In her December 31 opinion column in The Toronto Star entitled: “Political intervention risks stifling campus debates on Israel-Palestine,” contributing columnist Linda McQuaig took issue with a recent letter sent by a group of five Liberal Members of Parliament (MPs) to 25 university presidents across Canada, demanding to know how they would address the rise of antisemitism on their campuses.

McQuaig wrote that while promoting genocide “is always unacceptable,” the letter from the MPs “goes beyond probing whether our presidents clearly understand that genocide is wrong” and instead criticized the letter’s request for the university president’s views on calls for “the elimination of the State of Israel.”

Arguing that such a demand “veers into the political realm, into issues that have long been seriously debated throughout the international community” McQuaig wrote that the letter is tantamount to “political overreach” and an attack on academic freedom.

While reasonable minds may disagree on the limits a society should (or should not) place on hateful views, there should be no confusion that calling for Israel’s destruction is a de facto promotion of genocide against the Jewish People.

While it is undeniable that in many corners of the world, promoting the destruction of Israel does attract widespread support, that does not make it any less hateful.

As of the end of 2023, Israel is home to close to half of the world’s total Jewish population, and those who call for Israel’s destruction are promoting the genocide of Jews, whether they would admit it or not.

Whether it is Hamas, which has explicitly called for mass murder in Israel, and on October 7, showed the world that it is deadly serious about carrying out such a task, or those anti-Israel demonstrations around the world who chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” an unmistakable pronouncement that Israel should be destroyed, the implication of these declarations are clear.

Instead of addressing those concerns, McQuaig suggested that “despair” over the lack of a Palestinian state has helped spur on proposals for a one-state solution, including one envisioned by Palestinian-American author Edward Said, claiming that such ideas are “based on the notion of equal rights for both Israelis and Palestinians.”

Beyond the obvious problems with a one-state solution, namely that it would immediately spell the end of Israel as a Jewish State and thus rob the Jewish People of their right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland, McQuaig’s tangent missed the point entirely.

McQuaig argued that the letter from the five MPs effectively seeks to make the case that academic proposals from Edward Said and others “should be banned from discussion.”

That is a gross misrepresentation of the concerns raised by the elected officials.

McQuaig is presenting the straw man argument, a logical fallacy. She falsely characterized concerns about antisemitism on university campuses, and pointed to academic discussions about the future of Israel and the Palestinians as the target of condemnation.

But such academic discussions are not what is of concern to the Jewish community, and Canadians at large.

At anti-Israel rallies held around the world, including on university campuses, anti-Israel protests take a far less academic tone, and instead feature fanatical demonstrators calling for Israel’s destruction, violent assaults against Jews, and overt lawlessness.

As antisemitic hate crimes spike throughout the Western world, particularly since October 7, the need to challenge explicit hate in society is vitally important. The first step in addressing what hate is to recognize it, and not misrepresent it for something completely different.