BDS efforts fuel anti-Semitism

So now we have young Orthodox Jews assaulted on the streets of Toronto by a large group of teen thugs, mocking them about Hitler returning.

This unprovoked attack that occurred Sunday near Bathurst Street and Lawrence Avenue, where many Jews live, is being treated as a hate crime by police. It’s also a dangerous escalation of violence against Toronto’s Jewish community, the largest in Canada, especially alarming given the recent mass murder of 11 Jews in Pittsburgh by a raving anti- Semite.

According to police, Jews are the most targeted minority group in Toronto for hate crimes. Last year, 28 per cent of such crimes were aimed at Jews, who make up just 3.8 per cent of the population.

This attack was especially disturbing. Typically, hate crimes against Jews involve vandalism to property, not street attacks on Jews. This attack on Jewish teenagers was against a visible minority — Orthodox Jews — identifiable by their religious dress and appearance.

What fuels this irrational, ancient hatred? The difference today is that while anti-Semitism by neo-Nazis is still a danger, their hateful rhetoric has been denounced by civil society. Today, the intellectual justification for Jew-hatred comes from the left, with its despicable campaign to delegitimize Israel, by falsely portraying it as the world’s worst human-rights violator.

Parliament has condemned the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, popular in universities and other bastions of so-called “progressive” and “respectable” thought, because its real agenda “promotes the demonization and delegitimization of ” Israel.

The irony is the left condemns U.S. President Donald Trump for hateful rhetoric, which it says creates the climate for violence against Jews. In fact, the left should look in the mirror.