As Canadians prepare to head to the polls to elect a federal government on April 28, The Toronto Star recently published an opinion column by the executive director of the Canadian Muslim Public Affairs Council (CMPAC) which presented a toxic combination of disinformation and omissions to pressure voters to make the Hamas-Israel war a voting issue for Canadians.

CMPAC is a group which has sponsored cross-country visits by anti-Israel activists who have praised Palestinian terrorism.

The author, Khaled Al-Qazzaz, wrote in his column entitled: “Why Gaza matters to every Canadian in the federal election,” that “the principles at stake in Gaza — respect for international law, human rights and the rules-based order — are the same principles that protect Canada in trade, security, and foreign policy.”

Al-Qazzaz may be closer to the truth, but not for the reason he may think. The war between Hamas and Israel is indeed a war over human rights. But it is Hamas, the genocidal Palestinian Islamic terrorist organization, that is responsible. Hamas started the war 18 months ago and continues to perpetuate it by holding Israeli hostages and refusing to free them. Hamas steals aid from its own population, and uses Gazans as human shields.

But Hamas gets a total pass from Al-Qazzaz, who failed to muster the courage to mention the Islamist terrorist group even once. While to Al-Qazzaz, “human rights” means whitewashing Palestinian terrorism, in reality, human rights means standing up for democracy against theocratic dictatorships like Hamas and its patron, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Standing up for human rights means challenging the radical pro-terrorist rallies that have proliferated on Canadian streets over the last 18 months, which Al-Qazzaz failed to acknowledge, let alone condemn as he should.

But Al-Qazzaz flipped reality on its head, framing Israel – a liberal democratic state where 20 percent of the population is Muslim with full and equal rights – as the villain, while Hamas, a genocidal terrorist organization, was erased from the story entirely. That is moral cowardice, not taking a stand for the rule of law.

Al-Qazzaz played for the readers’ sympathy, writing that “since Oct. 7, Canadian Muslims and Arabs have felt the impact first hand — job losses, blacklisting, arrests and repression for advocating Palestinian rights. Palestinian-Canadians face immigration barriers for loved ones while other communities receive swift support. As anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia rise, government leaders remain silent.”

Conveniently, he did not share what exactly took place on “Oct. 7,” nor did he share the details of why people might have faced consequences for “advocating Palestinian rights.” Is it because they spread hateful or extreme rhetoric? Al-Qazzaz didn’t say, instead portraying anti-Israel activists as hapless victims.

At other times in his column, Al-Qazzaz simply exhibited profound ignorance, stating that “Palestinian-Canadians face immigration barriers for loved ones while other communities receive swift support.” Is he unaware that Gaza is run by Hamas, a banned terrorist entity in Canada, and that more security measures are obviously required? Is he unaware that support for the murder of Jews is widely popular in Gaza?

Even if Al-Qazzaz feigned ignorance on these issues, they still matter to Canadians. After all, large majorities of Canadians oppose hateful pro-Palestinian demonstrations that have disrupted life for them over the last year-and-a-half, and promoted hateful and pro-terrorist rhetoric.

Al-Qazzaz’s opinion column was a cynical effort to shoehorn in the radical anti-Israel movement, which plays interference for a misogynistic and anti-Western Palestinian terrorist group, and tries to mainstream it. But as seen from the rapidly depleting crowds at anti-Israel rallies, even the movement’s core supporters are losing interest in supporting Palestinian terrorists.