Gaslighting is a form of manipulation which attempts to sow doubt and confusion by inverting reality on its head, and a recent column in The Hill Times was a textbook example of this.

In their August 5 column entitled: “Will Canada apply its immigration policy fairly in the face of the Gaza conflict?,” Washim Ahmed and Taha Ghayyur demanded that Canadian laws be “consistently applied” to ensure that human rights violators and others are not admitted into Canada.

But were Ahmed, an immigration lawyer, and Ghayyur, the executive director of “Justice for All Canada,” a so-called “human rights advocacy organization” which in 2022 received almost $10,000 in taxpayer funds, referring to the plans to admit 5,000 Gazans into Canada, where support for Hamas, the Islamic terrorist organization, runs high? Or were they referring to the monumental immigration lapse that allowed an alleged member of the Islamic State – seen sawing off body parts of a “spy” in the Iraqi desert – to immigrate to Canada?

No. The terms “Hamas” and “Islamic State” did not merit even a passing mention by the commentators. Instead, Ahmed and Ghayyur incredibly used their platform to claim that Canadian law be used to clamp down on Israelis looking to visit or immigrate to Canada, or those supporting Jerusalem in its fight against terrorist groups.

As with many recent columns twisting truth to fit their radical ideological views, the pair falsely state that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) claimed that “there is an imminent risk of genocide” in Gaza, when the court never made any such pronouncement, and notably, has refused to call on Israel to stop its counter-terrorism operations in Gaza.

Hamas, for its part, is actively, and proudly genocidal. Its charter calls for the violent destruction of Israel, and its actions include the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians for rape, torture, murder, kidnapping. And in both Gaza and Judea and Samaria (called “West Bank” by news media outlets), Hamas’ genocidal crimes are widely supported.

If Ahmed and Ghayyur truly wanted Canada’s laws to be “consistently applied,” they would be calling for a near-total halt of immigration or visitation to Canada for Palestinians, but they conveniently opted not to do that.

Yet in a statement so obscene it may as well be the dictionary definition of gaslighting, the pair wrote that “under Canada’s Immigration Act, involvement with groups linked to these illegal settlements or with the IDF, amidst allegations of war crimes or possible genocide, could make individuals inadmissible to Canada—a measure affecting a significant portion of Israel’s population.”

Unsurprisingly, this is not the first time Ahmed and Ghayyur have spread their extreme views. Ahmed previously penned a column in The Hill Times in February where he acknowledged that UNRWA has a “steadfast commitment” to policies which would spell the end of Israel, but still demanded that it be supported, and Ghayyur has falsely and dangerously accused Israel of genocide.

Washim Ahmed and Taha Ghayyur’s recent column in The Hill Times claiming that Canadian law should be used against Israel – all while refusing to name Hamas and other Islamic terrorist organizations – is both cowardly and dishonest.