Politic?: Israel's Diplomatic Mission to Canada

"The RCMP's Protective Operations [branch] is constantly assessing and adapting its security and protective posture."
"This is done in a manner that is based on current and evolving threat and risk environments."
Royal Canadian Mounted Police, federal policing agency

"History reveals that antisemitism intensifies at times of social disruption. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen an alarming increase in antisemitic acts. In 2019, Statistics Canada found police-reported hate crimes against Jewish people accounted for the highest number of religion-based hate crime in Canada. Recently, the B’nai Brith Canada 2020 Audit of Anti-Semitic Incidents reported a record number of antisemitism cases last year, up 18.3% from 2019. In 2020, over 44% of antisemitic violence was COVID-related, including incidents of Jewish people being spat on and assaulted with weapons."

"More severe forms of creed-based prejudice, including antisemitism, have emerged in recent times, often shaped by international events and transmitted through media, especially social media. A pernicious theme repeated this past year was to blame the Jewish community for the pandemic. For example, Bnai Brith reported graffiti on a trail sign in Milton that said: “There is no deadly virus. The Jew owned media lies to you.” Other graffiti in public sites included “Blame the Jews” and “Jews should be ashamed"."

"Ontario has witnessed an unprecedented increase in antisemitic incidents this past year, such as the vandalism of the National Holocaust Monument in Ottawa. A Jewish person in Toronto was randomly hit in the face by a man who shouted “f--- Jews.” In North York, a city worker threatened to circumcise a Jewish boy for “a second and a third time.” In the Hamilton area, someone painted a red swastika on the hood of a car parked near a synagogue."

"The media is full of reports of the many ways Jewish communities continue to be the targets of hate. We have seen antisemitism erupting at pro-Palestine events in Toronto and Montreal, hateful banners unfurled in Vaughan and businesses, parks and schools defaced with antisemitic graffiti. We see assaults and other life-threatening behaviour that has no place in Ontario."

"Denouncing and fighting hate and discrimination, especially antisemitism, was why the Ontario Human Rights Code was enacted in the first place. In the early 1960s, the world was still dealing with the shocking aftermath of the Holocaust. Jewish people were barred from entry to Canada, including at times of greatest need fleeing Nazi Germany in WWII. They were routinely denied access to jobs, facilities and services, because of virulent antisemitism. The first Code, in 1962, envisioned a better path forward for Ontario and the majority of the complaints the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) pursued in the 1960s were on behalf of Jewish people."

"Governments and community leaders have consistently spoken out against the hate that continues to erupt in our communities – all because of someone’s beliefs. But history has shown that saying the right things is meaningless, unless the words are tied to action."
OHRC (Ontario Human Rights Commission) statement on the National Summit on Antisemitism

The Israeli flag flies with the Peace Tower in the background as thousands of Israeli supporters gathered on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sunday, April 21, 2002 to show solidarity with Israel. About two hours later, Palestinian supporters were planning a rally. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)

Jews are targets on an ever-increasing scale for aggravated persecution in the public sphere in Canada. The rising incidence of antisemitism makes that clear. Verbal harassment, public mischief in the desecration of a monument to the Holocaust, synagogues and Jewish centres being marked with Nazi symbols, and BDS sweeping through academia, from grade school to university campuses. Palestinian groups living in Canada as landed immigrants and/or citizens focus exclusively on demonizing Israel, slandering the Jewish state, and targeting Jewish Canadians with venomous blame and hatred.

Annual al-Quds marches lamenting the return of Jews to their ancestral homeland with the re-establishment of the State of Israel is commemorated by Palestinians in Israel and elsewhere around the world including Canada as a catastrophe for Arabs living in the geography of the Jewish homeland, claiming it for their own. In this venomous atmosphere of libelous slander where Israel is called an Apartheid State despite that 20 percent of the population of the Jewish state is not Jewish, with millions of Arab 'Palestinians' having Israeli citizenship, the right to vote and have representation in the Israeli parliament, hatred booms.

That venomous hatred incited by Canadians of Arab-Palestinian background creates an atmosphere of suspicion, accusation and victimhood that spells danger for Israeli diplomats assigned to Canada. Where it makes sense that the federal government through its department of Foreign Affairs and its federal policing agency would place a special emphasis on security for Israeli diplomatic missions in Canada and their personnel.

As a multicultural society with a population as diverse as the global community, Canada has an obligation to be aware of its responsibilities as a host country of diplomats abroad and within. In 1982 the Turkish ambassador to Canada was assassinated on his way to the Turkish embassy from his home in Ottawa. Ottawa, on a world scale, is considered a 'safe' country for foreign diplomatic assignments. But that depends on circumstances and the temperature of world affairs. Jews increasingly feel unsafe in their home country of Canada despite living there for generations.

And nor does the Israeli embassy in Ottawa staff feel comfortable with the level of security assigned to its personnel. It has attempted for years to persuade the federal government in Canada to increase the level of security assigned to the embassy. Diplomats representing Israel in Canada are wary and prefer to stay out of any news because of the hostility the diplomatic mission knows is directed its way which could readily become a violent attack against its staff.

When the Israeli head of mission returned to Israel from Canada in 2019, security was relaxed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and the RCMP. Following the appointment of the current Israeli ambassador to Canada in 2021, Israeli Embassy officials requested protection be restored at the level it had been provided for his predecessor. Canada's Foreign Affairs and the RCMP both rebuffed the formal diplomatic request.

This, despite the embassy making media postings available to the RCMP; of activists engaged in opposing Israeli policies viz a viz Palestinians. Where floor maps of the embassy's location in an office building are published along with photographs of the building hallway leading to the embassy offices. In a recent voice mail, an unidentified voice warns: "We will kill you wherever you are; we will get you".

The person of a diplomatic agent shall be inviolable. He shall not be liable to any form of arrest or detention. The receiving State shall treat him with due respect and shall take all appropriate steps to prevent any attack on his person, freedom or dignity.