In an exceptionally disingenuous recent opinion column in The Toronto Star, Kavita Algu, a palliative care physician at Sinai Health in Toronto, blurred the line between fact and fiction and selectively omitted key data, all in an effort that served to demonize Israel and to accuse Jerusalem of wanton human rights abuses.

Her December 1 commentary entitled: “The Canadian medical establishment should not remain silent as Israel attacks Palestinian health care facilities,” saw Algu rehash popular anti-Israel talking points while conveniently omitting critical information which serves as a fatal defeater of her core arguments.

Algu wrote that the world is “witnessing — a livestreamed extermination of Palestinian life.” As evidence, she cited a United Nations report making those scandalous accusations, evidently expecting readers to be impressed by the magnitude of her source. But her evidence is lacking. It was a measly three authors who authored said report: anti-Jewish conspiracy theorist Miloon Kothari, longtime vocal anti-Israel activist Navi Pillay, and Chris Sidoti, affiliated with the anti-Israel boycott movement.

Needless to say, the credibility of those authors is severely lacking.

As for the crux of her argument, that Israel is perpetuating the “extermination of Palestinian life,” this claim is so detached from reality that it would be on par with the theory of a flat earth.

During more than a year of intensive, urban combat with Hamas – a genocidal terrorist group whose use of its own population is widely documented – civilian deaths in the enclave represent a tiny proportion of the overall population. Consequently, the population of Gaza is rapidly growing in 2024.

So, what does an actual extermination look like? History is replete with examples, from the Nazi Holocaust to the Rwandan Genocide. Those genocides look absolutely nothing like Israel’s counter-terrorism efforts in Gaza, where Jerusalem provides active warning before striking Hamas, provides a huge amount of humanitarian aid, and avoids striking when the risk to civilians is too high.

In other words, if Israel was seeking to exterminate Palestinians, it is doing a profoundly terrible job. But for Algu, it seems, Israel is guilty and damn the facts which are standing in the way of her verdict.

Algu’s disinformation is more than simply breathtaking ignorance. It is a full-frontal assault on Israel, a liberal democracy, and the world’s only Jewish State. In our view, her allegation that Israel is working to exterminate Palestinians, has the potential to draw a target on the back of the Canadian Jewish community and indeed every supporter of Israel, making them culpable for Algu’s imaginary crimes.

Some of Algu’s arguments appear downright dishonest. She wrote that “an Israeli spokesperson claimed Hezbollah has a bunker under a Lebanese hospital to store gold and cash to further ‘terror and to attack Israel.’ In response, Lebanese officials invited a BBC journalist to inspect the hospital. She found no evidence of a bunker, gold, or money — only medical equipment, waste management, and a hospital morgue.”

At first glance, this seems noteworthy. Israel made an accusation against Hezbollah, the Lebanese terrorist group, which Algu states was promptly disproven.

Once again, Algu omitted from readers a key fact: that the visit did not go where Israel had categorically stated Hezbollah was storing weapons, making the tour an exercise in futility.

Conveniently, Algu choose to avoid even a single mention of Hamas anywhere in her screed, and by hiding any mention of the terrorist group which has brought war to Israel and Gaza alike, her column cannot and should not be taken even remotely seriously.

Kavita Algu is a physician specializing in end-of-life care at a historically Jewish hospital in Toronto. Her role requires not just empathy, but respect for facts. In her opinion column, she demonstrated none of this.

Editor’s note: The original image to this alert did not meet HonestReporting Canada’s editorial standards and has since been removed.