Under the guise of condemning the Islamist terrorist attack against Jews in Sydney, Australia, Globe & Mail columnist Sheema Khan used the opportunity to level unsubstantiated allegations against Israel, the very same claims that have been used to justify anti-Jewish hate crimes.

In her December 18 opinion column, “We have to confront what Ahmed al Ahmed fought on Bondi Beach,” Khan praised the actions of Ahmed el Ahmed, the Syrian man who grabbed a gun from one of the terrorists, writing that he “embodied the Quranic teaching: ‘whoever saves a life, it will be as if they saved all of humanity.’”

While it should be noted that the teaching actually originates in the Talmud centuries earlier, Khan’s message is that el Ahmed represents what followers of Islam should aspire to, and that “Muslim communities must engage in, urgently: the fight against religious extremism,” adding “it is not enough to celebrate Mr. al Ahmed’s courage. The community must also confront who and what he fought against: a hateful, murderous ideology that is the very antithesis of Islam.”

While such sentiments are entirely appropriate, and indeed much-needed, they were soon followed by a statement which soon appeared to suggest that while Islamist terrorism is objectionable, Israeli government policies are somehow a cause.

Just after ostensibly condemning Islamist terrorism, Khan wrote that “Australian authorities have yet to indicate if the attack was related to Israel’s violence against Palestinians.”

Israel’s counter-terrorism operations against Palestinian terrorists – or as Khan calls it, “Israel’s violence against Palestinians – is not the cause of Islamist terrorism. The cause of such terrorism is a radical and hateful ideology which sees Jews, Christians, Hindus and even moderate Muslims as legitimate targets in jihad, or holy war.

Khan continued by stating that “it is not antisemitic to criticize and oppose the Israeli government’s genocidal actions against the Palestinians in Gaza and its brutal military occupation of the West Bank.”

It should be noted that despite Khan’s claims of “genocidal actions” in Gaza, Israel has done more to protect civilians there – even as Hamas has sought to use its own people as human shields – than any military in modern history, according to John Spencer, the world’s leading expert in urban warfare.

She similarly leveled claims that Israel “starved” the population of Gaza, despite extensive evidence to the contrary, including huge amounts of humanitarian aid entering the territory, footage showing bustling markets, and more.

And while spreading the false and baseless claim of “genocidal actions” and “starvation” are not necessarily in itself expressions of hatred, such propaganda has been indisputably used by purveyors of anti-Jewish hate. When Israel, the world’s sole Jewish State, and home to nearly half the world’s Jewish population, is labeled with such allegations, it has unsurprisingly been used as a cudgel against Jewish communities around the world, including in Canada.

Thus, Khan’s reckless and irresponsible spreading of what have been called blood libels against Israel are not only factually false, they are dangerous.

Furthermore, when Khan condemns Islamist terrorism while immediately suggesting that Israeli policy is somehow a cause of such radical ideology, she immediately contradicts herself and waters down her previous denunciations.

This is not Khan’s first foray into spreading falsehoods. Previously, The Globe & Mail was forced to correct a column of hers where she falsely stated the death toll in Gaza.

The last two years of the Hamas-Israel war have demonstrated that while Islamist extremists are happy to use the Middle East as a convenient excuse, their motivation is their own radical outlook. And when commentators like Khan condemn them with one breath, while soon appearing to suggest that Israel has a hand in the creation of such radicals, she renders meaningless her own condemnations.