At The Hill Times, an Ottawa newspaper with a consistent record of publishing anti-Israel columns, the ramblings of Erica Ifill, a self-described “anti-oppression journalist and economist,” are in a disreputable category of their own.

Writing in her columns – just since October 7 – Ifill has disingenuously shared Hamas propaganda, falsely presenting it as unassailable truth, has praised the corrupt and incompetent regime in South Africa as a “moral compass,” simply because it is vehemently hostile to Israel, has attempted to frame anti-Israel activists as victims, and not adults who faced consequences from their own choices.

She has also peddled blatant disinformation, accusing Israel of deliberately bombing civilians (a claim with zero evidence), has delegitimized Israel’s very right to exist, and has defended the violent and hateful anti-Israel campus occupations.

Outside of her fixation on Israel, she has openly and unabashedly praised the murder of Louis Mountbatten, a young crew member, and his grandson, by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in the 1970s, saying the terrorist group “did us a solid.”

And yet, The Hill Times has continued to give Ifill a platform to spew her rambling and hateful nonsense.

Perhaps emboldened by such inaction, Ifill has somehow found a new low in which to plumb.

Posting on X (formerly Twitter) on August 31, Ifill in our view attacked Jews as a collective, writing that: “When Jewish ppl come on this app to say ‘we are the only community they did this too (sic)’ is fucking insulting to racialized and LGBTQ communities – Black and Indigenous – as though this is Oppression Olympics. Yet these racialized communities never hear from them when shit pops off.” In a response to a comment, she later added “It’s all evil.”

Beyond the mind-boggling (yet characteristic) ignorance displayed by Ifill, given that Jewish communities have long been at the forefront of movements such as civil rights and social justice efforts, including to combat genocide in the African region of Darfur, even more egregious is her attempt to denigrate all Jews with a broad brush, saying that other communities “never hear from” the Jewish community.

It hardly needs to be said that attempting to disparage a Jewish community (at least in Canada, numbering more than 400,000) is not only blatantly false, but is unequivocally morally repulsive. One need not imagine the pushback if any columnist spoke of any other community in such a manner, whether it was Indigenous, Muslim, Black or anyone else.

While Ifill appears to have a particular sore spot for Israel and its supporters, she has also taken to social media to opine on other social issues, referring to “white people’s disturbing affection for their dogs,” saying they would “never be that sweet to Black people,” adding that “White people don’t ‘love’ and ‘tolerate’ who they can’t dominate.

While all Canadians, and indeed all opinion columnists, have a right to their personal opinions, Ifill’s ramblings, both on social media and for The Hill Times, are more than just bizarre and nonsensical. In our view, her latest comments about Jews can reasonably be seen as hateful and anti-Jewish, making her continued presence at The Hill Times highly improper.