Call for ‘eradication’ of Israelis has no place in civil society

In Kitchener, Shafiq Hudda is known as a community builder.

He is one of the founding members of Interfaith Grand River, an alliance of about 30 different local faith groups.

He also runs Islamic Humanitarian Service on Hollinger Crescent, a charitable organization that collects donations for Waterloo Region’s food bank and other worthwhile projects in the developing world.

But in Toronto on Saturday, Hudda was calling for the “eradication” of Israelis and Zionists.

It happened at Al-Quds Day, an annual worldwide demonstration against Israel.

In the video of Hudda’s speech he says: “We pray to the Almighty, a day will come when we will see justice throughout the world, the eradication of the unjust powers, such as the American empire, such as the Israelis and Zionists, in the same way we saw the British Empire wither away ...

“We will see a day coming, God willing, in our lifetime, where this empire, the Zionist empire, the American empire, will be down in the dustbins of history.”

The Jewish human rights organization B’nai Brith (on whose website you can view the video at www.bnaibrith.ca) says Hudda’s comments amount to hate speech as defined in the Criminal Code of Canada.

Canada has a rich tradition of freedom of speech. Hate speech is outside the lines, though. It’s illegal to advocate genocide or promote hatred against an identifiable group.

“He’s calling for killing Israelis as a national group,” said Aidan Fishman of B’nai Brith.

“If somebody went out and called for the eradication of Pakistanis or Koreans or Arabs, no one would dispute that this is hate speech,” he said.

Fishman went on to call AlQuds Day a “hatefest” where the flag of Hezbollah, defined as a terrorist organization by the Canadian government, is often displayed.

In past years, Al-Quds speakers have called for Judaism to be “dismantled.” At last year’s rally, a song was played calling for Israelis to be beheaded, stabbed and run over, he said.

Yet for years the Al-Quds rally has been allowed to go ahead.

Fishman is relieved that premier-elect Doug Ford has now vowed to put a stop to it.

For his part, Hudda says he finds it “very insulting and upsetting” that anyone would think him anti-Jewish. He said Jews were marching beside him at the rally.

He also says he doesn’t single out Israel for criticism. He calls for eradication of other governments whose actions he dislikes.

For example, “I have called for the eradication of the state of Saudi Arabia.”

During our conversation, Hudda agreed with me that a Zionist is someone who believes in the right of Jews to a homeland in what is now Israel.

He says he is generally on board with that, but not the “expansionist” version of Israel’s government.

In the end, the only way to judge Hudda is not by what he says he meant, or who he was with, but simply by the words he spoke on Saturday.

It seems to me that criticizing Israel for its policies is fair game, just as you might criticize Canada or the United States.

But that wasn’t what was happening in Hudda’s shouted, apocalyptic speech.

The word “eradication” means “complete destruction.”

Calling for the complete destruction of the citizens of the world’s only Jewish state, and of those who believe in its right to exist, seems to me to be an act of hatred, plain and simple.

There is no room for it in civil Canadian society.