palestine House.
The Jewish group accuses El-Maoued of leading a July 2017 rally “laden with hate-filled and anti-Semitic slogans,” including chants of “Israel and Hitler are the same.”
Palestine House, which describes itself as “an educational, social and cultural centre of the Palestinian Canadian Community ,” lost all federal funding in 2012. The Conservative government at the time cited what it called a “pattern of support for extremism.”
The B’nai Brith Canada petition asserts that “anti-Semites, racists and bigots of all sorts do not merit recognition from the Canadian government or its elected officials.”
It demands that Khalid, who could not be reached for comment, rescind the certificate and apologize to Canadians for what it calls her “insensitive and dangerous actions.”
Khalid received hate mail and death threats last year after initiating a motion calling on the House of Commons to condemn Islamophobia and all other forms of discrimination. Conservatives and other critics argued that the motion would limit free speech.
Khalid was criticized last April for giving El-Maoued another award on behalf of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, at an event featuring a Palestinian archbishop said to have defended terrorists and suicide bombings.