Sarah Jama is the disgraced Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Hamilton Centre, having been thrown out of the Ontario NDP in October, 2023 after she posted a press release on social media blaming Israel for Hamas’ genocidal massacres in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. She was subsequently censured in the Ontario Legislature.
Undeterred, her descent into anti-Israel extremism only accelerated. She soon signed an open letter denying Hamas’ rapes of Israeli victims, and, when visiting the illegal occupation of McMaster University property by a mob of anti-Israel protesters (alongside federal NDP MP Matthew Green), she made a thinly-veiled call for violence against Jews when she bellowed “globalize the intifada,” a term which encourages the public to carry out acts of terrorism against Israelis and Jews.
Rather than treating Jama as political kryptonite, unworthy of respect and only deserving of condemnation, there are reports that the Ontario NDP is considering welcoming Jama and her brand of extremism back into the fold. This news was welcomed and called “the good news for the new year” by Hamilton self-described “communications consultant” Margaret Shkimba in her January 14 opinion column in The Hamilton Spectator, “New year, new chance for MPP Sarah Jama.”
Shkimba takes a revisionist approach to retelling Jama’s exploits, describing her actions as having made comments “in support of the Palestinian people,” and saying that she held a “pro-Palestinian, pro-peace position.”
By no standard can denying Hamas’ well-documented sexual crimes, blaming Israel for Hamas’ murderous violence, and calling for terrorism against Israelis be called holding a “pro-peace position.” By this reasoning, would Shkimba also call defending a rapist’s right to assault a woman a feminist position to hold?
Jama’s views and public statements were not simply abhorrent and morally outrageous. As an elected official in Ontario, paid for by the public, Jama essentially used tax dollars to spread the demonization of Israelis, and by extension their supporters, indirectly helping fuel a wave of anti-Jewish hate crimes.
But Shkimba makes no mention of this, creatively whitewashing Jama into something of a martyr for daring to speak her mind, rather than a radical anti-Israel and arguably anti-Jewish extremist.
Not only does Shkimba completely sanitize Jama’s hateful rhetoric, she frames her words as an example of brave free expression, writing that “Jama is only one of the millions of people in Canada and around the world, who agree with the accusations of genocide,” and as such, felt seemingly compelled to act.
Once again, Shkimba takes a selective view of reality. Not only is the non-existent “genocide” in Gaza no excuse to spread hateful dog-whistles for terrorism, Jama’s extremism was present before October 7, 2023. Earlier that year, she made a fawning post about former Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) convicted terrorist Khader Adnan.
In writing her column, Shkimba either has no idea the depth of anti-Israel animus that has been displayed by Ontario MPP Sarah Jama, or she simply doesn’t care, and chose to hide it from readers. Either way, her commentary offers no novel insights and no thoughtful considerations; only the full-throated defence of hateful extremist rhetoric from an elected official.
